You can't fix the drive that creates elitism.

Full stop.

The only thing you can do, is allow the "elite" community a place for it to remain as insular as it wants.

As for the complaints posed by endgame casual players that have valid complaints of toxicity....

• LFG : so, yes people ignore what it says in LFG. Causals join EXP only runs, get kicked and have a bad time. Experienced players join casual runs, kick the casuals and take over half completed instances. it seems as though people don't read the LFG, and the 'vote kick' feature causes griefing. Make the party leader have squad leader controls, and either side of our duality can't kick the other. Now the people who joined the person who started the group, (and thus, was willing to wait) have to abide by what they intended to do.
• Fractals and Dungeons : make all mobs agro leashes infinite. Add rewards for killing all the mobs in a given instance. skipping, as a concept invariably leaves the casual player behind, making the four "experienced" players hypocritically wait, because they don't want to waste time helping the casual skip the mobs even if the boss takes much longer to kill with only four. Removing skipping as a viable play style in this kind of content, will remove this type of suffering. (the point of speed running is to clear the content as fast as it can be cleared. Making it slower, and simultaneously more rewarding, cancels most of the hate from this change.)
• Titles : titles should be hidden, unless the party or raid leader clicks on the checkbox for allow titles or even requires title (x) to join. the reasoning here, is that some "elitist" players are willing to wait 2 and a half hours to have a raid group fill up with people who all have 250 legendary insights and the title for clearing that raid naked with one hand behind your back.... If that's what they're into, they should be allowed to do this. Having options to allow for the party/raid leader to show(exp) or hide (casual) titles can prevent suffering... Based on the preferences of the group leader who was willing to wait to play the way they want.

I don't claim this fixes everything, not even close. But it's a few things that help everyone, elitist or casual alike. And it helps to mend the schism in our community.

If anyone has and constructive ideas that can actually help, (other than "use LFG, get your own group!" argument we've all heard before.) please add then to the discussion.

This post was intended to skip that sort of tiresome drudgery, and suggest things that actually make difference in the schism, without cutting the legs out from under either group.

The idea here, in a nutshell is:

what systems can be changed, to allow for least toxic environment, while minimizing the backlash from players?

You don't have to change any system to stop toxicity.

You just have to get players out of the entitlement mindset where-in they think that just because they paid for the product that everyone in it is their personal butler.

Changing someone's mindset doesn't work. Behavioral science 101. You have to change circumstances, and predict the fallout.

Saying "we just have to change thier minds" is like saying "we just have to make them into different people."

Much easier to edit the causes of toxicity, so that the behavior of the player base has to be non-toxic.

I understand this is (practically) impossible, and would require a rotation of regular patches from Anet... But sense were wishing here.

You can't force selfish players to be helpful but you can create situations which selfish players can benefit others. It just so happen it occurs in the past but not currently with the many thoughtless changes.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:You can't fix the drive that creates elitism.

Full stop.

The only thing you can do, is allow the "elite" community a place for it to remain as insular as it wants.

As for the complaints posed by endgame casual players that have valid complaints of toxicity....

• LFG : so, yes people ignore what it says in LFG. Causals join EXP only runs, get kicked and have a bad time. Experienced players join casual runs, kick the casuals and take over half completed instances. it seems as though people don't read the LFG, and the 'vote kick' feature causes griefing. Make the party leader have squad leader controls, and either side of our duality can't kick the other. Now the people who joined the person who started the group, (and thus, was willing to wait) have to abide by what they intended to do.

Besides party leaders being able to abuse the system and kick people say right before the end of a fractal or dungeon and then sell the other 4 spots or invite friends, sure let's give party leaders the same power as squad leaders.

Or, people could just read what is asked for in the LFG/LFM. I do agree, a better designed or clearer LFG window/tab would go a long way.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

• Fractals and Dungeons : make all mobs agro leashes infinite. Add rewards for killing all the mobs in a given instance. skipping, as a concept invariably leaves the casual player behind, making the four "experienced" players hypocritically wait, because they don't want to waste time helping the casual skip the mobs even if the boss takes much longer to kill with only four. Removing skipping as a viable play style in this kind of content, will remove this type of suffering. (the point of speed running is to clear the content as fast as it can be cleared. Making it slower, and simultaneously more rewarding, cancels most of the hate from this change.)

