Perceived toxicity

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Hannelore.8153 said:

@"Iris Ng.9845" said:I have this magic trick that I wish to share with everyone. It applies to joining any kinds of group content, even raids and PvP, and it also works out for any social gatherings, too. When you join any groups of people, be courteous, humble, respectful and more importantly, compliant to the wish of that group. No one trashes a person with a positive attitude. If you're not a good fit for the group, regretfully you have to leave. But there are other fish in the sea. Keep looking and you'll find your match. Make your own group and more power to you.

Tragedies always happen when people force ideas onto each other, or their way into a relationship. The perceived toxicity roots in their prejudice and judgemental minds. No one and nothing will change unless people's mindset change.

I have seen this type of ranting post a lot since Dungeons were mastered and speed cleared. People came to the forum with a clear divisive "them" vs. "us" mentality and a strong conviction to smite the other down with their words, even trying to bend ANet to their side to deliver the divine judgement to the opposing faction. After a few years, what comes out of it? Most has left the game, new people come in, the topic has drifted to the new subject of elitism: raids. But, but what about those victims of then dungeon elitism?

Have they got the clears they deserve now that all their enemy elitists are purged?

Now to the same people who feel raid toxicity has exclude them from doing the content:

What do you truly want? The content, the acceptance to someone else's group, or the satisfaction that "if it's not mine, none shall have it"?

If it's the content, start working towards it on your own pace and few really bothers you if you set your eyes on the goal. If it's the acceptance, start working towards being an asset of the team, mostly attitude and some skills to back your confidence. If it's the Doomsday, well, be your bitter person. Nothing will change. Same old, same old.

Just a shower of thoughts.

Tl;dr

"Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend."

"Tragedies always happen when people force ideas onto each other, or their way into a relationship. The perceived toxicity roots in their prejudice and judgemental minds. No one and nothing will change unless people's mindset change."

An interesting statement, which is proceeded by an incompatible premise:

"When you join any groups of people, be courteous, humble, respectful and more importantly,

compliant to the wish of that group

. No one trashes a person with a positive attitude. If you're not a good fit for the group,

regretfully you have to leave.

"

This sounds more like:

"If you don't fit in the limited notions of how you should act, and how you should play, you aren't welcome here. Even though this is an online game and we're asking for help in a public medium instead of from our private mediums such as guilds."

This is literally a catch 22 situation you've created here. Tolerance and pleasantries to mask intolerance and rejection.

If you don't want to deal with people, stop putting yourself in situations where you have to deal with people. Its that simple. Then there's no toxicity on either side, and no one has to be upset, or waste any time. But the problem is you're wanting to play content that requires other people? Just as its someone's right to find training guilds, make their own LFG, its your right to walk away and not play it at all.

Especially in what's been regarded as the most cooperative and casual MMO of all time. Just play something else?

And then someone says, "but the devs gave me the tools to kick filthy casuals from my party, so I'm right to do so". Until one day you're the one whose kicked from a legitimate run, and lose all your rewards, just because someone else wanted to be a jerk.

You see, this can always go both ways. No matter what the subject, or the argument.

Yesterday I listed in LFG for a specific fractal. The group filled up, but before we got started 1 guy decided he wanted to do a different fractal and changed the setting to that one. I explained that the group was listed for a specific fractal. He didn't respond and merely changed it back.

By your logic, I was in the wrong for listing a group with requirements when this guy was clearly just trying to get his dailies done. Does that sound right to you?

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Also, with that autoattack example you assume everyone is running the right gear and build. When, as you well know, majority of players don't.

To return back to the argument about expectations, like this:

Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

Is having the right gear and build a high expectation?

You said:

Well, the point i am making is that you won't change those players. Most of them either don't want to improve, or are incapable of doing so.

Does this include getting proper gear and build? Why is the average Guild Wars 2 player so incapable of getting a working build?

You gave multiple "realistic" options to solve the problem

adjust the content to those weaker players, so their presence is no longer a problemsomehow prevent those weaker players from even trying to join, so their presence will no longer be a problemmake it so those players can still join, but (unless they aer interested in the raiding gameplay style itself) are not interested in doing sosomehow make it so the players of those differing playstyles aren't grouped together, by utilizing multiple difficulty modes

Yet none of which solves the player problem.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Is having the right gear and build a high expectation?In gw2 it apparently is, seeing as how relatively few players fulfill it.

You said:

Well, the point i am making is that you won't change those players. Most of them either don't want to improve, or are incapable of doing so.

Does this include getting proper gear and build? Why is the average Guild Wars 2 player so incapable of getting a working build?Because most of the builds are

not

really working. It's just that simple. The freedom to make any build you can think of is also a freedom to make bad choices. In an environment where the huge majority of available choices are bad, it's not surprising that the number of those players that avoid those "noob traps" is relatively small. It's just a sad consequence of original game design.

