Why does this game make it so difficult to play with friends you meet in the game?

[Ludic.3781]

I don't know if this is how anyone else but it seems like at every turn in every game mode there is always a barrier to being able to play with new people and meet and current friends. Its like after I reached level 80 and finished the story I needed to take on this daunting task of earning a lot of currency and am just unable to play with guilds I join or people I meet because of it. It seems very strange to me that an MMO like this one would have such barriers. Unless you are content with mindlessly doing meta events and things for gold you are pretty much done with the game. I posted the issues I am having with even being able to play the following game modes.

 

**Fractals** - This seems like it would be the natural next step after finishing the story and wanting something more out of the game. However, starting from square one is incredibly difficult. Finding people to actually do any tier below t4 is an absolute pain or simply can not be done if it is not done at reset. I cant currently play with friends that do these on a daily basis because I don't have the gear or the AR which is a lot of gold to get. I don't know how one would go about making reasonable progress to T4 when most people never leave T4 and few are willing to go back to group with people that need progress. There is simply not enough people around for players like myself to make that progression and it is not rewarded otherwise.

 

**WvW** - I have been wanting to play this with people I have met. However, most people I meet are from all different servers and it is very expensive to move servers, multiple friends would have to want to pay the fee to move to a new server. So it never happens and I can not play with the current group of friends I have. I have tried joining WvW guilds, but it mostly just seems like a hub for people that happen to be on the same server. I never made any friends through these. it is kind of odd for a MMO not to have a means to effectively play this mode with friends without high cost.

 

**PvP** - I realize that there is ranked and unranked PvP and you can have 5 man groups on unranked. However, all the rewards are in ranked so naturally this is where everyone wants to be. Why on earth that ranked only allows you to take only one friend is beyond me. Especially considering how often you get people that rage and AFK because the match isn't going well. So I simply do not play this anymore, I find it an exercise in frustration more than fun. How much better this would be if I could play with a dependable team of friends.

 

**Raids** - This is probably the most assessable end game content to me right now. Which just blows my mind both because in most games raids is the end of the end game content that are supposed to be the most challenging and the way people talk about not being able to do them. Yes, pugging them was certainly hopeless, but I found some really nice training guilds that have helped me make good progress and even obtain a few pieces of ascended. I am including this simply because these take a whole lot of planning, , practice, hours, and generally you must make yourself available to be able to play this. I find this insane that this was the easiest thing for me to get into because I did not need ascended gear to be taken on what is supposed to be the most difficult content in the game. It is actually a stepping stone on how I am going to get to play fractals. Raids should not be a stepping stone to the gear gate that is fractals.

 

I know many people probably do not want to hear this and I read much about how great this game is but also how it has some serious problems. As from a player that's been playing for a few months. Anet has a really great game going, but it could be so much more. The gap between finishing the story content/reaching level 80 and end game is really really large and lonely experience. I can see why the two people I started the game with have quit and while I am here trying desperately to get on the level of friends I made that have been playing the game for years to just be able to participate with them.

 

Please make It a bit more easier to play together with friends and community. It is the essential focus of MMOs.

[Khisanth.2948]

That is one of the most misleading titles I have ever seen.

 

> @"Ludic.3781" said:

> I don't know if this is how anyone else but it seems like at every turn in every game mode there is always a barrier to being able to play with new people and meet and current friends. Its like after I reached level 80 and finished the story I needed to take on this daunting task of earning a lot of currency and am just unable to play with guilds I join or people I meet because of it. It seems very strange to me that an MMO like this one would have such barriers. Unless you are content with mindlessly doing meta events and things for gold you are pretty much done with the game. I posted the issues I am having with even being able to play the following game modes.

>

> **Fractals** - This seems like it would be the natural next step after finishing the story and wanting something more out of the game. However, starting from square one is incredibly difficult. Finding people to actually do any tier below t4 is an absolute pain or simply can not be done if it is not done at reset. I cant currently play with friends that do these on a daily basis because I don't have the gear or the AR which is a lot of gold to get. I don't know how one would go about making reasonable progress to T4 when most people never leave T4 and few are willing to go back to group with people that need progress. There is simply not enough people around for players like myself to make that progression and it is not rewarded otherwise.

