FFXI Etiquette Guide

[m3r0]

Hi, i'll be starting a Etiquette guide whereby I will post installments about basic courtesy in Vana'diel, and what not to do in order to avoid offending others and being potentially labelled as uncouth. As we know, most of the JP players think of NA players as rude and unorganized, so I am trying to impart some knowledge of how to act while in the online world of FFXI. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to post it here so I can make the guide better. ^^

[m3r0]

Behavior in towns
There are many unspoken rules regarding players’ behavior in cities, especially in Jeuno, where the high level (HL) players congregate. Here are some things NOT to do in places like this
1. Shout for help regarding Quests/AF
This only applies for instances when a player requests help from a HL player to help him/her complete certain quests or AF quests. Most players, especially JP ones, will not bother to /tell the person in need, and usually shouts like these are seen as annoying.
What TO do: /tell HL players personally IF they’re not in a PT or looking for a group (LFG). Most of the time, they will respond, and chances of getting help are much higher than just shouting. If they are Japanese and don’t speak English, here are a few sentences which may be useful
- sumimasen, <quest> tetsudai moraemasen ka?
o This means “Hey, could you help me with <quest>?
- if possible, try to greet them first, so as to achieve a friendly conversation
o Ohayo gozaimasu – “Good Morning�
o Konnichiwa – “Good Afternoon� / “Hello�
o Konbanwa – “Good Evening�
Speaking politely like this, it is much easier to receive help from higher level players.

2. Idle talk / Rants
It is very irritating to hear others have a conversation in /shout, especially when it is best suited for /tell. Also, some players tend to rant and vent their frustrations in /shout, often using expletives and offending the other players. When this happens, you are likely to get blacklisted for being generally a prick, and in the case of the latter, may be reported to a GM. If you are called up by a GM, you will probably get a warning placed on your account, whereby upon reaching 3 warnings, more serious actions will be taken such as indefinite suspension or a permanent ban.

3. Casting Magic / Using job abilities (JA) in crowded areas
Many people use the method of casting buff spells on themselves in order to increase their proficiency in that area of magic, but it is common courtesy to do so in places that do not have a large number of people. These places include Auction Houses and the whole of Jeuno. Some use the trick of entering and exiting their mog house to replenish MP, which is perfectly fine, but only do so in the 3 main cities and not in Jeuno. This is because the mog house exit in jeuno has a large concentration of people, hence casting magic there creates a lot of unnecessary lag. Also, using JA in these areas similarly creates lag, hence you do not see many people doing so in crowded areas. If you wish to level your magic, please do it outside the city gate, or at the mog houses in Bastok, Windurst or San D’Oria.

However, shouts regarding promotion of your bazaar, seeking teleports and organizing missions/quests in PTs are generally accepted. What I mean by “in PTs� means that the individual is shouting for a PT to form to tackle a mission or a quest, instead of relying on all the help of a higher leveled player. However, these shouts should be done in moderation, instead of spamming it every minute or so. Also, always always always remember to add “excuse me� or “sorry for the disturbance� whenever you have to shout.

Behavior towards other players
Again, there are unspoken rules about one’s behavior towards other players, an aspect many fail to see. Politeness should be present when you are interacting with another player, more so if he/she is a stranger. A very important point to note is that many players, usually JP players, find it extremely rude to /check someone without first asking if the person being examined is a stranger. For friends, it is common to /check them to look at their equipment and such, and they do not find it to be intruding. Also, there are certain protocols to be observed when asking players if they wish to party, where again courtesy is the key. Usually, when someone is asked to PT, certain information should be made known to them, mainly the job/levels of the current members as well as the leveling location. Also, instead of just saying “PT Crawler’s Nest?�, it is better to start the conversation with a “Hello� or a “Good evening�.
Another point which I notice is prevalent within the lower leveled players because of their relative inexperience is the issue of Raises, Teleports and Warps. WHMs and BLMs have no obligation to cast any of these spells on you, and the decision to do so lies solely with them. It is customary to pay a small fee for Teleports, usually 1000G for Vzahl and 500G for all other teleport locations. When looking for a teleport, one should look out for /shouts about teleport service, and if unable to find any, /shout with 3-4 minute intervals to let others know you are looking and paying for a teleport. As for Raises, many take it for granted that if a WHM sees a dead player, he/she has a moral obligation to raise him. However, this is not so, since the WHMs also have their own things to do, hence if you are raised, always thank the WHM, and if he/she is in need of money and asks for a donation, give a nominal fee. Yes, I do know that Raising for money is frowned upon, but in some cases, these WHMs may ask for a small fee if the raised party wants to do so. Also, with Warp II at lvl 40, many players will ask to be warped back to their homepoint when far away in the field. If the BLM is in your party, he/she will usually do so for free, but if you are trying to find a Warp from a stranger, you might want to offer some gil, but again this is only if the BLM in question asks for some.
A lesser seen occurrence is the looking down on low level players, or what people call “newbies�. I believe when we all started, we were newbies at some point of time, hence if you are interacting with a new player, answering some of their questions would be a good thing to do. When partying with these players, one could teach them some basic party protocol and some information like skillchains and EXP chains, which would be beneficial to the PT as a whole. Additionally, these newbies may be uncomfortable with the FFXI environment and say and do things which they think is okay. We, as more experienced players, should show tolerance towards them, correcting them when they do something wrong and showing them the right way to do things. Linkshells are a great way to implement this form of guidance, since it can be used to teach a large group of new players the rules and regulations of FFXI which may be different from other MMORPGS that they have played in the past.

