Some feedback from a relatively new WvW player (level ~200)

[dou.7083]

I feel cut off from about half of the gameplay because it doesn't reward participation.

• I defend keeps, complete the "repel the enemy attack" event and get zero participation for it . Defending in few numbers is possible if the keep is upgraded, but defending in few numbers doesn't yield you kills, so you end up having your participation decay. So why would I ever defend?
• I scout ahead of the squad and end up missing out on the experience and the participation for capturing objectives. So why would I ever scout?
• I want to escort dolyaks because they seem to be important for upgrading keeps and towers, but doing so doesn't reward participation. So why would I ever protect dolyaks?

I understand that the majority of players are already level 1200+ and with 20 legendries each, so they don't care if they have 0 participation, but these issues really affect the gameplay until then.

 

And some other minor feedback/questions:

• Why do vegetable/herb/berry nodes exist? Half of the items they yield are in such excess they don't even have buying lots on the AH because you can't set it lower than 2 copper. 
• The siege vendor seems to be selling overpriced siege comparing to the AH? Everything but catapults costs copper on my server. Superior siege still costs less than this vendor's.
• Why isn't there better customisation of nameplates? If I use simplified nameplates, enemies without a guild become indistinguishable from pets. If I use full nameplates, they get filler names, making them difficult to distinguish from NPCs. So far I settled on treating every pet as if it were a player because there's no other option.
• Why isn't there more incentive for comms to play on border maps? Everyone seems to be stacked on EBG for reasons unknown to me, but why not give comms a bonus of like 1 pip or extra participation for leading a squad on a border map? Recently I experience this situation: 30-50 player queue to EBG, meanwhile on every border map everyone are just flipping camps and there's zero other activity. It just makes me want to log off for the day, because it's like watching your birthday party being celebrated without you while you're stuck in a tailback.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

49 minutes ago, dou.7083 said:

I feel cut off from about half of the gameplay because it doesn't reward participation.

• I defend keeps, complete the "repel the enemy attack" event and get zero participation for it . Defending in few numbers is possible if the keep is upgraded, but defending in few numbers doesn't yield you kills, so you end up having your participation decay. So why would I ever defend?
• I scout ahead of the squad and end up missing out on the experience and the participation for capturing objectives. So why would I ever scout?
• I want to escort dolyaks because they seem to be important for upgrading keeps and towers, but doing so doesn't reward participation. So why would I ever protect dolyaks?

I understand that the majority of players are already level 1200+ and with 20 legendries each, so they don't care if they have 0 participation, but these issues really affect the gameplay until then.

 

And some other minor feedback/questions:

• Why do vegetable/herb/berry nodes exist? Half of the items they yield are in such excess they don't even have buying lots on the AH because you can't set it lower than 2 copper. 
• The siege vendor seems to be selling overpriced siege comparing to the AH? Everything but catapults costs copper on my server. Superior siege still costs less than this vendor's.
• Why isn't there better customisation of nameplates? If I use simplified nameplates, enemies without a guild become indistinguishable from pets. If I use full nameplates, they get filler names, making them difficult to distinguish from NPCs. So far I settled on treating every pet as if it were a player because there's no other option.
• Why isn't there more incentive for comms to play on border maps? Everyone seems to be stacked on EBG for reasons unknown to me, but why not give comms a bonus of like 1 pip or extra participation for leading a squad on a border map? Recently I experience this situation: 30-50 player queue to EBG, meanwhile on every border map everyone are just flipping camps and there's zero other activity. It just makes me want to log off for the day, because it's like watching your birthday party being celebrated without you while you're stuck in a tailback.

If you want partici for defending objective then either kill enemy player within it's walls or fix either gate or wall, this way you should get it. It can bug and won't provide a kitten, happens.
If you want to get partici for "capping" objective, usually you should kill enemy guards near it and you can just leave. FYI guards that spawn from upgrading objective (the patrolling scrubs) DO NOT contribute to that capture, so don't touch them, waste of time.
If A-net hasn't changed anything to the escorting dollyaks in last update, then it'll give you partici only the dolly that goes full way from camp to objective, so it's usually Camp > Tower > Keep/SM, but if you escort dolly from Camp > Tower only you won't get a kitten for some reason, not sure about Camp > Tower > Camp since I don't pay attention that much to such details.
If it comes to Siege, you can buy them for WvW Badge of Honor, the superior version you can buy from WvW HoT/PoF expansion tokens and Guild ones are from guilds or ah.
I think there's an option to turn off NPC names in WvW completely so it could be useful for you. Though I don't really see what kind of more "customization" you would need in World vs World vs World.
Let's say that EBG have the highest chance for content, usually there may be some commanders doing guild raids with hidden tags on other borders. Also we don't have that many people overall.
If you don't see any activity then create it by yourself, open enemy keeps, call your zerg, cap enemy camps. There's kitten load of stuff to do. Following tag is an option, not "mustdo" stuff.

[Cuks.8241]

I would strongly suggest all players that they join server discord or team speak if it exists. This will get you a much clearer picture on how your server plays, where are it's priorities and where you might fit in, what kind of play are commanders looking for (ppt, only fights...) It will also get you access to invite only tags which might be hidden for players outside of the squad. You will get to know different guilds and might join one for alliances. Many players never write, only talk on discord.