You gave multiple "realistic" options to solve the problem

adjust the content to those weaker players, so their presence is no longer a problemsomehow prevent those weaker players from even trying to join, so their presence will no longer be a problemmake it so those players can still join, but (unless they aer interested in the raiding gameplay style itself) are not interested in doing sosomehow make it so the players of those differing playstyles aren't grouped together, by utilizing multiple difficulty modes

Yet none of which solves the player problem.Because in GW2 you

cannot

solve that problem. The only way to solve the problem of players making bad gear/build choices is to

not allow them to make those choices in the first place

. In gw2, that would require a complete rebuild of a lot of core game systems, which is just not something that is going to happen.

@Nephalem.8921 said:You just cant help the bad players unless all choices are kinda equal with distinct builds for roles. This mmo is the only one i know where you can equip tank gear as dps. I like this system but it is just not working for casuals.Basically, this.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Nephalem.8921" said:You just cant help the bad players unless all choices are kinda equal with distinct builds for roles. This mmo is the only one i know where you can equip tank gear as dps. I like this system but it is just not working for casuals.Basically, this.

Which begs the question:Why bother?

The underlying assumption here I guess is: because the content needs such and such amount of players to warrant further development. Beside that goal, don't see any other reason why this content would need to be made more inclusive. Raids were fine as is for a long time, even with the whining going on on the forums.

Which in turn leads back to the debate about what actually caused the decline in raid population, and continued decline by the way as we are moving further along without new content here with some predictable developments: we have had more KP fakers this Monday and bad groups than every before (subjective statement obviously, at least my group had to remove multiple people who were strait up lying about their experience).

There is another possible solution here which by the way also works way better with other PvE content:Keep raids as is and for players who enjoy raiding and stop the intermixing of content.

One things that has become an issue lately is the injections of more difficult content, via different means, in other parts of the game with the net result of pleasing almost no one while annoying a lot of players.

I personally have always stood by the approach to NOT make this game more raid centric, aka devote more resources to raid development, while at the same time expecting that the resources spent remain with raid content (aka no easy mode raids). The reason for that was simple: I am well aware that a lot of players might not want to raid and other PvE content is enjoyed by those players. Having all these "raid light" or "slightly harder" content types is essentially just that: the game feels more raid centric to non raid players without actually delivering raid content to players who enjoy that content. The net result is no one being really happy.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Cyninja.2954 said:Which begs the question:Why bother?Yes, doing nothing is one of the possible options. It helps noone, but also doesn't ruffle any feathers (and, obviously, requires the least effort)

The underlying assumption here I guess is: because the content needs such and such amount of players to warrant further development. Beside that goal, don't see any other reason why this content would need to be made more inclusive. Raids were fine as is for a long time, even with the whining going on on the forums.Correction. Raids seemed fine to raiders. Whether that was true, or problems started from the day one, and were just not very visible, or anything in between, is something that we might be arguing about, but won't really know without access to data only Anet has (and perhaps not even with that data).

Which in turn leads back to the debate about what actually caused the decline in raid population, and continued decline by the way as we are moving further along without new content here with some predictable developments: we have had more KP fakers this Monday and bad groups than every before (subjective statement obviously, at least my group had to remove multiple people who were strait up lying about their experience).Indeed, but again, we won't be able to answer that question without access to some additional data. We can only speculate (and, as past has shown, when speculating we're prone to interprete the situation based on our prior preconceptions, and our likes and dislikes, so we're not really getting anywhere with it).

One things that has become an issue lately is the injections of more difficult content, via different means, in other parts of the game with the net result of pleasing almost no one while annoying a lot of players.That i can agree with.

Notice, though, that the last issue mentioned (the one from the part you directly quoted) affects way, way more than just raids. It's an issue that's kittening up the whole balance, and makes it next to impossible to introduce reasonable challenging content for anything but a small minority. Too small a minority, as most past attempts to do so have shown.

The decision to make a gear/build/combat design tailored for a relatively small minority able to fully comprehend and utilize it, and place it in the most casual MMORPG on the market was a disastrous one.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Is having the right gear and build a high expectation?In gw2 it apparently is, seeing as how relatively few players fulfill it.

That's a player problem then, not a problem with the game, and it has very little, if anything, to do with toxicity. If I ask for a DPS and I get a nomad's Tempest, is it my fault, and I'm the toxic one, if I kick said player once their performance becomes apparent? This is a thread about perceived toxicity in Raids after all, but when that player indeed gets kicked, they will come on these forums, make a thread about evil raid elitists and grab the attention by the regular forum goers who will defend them to death and accuse the other side of being wrong.

Because in GW2 you cannot solve that problem. The only way to solve the problem of players making bad gear/build choices is to not allow them to make those choices in the first place. In gw2, that would require a complete rebuild of a lot of core game systems, which is just not something that is going to happen.

Or a much simpler solution: those that want to enter end-game activities, to take some time to get a better build or update their gear. Or at the very least don't complain about toxicity if their choices are inadequate. But then again we have these people that believe nobody should ever be given advice on how to play, unless they specifically ask for it, yet they are "allowed" to bad mouth and perpetuate the myth of toxicity all they want.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:Is having the right gear and build a high expectation?In gw2 it apparently is, seeing as how relatively few players fulfill it.

