Guild wars 2 community and how it changed

[WolfOwl.3968]

> @"Zok.4956" said:

> So, what some players see as "elitism" in instanced content is often a player behaviour that is a result also of the game design of GW2.

Player behavior is dictated by the player, not game design. I've seen plenty of players with the skill and experience in high level content encourage and assist other players not at that level. Behavior such as asking for KP from more difficult and unrelated content is elitist regardless of how you frame it. There's a difference between wanting to run with players of a similar skill set and viewing yourself as better because of a, b, c, or d.

> This is not elitism but "freedom of choice". No one should be forced to do a training run for other players if he/she just wants to do a quick run for a daily.

I'm not disputing it's a choice, and I agree that nobody should be forced to train or carry another player. Did you miss where I suggested the player just ignore it and move on with their own group? There's nothing to suggest that a player is entitled to join your group, regardless of their skill level or other qualities.

 

If I'm searching in LFG for a group and I see a description for a group I don't feel I'd fit in with, I'll simply ignore it and either find another one or create my own. There's no reason to rush to the forum about elitist, toxic, or borderline players when I can simply ignore them.

 

 

[Rauderi.8706]

Played since launch, subsequently shifted to another game for most of my play time. I find the other community much more welcoming and one that kindly embraces its game.

 

Here, in GW2, there's an undercurrent of discontent and bitterness that comes from self-entitled elites. It's even worse on the subreddit because it's so poorly maintained.

It's not even valid criticism, just salty kittenpost memes. And on the forums, it's usually rolling over for bad/questionable game design under the pretense that "earning it" should be a disinteresting, grueling task and shaming those who want fun, engaging routes to rewards.

It's . . very disheartening, and makes me regret turning my attention to GW2 again for the new patch.

[Edge.8724]

Imagine myself, not using a meta build and pugging XD.

I just abandonned all "high end pve" parts of the game and just chill in open world until I'm bored. What else can I do?

 

Edit: Of course if I see a group demanding x class with x build, I don't go. I don't force myself into other groups. But when a group don't put their requirements in the lfg, all those questions and accusations are just rude.

[Shiyo.3578]

When games are dying or have a small community they become incredibly unwelcoming and gate keep everything. Expect this to only get worse, as the gate keeping just pushes away new potential veterans until the game stagnates.

 

I've seen this happen in every small/dying game these past 15 years.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"WolfOwl.3968" said:

> > @"Zok.4956" said:

> > So, what some players see as "elitism" in instanced content is often a player behaviour that is a result also of the game design of GW2.

> Player behavior is dictated by the player, not game design.

It's influenced by both. Your personality influences how helpful/selfish, and/or nice/toxic you usually are. The content influences the consequences of your behaviour - the advantages you get/price you pay for being nice and helpful, vs being selfish and toxic. Those consequences tend to impact how people behave - if being rude is an disadvantage (i.e. you get kicked out of groups more), and being nice is advantageous (say, you get invited to good groups more often), even naturally toxic people tend to moderate their behaviour somewhat, and naturally nice people can really shine. If it's the opposite however (i.e. being nice means you keep ending up in groups that fail over and over and over even after many other, less patient people left long ago), then even the nicest person may eventually start to think that there's a limit to charity (and toxic people will feel validated).

Unfortunately, GW2 is a game where game design, especially in a lot of endgame content, puts a heavy price on being nice and helpful, while making more elitist behaviour beneficial.

 

 

 

 

[WolfOwl.3968]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> Unfortunately, GW2 is a game where game design, especially in a lot of endgame content, puts a heavy price on being nice and helpful, while making more elitist behaviour beneficial.

 

This isn't specific to GW2, you'll find this same argument in any multiplayer game with challenging end-game content. At this point it would seem you're just rationalizing to justify player attitude, which is something they bring to the table. While in your experience, and other's I'm sure, being nice and patient hasn't been rewarding that doesn't mean it was due to game design, all games such as this have content that's meant to challenge. I've experienced both sides of this token, and I can't chalk up elitist behavior to game design.

