If you're going to add more raids, fix elitism first

Raids are a huge chunk of content which is not played by the majority of the player base due to elitism. Not due to difficulty but due to the psychology surrounding others who play it. Anet must do something to address exclusionary elitist attitudes before they release anymore raids, otherwise they are just making content that the majority will not play, and subsequently, will feel bitter about, when they think that the time spent developing raids, could have been better spent developing other content.

I dont know what the solution is personally, perhaps an auto grouping feature, perhaps lowering raid difficulty or introducing different difficulty levels for raids so people are less exclusionary. Adding different versions of the raid that can be done in 5 man dungeon groups, or perhaps retool fights to be less about dps races or requiring specific classes w/specific abilities. The problem is not the raids themselves (or even the difficulty) but with players inability to come together and form a group. Plz anet do something.

In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

Let's face it: If it has numbers, someone going to minmax it. And if it's minmaxed, someone will come along and decide that that's the only way to do things.

Auto grouping, if I understand the concept correctly, will just make those angry people leave a group they think isn't good enough - while ranting - and find a new one which they'll rant about too, more angry the second time around. Or they'll rant until the others leave - can't waste what progress has been made, after all. Lowering difficulty will make elitists angry because the devs listened to the whiners (paraphrased, not how I'd phrase it). Making raids suitable for groups of five won't change how those groups are treated (I don't play dungeons or fractals with people I don't know, but I'm reasonably sure that people who do face elitsts too). Every pve fight will always be about dps unless they make a gimmick that then inevitably will be minmaxed in a different way.

I can sort of see where these people are coming from: They feel their time is wasted if something takes a bit longer than they think it ought to. I personally don't feel that way, but I can see why people would, especially nowadays where work is about efficiency. That pressure and the fact that most don't like to feel like they just lost leads to anger and elitism. ANet can't change that, no matter what they do. Sorry.

You can't fix people. The only way to do so is to remove any uniqness between professions and basically make everyone play guardian.

Everyone has a right to play in the group they choose, and that includes asking for only meta comps, you are free to avoid these groups if you dont like them. Just make you own.

Metas will always exist, in every single game, as long as you have to deal damage to kill a boss.

If there are large numbers of people who want to do raids but don't want to group with elitists you just need to write "LFM newbie run, let's just figure it out and have fun," elitists won't join that group and you're fine. Create a guild or friendlist annotation and start collecting people you enjoy grouping with. You have all the tools you need to avoid the elitists, you just don't use them - which makes me question your sincerity.

Also a company cannot "fix" a piece of human nature, unless they develop weapons or drugs or provide lobotomies (which Anet doesn't - I think).

The easiest way to fix it is a round about way. Non-Elitist should form more and frequent parties. Quite simply put the way to fix it is through the community..I myself have played Both GW 1 and 2 since their begins. I have yet to even enter a raid do to the elitism. I look at the LFG just to see if it's changing, yet I never see any other sorts of groups ...Only we can fix it..

Let's assume that 10% of GW2 players completed raids, though it won't be the truth.Then we do have 90% players who didn't.

Let's assume also that 90% players complain about the fact that 10% players tend to be elitists.Even if so, you with the 90% of GW2 are allowed to play together, make your own team, and clear the raid however you want.

But here's the bitter truth.Players which are part of this 90% group have no idea how to play content.They don't try to set up a party, and sometimes they don't read guides or watch videos in order to learn the strategy.

The problems are not the elitists, but those who put blame on them.Nobody want to carry em, and they don't want to make an effort in order to create a party and make a try with it.

Also, as zombyturtle said

Metas will always exist, in every single game, as long as you have to deal damage to kill a boss.

Which is the truth.

At last, if though you have the build and the class nobody wants you due to missing LI, try to find a guild, a group of players using chat or forum, o simply to make up your own party. It's full of players who would like to raid.

Easy solution: make your own groups (or join groups of non elitists) or better yet, find a guild which shares your values with friendly people who get along with.

You will never have to deal with elitists ever again, and the best part is, both sides get to enjoy the game the way they want.

Anet, nor anyone else, can force a good or bad attitude on someone. If you want to raid without having to join elitists (and I don't blame) perhaps try looking for a guild who raids casually. They do exist.

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

Wrong. This attitude sprung up as of a result of how unforgiving raid encounters are: they are designed around one mistake resulting in a group wipe, and time limits/stages that demands the highest DPS possible to get around them (Gorseval comes to mind, for example).

People aren't inherently jerks by default.

@Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:Raids are a huge chunk of content which is not played by the majority of the player base due to elitism. Not due to difficulty but due to the psychology surrounding others who play it. Anet must do something to address exclusionary elitist attitudes before they release anymore raids, otherwise they are just making content that the majority will not play, and subsequently, will feel bitter about, when they think that the time spent developing raids, could have been better spent developing other content.