That's a player problem then, not a problem with the game, and it has very little, if anything, to do with toxicity. If I ask for a DPS and I get a nomad's Tempest, is it my fault, and I'm the toxic one, if I kick said player once their performance becomes apparent?That's not what i said and you now it.

It's not your fault that the game design allows those players to exist. Or allows them access to Raids. No matter what you think, though, it's not that players' fault either that the game allows him to make bad choices without them realizing those are bad choices. It's a sad consequence of game design that is not well tailored for the game's players.So, in the end, it's not a player problem in the end. It is a game design problem.

This is a thread about perceived toxicity in Raids after all, but when that player indeed gets kicked, they will come on these forums, make a thread about evil raid elitists and grab the attention by the regular forum goers who will defend them to death and accuse the other side of being wrong.And? You not being at fault there does not change the fact that the situation was toxic. You blaming the other player will not prevent the next one from doing exactly the same. At best it will make you feel better. Until the next time.And the person you kicked? They will still genuinely think you were unreasonable. Because they will simply not be able to even see the situation from your point of view. the same way you are unable to see the situation from their point of view.

As i was saying many times over in threads like that, people of differing playstyles should never be pushed into the same content. They should meet there only if both sides know exactly what they are doing (which is generally limited to static groups of friends, and is definitely never the case in LFG). In any othe case it generally ends badly. Especially in GW2, where the game design makes differences between those differing playstyles far more impactful than everywhere else.

Because in GW2 you

cannot

solve that problem. The only way to solve the problem of players making bad gear/build choices is to

not allow them to make those choices in the first place

. In gw2, that would require a complete rebuild of a lot of core game systems, which is just not something that is going to happen.

Or a much simpler solution: those that want to enter end-game activities, to take some time to get a better build or update their gear. Or at the very least don't complain about toxicity if their choices are inadequate. But then again we have these people that believe nobody should ever be given advice on how to play, unless they specifically ask for it, yet they are "allowed" to bad mouth and perpetuate the myth of toxicity all they want.Any "solution" that hinges on a part of the community suddenly changing the way they behave completely on their own is not a solution at all. It's praying for a miracle. Except miracles

do

happen sometimes, while this is just not something that will

ever

happen.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Which begs the question:Why bother?Yes, doing nothing

is

one of the possible options. It helps noone, but also doesn't ruffle any feathers (and, obviously, requires the least effort)

That's the issue though, we haven't been doing nothing. The developers have been changing their approach to this type of content specifically trying to make it more appealing to a wider player base, after a long period of neglect. Which causes issues with a different type of player in the game, most notably the players who do not seek challenging content.

While at the same time sidelining it or even abandoning meaningful challenging instanced content.

In essence we have now ended up with exactly what I personally disagreed with: more "raid lite" content in this game, which makes no one happy IF the complaining on the forums can be believed (though my assumptions are rather based on what I am seeing in my personal communities in form of burn out and quitting players).

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The underlying assumption here I guess is: because the content needs such and such amount of players to warrant further development. Beside that goal, don't see any other reason why this content would need to be made more inclusive. Raids were fine as is for a long time, even with the whining going on on the forums.Correction. Raids

seemed

fine to raiders. Whether that was true, or problems started from the day one, and were just not very visible, or anything in between, is something that we might be arguing about, but won't really know without access to data only Anet has (and perhaps not even

with

that data).

True, this is obviously subjective and either side of the argument could be supported with developer quotes or actions. What we know for a fact is that raid success surprised developers initially and the content did see a couple of years support, while most recent quotes clearly indicate that the content is not attracting enough players any more to warrant similar attention.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Which in turn leads back to the debate about what actually caused the decline in raid population, and continued decline by the way as we are moving further along without new content here with some predictable developments: we have had more KP fakers this Monday and bad groups than every before (subjective statement obviously, at least my group had to remove multiple people who were strait up lying about their experience).Indeed, but again, we won't be able to answer that question without access to some additional data. We can only speculate (and, as past has shown, when speculating we're prone to interprete the situation based on our prior preconceptions, and our likes and dislikes, so we're not really getting anywhere with it).

Same as above, except that any recent actions taken seem to not have significantly impacted the problem in a positive way, at least not noticeable to part of the player base.

The hardcore raiding player base is continuing in deteriorating. If there is a desire to keep this player base, then the recent actions taken are ineffective.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:One things that has become an issue lately is the injections of more difficult content, via different means, in other parts of the game with the net result of pleasing almost no one while annoying a lot of players.That i can agree with.

Notice, though, that the last issue mentioned (the one from the part you directly quoted) affects way, way more than just raids. It's an issue that's kittening up the whole balance, and makes it next to impossible to introduce reasonable challenging content for anything but a small minority. Too small a minority, as most past attempts to do so have shown.