 

But my main points are these:

1. Some people are going to be elitist, it's just a fact of life

2. You can play with who you want to play with and there's no reason to try to force others to comply with your worldview. If your group wants to limit who can play in their party by all means do so, just be upfront about that expectation. (i.e. don't expect a group asking for KP to take you anyway, and don't expect a casual/newcomer friendly group to speed through content.)

3. If a group demands things like KP that you're not comfortable with ignore them and move on

 

[GummyBearSummoner.7941]

I’m sorry you went through that. No one should be treated like that & that whole system has got to go. I have been fortunate enough not to experience that but I also agree that it’s not the same as it used to. Maybe not the whole community is like that but because you do experience it & see it on a daily basis that’s the problem. No one hardly talks on map chat, no one really offers to help other players anymore , people in map chat say dumb things & are so rude to other players(again, this is my experience since I’ve been playing). Like seriously I don’t understand what makes players think any of this should be acceptable or how anybody deserves that kind of treatment.

 

Keep your head up high booboo. If you ever want to play or need help with anything in game feel free to inbox me & I’ll help you with any fractals you need. Don’t let people like that get to you. At the end of the day, this is a game & we should all be here to have fun & help each Other out.

[Sir Alymer.3406]

> @"Blackwolfmetal.3640" said:

> > @"WolfOwl.3968" said:

> > You're not addressing a community as a whole here in this post, but a peculiar sub-set of the community that keeps moving the goal-posts for content to make themselves appear elite and anyone not adhering to their little gate-keeping scheme is a noob or just sucks.

> >

> > In other words, welcome to pugging in an MMO

> >

> > By and large my experience with the community over my years of playtime has been positive, EXCEPT when dealing with certain pug groups

>

> You are absolutely right but thats no reason to behave like that. Developpers should see to it alot more that people that behave like this get banned or taught a lesson. Nothing is being done about this in the gaming world.

 

Care to explain how "CMs+T4s+Recs (classes) (KP amount)" is in any way, shape, or form stopping you from posting your own "CMs, T4s, Recs all welcome" on the LFG to the point that it warrants a ban?

[AliamRationem.5172]

This argument always has me scratching my head. You guys realize GW2 PvE is a joke, right? Your toughest raids/fractals are what other games call "normal" mode and you're missing 2/3 of the group dynamic that exists in trinity games. This is like comparing tic-tac-toe to chess!

 

There's no need to be nasty about this and, if people do get nasty, there's no need to play with them. Just form your own group! If you're capable of handling raids and T4 CMs, it shouldn't take long to get a list going of players who could form your regular group. Then you won't have to deal with this anymore. Seriously, it's not like you're competing for world firsts here - we don't even have those because the content isn't remotely challenging enough that anyone would consider it an accomplishment!

 

Let's keep it in perspective here! Be nice, but if other players aren't, just avoid them!

 

[Laila Lightness.8742]

> @"Blackwolfmetal.3640" said:

> Dear fellow Tyrians

>

> I have been playing GW2 ever since launch and over the years something has come to my attention. This used to be a very pure, friendly and nice community but over the years it gotten from bad to worse. The level of toxicity in the community is SO high that this game lost most of its fun factor. In general players have become extremly selfish, toxic, elitist and just plain mean. There is hardly any repsect anymore. For example i decided to PUG a fractals /cm's group. It was a group that asked for 75 killproof and i have over 200.They asked me for killproof wich i linked to them. Aparantly this was not enough. I linked it in 3 differeant ways. Still not enough. I got accused for using a chat code (had no idea what that even was and had to research that later) and got kicked instantly. I whispered the group leader asking an explanation and he was mean, accused me again of faking it and said i linked my killproof TOO slow (i have to run to the bank and link it how can i do it any faster?). kitten is this kitten. This is ridiculous toxic behaviour. What do you want me to do? Screenshot it and mail it to you? This is going way TOO far.

>

> Being very rude to people you don't know (and for no valid reason even) has somehow become acceptable in todays gaming world. But the fact is, this is NOT acceptable. If you would behave like this in real life there is a big chance you'd get punched in the face (wich would in this case kinda be deserved eventhough i don't like violence).

>

> Killproof is a allready a system i despise and should be removed from gaming. Its a discriminating and unlogical system that gives players that don't have it no chance of even proving themselves.