I'm pretty sure most new fractals are designed without skips in mind or minimal skips possible. This is a non issue for fractals mostly where mechanics in high tier fractals will be of a way greater issue to an inexperienced player than catching up to the group.

Dungeons, who cares? Get some buddies and steam roll them. This is a MMO after all and this content is so far below the current gear and skill level.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

• Titles : titles should be hidden, unless the party or raid leader clicks on the checkbox for allow titles or even requires title (x) to join. the reasoning here, is that some "elitist" players are willing to wait 2 and a half hours to have a raid group fill up with people who all have 250 legendary insights and the title for clearing that raid naked with one hand behind your back.... If that's what they're into, they should be allowed to do this. Having options to allow for the party/raid leader to show(exp) or hide (casual) titles can prevent suffering... Based on the preferences of the group leader who was willing to wait to play the way they want.

What? Where are you getting this nonsense? No raid party waits 2 hours on anyone. First off, most raids requiring anything sub 400 LI will fill up within seconds to minutes depending on what you are looking for. The amount of people available with this many LI after this long a time is huge enough. The only exceptions being very special high demand and high responsibility raid positions like Deimos tank, handkiter, orb kiter at KC, etc.If spots do not fill up within minutes, the LI requirement gets reduced. The only exception here might be setting up a 400-500 LI group on a saturday or Sunday when most dedicated raiders already have their full clears for the week.

You do understand that a squad leader sets up a LFM and every person who joins will likely fulfill the requirement asked for (or get kicked by the squad leader). It's seldom the squad or members get to decide who stays or gets kicked but usually the squad leader who is in charge. Hiding titles does nothing. You can just as well show a different title or no title at all. If the squad leader asks for the title, you will have to show it either way.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:I don't claim this fixes everything, not even close. But it's a few things that help everyone, elitist or casual alike. And it helps to mend the schism in our community.

I'm sorry to say but your suggestions read exactly as something someone would write which has 0 experience with the issue he is writing about.

I'm reminded of that Black Adder episode (Black Adder the first , I think it was) where he falls in love with a girl who is disguised as a boy but he doesn't know she's a girl and he seeks out an old hag for advice on how to handle the affair which will be scandalous to him.

The hag replies with something like, Option 1: Kill yourself, Option 2: kill the boy, Option 3:.... kill everyone else.

Of course, Black Adder didn't went with Option 4: discovering she's a girl.

The moral of the story is... maybe the answer is getting to know people. It's harder for elitism to fester if people see each other as equals rather than faceless pugs.

How do you apply that advice to this game? Beats me. I'm just the ideas man. Somebody else can take it from here.

@Zoltar MacRoth.7146 said:I'm reminded of that Black Adder episode (Black Adder the first , I think it was) where he falls in love with a girl who is disguised as a boy but he doesn't know she's a girl and he seeks out an old kitten for advice on how to handle the affair which will be scandalous to him.

The kitten replies with something like, Option 1: Kill yourself, Option 2: kill the boy, Option 3:.... kill everyone else.

Of course, Black Adder didn't went with Option 4: discovering she's a girl.

The moral of the story is... maybe the answer is getting to know people. It's harder for elitism to fester if people see each other as equals rather than faceless pugs.

How do you apply that advice to this game? Beats me. I'm just the ideas man. Somebody else can take it from here.

Join a guild and make friends.

I know, I know, an insane thing to ask of people playing a MMO but here I was just having a random thought.

Since you really can't change people, there are generally two options to minimize the impact of toxic behaviour.First is to make the basis for it irrelevant. If the restrictive and non-restrictive groups have the same chance of finishing the content, in a reasonably comparable time, then you can just ignore toxic people and let them separate themselves out of the game. Unfortunately, that works only in relatively easy types of contentAlternatively, you can try to make it so those two groups of people will not meet, by not making the content where toxic people tend to congregate appealing to everyone else.I don't really see any other options than those two.