The decision to make a gear/build/combat design tailored for a relatively small minority able to fully comprehend and utilize it, and place it in the most casual MMORPG on the market was a disastrous one.

Sure, which begs to ask the question once again:Why bother?

If the developers are so vehemently trying to keep part of the player base with half-arsed attempts, maybe there is some value in keeping those players around. Maybe not, who knows. Revenue is up this year, be that due to the nature of the global situation or the new approach to content or likely a mix of many factors, we wouldn't know without numbers.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:So, in the end, it's not a player problem in the end. It is a game design problem.

It's not the fault of the one accused of being toxic either.This toxicity can easily be fixed bya) doing some limited research before joining a groupb) asking for advice or taking advice already given when joining a groupThose are not game design problems at all. Being more open minded is all that is required.

And? You not being at fault there does not change the fact that the situation was toxic. You blaming the other player will not prevent the next one from doing exactly the same. At best it will make you feel better. Until the next time.

The situation was toxic because the player joined the group without first conforming to the group's expectations. At least pick the correct person that was toxic in that situation.

Any "solution" that hinges on a part of the community suddenly changing the way they behave completely on their own is not a solution at all. It's praying for a miracle.

Then at least they could stop making threads blaming others about toxicity when they are the toxic ones. Or at least the more involved players that know what's really going on in the "toxicity" threads don't jump the bandwagon immediately.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:That's the issue though, we haven't been doing nothing. The developers have been changing their approach to this type of content specifically trying to make it more appealing to a wider player base, after a long period of neglect. Which causes issues with a different type of player in the game, most notably the players who do not seek challenging content.

While at the same time sidelining it or even abandoning meaningful challenging instanced content.

In essence we have now ended up with exactly what I personally disagreed with: more "raid lite" content in this game, which makes no one happy IF the complaining on the forums can be believed (though my assumptions are rather based on what I am seeing in my personal communities in form of burn out and quitting players).That is the advantage of easy mode approach over what is happening now. By having more than one difficulty mode of the same content you can continue to develop both easy and normal/hard mode at the same time (because most of resources that need to be developled are shared between modes).

Notice, btw, that strikes per se weren't all that badly received. What was disliked by non-raiders were the more harder ones (while raiders were probably considering them to be too easy still), and pushing that content into LS metas instead of making it completely optional.

DRM's by themselves are not that much of a problem either. Sure, their rewards are kitten (so, they aren't really worth repeating, unless you're going for the weapon collection - the craftable one, i mean, because hoping for a drop of the RNG one is just not worth the disappoitment you're going to end up with), and they have some few minor problems in design (the initial timer, and the NPCs for the most part being so weak one wonders why they're even there), but all those problems are easily fixable. The main problem is that they are the only content we've received.In the end, people blame DRMs not for being DRMs, but for how underwhelming in general the Champions chapter seems to be so far.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Notice, though, that the last issue mentioned (the one from the part you directly quoted) affects way, way more than just raids. It's an issue that's kittening up the whole balance, and makes it next to impossible to introduce reasonable challenging content for anything but a small minority. Too small a minority, as most past attempts to do so have shown.

The decision to make a gear/build/combat design tailored for a relatively small minority able to fully comprehend and utilize it, and place it in the most casual MMORPG on the market was a disastrous one.

Sure, which begs to ask the question once again:Why bother?Not sure what you want to say here, but just in case - that last comment of mine was purely rhetorical. It was just a statement of fact, nothing more, as i don't believe Anet is ever going to address that one. I'm not sure they even

could

address that one short of making GW3.

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:So, in the end, it's not a player problem in the end. It

is

a game design problem.

It's not the fault of the one accused of being toxic either.I never said it was. I even clearly mentioned i don't think it is.

This toxicity can easily be fixed bya) doing some limited research before joining a groupb) asking for advice or taking advice already given when joining a groupAgain, you expect people to suddently start behaving differently with absolutely no outside stimulus for that. The hard truth is that most people in this game do not act like that, and that is not going to change no matter how strongly you might wish otherwise.

Most players need the game itself to guide them - and to do it clearly, and not in a cryptic way that requires them to try to puzzle out what all of this even means. This game not only does not do that, but is designed based on completely opposite principles.

Those are not game design problems at all. Being more open minded is all that is required.

And? You not being at fault there does not change the fact that the situation

was

toxic. You blaming the other player will not prevent the next one from doing exactly the same. At best it will make

you

feel better. Until the next time.

The situation was toxic because the player joined the group without first conforming to the group's expectations. At least pick the correct person that was toxic in that situation.In my opinion, no person was toxic there. Toxicity was only a result of the game allowing you and him to meet in the same content, without making first sure that you both are on the same page.

Any "solution" that hinges on a part of the community suddenly changing the way they behave completely on their own is not a solution at all. It's praying for a miracle.Then at least they could stop making threads blaming others about toxicity when they are the toxic ones. Or at least the more involved players that know what's really going on in the "toxicity" threads don't jump the bandwagon immediately.Then you can start with yourself. I mean, OP is asking for solutions. Saying that the problem should fix itself is almost certainly not the answer here. Neither is saying "it's the other guy's fault, they are playing the game wrong", If anything, the latter only contributes to the problem.