>

> Before any of you start accusing me of being just a noob with fake killproof (had to research and ask around to even know this is being done somehow). I really do have alot of exp in this type of content (always have in every game i ever played like this) and i really do have over 200Kp. And i really am an exception. Even when i had no KP i constantly had to prove people wrong with my skill level (not bragging or anything) that i can handle the content. Even if someone has no KP, that doesn't automaticly mean they suck. There are people like me that can generally just handle high pve content and "do their homework" before they start this type of content.

>

> Having said this. Behaviour like this HAS TO STOP! Its this kind of behaviour that takes out the fun factor and makes people quit the game or even online gaming in general in some cases (have seen that before).

>

> Treat others like you yourself would like to be treated...!

>

> Respect.

 

first reason why kill proof is the open world is easy but raids require more second friendly the second you were a ranger or necro no one wanted you by default you would instantly be kicked from any dungeon. also due to ppl really want experiance in a non training raid they would need some proof you actually have done this boss i think anet could replace it with something much more visible like a stat on health bar or effect on your character with number

[Vilin.8056]

> @"WolfOwl.3968" said:

> > @"Zok.4956" said:

> > So, what some players see as "elitism" in instanced content is often a player behaviour that is a result also of the game design of GW2.

> Player behavior is dictated by the player, not game design. I've seen plenty of players with the skill and experience in high level content encourage and assist other players not at that level. Behavior such as asking for KP from more difficult and unrelated content is elitist regardless of how you frame it. There's a difference between wanting to run with players of a similar skill set and viewing yourself as better because of a, b, c, or d.

Actually the player behaviour is greatly affected by game design, as there is no in-game filtering system for challenging contents, therefore players must manually filter out who's not qualified for what contents, with whatever methods they see fit.

 

Then there's the reward-by-participation event design in open maps, coupled with no penality for death, and level 80 boosters. Neither encourages progression in skill levels. When a majority of players become used to these kind of environment, there's bound to have trust issues in instanced contents.

[Dreson.6092]

hey im new to game ^

i could say community is friendly till u actually enter fractals ( not t1) and ranked PvP

the drama in WvW and the commander war in some maps is mostly underrated

I'm Pretty sure most players are forced to become "Cool" since the game gives a warning or something

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

I'm very sorry OP for what happened here because there is no justifying it. I think paranoia does people no good, and it becomes very evident if KP is faked anyways.

 

But I don't really think this represents the majority of players. I also think it goes both ways-- you wouldn't want to play with people like that. Hopefully things will get better.

 

Personally I'll avoid pugging CMs for the most part since I have a static for that. I just don't like pugging period for content like these. Maybe I'll just sell these KP things.

 

Oh also, I always shift-clicked. Guess ctrl is faster (oh that 0.2s)

[Nightcore.5621]

Damge meter addon also helped ruin this game :)

[Zok.4956]

> @"WolfOwl.3968" said:

> > @"Zok.4956" said:

> > So, what some players see as "elitism" in instanced content is often a player behaviour that is a result also of the game design of GW2.

> Player behavior is dictated by the player, not game design. I've seen plenty of players with the skill and experience in high level content encourage and assist other players not at that level.

 

Yes, the decision, as an example, to be rude or friendly to other players is a decision of the player. But game design influences that also a lot.

 

One idea in GW2 was: "You should be happy in PvE, if you see other players and you should want to play with them together." The game influenced players to play cooperatively together.

 

Example(s): In the beginning of GW2, there was no "kill stealing" like it was in other games. And you get XP and a little achievement for reviving other players. As long as you hit a mob at least once, you also got the loot. This encouraged players to help others and to wait for others and there was no race between players to hit a mob first to get the loot exclusively. This is just one small example. But the sum of all this small design decisions did change the player behaviour (a little) of a lot of players. Not of everyone, of course, but of a lot of players. And this game-design-choices also attracted the players that want to be helpful and friendly and they joined the game. As a result the GW2 community was shaped by the game and game design as one of the most friendly game communities.

 

However, the game fails completely with this regarding to challenging instanced content. One example: The game design decision, that the game allows every player to play every content sounds at first like a nice idea. But if you make content, where the whole group can wipe if one unexperienced player makes some small mistakes, it imposes the burden of gear/skill checking to other players if they do not want a PUG training run and as a result this sometimes becomes toxic and feels like "player against Player".