I dont know what the solution is personally, perhaps an auto grouping feature, perhaps lowering raid difficulty or introducing different difficulty levels for raids so people are less exclusionary. Adding different versions of the raid that can be done in 5 man dungeon groups, or perhaps retool fights to be less about dps races or requiring specific classes w/specific abilities. The problem is not the raids themselves (or even the difficulty) but with players inability to come together and form a group. Plz anet do something.

people will always try and optimize things, if you dont like that dont go to raids and stop complaining. most exp raiders go with pre set teams and evade pugs anyway so lfg auto tool wont change that, wow has that same thing. if you cant stand the raid psychology dont involve yourself with raids same as for cms in fractals i have 180+ essences now and i personaly wont play cms with anyone lower bellow 100, my choice and no one can change that, since i dont want to play with players who didnt do it daily or who only did it a few times why would i waste my time.

DBM, fixing raid mechanics, making fights less more DPS is best dps, etc, would all be relative solutions. The actual content requires you to know what you're doing.

Take Vale Guardian: It was 20-30 attempts before I could even begin to see the blue circles due to all of the mechanics that covered them. It's still hard to see blue with all the AoE...

Green circles you don't know when they are going to blow up easily so you can't raid CD them easily.

The red spheres in my experience are very ineffectively dealt with. It's a mechanic that can be dealt with by limited classes effectively, with CDs, in stances that don't always line up (glyph of concentration forces weapon swaps on mesmers, rangers can entangle but that leaves them in place, eles have to swap stances to knock back... Pretty much all of which requires GCDs to be burned on a mechanic that's already killed your team because of a bad spawn or rotation requirements).

If the enrage timer wasn't brutal it could also help.

This is the intro boss. The first boss should usually be relatively easy to complete so that a guild or group can get a taste of raiding and at least kill something every week.

@Lunarlife.5128 said:DBM, fixing raid mechanics, making fights less more DPS is best dps, etc, would all be relative solutions. The actual content requires you to know what you're doing.

Take Vale Guardian: It was 20-30 attempts before I could even begin to see the blue circles due to all of the mechanics that covered them. It's still hard to see blue with all the AoE...

Green circles you don't know when they are going to blow up easily so you can't raid CD them easily.

The red spheres in my experience are very ineffectively dealt with. It's a mechanic that can be dealt with by limited classes effectively, with CDs, in stances that don't always line up (glyph of concentration forces weapon swaps on mesmers, rangers can entangle but that leaves them in place, eles have to swap stances to knock back... Pretty much all of which requires GCDs to be burned on a mechanic that's already killed your team because of a bad spawn or rotation requirements).

If the enrage timer wasn't brutal it could also help.

This is the intro boss. The first boss should usually be relatively easy to complete so that a guild or group can get a taste of raiding and at least kill something every week.

i dont want to be rude but if you need 30 attempts to see the blue circles raiding is not for you.

20-30 attempts to remove error chance of getting hit by blue 100% as the tank so the boss doesn't move. I was in training groups or guild groups as well. This was also done over the course of a couple days. I now have about 8-10 Vale Guardian kills over the past 3 weeks.

Alongside a lot of attempts.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

Elitism has been in the game since the very beginning when dungeons were popular content.

@zombyturtle.5980 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

I've been playing since launch. I was there during the hayday of dungeon popularity. Of course there was some elitisim involved, but not anywhere near to what we see with raids. Dungeons were almost always a friendly romp. Mostly because they were kinda revolutionary in the way they didn't rely on traditional MMORPG mechanics like needing a tank and healer and all that.

Raids unfortunately are a gigantic leap backwards from that, and as a result they have created this upheaval of elitism. As I said, it is a result of raids being the way they are and not because people are jerks.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@zombyturtle.5980 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

Yes, that's why the forums were full of complaints about the "zerker meta", lfg being full with achievement point demands or things like "exp, zerk, 80".

That's your rose tinted glasses. Elitism existed and has existed in every single game the moment something which gives rewards can be completed faster.

I have a very strong feeling we have the most welcoming raiding community in the industry. GW2 is a casual friendly game where people like to help eachother. There's training groups with thousands and thousands of people in them. I participate in PuG (not discord) training raids many times a week and see zero elitism. I also do guild runs that don't have any elitism either.

Why would anyone pug the raids? They were not meant to be pugged. Join a guild. Guildies aren't elitist to each other usually.

Dear Anet, fix human nature, k thanks.

You can't fix elitism because it exists in any difficult content in any game with group content. This is not a game problem, it's a problem with human nature.