>

 

Well that is easy since I've been doing exactly that on a second account. It is as simple as things get. You do the t1 dailies.

 

I stopped at at scale 39 since the only reason I was trying to progress in them is to get the pages faster for buying an ascended staff(this was a mistake, I crafted the marks before check what I needed).

 

AR is also not an absolute necessity. It is only applied in certain locations or by specific attacks so at least some of the AR can be dodged. Two of my friends sometimes play on characters without enough AR. Not surprisingly they can get downed pretty quick in some situations but we can still complete the fractals just fine.

 

You can join your friends for some higher level fractals and your friends can join you in the lower fractals. Your friends choosing not to help is your friends' choice, the game did not decide for them. If you can't count on your friends for help then who can you count on? Are you mislabeling acquaintances as friends? Acquaintances are not the same as friends. I can have a bus full of acquaintances who happen to take the same route at the same time as me but that doesn't mean we are friends.

 

Even without friends it is as simple as it gets since we are dealing with low level fractals. Either join a group if there is one or start one if there isn't.

 

> **WvW** - I have been wanting to play this with people I have met. However, most people I meet are from all different servers and it is very expensive to move servers, multiple friends would have to want to pay the fee to move to a new server. So it never happens and I can not play with the current group of friends I have. I have tried joining WvW guilds, but it mostly just seems like a hub for people that happen to be on the same server. I never made any friends through these. it is kind of odd for a MMO not to have a means to effectively play this mode with friends without high cost.

>

 

They are already working on alliances which addresses the server issue ...

 

"How to make friends" is not some that ANet can really fix though.

 

> **PvP** - I realize that there is ranked and unranked PvP and you can have 5 man groups on unranked. However, all the rewards are in ranked so naturally this is where everyone wants to be. Why on earth that ranked only allows you to take only one friend is beyond me. Especially considering how often you get people that rage and AFK because the match isn't going well. So I simply do not play this anymore, I find it an exercise in frustration more than fun. How much better this would be if I could play with a dependable team of friends.

>

 

Half the problems with PvP is because the population is too small. This is one of them. If there was actually a big enough population they could have a group queue and a solo/duo queue because 5 premade vs random group is a terrible idea.

 

 

[Etria.3642]

> @"Ludic.3781" said:

> I don't know if this is how anyone else but it seems like at every turn in every game mode there is always a barrier to being able to play with new people and meet and current friends. Its like after I reached level 80 and finished the story I needed to take on this daunting task of earning a lot of currency and am just unable to play with guilds I join or people I meet because of it. It seems very strange to me that an MMO like this one would have such barriers. Unless you are content with mindlessly doing meta events and things for gold you are pretty much done with the game. I posted the issues I am having with even being able to play the following game modes.

>

> **Fractals** - This seems like it would be the natural next step after finishing the story and wanting something more out of the game. However, starting from square one is incredibly difficult. Finding people to actually do any tier below t4 is an absolute pain or simply can not be done if it is not done at reset. I cant currently play with friends that do these on a daily basis because I don't have the gear or the AR which is a lot of gold to get. I don't know how one would go about making reasonable progress to T4 when most people never leave T4 and few are willing to go back to group with people that need progress. There is simply not enough people around for players like myself to make that progression and it is not rewarded otherwise.

>

 

I guess your friends aren't really friends then, because I can and do complete lower tier fractals for friends and guildies. They needn't even be the daily. Hey I need this for Dusk! Ok! And let's face it, you can RUN through tier 1 fractals, even with a brand new player and only a couple vets. I have also given away several +9 agony things so the person could do the slightly higher ones, and don't forget the tear of something that lets you bump up your agony slightly.