 

But if the game itself would/could tell an unskilled player "sorry, this is challenging content, you can not yet join the instance. Do you want to join a training run instead, or do you want easy-mode just for the story?" than a lot of that "toxic" or "elitist" behaviour would happen a lot less and players would not feel rejected so often by other players.

 

A few of this is ideas are already in the game (story-mode in dungeons, a player with a low fractal level can not open a high level fractal) but they are abandoned and/or incomplete.

 

> Behavior such as asking for KP from more difficult and unrelated content is elitist regardless of how you frame it. There's a difference between wanting to run with players of a similar skill set and viewing yourself as better because of a, b, c, or d.

 

The OP felt rejected by the group because the group didn't trust him, that his KP was not faked because he did not know how to ping properly. So he felt that was toxic and elitism behaviour. With a better game design, this mistrust would probably not be an issue.

 

 

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

Wow this points in directly in the trains of thoughts I had the last days^^

 

Main problem behind this toxicity is an extremely selfish play style which infected most of the game . If this would be a shooter are some 1vs1 game this wouldn't be a problem but this game has teamwork and supporter without them you have big trouble winning anything. So I can only tell stories how this works out so grab your cookies , popcorn or whatever

 

In wvw:

Over a half year ago the commanders went into strike after they didn't get enough supporters for the public zerg. After a while we got new commanders or old ones came back who doesn't do usually the public. We all told even fb isn't enough any more we need effectively 2 supporter/healer. After a few weeks this started to get working the strike ended and our public zerg was even able to go toe to toe with some of the best guilds in EU.

 

But then we got 2 links at once basically we had 24h blobs everywhere and the commanders (partially) struck again this time they didn't . We won but I have the feeling people got a bit 'lazy' again. After this we got up and down but in general better then where we started.

 

Recently a commander which has this 'extremely selfish play style ' came after a break back farming enemies who have the issues or worse while we on T5 . In general I must say he doesn't break any rules neither from Arena.NET nor community rules on the voice chat. The problem is he encourage other to do the same by giving example

 

What comes on top of this is I was in multiply guilds and MMOs healers in particular write teamwork big so they will dodge him or wvw for the time at least a part , another part will do it like him and switch to a dps class . This works in T5 but if yo go up the tier ladder just a little bit your are screwed.

 

In fractals:

 

When I run with randoms cms I always have trouble with some groups some want to run with QFB instead of HFB and some other problems. QFB works but only for small part of people who run cms the problem with this is you don't want to farm Cms you want to make a new speed record. HFB on the other hand in people hands who know how to use it can skip 90-95% of the mechanics in fractals and you have heal , condi cleans and so on.

 

Other problems are that renegades have often too less boon duration because they look what SC has , banner warriors throw then only once or not ever. Sometimes the HFB has no fury and so on. Okay a part of it is because people don't know what they doing the other part is this ' extremely selfish play style'

 

I had the fun to run with a stable group the last days and I must say the difference is HUGE.

 

In pvp:

 

Well can't say much but 2v2 has not much teamwork 3v3 a bit more but the premade groups discussion is elsewhere on the board. The problems here comes more from frustration then people want to do their own things because it doesn't give you the freedom like in other modes. The only support problem here is that certain classes are not at the healer mainly thief and ranger.

 

Afterwords:

What I can add is in wvw Arena.NET to do their homework there were enough proposal to how to contain some of this problems in other threads by giving the whole thing more structure. ArcDPS well I see how that is a problem e.g when warriors hop out of their role on the other side it gives solutions for problems like the enrage timer in raids or show when really someone just press 1,1 ,1

[TPMN.1483]

> @"Nightcore.5621" said:

> Damge meter addon also helped ruin this game :)

 

It actually improved it - as people could then improve how they play. Ofc if you don’t use it and play poorly it will show and you won’t like it.

 

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Zok.4956" said:

 

> But if the game itself would/could tell an unskilled player "sorry, this is challenging content, you can not yet join the instance. Do you want to join a training run instead, or do you want easy-mode just for the story?" than a lot of that "toxic" or "elitist" behaviour would happen a lot less and players would not feel rejected so often by other players.

