The MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV is said to have a very, very nice community – is that really true?

On July 25, 2022By Garmin Philip

The Final Fantasy XIV community is considered to be one of the friendliest and kindest among MMORPG communities. The party chat is non-toxic, newcomers are always helped, and the players are generally great. Is that correct?

Insults and toxic behavior are part of everyday life in many online games. When a match or dungeon is going lousy, tempers often heat up faster than a CPU without thermal paste and swear words rain down.

But not in FFXIV. In the forums and on social media of the MMORPG bubble, you can often read that the FFXIV community is considered one of the friendliest around. She is credited for the non-toxic chat and always helping new players.

The community itself is also fond of emphasizing that they welcome new players and will not tolerate toxicity in group content. And indeed, the average newcomer experience in the MMORPG is more positive than in most other online games.

But since the world is a complicated place and people are complicated beings, that’s only one side of the coin.

Positive experience for newcomers – at least in comparison

In general, you can believe the stories about the friendliness of FFXIV players online. If you’re jumping into the MMORPG and doing group content for the first time, there’s a good chance that if you ask in the dungeons, they’ll give you a brief explanation of the combat without much fanfare.

After wipes, there are no insults and only rare rage quits, even at higher levels. In the vast majority of cases someone will ask where the problem is and you just try again.

In the newbie chat, new players’ questions are answered constructively (though not always quite right) and no one has to justify themselves or hear that he or she is a noob. Every now and then the experienced players join the newcomers and help them to master the content.

From my own experience I can say that in the 900 days of FFXIV gameplay I can’t recall ever being insulted in FFXIV chat. The greatest feelings were passive-aggressive remarks or digs, and I can count such cases on one hand.

Even in self-experiments, in which I played a completely fresh character on a test account, almost all groups were completely ok. For example, as a novice healer, when I asked not to aggron too many enemies, it was mostly followed up (though sometimes grumpily).

So group content is a lot more civil than in games like Lost Ark or League of Legends, where chat is notorious for its insults and rampant toxicity.

Gameplay makes for better atmosphere

FFXIV’s lack of constant hate speech isn’t because the MMORPG just attracts very nice people. The developers do their part and reinforce this openness to new players with appropriate gameplay mechanics:

In dungeons, there are EXP and token bonuses when there is a player in the group who is doing the content for the first time.
Players who did particularly well can be voted MVP at the end of the dungeon (if they don’t leave first). Once you’ve collected a certain amount of such referrals, you’ll be rewarded with mounts and titles.
The mentoring system allows experienced players to answer questions and help newcomers in the dedicated chat.
You can also get fancy rewards from the Mentor Roulette special random content.

In addition, FFXIV is designed in such a way that the risk and penalty of failing 95% of the content is not very high. So you can easily be revived after death in a raid and continue. As a “penalty” there is a short-term penalty on the status values.

You don’t lose any valuable resources that you previously had to farm, but at most some time. Even food and potions that you use for epic raids can be bought for a little small gil on the market board. Hardly anyone will shed a tear over the loss.

On the other hand, there is also the merciless chat moderation. Harassment and insults are punished with temporary bans, which become permabans for repeated offenses.

If you believe stories from the community, SE even overshoots the mark here and there and, in the heat of the moment, also punishes people who, for example, were only joking with friends. I haven’t experienced it myself.

people are people

Now it sounds like in FFXIV there is always absolute harmony and players pet puppies together all day long. Of course that’s nonsense.

Even if the community likes to take credit for how friendly and helpful it is, in the end it’s only made up of people – and people are known to be very, very uncomfortable.

Especially in cases of shitstorms, FFXIV players don’t behave much differently than the rest of the gaming community.

Again, people will be attacked if they don’t share the opinions popular within the community (e.g. that the FFXIV story is the absolute revelation).
You try to disgust unpopular personalities from the game, which was felt, for example, by the WoW streamer Asmongold.
There are also attacks on the developers, so the head of the MMORPG, Naoki Yoshida, has already asked the players to on their tone of voice when giving feedback to respect.
Players of other MMORPGs like to be mocked and looked down on.
You throw “Learn to play” and “You don’t pay my sub” at each other in FFXIV as well.
FFXIV players defend their own MMORPG to the death.

Always enjoy with a pinch of salt

The hymns of praise that one reads time and again about the friendliness and kindness of the FFXIV community should therefore always be taken with a pinch of salt.

It’s true that new players in the MMORPG will have a much more enjoyable experience without blatant insults and bashing. FFXIV players also often host amazing community events and projects like the 1,000 voices song for composer Soken or the ArtBash art party.