[Linken.6345]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:So, in the end, it's not a player problem in the end. It

is

a game design problem.

It's not the fault of the one accused of being toxic either.I never said it was. I even clearly mentioned i don't think it is.

This toxicity can easily be fixed bya) doing some limited research before joining a groupb) asking for advice or taking advice already given when joining a groupAgain, you expect people to suddently start behaving differently with absolutely no outside stimulus for that. The hard truth is that most people in this game do not act like that, and that is not going to change no matter how strongly you might wish otherwise.

Most players need the game itself to guide them - and to do it clearly, and not in a cryptic way that requires them to try to puzzle out what all of this even means. This game not only does not do that, but is designed based on completely opposite principles.

Those are not game design problems at all. Being more open minded is all that is required.

And? You not being at fault there does not change the fact that the situation

was

toxic. You blaming the other player will not prevent the next one from doing exactly the same. At best it will make

you

feel better. Until the next time.

The situation was toxic because the player joined the group without first conforming to the group's expectations. At least pick the correct person that was toxic in that situation.In my opinion, no person was toxic there. Toxicity was only a result of the game allowing you and him to meet in the same content, without making first sure that you both are on the same page.

Any "solution" that hinges on a part of the community suddenly changing the way they behave completely on their own is not a solution at all. It's praying for a miracle.Then at least they could stop making threads blaming others about toxicity when they are the toxic ones. Or at least the more involved players that know what's really going on in the "toxicity" threads don't jump the bandwagon immediately.Then you can start with yourself. I mean, OP is asking for solutions. Saying that the problem should fix itself is almost certainly not the answer here. Neither is saying "it's the other guy's fault, they are playing the game wrong", If anything, the latter only contributes to the problem.

So what your asking for is eitherA less build diversety let classes have 1 spec only so with the elites its 3 for each class now and not able to change anything. ( less choice then the players are guided into whats good and cant make bad builds)B dont let people with bad builds into hard content so raid attunment from other games like for example wild star ( guess what people hated that)C dumb down the content so even a player with random stat items in equipment, maybe even no equipment at all useing a dodo bird pressing the any key can complete it?

Yea, rather have what we have now were players are expected to do some stuff to be able to preform enough in high level content.The gemstore sales should be able to fund some content even if its 1 raid a year and 1 fractals only, not just living world content to the exclution of everything else.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Linken.6345" said:So what your asking for is eitherA less build diversety let classes have 1 spec only so with the elites its 3 for each class now and not able to change anything. ( less choice then the players are guided into whats good and cant make bad builds)B dont let people with bad builds into hard content so raid attunment from other games like for example wild star ( guess what people hated that)C dumb down the content so even a player with random stat items in equipment, maybe even no equipment at all useing a dodo bird pressing the any key can complete it?I am not asking for this, but yeah, if you want a solution to the toxicity problem, you'd have to go with one of those. Personally i think the best option would be A (because the sad truth is that the build/gear system turned out to be way too complex and convoluted for a vast majority of GW2 players, that ended up completely overwhelmed by it), and perhaps some sort of easy mode as well, but that's just me. Although, as i have most certainly already said, i don't believe this solution can be introduced in this game - it's just way too major change to be implemented at this stage of the game.

Of course, saying that you think that the solution is something you don't like to the degree you'd rather live with the toxicity is also a valid answer. When i presented the solutions for the first time, i did mention i don't think everyone was going to like them.

What is not a valid answer (in this thread anyway) is saying "it's a people problem, you toxic raiders/casuals/whatever just stop being toxic". That's not a solution, that's just blame-slinging.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:That's the issue though, we haven't been doing nothing. The developers have been changing their approach to this type of content specifically trying to make it more appealing to a wider player base, after a long period of neglect. Which causes issues with a different type of player in the game, most notably the players who do not seek challenging content.

While at the same time sidelining it or even abandoning meaningful challenging instanced content.

In essence we have now ended up with exactly what I personally disagreed with: more "raid lite" content in this game, which makes no one happy IF the complaining on the forums can be believed (though my assumptions are rather based on what I am seeing in my personal communities in form of burn out and quitting players).That is the advantage of easy mode approach over what is happening now. By having more than one difficulty mode of

the same

content you can continue to develop both easy and normal/hard mode at the same time (because most of resources that need to be developled are shared between modes).

That is under the assumption that easy raids take significantly less resources to develop. I am unsure where this believe originates. We are literally talking complete custom encounters here with complete own rule sets for the amount of change which would need to happen. On top of splitting the community once again. This doesn't even work for fractals IF one were to take actual population numbers per tier, with the vast majority of players being in T4, and that's with a very simplistic system of automatic scaling and 1 additional effect with no real changes to abilities of enemies.