Cyninja, I'll spare the thread the full breakdown to requoting, and crystallize a few thoughts here.

First, the places where we agree, you already pointed them out, and I appreciate that. But you contradict yourself pretty badly here.

"Besides party leaders being able to abuse the system and kick people say right before the end of a fractal or dungeon and then sell the other 4 spots or invite friends, sure let's give party leaders the same power as squad leaders..."..."You do understand that a squad leader sets up a LFM and every person who joins will likely fulfill the requirement asked for (or get kicked by the squad leader). It's seldom the squad or members get to decide who stays or gets kicked but usually the squad leader who is in charge..."

So... It's a viable solution for 10 man content.... Where we do in fact see people selling raids all the bloody time. But when applied to 5 man content it's rife for abuse... Where we don't currently see people selling groups.

So... If that squad leader powers allow for abuse that leads to selling groups.... Clearly that needs a fix of its own, which I don't have an answer for...

Why you ask?

I don't claim this fixes everything, not even close. But it's a few things that help everyone, elitist or casual alike. And it helps to mend the schism in our community.

Why are you meeting my attempts to suggest a fix with hostility? I'm not a dev, I can't make shit happen. Just throwing it out there bro. Sorry my exaggeration of time waiting for a group in an otherwise completely non-serious paragraph drove you to feel like I needed to be taken down a peg.

sigh

Simple solution for alot of casual players: add a story mode, seriously, just add a story mode with much easier difficulty and alot of the complaints go away, the elite version is unchanged and the story mode is there for the casual players, or people that don't have 9 friends so that they can experience the story and the mechanics

@thewaterguy.4796 said:Simple solution for alot of casual players: add a story mode, seriously, just add a story mode with much easier difficulty and alot of the complaints go away, the elite version is unchanged and the story mode is there for the casual players, or people that don't have 9 friends so that they can experience the story and the mechanics

Not a bad idea. This does help those casual gamers that just want to chill. It doesn't help the people who want to break into raiding. I'd love to see both of our suggestions implemented.

Most people's problem with elitism is the interogation they get trying to enter groups and the feeling of inadequacy that comes with it. Whilest I don't have any problem with your "solutions" (I think you might get some complaints from the Dungeon lovers) I cannot see them dealing with any of the complaints. Raids you basically haven't changed, Dungeons will now require harsher scrutiny due to the more difficult environment you're advocating for and no one uses titles except to prove you've completed something (which seems a perfectly reasonable request to make and your change will result in arguments or nothing changing - ie. don't show it? kick).

you are asking anet to fix the behaviour of other players, everyone is free to play how he or she wants, if i want to make 120+ essences only parties for daily fractals and kick every scrub who doesnt have enough i can and i do every day, and i dont need anet to come and fix my behaviour because that is not their job in the first place. so my advice is make your own party and stop whining.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@thewaterguy.4796 said:Simple solution for alot of casual players: add a story mode, seriously, just add a story mode with much easier difficulty and alot of the complaints go away, the elite version is unchanged and the story mode is there for the casual players, or people that don't have 9 friends so that they can experience the story and the mechanics

im not against a story mode but you cant get any rewards from it or there would be no point in harder mode.

La la dodo

I think it's pretty elitist to presume one knows how to fix elitism....

@MarkoNS.3261 said:

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@thewaterguy.4796 said:Simple solution for alot of casual players: add a story mode, seriously, just add a story mode with much easier difficulty and alot of the complaints go away, the elite version is unchanged and the story mode is there for the casual players, or people that don't have 9 friends so that they can experience the story and the mechanics

And when you remove the rewards you remove the replay value, so it is basically dead when it gets released.

