Is it just or me or is the in-game community becoming more and more toxic?

[LolLookAtMyAP.8394]

"Mainly PVP"

 

You answered yourself there.

[Kobi.8347]

Competitive modes already bring toxicity in every game, however some people compete even in PvE modes (which also bring toxicity there), this is nothing new to the gaming community nor GW2.

 

I personally avoid competitive modes and games, and if someone toxic bothers me I simply ignore them (is the best medicine), worst comes to worst, I report and blacklist them.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I have meet exactly one toxic person in the last 3 months and he got immediately kicked from the squad.

 

Sure, some idiots here and there but nothing i would discribe as toxic.

 

EU

[Aridon.8362]

> @"Etria.3642" said:

> > @"Aridon.8362" said:

> > Well when people start making a huge deal about everything, it becomes just that, a huge deal. Just last night we had this nerd-level know-it-all who kept rudely interrupting our raid lead in a training raid, and fighting with other members in our guild about the littlest things, that aren't even important. In PvE and WvW I never do this.

> >

> > I myself lost it when I was in an spvp team that were simply four other walking free kills. Literally our match was tanked by 30-500, you bet your cats I was toxic. And there was this one time this salty troll kept saying I sucked even though he could only 2v1 /laughing at me, I challenged him to a duel and he refused. I swear by all things he started it and I was sure I could shut him up, just kept arguing with me. He eventually blocked me, but I had a guildie send him 5 stacks of packs of salt to him and call him bad.

> >

> > I've also had to argue with people on this forum about how lazy they are being regarding raiding. But I don't want to get banned again. I literally ended up sending a message and blocking the dude I was arguing telling him I hope his ego never lets him raid in game because he was being a whiny nutcase about it. The toxicity isn't just in PvP man and most certainly not just among more challenging players, it's also in the casual community as well. There's people determined to ruin the game by adding fluff to make it into a Korean echi MMO, and worse, a World of Warcraft without progression.

>

> Wow. I cannot say I have ever felt the need to have someone else, or me either, ever send someone stacks of salt. If someone ever sent them to me, I would definitely laugh, share with friends, laugh at the loser who took the game that seriously, and then never think about it again. Like, really? Care enough about it to go out of your way to call someone bad?

 

Oh you mean like how I'm going to ignore you right now? By the same right I shouldn't take your opinion seriously either. :)

 

Also as an FYI it wasn't even an argument it was literally:

"You suck"

"No u"

"1v1 me then"

"No u suk (blocks me)"

 

[Bast.7253]

> @"Black Wolf.7348" said:

> it certainly dont help that anet force everyone who want legendary amulet to get 120 ranked wins and 20 tournament match wins when they simply hate the game mode like me. forced to play ( aka grind) through the insane amount of wins when wvw is easy as f.

 

I don't think the ranked wins are bad, but those tournament wins though.

 

Yikes.

 

I don't know if I will ever even bother with it. The two times I've been in a tournament I've wound up going against some gimmicky stacked teams of high-ranking people in just the first match. I think last season it was like, 4 holos or something. It was ridiculous. lol

 

With my luck my first game this season would be 5 freakin necros.

[Maulclaw.4365]

> @"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

> I see more RPers now in PVE compared to January/February. WVW t/mchat is as stupid as always.

 

The roleplaying community has been on a steady decline since 2016 to the point it completely died out on the EU. On NA, however, it's pretty dry and boring... but it's just as moronic as it was years ago. It's a really sour sub-community in general known for its ridiculous drama. They don't really affect me, though.

 

I'm talking about the general feel of the game. PvE, sPvP, WvW and so on.

 

> @"LolLookAtMyAP.8394" said:

> "Mainly PVP"

>

> You answered yourself there.

 

But why is this bad? I don't remember it being THIS bad. And I'm not just talking about PvP. It has bled out to PvE, too. The waiting time on the LFG over at NA is a lot longer than on EU and it sucks when people go as far as act like buttholes for no reason or troll the LFG search after waiting it out for almost an hour.

 

> @"Black Wolf.7348" said:

> it certainly dont help that anet force everyone who want legendary amulet to get 120 ranked wins and 20 tournament match wins when they simply hate the game mode like me. forced to play ( aka grind) through the insane amount of wins when wvw is easy as f.

 

What? That's bloody ridiculous.