I seriously doubt that easy mode "raids" are that much of a reduced workload, and even then only in the visual and audio department. Also again, this would make the resources devoted to this type of content a more raid centric game.

It seems counter productive to implement strikes over easy mode raids, under development resource constraints, if easy mode raids were easier to implement. My personal assumption is that encounter design is the biggest resource hog here, and that does not decrease with multiple difficulties (if those changes are to be meaningful). But we can keep assuming that easy mode raids would help, just as strikes were supposed to help, when it is very evident that they do not.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Notice, btw, that strikes per se weren't all that badly received. What was disliked by non-raiders were the more harder ones (while raiders were probably considering them to be too easy still), and pushing that content into LS metas instead of making it completely optional.

Strikes being accepted and enjoyed by part of the players base that enjoys easy content is hardly a success. Those players were for the most part perfectly content with living world releases and new maps or metas.

Yes, now forcing more difficult content, even if only slightly more difficult, is causing issues.

@Astralporing.1957 said:DRM's by themselves are not that much of a problem either. Sure, their rewards are kitten (so, they aren't really worth repeating, unless you're going for the weapon collection - the craftable one, i mean, because hoping for a drop of the RNG one is just not worth the disappoitment you're going to end up with), and they have some few minor problems in design (the initial timer, and the NPCs for the most part being so weak one wonders why they're even there), but all those problems are easily fixable. The main problem is that they are the only content we've received.In the end, people blame DRMs not for being DRMs, but for how underwhelming in general the Champions chapter seems to be so far.

DRMs have potential sure, how often were those words mentioned about content?

Neither Strikes nor DRM are effective at keeping niche players of raid content interested in the game though. So from that angle, both types of content are a complete fail.

[yann.1946]

As an important note, what i care about is not only keeping people out of content they won't enjoy, but also get people in content they would enjoy even if they don't think they would

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@yann.1946 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:For the most part, people that attempt raids do know (or learn very fast) whether this is something they might like. One of the problems we run into is that there are people that dislike the gameplay style raids are designed for, but

do

like/desire some other things that are there. Be it story elements, or plain loot.

Sure, but how would you address that in a reasonable way.I'll quote part of one of my earlier posts, because it is relevant here:Well, the point i am making is that you

won't

change those players. Most of them either don't want to improve, or are incapable of doing so. As such, there are four realistic options here:

• adjust the content to those weaker players, so their presence is no longer a problem
• somehow prevent those weaker players from even trying to join, so their presence will no longer be a problem
• make it so those players can still join, but (unless they aer interested in the raiding gameplay style itself) are not interested in doing so
• somehow make it so the players of those differing playstyles aren't grouped together, by utilizing multiple difficulty modesNotice for clarity that "the problem" we're talking about now (people being incentivized to play raids, while not liking the gameplay raids offer) is slightly different than "the problem" i was mentioning then (which was about toxocity resulting from mixing players of different playstyles and expectations in the same content). For the remaining part, when i would be referring to "the problem", i would be talking about the former, not the latter.

The first option solves the problem, by changing the gameplay style of raids. This is not likely to be met with good reception by people that

do

like how raids are currently.

I agree that this is not a good idea because it removes a specific content type from the game. So it forces people who enjoy the content type to leave the content.

Second option would satisfy current players, but does not solve the problem at all. It just makes it less visible for the raiders. It is also hard to implement (as it's impossible to easily quantify player skill), so runs the heavy risk of being either too weak (and thus ineffective), or too strong (and thus preventing a lot of potential new raiders from trying them)

Maybe we shouldn't create a filter based on skill level ( as thats not the actual problem their). But some filter based on what people would enjoy. Although i can't see a good way to do this.

Third option removes the problem, by removing the incentives (either by removing them outright, or by making them available through other avenues, that are fit for players that like different playstyles). Again, some raiders may get angry

And it doesn't help the get people who would enjoy raids into raids part.

Fourth option is sort of a variation of the third one, that works by offering several different modes of the content, that are designed for players with different playstyles. Notice, though, that for it to work, you would need to make the stuff non-raiders go into raids for available also through those other, "not true raid" modes. Or at least enough of that stuff to heavily minimize the problem. This option also will make at least some raiders angry.

Do you think making all raid rewards sellable be a good way to make the rewards available to everyone. Or do you think it would create friction as "raiders control the prices"?

As you can see, there's no option that would be considered good to everyone. There would be some pushback no matter what you picked. I can only tell you that any attempt to make bigger percentage of player population start raiding without changing anything about raids themselves is going to be met with at best a minimal, unnoticeable effect. While possibly causing some fallout elsewhere.

Maybe the solutions are more subtle. It is entirely possible to change behavior patrons of groups of people. (Propaganda is an example of this).