I think that this would be a terrible idea. How could the game make this determination? Players have a wide variety of skills and abilities. I'm a very casual player, but I'm certain that if a hard-core player used my exact build, then he/she would be a lot more proficient than I would be. How would the game know how to handle that?

[ArchonWing.9480]

> @"Zok.4956" said:

 

> The OP felt rejected by the group because the group didn't trust him, that his KP was not faked because he did not know how to ping properly. So he felt that was toxic and elitism behaviour. With a better game design, this mistrust would probably not be an issue.

>

>

 

That's not true at all. If they're willing to reject for such arbitrary reasons, they would reject for equally as silly reasons if KP didn't exist. Even before KP existed, there were already arbitrary distinctions like title, AP, or literally anything we could find. You would have to remove any distinction whatsoever.

 

The reason why people demand KP is because some mechanics can't be winged in 99/100 cm and all 5 people need to be familiar with them as they cannot be negated. For example, if a player does not understand the anomaly, or the skull, they'll nuke the whole party. People who want advanced groups don't want to be bothered with teaching them. Note that you pretty much have to specifically join a CM group, so this is not one of those things you can wander into. Not to mention fractals have 4 tiers before this as well. If anything, fractals probably do the best job of making sure players don't get in above their heads.

 

This has nothing to do with elitism. You literally can't finish the content with a deadweight unless you massively outskill the content. There is nothing wrong with the design of these 2 CMs. They just demand more personal responsibility than other fractals.

 

The fault is with the players who seemed to have made a big deal over nothing, creating dubious accusations. Even if it were easier (which it shouldn't) and even if there were no titles or KP, it would happen-- we saw with even with easy things like dungeons. The only thing we can do is recognize these players and shun them.

[Marina Demeretmonde.1064]

> @"Blackwolfmetal.3640" said:

> > @"Makuragee.3058" said:

> > Dont worry the rest of the community is not like this at all, I do T4 frac and sometime CM. I just start my own lfg, and accept everyone even non meta build, if you know what you do and are somewhat competent with your build I mever say anything, maybe a tips here and there but that about it. Let the small toxic elitist community die in a corner, they are the whole reason anet stop doing raid XD

>

> You are right and that is how things should be. But in all my time my experience with pugs has been mostly like this. Very few respectfull groups. But thank you for the kind words.

 

As an older player (who enjoys engaging with all the content, not just rushing through as fast as possible for the loot), I just don't even try most content that people run in groups continually, because there is so much rudeness, or if it takes one minute longer than it should they rage quit...I really emotionally engage with the game, and this is not fun.

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Marina Demeretmonde.1064" said:

> > @"Blackwolfmetal.3640" said:

> > > @"Makuragee.3058" said:

> > > Dont worry the rest of the community is not like this at all, I do T4 frac and sometime CM. I just start my own lfg, and accept everyone even non meta build, if you know what you do and are somewhat competent with your build I mever say anything, maybe a tips here and there but that about it. Let the small toxic elitist community die in a corner, they are the whole reason anet stop doing raid XD

> >

> > You are right and that is how things should be. But in all my time my experience with pugs has been mostly like this. Very few respectfull groups. But thank you for the kind words.

>

> As an older player (who enjoys engaging with all the content, not just rushing through as fast as possible for the loot), I just don't even try most content that people run in groups continually, because there is so much rudeness, or if it takes one minute longer than it should they rage quit...I really emotionally engage with the game, and this is not fun.

 

I have had similar experiences which also keeps me from wanting to play certain content.

[WolfOwl.3968]

> @"Vilin.8056" said:

> Actually the player behaviour is greatly affected by game design, as there is no in-game filtering system for challenging contents, therefore players must manually filter out who's not qualified for what contents, with whatever methods they see fit.

And who decides who's "qualified?" Oh, right, elitist who will rationalize an arbitrary system to "filter out" the riffraff. What I find really funny is that player KP's are more a reflection on the group rather than the individual. A player could be the lowest performer in every group they're in but still get the KP when the group prevails, and then use that KP as a cudgel to keep other players from entering the territory they've staked out for themselves.