 

> **WvW** - I have been wanting to play this with people I have met. However, most people I meet are from all different servers and it is very expensive to move servers, multiple friends would have to want to pay the fee to move to a new server. So it never happens and I can not play with the current group of friends I have. I have tried joining WvW guilds, but it mostly just seems like a hub for people that happen to be on the same server. I never made any friends through these. it is kind of odd for a MMO not to have a means to effectively play this mode with friends without high cost.

 

You're looking for a group here backwards, which you didn't know, so here it is. Don't look for a group and THEN find out what server--go ahead and enter wvw, preferably your home borderland, preferably not on friday reset, and run with various tags, getting in voice. When you find a group you get along with, join their guild. Voila, a group you can run wvw with--and most that I have run with have amazing senses of humor. This doesn't help if you're really wanting to group with your friends from prior to this, but eventually there will be alliances and in the meantime, this is a good option.

>

> **PvP** - I realize that there is ranked and unranked PvP and you can have 5 man groups on unranked. However, all the rewards are in ranked so naturally this is where everyone wants to be. Why on earth that ranked only allows you to take only one friend is beyond me. Especially considering how often you get people that rage and AFK because the match isn't going well. So I simply do not play this anymore, I find it an exercise in frustration more than fun. How much better this would be if I could play with a dependable team of friends.

 

I do not pvp except kicking and screaming so I can't help you there.

>

> **Raids** - This is probably the most assessable end game content to me right now. Which just blows my mind both because in most games raids is the end of the end game content that are supposed to be the most challenging and the way people talk about not being able to do them. Yes, pugging them was certainly hopeless, but I found some really nice training guilds that have helped me make good progress and even obtain a few pieces of ascended. I am including this simply because these take a whole lot of planning, , practice, hours, and generally you must make yourself available to be able to play this. I find this insane that this was the easiest thing for me to get into because I did not need ascended gear to be taken on what is supposed to be the most difficult content in the game. It is actually a stepping stone on how I am going to get to play fractals. Raids should not be a stepping stone to the gear gate that is fractals.

 

Seems to me you're already playing with friends here.

>

> I know many people probably do not want to hear this and I read much about how great this game is but also how it has some serious problems. As from a player that's been playing for a few months. Anet has a really great game going, but it could be so much more. The gap between finishing the story content/reaching level 80 and end game is really really large and lonely experience. I can see why the two people I started the game with have quit and while I am here trying desperately to get on the level of friends I made that have been playing the game for years to just be able to participate with them.

>

> Please make It a bit more easier to play together with friends and community. It is the essential focus of MMOs.

 

I...really don't see why it is Anet's fault that your friends apparently don't want to play with you--they didn't tell you what server to pick, won't be bothered to go into a lower fractal, and won't pvp with you. Maybe you're in the wrong guilds? Not sure what to tell you.

[Trise.2865]

If these "people you meet in the game" have become your friends, then why not add them to your [Party](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Party "Party")? or your [Friends List](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contacts_and_LFG_panel "Friends List")? or invite them to [Join a Guild](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild "Join a Guild") with you (or ask to join theirs)?

 

Quite frankly, if they're not willing to play with you on a level you can enjoy... are they really your friends?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Trise.2865" said:

> Quite frankly, if they're not willing to play with you on a level you can enjoy... are they really your friends?

Not enjoying the same content doesn't make someone less of a friend.

 

That said, I agree with the first poster that the title is misleading. It's pretty easy to play GW2 with friends. It's also pretty easy to play with strangers. What can be difficult is finding friends who like the same sorts of things as you do, and are free during the same time periods. That's a life hack problem, not a GW2 problem.

 

[Lexi.1398]

Well, finding people for fractals is easy- i've never EVER had problems even at off-peak times, even with fractals that aren't daily/recs and even when both of those apply. If you find nothing in lfg- likely, a group posted there recently filled. Just post your own lfg. Also- seeing fractal progression parties isn't uncommon, fractal lfg often fills fast though at both t1 and t2, i assume the same is true for 3 and 4 too but i am still on 2 so i haven't myself witnessed it yet. Lots of people go down from t4 just to help strangers and friends alike.

