Overwatch has it, FFXIV has it, and in both cases, it serves to reduce toxicity and encourage players to actually be helpful.
It’s so dirt simple to do as well: giving a commendation at the end of a LFG would give a small amount of a new currency while receiving a commendation grants a much larger amount.
This currency can then be exchanged for pets, mounts, toys, and transmog that you cannot receive from anywhere else.
You could even post stats at the end of the dungeon that give us how much damage each player did and took, as well as the number of interrupts, healing, dispelling, utility abilities that help the party, etc.
It’s so DIRT simple to do this and the quality of life improvement in LFG would be HUGE. Players would have incentive to do things like stop and explain fights to new people beforehand. Tanks will feel more inclined to check with the healer before pulling an entire room. DPS will feel inclined to do things like avoid unnecessary damage and interrupt enemy abilities and actually use their utility CDs.
Devs, I gotta know, WHY have you not added this, especially when it’s been working great in other MMOs and other Blizzard games already?
Yes, but FF14 also has more stringent enforcement of the rules, and more severe penalties for toxicity. Unjustified vote kicking is also a reportable and punishable offence.
It’s doing terribly, but that’s more to Blizzard than anything. Thing is, comms won’t make people play any better or be nicer, at worst you’ll get people acting a bit more passive aggressive.
I’ve played FF14, The reason it “works” in that game is because they keep a gun to your head and say play nice or we’ll pull the trigger.
Speaking as someone who mains White Mage, I usually end up getting all the commends. No one commends the dps and people only commend the tank if the healer is asleep. Its a very flawed system that really does not add anything to the game.
ok i’ll bite bc its been getting on my nerves but im so tired of hearing about what FF has that WoW doesnt. if i was interested i would look it up myself. I care more about what WoW has personally.
I’ve played 14 extensively and I’ve never felt the “gun to my head” except when it comes to discussing 3rd party addons. I’ve also seen the occasional jerk (who definitely didn’t fear being banned) but it’s extremely uncommon.
Either way, a commendation system can only reduce toxicity as it incentivizes not being toxic whereas there’s no incentive to do so otherwise. If people truly don’t fear being banned in WoW as you say, all the more reason to have a comm system because at least it’s SOMETHING.
I’ve received plenty of comms as a DPS: staying out of the bad and using utility spells often earns them for me.
I would still recommend the devs have an end of dungeon scoreboard much in the same way battlegrounds do, though: it could give visibility to all of the subtle things DPS can be doing to help the run go more smoothly, like interrupts and utility.
Peloton between every pull basically guarantees you a comm, from what I’ve found.
Either way, a dungeon scoreboard would fix this, and like in Overwatch, you should be able to give out multiple comms so DPS who play well are likely to be rewarded for it.
When people can use the system to get people banned no matter how nicely they are given advice, that’s holding a gun to their head mate. Hell, I’ve seen people get warnings just for using emotes sitting in Limsa Lominsa.
It’s also pushed the “go go go” mentality into dungeons which is just as harmful, I’ve seen spouts get told to “hurry please” or a high level healer will pull for them, all because they see those shiny rewards at the end of the tunnel with comms.
It won’t reduce a thing though, if anything it’ll invite more of it. It reminds me of the mentor chat, it should be a good place for a spout to ask questions, but it’s just used as a general chat room for the mentors themselves.
Both communities have their bad eggs, but I’ve had more positive experiences in both games than bad.
How could rewarding players for being helpful possibly lead to MORE toxicity…?
That’s like saying bars on prison windows will lead to more prisoners escaping.
I’ve seen infinitely more toxicity in WoW than all the time I’ve played XIV, and toxicity in OW dropped tremendously when they added comms whereas all the “Report player” functionality in the WORLD did jack squat.
i can count on my fingers the times i’ve run into truly “toxic” players. at the most its just standard trash talk or banter. i get that its not for everyone and thats fine but people way overblow it.
i’ve also had an FF player shttalk me on a social media site for making fun of FFs catgirls by calling me a toxic WoW mouthbreather. goes both ways. I tend to like WoW players a little bit more i think.
site note: i’ve only dealt with balmung players. and i think they wrap their identity up way too much with their character. i know it happens on RP servers here. but like. you have people acting like youre personally attacking them and the deepest parts of their soul bc you dont like their catgirl.
Actually, yeah: OUTSIDE of XIV, there’s a sizable toxic element to the fanbase, mostly in the form of a group of players who will argue against QoL improvements and defend obtuse designs to the death.