Yes, game design influences player behavior in that to complete difficult game content they have to work to improve their skills, and in the case of raids have to work to improve their skills within a group. The content would be meaningless if it were trivial. But toxic behavior isn't influenced by game design though, it's an attitude that suggests, for whatever reason, that the player is above another player for some rationalized and arbitrary reason. Needing AP's in dungeons back in the early days of GW2 as an example. It's not a reflection of skill or game design, but a gate-keeping device to maintain status.

The dichotomy of raiders is they often discourage group play by not fostering new raiders while simultaneously relying on group play and new raiders to complete and maintain content. New players = more activity in raids = Arenanet focusing more resources to raids. Less new players in raids = increased reduced activity in raids as current players get bored and leave the content = less Arenanet resources directed at the content.

 

For me I play games to have fun, and it's more fun to me to play with a group trying to learn or just running content with a good attitude than completing content with a group with a poor attitude. I've done the latter and it's just taxing.

 

 

 

[Tails.9372]

> @"WolfOwl.3968" said:

> in the case of raids have to work to improve their skills within a group. The content would be meaningless if it were trivial.

A-Net trivializing the difficulty of raids wouldn't make the content meaningless, it would just change the target audience from a small "hardcore" one to a bigger more "casual" one and IMO implementing low difficulty instanced content (not changing the existing one) wouldn't even be a bad thing. The game doesn't have any kind of instanced content which is aimed to the casual part of the playerbase like OW dynamic events are aside from story missions (and even some of them are questionable).

[WolfOwl.3968]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

>The game doesn't have any kind of instanced content which is aimed to the casual part of the playerbase

 

In my experience T1 fractals and dungeons are very casual friendly, as meeting the requirements to enter those instances is easy to do and the mechanics are more forgiving. And dungeons are almost trivialized in their difficulty making them near completely abandoned content by the players as well as the devs.

 

Also aren't Strike Missions meant to bridge the gap in difficulty between dungeons/low tier fractals and raids?

 

But honestly any sort of instance content specifically aimed at a casual audience is likely to be boring and quickly abandoned

[phokus.8934]

> @"Blackwolfmetal.3640" said:

> Dear fellow Tyrians

>

> I have been playing GW2 ever since launch and over the years something has come to my attention. This used to be a very pure, friendly and nice community but over the years it gotten from bad to worse. The level of toxicity in the community is SO high that this game lost most of its fun factor. In general players have become extremly selfish, toxic, elitist and just plain mean. There is hardly any repsect anymore. For example i decided to PUG a fractals /cm's group. It was a group that asked for 75 killproof and i have over 200.They asked me for killproof wich i linked to them. Aparantly this was not enough. I linked it in 3 differeant ways. Still not enough. I got accused for using a chat code (had no idea what that even was and had to research that later) and got kicked instantly. I whispered the group leader asking an explanation and he was mean, accused me again of faking it and said i linked my killproof TOO slow (i have to run to the bank and link it how can i do it any faster?). kitten is this kitten. This is ridiculous toxic behaviour. What do you want me to do? Screenshot it and mail it to you? This is going way TOO far.

>

> Being very rude to people you don't know (and for no valid reason even) has somehow become acceptable in todays gaming world. But the fact is, this is NOT acceptable. If you would behave like this in real life there is a big chance you'd get punched in the face (wich would in this case kinda be deserved eventhough i don't like violence).

>

> Killproof is a allready a system i despise and should be removed from gaming. Its a discriminating and unlogical system that gives players that don't have it no chance of even proving themselves.

>

> Before any of you start accusing me of being just a noob with fake killproof (had to research and ask around to even know this is being done somehow). I really do have alot of exp in this type of content (always have in every game i ever played like this) and i really do have over 200Kp. And i really am an exception. Even when i had no KP i constantly had to prove people wrong with my skill level (not bragging or anything) that i can handle the content. Even if someone has no KP, that doesn't automaticly mean they suck. There are people like me that can generally just handle high pve content and "do their homework" before they start this type of content.

>

> Having said this. Behaviour like this HAS TO STOP! Its this kind of behaviour that takes out the fun factor and makes people quit the game or even online gaming in general in some cases (have seen that before).

>

> Treat others like you yourself would like to be treated...!

>

> Respect.

 

The community didn't change, you changed.