I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with final fantasy players especially on my home server of balmung as well. Paraphrasing from an older forum post I had made a while back:
During the bulk of BFA I chose to quit the game and try FFXIV since all my friends were jumping ship at the time. I honestly didn’t have any intention on coming back to wow after the rancid taste that xpac and community left in my mouth. Boy was I so misguided. Never have I experienced a more petty, selfish, hypersensitive playerbase in my entire years gaming than final fantasy’s community. I genuinely don’t ever want to go back.
The bulk of the players I had encountered were probably the most whiney toxic casuals on the face of the earth. There is no telling someone “hey you aren’t doing enough damage.” I’m sure you are fully aware but for those reading this who haven’t played, Damage meters are outright not allowed to be mentioned or talked about AT ALL within the game or you could be banned. Same goes for any other addon you might want to use. That on its own isn’t a major issue until you factor in that most players I encountered outright refuse to adapt, and when criticized will holler harassment and get you kicked from your parties or outright report you. You cannot engage these people at all lest you be banned for ‘bullying’ them. This policy enables the absolute worst rank and file of self righteous mouth breathers to dictate your gameplay experience. You are utterly powerless to deal with them too. Heaven forbid you vote them out of a party because they keep standing in fire after you told them to stop. BAM banned for toxicity.
I kid you not. I was banned for 2 weeks because I had made a joke alt named “Asmon Bald” and upon entering uldah a group of roleplayers saw me and went into a frenzy frothing at the mouth. Saying things like “go ruin a different game” or “people like you aren’t welcome here” Within less than 20 minutes my account was indefinitely suspended. I came to find out after wrestling with sqaure enix’s horrible cs system that I had been mass reported for Real money trading by that group of roleplayers. Never in my 10 years on wow have I ever once been banned, let alone even done anything to warrant such action on my account. The fact that anyone could do that to me in final fantasy despite having a spotless track record really shows in my opinion that FFXIV’s community isn’t any better. Final fantasy is just better at hiding it through extensive moderation but believe me the toxicity is very much alive and festering.
Bro Balmung is on the crystal shard, you guys are the most casual cluster of realms in all of ffxiv. In fact, crystal is considered the “Goldshire Inn” of server clusters.
As such, anything these guys have to say should be taken with a grain of salt.
I see the exact same thing happen in WoW, frankly. I’ve been extremely frustrated with some of the group content in SL so far. Not because the fights are too hard or the mechanics are not fun, but simply because people have been so terrible at a) learning and getting better at the mechanics and b) fulfilling simple group functions like healing the entire party during unavoidable AOEs or rezzing people when they’re down. I get that everything is new and people are adjusting, but the fights are not even that hard.
Something else I’ve noticed about WoW players since coming back for SL is how quickly they ragequit after wipes happen. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen in FFXIV, because it certainly does. But in my experience, it happens far less often. FFXIV players are just generally less likely to leave after a single wipe and are more willing to stick to something until it’s done.
This is over-exaggeration. I have never seen someone get suspended or banned for a simple statement like the one you provided. It usually only happens when someone is “rude” or harassing another player. Now, do the GMs take things too far and overstep themselves? Absolutely. They are much more quick to stamp out negativity of any kind than the Blizz GMs are. And I think it largely stems from them wanting FFXIV’s community to be perceived as positive. WoW is NOTORIOUS for its toxic sludgepool of a community. Like, no offense. But this community is absolutely awful, and I’m saying that as someone who played WoW for 12 years before I quit and went over to FFXIV. WoW players get away with ALOT, simply because Blizz GMs could care less.
However, I think the differences in both communities go beyond how toxicity is handled by players and GMs. There is a pretty big difference in how both communities view and interact w/ game devs & team members. The relationship between Blizz and the WoW community is largely negative. Players don’t feel listened to, and they feel like Blizz is constantly taking things away from them. Whereas, the relationship between FFXIV’s team and its player community is generally more positive. The devs actively communicate and interact with the community, and the players feel heard and appreciated.
I think all of that goes a LONG way towards how a player community feels and operates. If players are generally happy with their game and the team behind it, then the community is inevitably going to be more happy and positive. But if a community is at odds with their game and team, then the community will feel more negative and hostile.
People are a lot more laid back in FF14. Take PUG in dungeons for example; people say hello/greet each other at the beginning more often than not. That almost never happens in WoW.