[Leo.5829]

I've noticed as well. Toxicity has gone way up in all game modes. This is the first time it has gotten so bad I've actually decided to use the Ticket system to report people and I've been playing since launch.

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

I expect toxic on pvp and somewhat in wvw because emotions can run high in the heat of battle, but I also have noticed it more in other modes.

 

Like In pve, this guy starts in on chat how no one is helping with a champ. I decide to go, even though I am in the middle of a personal objective. The timer is kind of low, so there isn't much time left and even though a couple more show up, the event fails. Then the guy goes on a tirade how we suck and how low our dps was. We went to help and he spits in out faces. Will make me think twice again before offering help.

 

Then there is strikes. Let's just say it has become a thing I reluctantly participate in. I have learned never to join groups looking for specific stuff -- even if I can fill the spec. I only join single instance groups. If we fail more than once I leave, because that is when the verbal abuse and arbitrary kicking starts. If I fail to follow the above rules, I always regret it, and my desire to even log onto this game plummets. This is even when I am specifically invited to other runs. I can only see it get worse.

 

This attitude is even bleeding into the Forge mission, which is a story mission. One guy tried to kick me from instance before it even started, and it was public mission and I was just gathering worms, so it wasn't based on my gaming prowess. It isn't someone that kicked me before cause I learned to block those people so I don't accidentally group with them again and he wasn't listed. (Is now)

 

People wonder why so many players end up going solo. It is just easier than taking the chance that you won't measure up to some randoms expectations. I earned most of my 34000 achievement points on my own merits, so I must know something.

[SkyCakeLight.3750]

I have noticed a slow but steady incline towards it over the past several years. It's like that with all gaming communities and seems to be the "gamer" attitude in general. A lot of people trying to be "funny" but at the expense of others because they're not actually a funny person themself. Or, people trying to "min/max" activities that don't require it, yet they expect everyone else to optimize the enjoyment out of something. It's become commonplace in all multiplayer games and especially MMOs.

 

This back so far that it may not even be worth mentioning. But, the difference between GW2 community today and the SWG community pre CU is day and night. Even just comparing GW2's community to pre-HoT is noticeable.

[JTGuevara.9018]

I only ever get angry in pvp, never in pve. Even then, it's primarily because of the league system and matchmaking, but that's a discussion for another day! In pve, though who cares?

 

And yes, the community is getting worse. The toxicity is creeping in into fractals and even public strikes. One day, I even saw gear/build checks for t2s! It's not just that either, people in chat just want to argue or get attention, just want to be "edgy" for the sake of it. It's the whole Reddit-Snowcrows-edgy-4chan mentality is infesting the game and it starting to distance me from MMOs.

[Rhein.8197]

> @"JTGuevara.9018" said:

> I only ever get angry in pvp, never in pve. Even then, it's primarily because of the league system and matchmaking, but that's a discussion for another day! In pve, though who cares?

>

> And yes, the community is getting worse. The toxicity is creeping in into fractals and even public strikes. One day, I even saw gear/build checks for t2s! It's not just that either, people in chat just want to argue or get attention, just want to be "edgy" for the sake of it. It's the whole Reddit-Snowcrows-edgy-4chan mentality is infesting the game and it starting to distance me from MMOs.

 

The obsession with DPS is inevitably bleeding into PvE as more people participate in raids, strikes, fractals, PvP, etc because in these other modes DPS and other metrics dictate the gameplay. We then find ourselves in a position where so many people are subscribing to this DPS-centric meta ideology, that everywhere we go we are told it's the only way for an "optimal" result etc. And I can certainly understand this strategy for raids, PvP, even higher fractals and *some* strikes, so I don't want it to sound like metric assessments don't have a place in MMOs.

 

At the same time, this is why we have players like Guevara who are considering just dropping MMOs altogether, and who can blame them? Can we have one mode where we aren't shamed for our builds? Can we ever have results that aren't optimal? Often times we blame the developers or the game's design for these kinds of issues popping up but i think it's 2020 and we need to start discussing the real issue at the root of all this: players.