[XYLO.7031]

Aside from the title of OP's post, I pretty much agree with all of what was said.

 

Fractals is completely vertical progression, not horizontal by any measure, and you have to grind AR to get the acceptable amount to survive T4 so that you're not just a useless pile of flesh on the ground waiting to be risen, awakened, forged, etc.

WvW I understand the issue too. I would like to add that even if you get into a server with all your buddies after all the gold and gems, there would be a long queue for the more popular servers and times.

PvP needs to implement a penalty system for AFKs like HotS or LoL that and to actually balance out the OP classes.

Raids I also agree that it's very accessible on paper since they tuned it for exotic equips, but in reality, it isn't because of required training, time allotted to do said training, schedule, groups willing to train w/out turning it into a job, gearing up for the group you're with (which isn't as difficult as fractals), etc. The fact that OP found a nice group is amazing. However, I would rather beetle around Tyria than be in Raids for hours, even if the raiders were nice.

[Amaranthe.3578]

You are correct on most points, its one of the main faults of GW2.

[Danikat.8537]

Are you aware of the Looking For Group tool? That's how I always find people for low level Fractals and I've never had trouble getting a group together. There's always someone willing to do it, whether it's for a daily, an achievement, a legendary collection or simply because they're trying to get their own Fractal level up. You may need to start a group (remember to specify which fractal you want to do) rather than waiting for someone else to advertise the one you want, but they fill up fairly quickly.

 

Admittedly that's not a way to get specific people to play with you, but if these people are your friends then I'd hope they'd be willing to help you because you're friends, and because it will enable you to join them in the content they're doing. Just like in real life - if a friend asks me to help them find some furniture for their new place I don't say "sorry I don't need to buy any furniture myself so I'm not coming", I do it to help my friend. And playing GW2 is a lot more fun than furniture shopping.

 

But also you can get ascended accessories from the laurel vendor without ever needing to go into Fractals, and then buy agony infusions off the Trading Post if you do want to skip ahead to higher tier Fractals.

 

For WvW I agree with @"Etria.3642" that you're doing it backwards. Go into WvW and look for commanders or squads, or simply groups of players to join and talk to them, you'll get to know them as you're playing and then you'll have your WvW group. Or look for guild adverts in WvW. (Alternatively wait for the Alliance update, which will remove servers from WvW and do it all based on your guild...but we don't know when that will be.)

 

I can't help with PvP I'm afraid, I've barely ever played it and not for years so I have no idea how it works.

[Vayne.8563]

Gee, I guess I must be doing it wrong. I play with people all the time, no matter how much gold I'm missing out on. I did T1 fractals twice this week with guildies who were just starting out.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

Playing progression games with friends is always difficult, if you or your friends aren't willing to "lose out" on progress.

 

Some measures are within the game design (like in fractals, dailies that are specific fractals at specific fractals.) Or daily quests that only appear for veterans that reward them for mentoring a low level character. And there are some redesigns that could help. Like, I suppose the fractal dailies could be entirely separate for each tier. But then in order to get all the rewards, players would need to do 4 times as many dailies. I doubt that would be popular. It would help with the popularity of lower fractals, but at the cost of more grinding out lower levels (less fun). PvP could have 5man teams, so that people can play with more friends, in ranked. At the cost of more imbalanced matches (probably).

 

Ofcourse, there are some measures you can take yourself.

In WvW, simply start playing, find a zerg and make new friends there. (Even though, free but time limited transfers could be nice. imo)

In PvP, you can play with 5 man teams in tournaments, this also has way more rewards. The down side it's only 4 times a day of course.