Ohhh boy another elitism post, so let me explain why elitism will not be gone any time soon and why is not only as simple as its the players behavior and if we implements theses changes it will get fixed .

first off elitism is a balance problem not a behavior problem, right now if you want to do a Raid you have 4 option, you can be tank.... but hey not any tank, you have to be chrono tank with commander set and zerker trinkets (or any variation of that that is currently meta). Second option you can be healer, any healer? nop you have only one real option druid healer, you can try tempest but that's not gonna work all the time. Third option, banner slave warrior because well the buff are absolutely needed. The last option, DPS but you better be prepare because you have to compete against 60% of the raid population that want to fill that role so you better have 5 years experience, solo fractal lvl 100, 500 LI and DPS of 40K..... blunt exaggeration but you get the idea.

So how is this a balance problem? well in any other mmorpg the tank is a damage sponge that just sits there while the healer keeps him alive and the dps just kill the boss, in guild wars that mechanic change, the tank is not a damage sponge, the tank has to use skill to keep himself alive with the support of the healer while at the same time keep and eye on mechanics, kite, support the rest of the party, etc. normally the role of the tank is important but guild wars extrapolate that role to the point that out 27 possible different professions only one can do it efficiently enough, why? well chrono has invu, blocks, wells, etc basically not only can keep himself alive it also provide a lot of support for the party and not any support but alacrity reducing cooldown for all close dps, now lets assume i build a guardian tank and i can keep myself alive same as chrono with lets say knight equipment, would any group take me? no, they wont and they shouldn't because i will not bring anything more that what the chrono or the rest of the party is bringing to the raid so in the 27 options there is no better or equal option to tank than a chrono, that reduces the poll of player that can tank or want to tank by a huge amount! and it only get reduce even more by only allowing a specific set of gear to tank (out of all the equipment in guild wars, all of the stat only one can tank end game). The same happens to the healer in the roster of 27 option only one can do a good job and the rest are not equal not better and not even close. Dps on the other hand you have like 17 option between gear and profession that can do the job.

That leave a huge pressure on the player base, you have a very small group of people that meet the requirements for tanks and healers then you need 2 tanks, 2 healers, 2 banner slave and 4 dps for every raid (usually), out of 10 spot we have 4 (again usually) that can vary so those 4 must be the best of the best because we have a huge pool of player to choose from and not only that but most raid boss are built to be a DPS check so we need huge numbers there.

In any other mmorpg you have different choices of roles, you want to speed run you can take X tank with X healer, you want a normal run take Y tank with Z healer, etc. This expand the player poll for every roll by a lot, elitism will always exist but like the name implies it should be a small very dedicated groups of player that want to minimize the amount of time in the raid by maximizing damage and risk.

Now lets assume and ideal world where out of the 27 option 7 can tank, and 4 can heal, for each of those option each one can vary equipment and builds! and they all bring something to the raid that will help the team, if you have a firebrand tank with a engineer healer (imagine that xD), you have lets say massive protection and heal that allow the team to focus on more dps than the mechanics but it will require the team to have top dps because those guys cant keep that support the for huge amounts of time or you can have a herald tank and a herald healer, you don't get the massive protection and heal but they can keep that support for days! so team now has to pay a little bit more attentions to the mechanics. Now you could have a huge amount of team and classes that can be decent for raids.

But that will not happens mainly because they will have to balance each class and also the raids, they will have to make raids and ability check not a dps check (whats the difference? ability check think dark souls if you go full dps the fight get harder but short, go full defense you can make more mistakes but the fight is longer in either case you need to learn the boss and as long as he doesn't kill you there is have chance. Dps check simply means the longer you fight the harder it gets so you want to end the thing fast! enrage, limited stages on a fight, no revives, the entire arena fill with attacks that one shot you, one shots in general, etc. Make the fight a dps check instead of an ability check) as you can guess that takes a lot of work and time from the balancing team and raid team plus a mayor rework to a lot of skill, boons( alacrity and banners we are looking at you) and professions so don't hold your breath.