 

The fact is MMOs are not single player games, they are public games that put you around a range of personalities and perceptions you might not agree with. I would also argue that the anonymity/"character creation" element of MMOs (I'm going to try to keep this as simple as possible) allows people to behave how they want (within community guidelines). So that means we might have a commander who is very forgiving, tries to res everyone constantly, feels rewarded by helping, etc. It could also mean you have a party member in fractals that has been relentlessly shamed into believing their original ideas suck, only certain builds work, only a so high DPS works, etc. Some people are just trying to get done quickly and want optimal synergy in their parties (which imo is contradictory to public gameplay, but whatever).

 

It could ALSO mean you encounter completely unreasonable people. Ultimately, players are actual people who possess a range of motivations for playing GW2/games in general. We don't about think about this, but it heavily affects the kind the world we live in (in GW2).

 

You have to decide for yourself what to do about it. You could quit the game. You can start your own guild. You can can start your own group content in PvE. I can tell you what will happen regardless:

 

- Game devs will not address player behavior unless it falls outside of established guidelines

- The values held by PvPers, raiders, etc. won't change

- Experienced players will still have unrealistic expectations, no matter how much it hurts the game's population

- Players obsessed with winning will stay obsessed, that's quite common even outside of MMOs

 

edit note: I also have to say that if you haven't noticed the population changing to be more aligned with snow crows, meta battle, raider perceptions, etc. you are either very lucky, don't public play/chat much, or are willfully ignoring it because TC is correct that things have changed. I don't know how productive it is to call it "toxic" though. IMO toxic is a blanket term for very specific behaviors we can define.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kobi.8347]

@"Rhein.8197" Honestly it is ridiculous to argue about DPS when GW2 doesn't even have DPS checks, in Final Fantasy XIV there's DPS checks, were if the party doesn't do X damage in a limited amount of time, we all die.

 

But since Final Fantasy XIV is a paid subscription it keeps a good chunk of toxic people away, the experience is way more friendly.

 

I never had anyone being overall rude to me in Final Fantasy XIV, quite the opposite, everyone helps each other and even if we fail a raid multiple times no one starts crying, we help each other up and go at it again, here in GW2 I avoid humans altogether as I do in any other game, due to the high toxicity.

 

**Thankfully the developers made it so we can play solo, contrary to a good chunk of MMORPGs.**

[Pockethole.5031]

If I see two idiots bickering and barking, I tell them to shut up and if they keep going I just leave them to it. There was also one guy who opened about his personal life, then when /map tried to help him he turned against us pretty fast. I said my last advice to him and carried on.

But generally folks are polite enough. Everything in the game feels exactly as it was many years ago, save for a bit of corona tension. I don't feel like anything really changed, for me at least.

Also I don't play PvP (yet), but it's probably a circus in any game anyway.

[Nephalem.8921]

I ran into very toxic groups in fractals during the last weeks. Guild groups or groups of friends asking for a 5th player. Obviously the 5th player was required to have 100-200kp.

Surprise, the guild players were all new to cms and never heard of "rotation" or "reflect". Trying to question them or even saying anything after someone wipes the group multiple times results in a kickblock or just insults. And i'm talking about players getting outdamaged by a div ren in 200kp groups.

Its not like raiders or pvpers are the only toxic players. Toxic casuals abusing lfg do exist aswell. This kind of group also exists in raids and is one reason why pugging raids is so annoying.

[Zen.6384]

Yeah, it's not just you.

[Raknar.4735]

Those people, while in a minority, are always the loudest. Some gamemodes, like PvP or Raiding, sadly have a higher concentration of those, since they drive away some of the regular people.

 

I haven't noticed more than the usual amount of toxicity in open world, but it could be that the quarantines are influencing people to react in harsher ways in certain gamemodes.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Kobi.8347" said:

> @"Rhein.8197" Honestly it is ridiculous to argue about DPS when GW2 doesn't even have DPS checks, in Final Fantasy XIV there's DPS checks, were if the party doesn't do X damage in a limited amount of time, we all die.

>

> But since Final Fantasy XIV is a paid subscription it keeps a good chunk of toxic people away, the experience is way more friendly.

>

> I never had anyone being overall rude to me in Final Fantasy XIV, quite the opposite, everyone helps each other and even if we fail a raid multiple times no one starts crying, we help each other up and go at it again, here in GW2 I avoid humans altogether as I do in any other game, due to the high toxicity.