And aren't strikes a good thing in regard to informing people on whether they enjoy the content type?People who don't like strikes because of the mechanics (whisper) or group dynamic is more likely to like raids.While people who hate those aspects don't like these aspects probably won't like raidsTechnically true, but those very same people always had the option of going for raids directly. For such people Strikes

aren't

any better to start in than Raids are. The barriers that prevent people from raiding are the same barriers that prevent the same people from participating in more difficult strikes. Players that try Whispers and Boneskinner and decide they like what they see would have the very same reaction after trying out Cairn or VG. And it would

not

have been any harder for them to do so.

basically, for those players, Strikes are

not

a stairway. They are a

detour

.

As i said in the beginning of this post, what i care about is not only keeping people out of content they won't enjoy, but also get people in content they would enjoy even if they don't think they would. So a detour isn't that bad of an idea if people wouldn't make the shorter route because of a pletora of different reasons.

[Drascious.5714]

Honestly toxic is a garbage term and most things described as toxic are nowhere near, if you can't see past the lies of toxicity in the community then you probably won't enjoy the content anyway. I don't think this is a problem that can be fixed as the common denominator is always the same individuals that experience the "toxcity" , this is true in all group content.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"yann.1946" said:As an important note, what i care about is not only keeping people out of content they won't enjoy, but also get people in content they would enjoy even if they don't think they wouldProblem happens when you go too much with the latter. As such, any incentives to see the content should ve relatively shallow and not require massive time investments. Just enough to realize whether you like the content or not.For example, WvW's Gift of Battle (as well as some WvW unique reward tracks) are mostly okay fo this, as they do allow for very shallow level of participation, but still high enough for you to "get your feet wet" and see the content for yourself before deciding whether to continue or not. Same with SPvP reward tracks. Both WvW and SPvP are not. They would have been okay if PvE offered a mainstream version, instead of being raid-locked.

@"Astralporing.1957" said:The first option solves the problem, by changing the gameplay style of raids. This is not likely to be met with good reception by people that

do

like how raids are currently.

I agree that this is not a good idea because it removes a specific content type from the game. So it forces people who enjoy the content type to leave the content.Indeed.

Second option would satisfy current players, but does not solve the problem at all. It just makes it less visible for the raiders. It is also hard to implement (as it's impossible to easily quantify player skill), so runs the heavy risk of being either too weak (and thus ineffective), or too strong (and thus preventing a lot of potential new raiders from trying them)

Maybe we shouldn't create a filter based on skill level ( as thats not the actual problem their). But some filter based on what people would enjoy. Although i can't see a good way to do this.That would be the third option - the incentives.

Third option removes the problem, by removing the incentives (either by removing them outright, or by making them available through other avenues, that are fit for players that like different playstyles). Again, some raiders may get angry

And it doesn't help the get people who would enjoy raids into raids part.See my first comment about shallow dipping. I don't believe getting afew players into raids via rewards is worth giving a finger to a probably much bigger group of players that will end up very much disliking the whole experience (and likely not even get the things they wanted)

Fourth option is sort of a variation of the third one, that works by offering several different modes of the content, that are designed for players with different playstyles. Notice, though, that for it to work, you would need to make the stuff non-raiders go into raids for available also through those other, "not true raid" modes. Or at least enough of that stuff to heavily minimize the problem. This option also will make at least some raiders angry.

Do you think making all raid rewards sellable be a good way to make the rewards available to everyone. Or do you think it would create friction as "raiders control the prices"?It works for ghostly infusions, and for dhuum throne, so why not? At least it would be

some

kind of solution.

As you can see, there's no option that would be considered good to everyone. There would be some pushback no matter what you picked. I can only tell you that any attempt to make bigger percentage of player population start raiding

without

changing anything about raids themselves is going to be met with at best a minimal, unnoticeable effect. While possibly causing some fallout elsewhere.

Maybe the solutions are more subtle. It is entirely possible to change behavior patrons of groups of people. (Propaganda is an example of this).It serves mainly to reinforce existing behaviours or introduce new ones. It doesn't work all that well when you try to change already ingrained patterns though. Meaning, it might work for children and players completely new to genre, but is unlikely to work on older players. Especially on those that have been in this game for years already. Additionally, you'd probably need to ensure they won't be exposed to any conflicting influences (for example, from RL or

other

games). As such, i wouldn't consider it a viable option.

Technically true, but those very same people always had the option of going for raids directly. For such people Strikes

aren't

any better to start in than Raids are. The barriers that prevent people from raiding are the same barriers that prevent the same people from participating in more difficult strikes. Players that try Whispers and Boneskinner and decide they like what they see would have the very same reaction after trying out Cairn or VG. And it would

not

have been any harder for them to do so.

basically, for those players, Strikes are

not

a stairway. They are a

detour

.

As i said in the beginning of this post, what i care about is not only keeping people out of content they won't enjoy, but also get people in content they would enjoy even if they don't think they would. So a detour isn't that bad of an idea if people wouldn't make the shorter route because of a pletora of different reasons.Then perhaps one should think of a way to point them the way

without

making a lot of other players heavily displeased. That's a telemarketer level of advertising. Noone likes telemarketers.