So back to the point it doesn't matter what change you made to help with the elitism behavior, it will not get fixed because at the end of the day there is not enough people filling the roles needed to raid so the ones that can fill them want the rest of the team to be the best.

You want to raid easy? build yourself a chrono tank get a druid friend and advertise "training run" on the LFG you will have a full team in less that 10 minutes and everyone single one of them will listen to your every request because they cant effort to lose the two main roles, hell they will even allow you to learn the fights and if you manage to kill the boss they will add you as friends and after a while of doing that you will start picking the guys that gave YOU a better run like the guys that had a mirage that can do 40K dps.

Wow that was a lot of text for a simple comment, to anyone that read that you rock, to anyone that disagrees i do hope a equally large wall of text as a counter point xD.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Cyninja, I'll spare the thread the full breakdown to requoting, and crystallize a few thoughts here.

First, the places where we agree, you already pointed them out, and I appreciate that. But you contradict yourself pretty badly here.

"Besides party leaders being able to abuse the system and kick people say right before the end of a fractal or dungeon and then sell the other 4 spots or invite friends, sure let's give party leaders the same power as squad leaders..."..."You do understand that a squad leader sets up a LFM and every person who joins will likely fulfill the requirement asked for (or get kicked by the squad leader). It's seldom the squad or members get to decide who stays or gets kicked but usually the squad leader who is in charge..."

So... It's a viable solution for 10 man content.... Where we do in fact see people selling raids all the bloody time. But when applied to 5 man content it's rife for abuse... Where we don't currently see people selling groups.

So... If that squad leader powers allow for abuse that leads to selling groups.... Clearly that needs a fix of its own, which I don't have an answer for...

Why you ask?

I don't claim this fixes everything, not even close. But it's a few things that help everyone, elitist or casual alike. And it helps to mend the schism in our community.

Why are you meeting my attempts to suggest a fix with hostility? I'm not a dev, I can't make kitten happen. Just throwing it out there bro. Sorry my exaggeration of time waiting for a group in an otherwise completely non-serious paragraph drove you to feel like I needed to be taken down a peg.

sigh

The reason this works for 10 mann content is because you can't simply replace 1-2 people without reason. Groups selling raids are preorganized and built from the ground up to support those 1-2 empty spots.

Now as far as 5 mann content, how many dungeons or regular T4 fractals do you think this applies to?

The difficulty for 5 mann content is low enough that replacing 4 people would be almost no issue and the amount of people needed is also low enough to be easily doable. Something which does not as easily work for raids.

Not sure why this had to be spelled out.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:what systems can be changed, to allow for least toxic environment, while minimizing the backlash from players?

Aren't your second and third arguments pointless if they add the first one?

Skipping is done by experienced groups, someone who can't skip won't be in a party that skips.If the group is already decided if it's casual or experienced beforehand, what's the point of making titles a toggle?

Also, skipping is only a thing in dungeons, and usually by using specific skills to do it, why punish players who find creative ways to make a dungeon take less time?

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

what systems can be changed, to allow for least toxic environment, while minimizing the backlash from players?

There is nothing creative about skipping. Stack swiftness and stealth and press R while watching TV. Why are you guys trying to make skipping sound like you need any more than two brain cells to make it work? I can literally take a guy who never did dungeon, take him through dungeon and show him how to skip and he'll be able to do it in first try by himself.Besides, if you want to skip dungeons, what's the point then? If you need gold, there are plenty better ways to get it. I don't understand what's so fun about running through mobs who stand still and don't fight.

@serialkicker.5274 said:There is nothing creative about skipping. Stack swiftness and stealth and press R while watching TV. Why are you guys trying to make skipping sound like you need any more than two brain cells to make it work? I can literally take a guy who never did dungeon, take him through dungeon and show him how to skip and he'll be able to do it in first try by himself.

If it's so easy then why is it a problem with elitism (the thread's topic)?