>

> **Thankfully the developers made it so we can play solo, contrary to a good chunk of MMORPGs.**

 

While you are correct that GW2 doesn't have enrage timers in fractals like you would see in other MMOs, the longer the boss fight takes, the greater the chances for something to go wrong (missed dodge, CC on cooldown, etc) that might cascade into a wipe. Players skilled enough to keep things going for a prolonged period of time never have to...

 

[Josiah.2967]

This happens when you have the worst balanced professions in an MMOs for end game content (Raids/Strikes) while trying to push that content. This combined with the developers introducing a Strike Hub, and trying to get people to do strike missions to encourage more people to raid only adds fuel to the fire. Elitist mock or reject people that play professions that can not compete in raids because the gap between the top performers and the weakest is at an all time high. This environment breeds more cocky elitist that are use to being carried by their professions. These players in particular are generally the most toxic. The "Strike Hub" just happens to be the perfect place to witness this.

 

This combined with people being locked up just escalates things even more.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Josiah.2967" said:

> This happens when you have the worst balanced professions in an MMOs for end game content (Raids/Strikes) while trying to push that content. This combined with the developers introducing a Strike Hub, and trying to get people to do strike missions to encourage more people to raid only adds fuel to the fire. Elitist mock or reject people that play professions that can not compete in raids because the gap between the top performers and the weakest is at an all time high. This environment breeds more cocky elitist that are use to being carried by their professions. These players in particular are generally the most toxic. The "Strike Hub" just happens to be the perfect place to witness this.

>

> This combined with people being locked up just escalates things even more.

 

Thats only true for necro an quickness stack. dps between everything except necro is quite balanced.

[JTGuevara.9018]

@"Rhein.8197"

 

Yeah, you're right on the money regarding MMOs. Unfortunately, due to the public nature of them, I don't think the toxicity problems will ever go away completely. In MMOs there's barely any accountability for being an inconsiderate a---rhymes-with-hole! Even though behavioral guidelines and terms are set, how many people truly follow them? What's the accountability for breaking them? This goes across all MMOs, not just gw2. In theory, MMOs are a good idea, but human flaws will materialize after some time after it's released. It's usually the same trend, an MMO comes out...people get excited.. they blitz through the content... they get bored.. .they get angry...they take it out on others...

 

As for the "meta" mentality, that will probably always be a thing. However, it will be a thing among a miniscule portion of the population that likes to pretend that it has more influence than it actually has. In pvp, though, DPS isn't that big of a thing. The "meta" in pvp is finding the best bruiser, jack-of-all-trades build possible, best sustainability and best damage.

[Naomi Nightfisher.4138]

I havent noticed anything, but I only started a few months ago. I find this community to be amazing, and even in PVP the "Get gud scrub" stuff is just trolling. You must have never played COD or any other shooter type game, where you will learn insults that would make a sailor blush.

 

This game is so NON-toxic its child friendly.

 

I have basically had the opposite experiance of the OP.

 

There ya go. Data Point.

[Maulclaw.4365]

> @"Naomi Nightfisher.4138" said:

> child friendly

 

Oof.

 

I'm sorry to say this, but you're in for quite the ride in the long run. Just give it time.

 

 

 

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

> @"RandomWolf.3986" said:

> > @"Naomi Nightfisher.4138" said:

> > child friendly

>

> Oof.

>

> I'm sorry to say this, but you're in for quite the ride in the long run. Just give it time.

>

>

>

 

This is the only game I know where I can type kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten, and be accused of being in rage mode.

[googel.3278]

> @"XatraZaytrax.2601" said:

> > @"RandomWolf.3986" said:

> > > @"Naomi Nightfisher.4138" said:

> > > child friendly

> >

> > Oof.

> >

> > I'm sorry to say this, but you're in for quite the ride in the long run. Just give it time.

> >

> >

> >

>

> This is the only game I know where I can type kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten, and be accused of being in rage mode.

 

try french servers in wvw, they rage really quick.

[Luthan.5236]

I mainly see nice people. And I'm playing in the EU. Every now and then when losing (after big loss streak now I have a huge win streak) there are annoying players in PvP but that is normal and happens regularly. PvE everyone is helpful. (People helping each other with JPs happens a lot and questions in chat get answered.)

 

I find only those "oh look at me I broke the map, I'm above the map" people annoying - they seem to be more often. The claim they have used mount (Skyscale) to reach places that weren't meant to be reached and no one cares. :D Still they want you to join them and use "TP to friend".