I proposed to add a new more flexible difficulty so that finally all kinds of players can enjoy the content.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/17527/more-flexible-raids#latest

In the WoW, for example, there are 4 types of difficulties and each one fits a profile of players:

LFG: this version is for new players, those looking to equip Alters and also for a very small community of people who do not like to do Raid directly but do not want to miss the Lore that is in it (as each Raid is related to the Lore of the expansion), basically the bosses are a bag of HP.

Normal: For people who want to make raid but with an "easy" difficulty (mostly those who do not have much time to enjoy the game but do not want to lose part of the content), they introduce the mechanics of each boss without much difficulty.

Heroic: here the elitism begins, although it seems to be easy, playing with more than 10 strangers is not so much. already thought for people who seek a slight challenge, the bosses already present more polished mechanics but continue to "forgive" if you make mistakes in any.

Mythical: the elite of the elite, is thinking for people who are fully organized (addons, voice chat, statistics, etc etc etc), it is even a competition to see which guild first finishes the content. In this difficulty, any player who fails in any mechanics ruins the whole fight.

I just ask you to add a difficulty like "Normal" (since I think the current difficulty is almost mythic), at this moment there are many people who are missing the content and especially the Lore that contains the Raids.

I think adding a new, more flexible difficulty would be more inclusive for the players, so people who do not enjoy this content because of their high demand would have more things to do each week.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@zombyturtle.5980 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

No, but I'm flipping the tables on you asking that perhaps you're seeing it through the opposite of rose-tinted glasses and focusing too much on the percieved elitisim on the forums and ignoring the in-game casual atmosphere in dungeons etc.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@zombyturtle.5980 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

Oh I remember dungeons just fine. I participated in every type of dungeon run back then both speed clears as well as chilled out normal clears.

The elitism which was perceived was the same as the elitism perceived with raids right now. Most often than not from people who either tried playing with players who had different priorities or who had 0 experience with the content and were complaining about not being able to join in essentially having no idea what they are talking about.

The same happened and is happening with fractals.

Elitism has not changed and players have not changed. It is perfectly possible to enjoy GW2 without ever having to deal with elitists AND complete all the content in the game. That though requires some initiative (and always has required this initiative) by an individual in form of either:

• creating their own groupsand/or
• joining a guild with like minded players.

@"Jumpin Lumpix.6108" said:Raids are a huge chunk of content which is not played by the majority of the player base due to elitism. Not due to difficulty but due to the psychology surrounding others who play it. Anet must do something to address exclusionary elitist attitudes before they release anymore raids, otherwise they are just making content that the majority will not play, and subsequently, will feel bitter about, when they think that the time spent developing raids, could have been better spent developing other content.

I dont know what the solution is personally, perhaps an auto grouping feature, perhaps lowering raid difficulty or introducing different difficulty levels for raids so people are less exclusionary. Adding different versions of the raid that can be done in 5 man dungeon groups, or perhaps retool fights to be less about dps races or requiring specific classes w/specific abilities. The problem is not the raids themselves (or even the difficulty) but with players inability to come together and form a group. Plz anet do something.

That's like saying if you want a new pvp season fix trashtalking first...

If you want to fix elitism, fix whatever is wrong with people who keep asking for everything to be nerfed, as we've seen these past few months.Also fix players who lie about their skill, have 0 communication skills and have their whole squad waste time on them.

People like you don't seem to get it, the problem isn't elitism, it's a difference of philosophy about gaming in general. "elitists" don't blame people for needing to learn, they blame people who want to get their stuff but who won't bother trying to learn, and will lie about it.Raids require dedication, it's the top 1 quality one will need for raids. Raiders know that, and actually LIKE it. If you don't think your time is worth the hours of dedication, raids aren't for you, plain and simple.Of course there's always kitten people, but a game can't fix it. They're far, far from the majority of raiders though.

@Kheldorn.5123 said:You can't fix people.^^this and...

@Kheldorn.5123 said:The only way to do so is to remove any uniqness between professions and basically make everyone play guardian.Guardians are great, could totally live with that solution ;)

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@tairneanach.8427 said:In order to fix elitism they'd have to change the elitists, not the game.

Not all people, but there are plenty who were jerks long before they ever came to GW2. This attitude has been around since multiplayer gaming exists.

This community may be friendlier than others, but I think what you're seeing is a distillation, not a recent change. What I mean is that, yes, a lot of people don't play raids. Those that do tend to want to play optimally, and when things don't work out while they worked hard, they get angry. Maybe they're more competitive, too - I don't know. More people used to do dungeons, so there'd be comparatively less of those players and you'd perceive dungeon runs as being more relaxed because there were more relaxed players around.

Basically I think you got it the wrong way round: It's not raids that make elitists, it's elitists with their high goals that play raids more than others.