edit : second installment added.

[pcidll]

Originally posted by m3r0
Behavior in towns
There are many unspoken rules regarding players’ behavior in cities, especially in Jeuno, where the high level (HL) players congregate. Here are some things NOT to do in places like this
1. Shout for help regarding Quests/AF
This only applies for instances when a player requests help from a HL player to help him/her complete certain quests or AF quests. Most players, especially JP ones, will not bother to /tell the person in need, and usually shouts like these are seen as annoying.
What TO do: /tell HL players personally IF they’re not in a PT or looking for a group (LFG). Most of the time, they will respond, and chances of getting help are much higher than just shouting. If they are Japanese and don’t speak English, here are a few sentences which may be useful
-

this is considered worse.

[m3r0]

not really, if you're polite and the players are free, they will usually spare some time to help you, if not, you can always apologize for bothering them. Most of the time, you get help for some almost impossible to do quests this way, such as the samurai AFs which are very tough for a PT. JP players shout in jeuno for quests and such only because they are forming PTs at the suitable level to take them on, instead of players who are trying to get a much higher leveled player to help them. I have seen some of my friends try to get help for weeks shouting in jeuno to no avail, but if you know some jp players and take the effort to learn some of their language in romanji at least, they will often take you more seriously than the other players out there who go around shouting (| Please Listen. |) (|Paladin|) AF2 (Help me out!|).

[m3r0]

However, what you say is true to a certain extent, but i emphasize on the checking of whether they are busy, as seen through their status (LFG or not) as well as their search comment. For example, if a lvl 20 player /tells me and asks nicely if I could help him/her with the rank 3 mission when i am not doing much, I would feel more obliged to reply and help a polite player rather than one who spams in /shout incessantly.
Whereas for the rude players who /tell HL players stuff like "Can you help me with AF quest plz" instead of greeting them nicely and asking them if they are free to help, most will ignore them, in which case it is true that using /tell would be worse. Sure, if the player in question is asking someone who is already in a PT and obviously busy, it is definitely much worse, but when he is asking a player who can spare the time to help, I feel that it is better than annoying tons others with lots of /shout comments.
P.S sorry for posting so many times, random snippets of stuff just keep on coming into my mind as to whether using /tell to ask for help is correct or not. Personally I feel that creating PTs to quest for AF and such is the better way to go, but realistically, this is hardly the case, because there will be some times which there are few english speaking players around and one has no other choice but to seek HL help, such as when one is living in an English speaking country but having a timezone similar to that of Japan.

[Mithrankittycat]

God I hate those people who send tells for help.

Don't tab /tell when you beg people for help. /tell translates in japanese to /tell.

If your subjob is less than one half of your main job (rounded down), use /anon to hide it so people don't puke on you. In your seearch comment, say something like "@5000 -> (your level)" so they know your main level.

[Tamahome]

I have no problem with people shouting for help. They can't /tell me becasue I didnt list crap in my EXP. It like this... I am done farming bored. Goes in town check AH, see someone asking for help for AF/Genkai" Etc etc. So...I help them *gasp* that right! I help! Only one catch, I will help if they get enough people. Sometime people will help if they are bored or just want to be nice. They never put stuff in the sea comment becasue they might have put "Looking for exp pt" and dont have space for it. It's if the mood hits you or not. ya dig?

[m3r0]

yes, i understand that help mainly depends on the "mood" of the person who has the ability to do so, and on reading it over, i realized i left out a few sentences to clarify what I said, so here it is.
Spamming /shouts for help gets you nowhere except on someone's blacklist, but if you have been shouting every 5-10 min and still not getting help, you might want to resort to a few other alternatives.
The first should be asking friends and linkshell mates if they are willing to spare some time to help you. If you are a) have no friends or b) have no linkshell, you might want to resort to what i said, ask for higher level players to help. In this case, you should ask in a polite manner instead of just saying "I need help, can you help me plz?", utilizing what i said earlier in greetings and stuff.
sure, if you're /telling everyone incessantly and bothering them when they clearly have something to do, that's just idiotic behavior, but when you have no other choice, a little courtesy takes you a long way.

