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Okay, I'm not 'new' to the game, but last night something new happened


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Last night, while doing the daily for Nebo Terrace in Gendarran Fields, I had someone message me and tell me to 'keep my buffs to myself' and let me know they were neither needed nor wanted. I had no idea what they were talking about, but instead of saying anything, the rant continued about how I need to reroll my class, etc.

 

What the hell does this even mean?

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Well buffs is another name for boons - beneficial effects from skills and traits. A lot of professions do have skills which will share boons with allies around them, and it often happens automatically so it's not surprising that you were giving boons to other people. The strange part is that they objected to it.

 

The only "problematic" boon I know of is the speed boost - which can be really annoying when you're doing a jumping puzzle or something else which requires precision movement. Lining up a jump without a boost then having one applied as you jump can cause you to overshoot your target and fall down (potentially dying). I've had a few times when I'm trying to do a jumping puzzle, especially for the daily, and someone will keep on spamming a speed boost. If they were able to keep it up constantly it might be ok because then I'd be able to adjust to it, but that's usually not the case so you just have to jump and wait to see if you're going to land on the platform or overshoot it. Usually I'll just wait for them to move on, but if I can see who's doing it and especially if they're doing it to me personally (unfortunately sometimes waiting is interpreted as wanting even more unpredictable boon spam) I'll ask them to stop. Most of the time they genuinely think they're being helpful and will stop when I explain that all they're doing is making it impossible to know how far my character will move.

 

But I can't imagine why anyone would object to other boons, unless it's some kind of superstition that they reduce your changes at good loot through RNG, or they're used to some particularly unsociable MMO where you can steal kills and XP from other people just by giving them buffs.

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Realistic answer:

This happens because in most MMOs, including all the Warcraft clones, buffing someone steals part of their XP (and sometimes loot), Its basically experience that is transferred to you for supporting them, in exchange for keeping them alive so they can get experience faster and longer, resulting in a net gain. However many soloers do not like this, because they prefer to maximise XP gain and loot.

 

Many really bad games, including all older MMOs from back in the Everquest era, even have "kill stealing", which means that if you land the killing blow on their opponent, you receive all of the experience and loot and they get nothing, its a form of griefing. Even worse is games that share gathering nodes between all players, where if one player mines a resource then it becomes unavailable to everyone for a time. And then there are even things like only one player in the entire party receiving the prized boss loot, forcing everyone to argue about who deserves it, which sometimes can even result in the person who looted it simply leaving quietly and pretending they didn't drop anything.

 

Some modern console and mobile games still uses these antiquated systems, even if PC games have mostly moved on.

 

You must keep in mind that alot of people coming to GW2 do not understand that it was specifically designed to avoid problems like this, with per-player experience, loot and gathering nodes, and that it is not possible to "steal" anything, or grief players in any way, (unless you count destroying enemies too fast for anyone to get credit due to running open world with raid builds and stuff like that).

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Yet it didn't stop you from replying, did it? I asked because I wasn't sure if I had done something wrong and, if so, how to avoid it in the future. But, hey, thanks for chiming in.

 

> @"Garkus.2183" said:

> entirely unsure if what they said to you was more unwanted than your post retelling it

 

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Prior to mounts I had certain speed characters and I usually had their weapon skills that provided speed set on auto (ranger wh, ele air staff 4 etc).

 

I've been flamed twice for this practice! Once happened in NSS JP, but because he didn't whisper, he said it map chat and what he said was not nice :) I reported him and kept my speed going for spite. The other, I think was probably was a bit of jealously, but I obliged the request none the less, I was crafting and inadvertently left my Staff Tempest (who'd gotten Nevermore a few days before) on air, so everytime AA 4 hit everyone got speed (even though they don't really need it for crafting...), anyway, someone whispered me to please stop because the animations were making them dizzy. On the plus side, I now make sure to attune to fire if I'm crafting on my ele.

 

You never really know what is going to set people off, but how you handle it depends on how they approach you in most cases.

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