Gonna start with… this probably should go into FFXIV forum rather than RPing forum because that particular part of topic is long since gone the wayside.
Regarding Zeta, as someone with one I feel inclined to note something. I have never once seen anyone brag seriously about the relic. Until recently, relic was actually considered more non-endgame, because before Zeta it was rarely BiS for more than a few weeks if at all. To be honest folks with Zeta are more likely to be talked down to if they don’t know something. If you have Zeta you are expected to be good. A humorous twist on the whole elitist thing, I would say.
Regarding comparing DS (2 etc) to FFXIV: That is comparing apples to oranges. The selling part of the Dark Souls franchise is the difficulty and the fact you must be PREPARED to die. MMOs have never had that aspect. MMORPGs are designed to appeal to a wide demographic of hardcore to casual players. Sure most MMOs will have Hard modes (Heroic Raids or whatever they are called in WoW, and Savage modes in FFXIV), but in general the difficulty of MMOs come more from coordination of many folks and overcoming unfortunates such as lag and miscommunication. In Dark Souls you only have one person to worry about (if you aren’t invaded): yourself.
Regarding Elitism in general:  Frankly, you are going to run into dicks who will rub it in your face that they beat T13 before you, or that they are better than you. It is natural. I mean I am sure folks don’t like it when their sport team lost to another and those fans goes bragging. However, in the case of elitism in FFXIV the onus only rests on you and how you handle yourself when you are being “elitist.â€
Someone being an ‘elitist’ (read rude)? Ignore them because you don’t take the game seriously, or if they are being rather annoying at a point where it bothers you (we are all human we will get bothered): leave the group or blacklist. No one is making you play with that person. It is your 15 dollars so you can decide what to do with it. If they are really being terrible it is likely they will get vote kicked.
Along that same vein, a lot of people in this thread have posted gripes or expectations of other players. The thing is…. You can’t have expectations of ‘stranger’ players. Not everyone is going to play well, and frankly some folks are really quite bad at games in general. The thing is: You don’t have to play with them. The $15 allows you to play the game the way you want, just like everyone else.
You can spend that $15 worth of time playing with folks you know play the game the way you enjoy and they know you play the game they way they enjoy.  What I am saying is… playingwith friends. The primary Roulette (expert) is party friendly! You never have to do Duty Finder for that.
Expectations of other players can only exist when they are set down at the start, aka Party Finder. If the person says ‘know the fight’ that has been established they want you to know the fight. It isn’t elitist by any standard. Established Expectations =/= Elitism. Hence why if someone is botching up a lot and ignoring the advice in a Coil group… they might find themselves kicked out because they do not meet the established expectations for the group.
 Roulettes and Duty Finders exist to provide folks who don’t have a pool of friends a way to get content done and the like. You are given bonuses for doing them as a daily reward, but also because it might honestly be hell. In that case, if you have expectations you are setting yourself up for failure, and if you go off (rudely addressing the issue) on folks because it is not going the way you want, you are an asshole. You can just as easily leave the party as you can go off on other players.
OF COURSE I am not touching the fact that if you politely try to get folks to fix stuff for the sake of everyone else and they go off on you. That is just a mess where nothing will end up well.
Frankly, in most games their isn’t so much Elitism in PVE or RP as there is just people being dicks because it seems that is the default way to deal with things when they aren’t going their way.
((Before anyone brings up CT… don’t… it isn’t worth, it those raids will always bring out the worst in people.))
Regarding Zeta, as someone with one I feel inclined to note something. I have never once seen anyone brag seriously about the relic. Until recently, relic was actually considered more non-endgame, because before Zeta it was rarely BiS for more than a few weeks if at all. To be honest folks with Zeta are more likely to be talked down to if they don’t know something. If you have Zeta you are expected to be good. A humorous twist on the whole elitist thing, I would say.
Regarding comparing DS (2 etc) to FFXIV: That is comparing apples to oranges. The selling part of the Dark Souls franchise is the difficulty and the fact you must be PREPARED to die. MMOs have never had that aspect. MMORPGs are designed to appeal to a wide demographic of hardcore to casual players. Sure most MMOs will have Hard modes (Heroic Raids or whatever they are called in WoW, and Savage modes in FFXIV), but in general the difficulty of MMOs come more from coordination of many folks and overcoming unfortunates such as lag and miscommunication. In Dark Souls you only have one person to worry about (if you aren’t invaded): yourself.
Regarding Elitism in general:  Frankly, you are going to run into dicks who will rub it in your face that they beat T13 before you, or that they are better than you. It is natural. I mean I am sure folks don’t like it when their sport team lost to another and those fans goes bragging. However, in the case of elitism in FFXIV the onus only rests on you and how you handle yourself when you are being “elitist.â€
Someone being an ‘elitist’ (read rude)? Ignore them because you don’t take the game seriously, or if they are being rather annoying at a point where it bothers you (we are all human we will get bothered): leave the group or blacklist. No one is making you play with that person. It is your 15 dollars so you can decide what to do with it. If they are really being terrible it is likely they will get vote kicked.
Along that same vein, a lot of people in this thread have posted gripes or expectations of other players. The thing is…. You can’t have expectations of ‘stranger’ players. Not everyone is going to play well, and frankly some folks are really quite bad at games in general. The thing is: You don’t have to play with them. The $15 allows you to play the game the way you want, just like everyone else.
You can spend that $15 worth of time playing with folks you know play the game the way you enjoy and they know you play the game they way they enjoy.  What I am saying is… playingwith friends. The primary Roulette (expert) is party friendly! You never have to do Duty Finder for that.
Expectations of other players can only exist when they are set down at the start, aka Party Finder. If the person says ‘know the fight’ that has been established they want you to know the fight. It isn’t elitist by any standard. Established Expectations =/= Elitism. Hence why if someone is botching up a lot and ignoring the advice in a Coil group… they might find themselves kicked out because they do not meet the established expectations for the group.
 Roulettes and Duty Finders exist to provide folks who don’t have a pool of friends a way to get content done and the like. You are given bonuses for doing them as a daily reward, but also because it might honestly be hell. In that case, if you have expectations you are setting yourself up for failure, and if you go off (rudely addressing the issue) on folks because it is not going the way you want, you are an asshole. You can just as easily leave the party as you can go off on other players.
OF COURSE I am not touching the fact that if you politely try to get folks to fix stuff for the sake of everyone else and they go off on you. That is just a mess where nothing will end up well.
Frankly, in most games their isn’t so much Elitism in PVE or RP as there is just people being dicks because it seems that is the default way to deal with things when they aren’t going their way.
((Before anyone brings up CT… don’t… it isn’t worth, it those raids will always bring out the worst in people.))