[Tukka]

I think the most important etiquette relates to how you treat members or prospective members of your party. Here are a few do's and don'ts to keep in mind:

Send a /tell before inviting a person into your party. Even if they are looking for a party and they're the last person you need to form that perfect group, ask them if they're interested first. It's always best to start things off on the right foot with a little friendly dialog rather than presumptiously assuming they will accept your anonymous invitation. Also, answer any questions the person might have. The worst thing is I've been invited into parties by people who invite without sending me a /tell, and they don't respond to any of the questions I put to them... but they keep sending me invitations! I don't want to join a party where the leader of the party apparently lacks any skill in communication whatsoever.

Don't tell people how to do their jobs. Unless they are doing a plainly horrible job and are putting the party at risk. In low level parties it's fine to generally assign party roles: "Paladinguy will be main provoker, Samuraiguy will provoke in emegencies, Redmagegal will debuff and backup heal, Whitemageguy is main healer, everybody else do damage". And it's okay to make friendly suggestions, especially if the person seems new to the job, but don't try to micromanage every aspect of the way the person does their job. Do not be abrasive or confrontational when trying to "correct" someone... be gentle and supportive. Don't emphasize how poorly they are doing their job, emphasize how great an asset they would be if they used X spell or, or did something a little differently.

Give the party at least a 20 minute warning before you have to leave the party, if at all possible. If you know you have to pick up the kids, go to class, work, wash the dog or do something with your linkshell at 8:30, tell that to your party at 8:00 (and give them an ETA in minutes in case they are in a different time zone). This way they can start looking for a replacement and you will not impose unnecessary downtime on your fellow players when you leave. Also, it's good to volunteer to leave the party whenever a replacement arrives, so a potential replacement doesn't have to wait (which may result in them joining a different party in the meantime). Also, tell your party when you are starting to get tired, and again, let them find a replacement for you when you start to feel like you're going to need a break or go to sleep soon.

If your party is breaking up and you have someone on the way to join the party, tell them the party is disbanding as soon as possible. Common sense here, but some people apparently lack it. It can take a lot of time (not to mention gil) to travel from place to place, so if the party for whatever reason breaks up before someone who's been invited to join has arrived, tell that person the party is breaking up. Don't assume someone else in the party has done so, unless someone has specifically said that they have.

Don't kick someone from a party if they are doing a decent job. That means don't kick someone from a party because someone in your linkshell is LFP. It means don't kick someone because someone with a job that's a better fit for the party goes LFP. It means giving someone a reasonable length of time to re-enter the game if they lose their connection (I'd say about 15 minutes before you start looking for a replacement). Only kick someone from the party if they are being disruptive/insulting to the rest of the party.

If you tell someone they can join your party and tell them to come to you for an invitation, do not replace them while they are on their way. This goes along with the last two rules. If someone is on their way, then treat them as if they're a member of the party who simply hasn't arrived yet. The exception/flipside of this rule is, if you have been invited to join a party, don't lollygag on your way to them and stop to kill every weak enemy on the way. Get to them as soon as possible and (obviously) try not to die.

Listen to the "plan" and follow it. This means if you're a part of the skillchain, report your TP and execute your weapon skill on que. It means if that if you are "assigned" to cast Paralyze and Dia and another mage is assigned to cast Slow and Blind, do cast Paralyze and Dia, and don't cast Slow or Blind, unless you notice those spells were resisted when the other mage cast them. If you are the main provoker, provoke every 30 seconds, ect. If you don't understand the "plan", ask for clarification! If there is something you don't like about the plan, or some reason you can't execute your portion of it, tell the party. Don't just keep your mouth shut or agree to the plan and then go off and do your own thing. There are few things more exasperating than a person who won't follow a simple set of instructions for apparently no reason. Teamwork!

Treat people with kindness and respect, and give them the benefit of the doubt. This is more of a general rule for FF11 and life than it is something specific to parties, but it's still important. Don't assume that a person is a moron and treat them as such because you notice they make one or two mistakes. This is a game and we all presumably come here to relax and enjoy ourselves... do your best in a party, but get uptight and go off someone because they aren't doing their job as well as you think you could. Don't use racial slurs or other insulting language ("Jap", by the way, is sometimes used as a racial slur... use the tab-translator to say "Japanese" or abbreviate it "JP"). Don't make derisive commentary about another player's damage output, equipment, ect. Common sense stuff, just be nice.