Point 1, LFGYou mention the disrespect players show towards any predefined requirements or simply said they do not read or give a shit about what the LFG message says.A way to fix this would be the implementation of a group finder tool with actual requirement options such as level, class, gear, experience through a kill counter or whatever, etc. Those not fitting any of these would not be allowed to join by the game. All for it but people will shout this idea down for obvious reasons.A compromise would be to allow the party leader, just like a commander in raids, to take over the party if he wishes. There could be a system where a party creator could tag up instantly while alone but players would have to vote on the leader as soon as there are multiple members to prevent anyone from abusing the system to get rid of people at the end in case nobody had tagged before.

Point 2, Dungeon and Fractals mob designNever force players to clear endless amounts of trash mobs before they can proceed. That is terrible dungeon design. Infinite leashes are fine but will not change much. Players would just stack the monsters at the end of the skip to burst them down or far more likely use stealth to skip. Besides, if the party requires you to be experienced you should know about skips. You have no business being there otherwise. Not to mention that ArenaNet won't do anything about dungeons in any case and Fractals design is already going the route of removing most trash mobs and into being more event and boss focused.

Point 3, TitlesPeople will stop bothering with titles, LI, AP or whatever nonsense as soon as they add a certain way to check whether someone is disrespecting the wishes of nine other players. Already mentioned what could be done above (Point 1). Once again, highly doubt anything will happen that would happen. There is a good reason why people ask for any kill proof or proof of experience even if these can be silly sometimes.

The two opposite mindsets have certainly grown greatly over the years. Talking about the hardcore elitist and the deeply entitled casuals. You hardly ever saw any of these if you played MMORPGs ten or more years ago. I am not sure there is a way to fix every worry of either side without upsetting the other for the very reason of them being total opposites of eachother.

@TexZero.7910 said:You don't have to change any system to stop toxicity.

You just have to get players out of the entitlement mindset where-in they think that just because they paid for the product that everyone in it is their personal butler.

Pretty much this. People sometimes forget that these issues go both ways and that not absolutely everything that happens is due to the so called elite or elitists and their supposed attitude towards anyone inferior to them.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:There is nothing creative about skipping. Stack swiftness and stealth and press R while watching TV. Why are you guys trying to make skipping sound like you need any more than two brain cells to make it work? I can literally take a guy who never did dungeon, take him through dungeon and show him how to skip and he'll be able to do it in first try by himself.

Is this a serious question? Elitism doesn't have much to do with skipping. Elitism has to do with people telling other how they should play, if not, they can't play alongside the big boys club.And yes, it's easy for whoever did a dungeons/fractals at least couple of times and knows the basics of combo fields. Are you taking people with 500 AP who never did dungeons and just hit lvl 80 to prove your point? I have done thousands of dungeons, speedrun and casuals and I don't remember having a serious problem with skipping even with newbies. They usually stick to experienced players anyway and quickly pick up on whats happening. It takes way more time to teach them certain encounters/mechanics then how to skip.

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:There is nothing creative about skipping. Stack swiftness and stealth and press R while watching TV. Why are you guys trying to make skipping sound like you need any more than two brain cells to make it work? I can literally take a guy who never did dungeon, take him through dungeon and show him how to skip and he'll be able to do it in first try by himself.

Actually elitism has to do with players of different skill coming together over a similar activity where one side (the more experienced usually) will belittle the other side.

This has less to do with telling people how to play, even if people like bringing this up. It has more to do with incompatible players getting thrown together.

The most often cause for this is miss use of the LFG tool.

Since every player has the ability to use the LFG tool equally thus enabling them to form parties how ever they want and with what ever specifications they desire, it essentially boils down to:

• laziness of players (an inherent human characteristic)
• inability to understand abbreviations (which actually can be quite a hurdle for new players)
• inability to read
• lack of customization options for the LFG tool
• greed for gear, rewards, loot and gaining them asap trying to skip ahead as much as possible

Especially the laziness aspect is a huge issue here. A vast majority of the players are incapable of using a simple tool to get grouped with others to overcome challenges in this game. Other MMOs have taken the easy way out and implemented auto grouping features for easier content to let players experience story or gain basic rewards.