 

But the best solution really is, talk about it with your friends, if you don't have the AR, don't have the materials, then bring that into your friend circle or guild, be active and ask for help, while providing help when others need yours. Ignore that you aren't as good (if that's the case) and just being there when someone needs an extra hand is usually all you need to do. If playing with friends is that important, then you need to make a few sacrifices, like not progressing that fast, or not making as much money, and balancing that against what you get back from your friends.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Ludic.3781" said:

> **Fractals** - This seems like it would be the natural next step after finishing the story and wanting something more out of the game. However, starting from square one is incredibly difficult. Finding people to actually do any tier below t4 is an absolute pain or simply can not be done if it is not done at reset.

Gonna have to call Shenanigans on this one.

I never have a problem filling a team for t1 fractals. Especially at reset. I put up an LFG that says "newbies welcome, no AR needed" and I make sure to briefly explain the mechanics of the given fractal. I have never waited for than 7-8 minutes. Teams fill even faster at reset. It's unfortunate that you felt the need to hyperbolize and paint a false picture here, because otherwise you have one or two valid points in your post.

 

[Turkeyspit.3965]

I've run Fractals with guildmates in T1, T2, T3 or T4, even on days where I've already done the T4 dailies. You still get encryptions and some relics, and on lower tiers, it gives an opportunity to play alt characters and different builds.

 

My only criticism of group content in GW2 is how heart progress only applies to people who have tagged the target NPCs. In a game like WoW, if I'm on a quest with a friend, any mob I kill count towards the quest for both players, which then means grouping up can actually speed up the process. In GW2 you can run beside a party member, but if you have longer range, better AoE or just higher burst, you might delete your target before your companion has a chance to tag them.

 

I see this regularly when I play alongside my wife (who just finished her Griffon), and really is a stark contrast to every other MMO I've played, where doing quests in a group is usually faster and more fun.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> I've run Fractals with guildmates in T1, T2, T3 or T4, even on days where I've already done the T4 dailies. You still get encryptions and some relics, and on lower tiers, it gives an opportunity to play alt characters and different builds.

>

> My only criticism of group content in GW2 is how heart progress only applies to people who have tagged the target NPCs. In a game like WoW, if I'm on a quest with a friend, any mob I kill count towards the quest for both players, which then means grouping up can actually speed up the process. In GW2 you can run beside a party member, but if you have longer range, better AoE or just higher burst, you might delete your target before your companion has a chance to tag them.

>

Ofcourse, in WoW it's 100% participation to anyone in the same party (I guess? I dont actually play it), whereas in GW2 anyone (party or not) can technically kill the MOB together, which might simple not work with level 80s in low level zones in practice. But interactables generally are plenty, or phased.

It's rather interesting to think about how the parties in GW2 have no effect on your progression at all. I think it would be nice to have the additional party heart progress sharing on top of the social system GW2 has. I always felt that GW2 lacked that bit of incentive to play within a party, or with friends, where some things are simply 100% solo, and don't mesh well with doing it with a friend. You're always doing it more alongside a friend in most cases, missing out on that teamwork. Might be something to do with personal goals, and basically making certain things too easy, even though scaling is also a thing in GW2. (maybe something GW2 could have in the future. idk)

 

 

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > I've run Fractals with guildmates in T1, T2, T3 or T4, even on days where I've already done the T4 dailies. You still get encryptions and some relics, and on lower tiers, it gives an opportunity to play alt characters and different builds.

> >

> > My only criticism of group content in GW2 is how heart progress only applies to people who have tagged the target NPCs. In a game like WoW, if I'm on a quest with a friend, any mob I kill count towards the quest for both players, which then means grouping up can actually speed up the process. In GW2 you can run beside a party member, but if you have longer range, better AoE or just higher burst, you might delete your target before your companion has a chance to tag them.

> >

> Ofcourse, in WoW it's 100% participation to anyone in the same party (I guess? I dont actually play it), whereas in GW2 anyone (party or not) can technically kill the MOB together, which might simple not work with level 80s in low level zones in practice. But interactables generally are plenty, or phased.