Use the tab translator when in a party with someone who is not fluent in your spoken language. This is a matter of "tactics" almost as much as it is etiquette. One of the necessary elements to a good party is being able to communicate and understand one another. Towards achieving that end, become familiar with the tab translator and use it whenever possible, even if everybody in the party speaks your language. You may not be aware, but you can type out the a few letters then press tab and skip right to a potential list of translations without having to scroll through a huge menu. For example, type "Bat" then press tab (without a space) and a number of potential translations will be presented, like Batalia Downs, ect. from which you can select.

Don't do less than your best to hinder the performance of a party, or put it in danger. Again, this is obvious, but some people apparently don't get it. If you have such a huge problem with a party or someone who is in it, don't get childish revenge by trying to get them all killed or to slow their exp or whatever, just leave the party (preferably with some warning as suggested above) and save everyone involved (including yourself) some grief.

Don't wait for a Raise if your Home Point is set close by. At least this is the rule to follow at the lower levels. Even if you have a White Mage, in your party who can Raise you, sometimes it's best to just return to your home point, swallow the exp loss and get back to earning some exp for your party. When you consider the "weakened state" of lowered HP/MP after you are Raised, and the time spent trying to find someone to Raise you, the fractional amount of experience you get back from being Raised is less than what you could earn on a few kills... it's often not even worthwhile for the person getting Raised, let alone the rest of the party. As a sub-point to this rule, try to set your Home Point as close as possible to where ever you will be hunting.

If you don't have a decent length of time to commit to a party, don't join one. Or at very least, tell whoever invites you into the party that you don't have much time left to play.

That's most of the important stuff. If you follow these general guidelines for etiquette and think about how you can apply the ideal behind these rules to how you play the game in general, then you will be a much more enjoyable person to interact with than a lot of the people who play this game, and you will improve the quality of the community just a bit.

[Angelhelix]

Bump this!

[Mithrankittycat]

"Give the party at least a 20 minute warning before you have to leave the party, if at all possible."

Leaving with 20 minutes notice still makes you look like a jackass who "levels and leaves".

[Tukka]

Leaving with 20 minutes notice still makes you look like a jackass who "levels and leaves".

Uh, okay. I ever been accused of that. But that reminds me another bit of etiquette I'll add with an edit.

Anyway, in this game, if you level up, it can damage the experience for the rest of the party, particularly if you were already the highest level person... so leveling and leaving can actually be a good thing for the party, if you give them proper forewarning.

[Sakiemdee]

Hi, i'll be starting a Etiquette guide whereby I will post installments about basic courtesy in Vana'diel, and what not to do in order to avoid offending others and being potentially labelled as uncouth. As we know, most of the JP players think of NA players as rude and unorganized, so I am trying to impart some knowledge of how to act while in the online world of FFXI. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to post it here so I can make the guide better. ^^

Here's a suggestion, how about you knock it off with the half-assed generalizations I.E. "As we know, most of the JP players think of NA players as rude and unorganized". Although this topic has been beaten to death on Allakhazam, I've asked people to come up with a single example from a well known Japanese website (like 2ch2, so I can translate it) because I can't find it.

I am SO sick of this, stop putting the Japanese on a pedestal.

This would have been a halfway decent guide, if you didn't make the average NA player feel as if he was a knuckle dragging cretin.

[netbard]

I honestly thing that the majority of etiquette issues can be solved by two simple rules:

(1) Remember that there is a live person on the other end of that character.

(2) Act like that person is in the room with you.

[m3r0]

Originally posted by Sakiemdee


Here's a suggestion, how about you knock it off with the half-assed generalizations I.E. "As we know, most of the JP players think of NA players as rude and unorganized". Although this topic has been beaten to death on Allakhazam, I've asked people to come up with a single example from a well known Japanese website (like 2ch2, so I can translate it) because I can't find it.

I am SO sick of this, stop putting the Japanese on a pedestal.

This would have been a halfway decent guide, if you didn't make the average NA player feel as if he was a knuckle dragging cretin.

Well, I have to dispute this fact, since I have partied with both Japanese players, though rarely as well as NA players. You could say the trend only lies in the people i meet, but most of the time, the JP parties im in have less deaths, more party organization as well as better PT communication . I have been in PTs which thought that 5 melee players and 1 whm would be good exp. Which kind of PT was it? NA. I have met people who keep on telling whms how to do their job when he's a pld and has never touched whm as a job before. What kind of player is he? NA. 1/5 NA PTs suffer from the same problem, which is impatience. JP players will wait to find a perfect PT setup, whereas the NA PT will just take whatever they can get and start fighting. Moreover, a small number of PTs don't even have skillchain setups and some even mispull due to poor communication, causing multiple targets to be pulled at the same time. Are the JP players "higher and mightier" than us then? No. I am not putting them on a pedestial, because they have been in the game for a longer time and are generally more experienced than us. Given time, we too could and probably will attain the same degree of skill they have, but while we have not reached that state, why not learn from them instead?