[yann.1946]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"yann.1946" said:As an important note, what i care about is not only keeping people out of content they won't enjoy, but also get people in content they would enjoy even if they don't think they wouldProblem happens when you go too much with the latter. As such, any incentives to see the content should ve relatively shallow and

not

require massive time investments. Just enough to realize whether you like the content or not.For example, WvW's Gift of Battle (as well as some WvW unique reward tracks) are mostly okay fo this, as they do allow for very shallow level of participation, but still high enough for you to "get your feet wet" and see the content for yourself before deciding whether to continue or not. Same with SPvP reward tracks. Both WvW and SPvP are not. They

would

have been okay if PvE offered a mainstream version, instead of being raid-locked.

It is a difficult balance though, i guess the only way to know which amount is acceptable is using data we haven't acces to.

@Astralporing.1957 said:The first option solves the problem, by changing the gameplay style of raids. This is not likely to be met with good reception by people that

do

like how raids are currently.

I agree that this is not a good idea because it removes a specific content type from the game. So it forces people who enjoy the content type to leave the content.Indeed.

Second option would satisfy current players, but does not solve the problem at all. It just makes it less visible for the raiders. It is also hard to implement (as it's impossible to easily quantify player skill), so runs the heavy risk of being either too weak (and thus ineffective), or too strong (and thus preventing a lot of potential new raiders from trying them)

Maybe we shouldn't create a filter based on skill level ( as thats not the actual problem their). But some filter based on what people would enjoy. Although i can't see a good way to do this.That would be the third option - the incentives.

the question is if their are other ways then incentive.Say i construct some rpg. And in the beginning i have a few missions where the player tanks, a few where he bursts and a few where he supports, then giving different missions to do it in different ways so the player can get to the end of the story while doing the things they enjoy.

Their doesn't need to be an incentive for them to go along the pad they like.

Third option removes the problem, by removing the incentives (either by removing them outright, or by making them available through other avenues, that are fit for players that like different playstyles). Again, some raiders may get angry

And it doesn't help the get people who would enjoy raids into raids part.See my first comment about shallow dipping. I don't believe getting a few players into raids via rewards is worth giving a finger to a probably much bigger group of players that will end up very much disliking the whole experience (and likely not even get the things they wanted)

I won't really make a comment on whether its wrong atm. we don't have the data to make a conclusive truth either way.i do want to say that i don't think the size of the group which feels discomfort matters. Say we have something which 25 percent really enjoys but 75 percent only slightly dislikes, it might still be in the general advantage of the game.See jp for example.

Also sometimes theirs can be a positive merit to a player to including things even though their not directly fun for that player. As an example jp's helped to increase my enjoyement of gw2 even though i personnally didn't like them. It made a friend of me start playing.

Fourth option is sort of a variation of the third one, that works by offering several different modes of the content, that are designed for players with different playstyles. Notice, though, that for it to work, you would need to make the stuff non-raiders go into raids for available also through those other, "not true raid" modes. Or at least enough of that stuff to heavily minimize the problem. This option also will make at least some raiders angry.

Do you think making all raid rewards sellable be a good way to make the rewards available to everyone. Or do you think it would create friction as "raiders control the prices"?It works for ghostly infusions, and for dhuum throne, so why not? At least it would be

some

kind of solution.

The reason that i question it is because making everything available for gold makes the game feel more uniform. I don't have an informed opinion on this topic though.

As you can see, there's no option that would be considered good to everyone. There would be some pushback no matter what you picked. I can only tell you that any attempt to make bigger percentage of player population start raiding

without

changing anything about raids themselves is going to be met with at best a minimal, unnoticeable effect. While possibly causing some fallout elsewhere.

Maybe the solutions are more subtle. It is entirely possible to change behavior patrons of groups of people. (Propaganda is an example of this).It serves mainly to reinforce existing behaviours or introduce new ones. It doesn't work all that well when you try to change already ingrained patterns though. Meaning, it might work for children and players completely new to genre, but is unlikely to work on older players. Especially on those that have been in this game for years already. Additionally, you'd probably need to ensure they won't be exposed to any conflicting influences (for example, from RL or

other

games). As such, i wouldn't consider it a viable option.

Technically true, but those very same people always had the option of going for raids directly. For such people Strikes

aren't

any better to start in than Raids are. The barriers that prevent people from raiding are the same barriers that prevent the same people from participating in more difficult strikes. Players that try Whispers and Boneskinner and decide they like what they see would have the very same reaction after trying out Cairn or VG. And it would

not

have been any harder for them to do so.

basically, for those players, Strikes are

not

a stairway. They are a

detour

.

As i said in the beginning of this post, what i care about is not only keeping people out of content they won't enjoy, but also get people in content they would enjoy even if they don't think they would. So a detour isn't that bad of an idea if people wouldn't make the shorter route because of a pletora of different reasons.Then perhaps one should think of a way to point them the way

without

making a lot of other players heavily displeased. That's a telemarketer level of advertising. Noone likes telemarketers.

Possibly, why are people displeased with strikes in general. i haven't been following that debate very closly.