> It's rather interesting to think about how the parties in GW2 have no effect on your progression at all. I think it would be nice to have the additional party heart progress sharing on top of the social system GW2 has. I always felt that GW2 lacked that bit of incentive to play within a party, or with friends, where some things are simply 100% solo, and don't mesh well with doing it with a friend. You're always doing it more alongside a friend in most cases, missing out on that teamwork. Might be something to do with personal goals, and basically making certain things too easy, even though scaling is also a thing in GW2. (maybe something GW2 could have in the future. idk)

>

>

 

In WoW yes it is (or at least was?) 100% participation , which meant you could get someone to "run you through" places or quests. But the point is, you gained something from being in a party, even after WoW adopted GW2's tagging system (before if you tagged something another player had already tagged, you didn't get credit unless you were in their group) made it so you didn't have to party up to avoid hitting "greyed mobs".

 

But in GW2 you get zero benefit for joining a party to do heart completion, and you're forced to control your DPS to avoid killing something before your party member tags it, or otherwise head in different directions so as to target different npcs. It's very counter intuitive.

 

I get how adopting a WoW style system would be abused in metas, but if it only applied to heart completion or dynamic events, who cares?

 

Honestly, this bugged me from day 1 when my wife started GW2 and we formed a party, like we've done in every other MMO we've played together.

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> in GW2 you get zero benefit for joining a party to do heart completion,

I don't see it as a problem; I see it as a benefit. It's the one thing you have to do on your own in open world.

 

> you're forced to control your DPS to avoid killing something before your party member tags it

That sounds to me like something that could be resolved by working on the scaling. Some hearts have too few mobs for multiple people to complete (in or out of party). And some hearts have too few alternative ways to complete: imo, there should always be 2-3 ways minimum.

 

 

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > @"FrizzFreston.5290" said:

> > > @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > > I've run Fractals with guildmates in T1, T2, T3 or T4, even on days where I've already done the T4 dailies. You still get encryptions and some relics, and on lower tiers, it gives an opportunity to play alt characters and different builds.

> > >

> > > My only criticism of group content in GW2 is how heart progress only applies to people who have tagged the target NPCs. In a game like WoW, if I'm on a quest with a friend, any mob I kill count towards the quest for both players, which then means grouping up can actually speed up the process. In GW2 you can run beside a party member, but if you have longer range, better AoE or just higher burst, you might delete your target before your companion has a chance to tag them.

> > >

> > Ofcourse, in WoW it's 100% participation to anyone in the same party (I guess? I dont actually play it), whereas in GW2 anyone (party or not) can technically kill the MOB together, which might simple not work with level 80s in low level zones in practice. But interactables generally are plenty, or phased.

> > It's rather interesting to think about how the parties in GW2 have no effect on your progression at all. I think it would be nice to have the additional party heart progress sharing on top of the social system GW2 has. I always felt that GW2 lacked that bit of incentive to play within a party, or with friends, where some things are simply 100% solo, and don't mesh well with doing it with a friend. You're always doing it more alongside a friend in most cases, missing out on that teamwork. Might be something to do with personal goals, and basically making certain things too easy, even though scaling is also a thing in GW2. (maybe something GW2 could have in the future. idk)

> >

> >

>

> In WoW yes it is (or at least was?) 100% participation , which meant you could get someone to "run you through" places or quests. But the point is, you gained something from being in a party, even after WoW adopted GW2's tagging system (before if you tagged something another player had already tagged, you didn't get credit unless you were in their group) made it so you didn't have to party up to avoid hitting "greyed mobs".

>

> But in GW2 you get zero benefit for joining a party to do heart completion, and you're forced to control your DPS to avoid killing something before your party member tags it, or otherwise head in different directions so as to target different npcs. It's very counter intuitive.

>

> I get how adopting a WoW style system would be abused in metas, but if it only applied to heart completion or dynamic events, who cares?

>

> Honestly, this bugged me from day 1 when my wife started GW2 and we formed a party, like we've done in every other MMO we've played together.

>

 

I am not seeing how a "one person does the work while 5 people get the benefit" system is supposed to be beneficial to the game.