Lately, especially with the changes to participation, there are lot's of post of mostly solo players that seem to be angry about various things. Not only about participation changes but also other stuff like commanders not doing what they expect. Getting into discord will at least give you a clearer picture whats going on, again it really depends on the server, maybe there is no community.

It might be frustrating for you as a solo players but it's also frustrating for squads, when you're facing 2 full squads of enemies on discord and you have only 30 players and a queue. You can't get people in the squad on the border to do anything and there's a bunch of players on the border that are doing their own thing, most likely nothing really helpful, could be even detrimental to overall play (wasting supply, repairing walls when comm wants to trap inside, running unstealthed next to a squad revealing stealthed squad, rally bot...). 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 hour ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I would strongly suggest all players that they join server discord or team speak if it exists. This will get you a much clearer picture on how your server plays, where are it's priorities and where you might fit in, what kind of play are commanders looking for (ppt, only fights...) It will also get you access to invite only tags which might be hidden for players outside of the squad. You will get to know different guilds and might join one for alliances. Many players never write, only talk on discord.

Lately, especially with the changes to participation, there are lot's of post of mostly solo players that seem to be angry about various things. Not only about participation changes but also other stuff like commanders not doing what they expect. Getting into discord will at least give you a clearer picture whats going on, again it really depends on the server, maybe there is no community.

It might be frustrating for you as a solo players but it's also frustrating for squads, when you're facing 2 full squads of enemies on discord and you have only 30 players and a queue. You can't get people in the squad on the border to do anything and there's a bunch of players on the border that are doing their own thing, most likely nothing really helpful, could be even detrimental to overall play (wasting supply, repairing walls when comm wants to trap inside, running unstealthed next to a squad revealing stealthed squad, rally bot...). 

I disagree with these kinds of viewpoints.

 

Players are allowed to do whatever they want; the game has already funneled them mostly into PPTing for any kind of rewards, which is ironic since PPT has been a complaint for years from many, not a compliment.

 

WvW is at its best at small scale, 5v5, 10v10 and so on, not 80v80. It looks good on paper, and the devs like it because it attracts new players to the game by making it look epic, but it loses its fun real fast when you realise that most battles just come down to a 1push where one side disappears entirely depending on whether they had a good comp or made mistakes or not, with very little influence from player skill beyond that.

 

Some players seek to be more than just mindless soldiers, aka "bags" as they're called now.

 

Its not just frustrating for solo players. Its trying to tilt the entire game into ZvZ where solo players, especially roamers, defenders, scouts and havoc squads are forced to flip T1 camps, wooden towers, and so on over and over again. Sure, the first time that objective gets flipped from T2-T3 to T1 it has alot of value for your side, but when it happens every 5min you're literally doing nothing but trading objectives just to have participation, and most of the time your "zerg" that wants their 50man comp is a fight guild off steamrolling another zerg over a camp or something, too, not attacking some heavily defended T3 objective that's been upgraded for an entire day (or longer).

 

On top of this, many servers barely ever see tags up or get a queue, for example my server and the server I'm currently linked with, Anvil Rock, are known for being roaming servers, and Alliances won't fix this completely since the player makeup of individual guilds won't change, just have reduced overall contribution to the population.

 

---

Regarding this topic in general:

If players would listen instead of just spamming the threads with retorts, they might learn something. Please understand that behavior of players, and especially guilds and tags is extremely different from server to server, and that just because the changes are good for you doesn't mean they're good for everyone.

 

And everyone being on voicechat isn't the solution. While this allows intense coordination, it funnels players even more into ZvZ and a particular follow orders/just be a soldier/sacrificial body type of gameplay. That's not even getting into issues like audio/sensatory processing issues which are more common thank you think. I even know alot of players who play this game without the ability to hear or speak, without certain limbs, with special controllers due to disabilities, or even just without owning the expansions which affect their ability to effectively blob.

 

Everyone's going to play the game how they want to and you can't force them to do otherwise, even if you take away all rewards for their playing style. All you've done is ruin the game for them to satisfy yourself instead.

 

Map queues do not belong to tags, or squads, or guilds, or anyone else.  Nor do any players in the game mode owe anyone else anything besides just showing up to some fights, even if that's in an objective they're defending.  I mean, its just getting rediculous how much certain players act like they own the game mode.

 

Modern WvW is quickly turning into "join on me or get off the map, I want my bags".

 

And before you think I'm just another roamer/solo player complaining, I'm a PUG commander who has been doing this for alot of years and know exactly what its like to try and wrangle all these types of players into a formidable force against overwhelming odds on a weekly basis.

 

But that still doesn't mean they owe me anything., even when we lose.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Xenesis.6389]

Alright let's unpack this...

 

6 hours ago, dou.7083 said:

I feel cut off from about half of the gameplay because it doesn't reward participation.

• I defend keeps, complete the "repel the enemy attack" event and get zero participation for it . Defending in few numbers is possible if the keep is upgraded, but defending in few numbers doesn't yield you kills, so you end up having your participation decay. So why would I ever defend?

Because there's more to the game than just sitting in an objective to repair and defend.

Go take enemy sentries.

Go kill enemy dolyaks.

Go capture ruins or shrines.

Destroy siege.

Go take enemy camps.

Go take enemy towers.

Go kill enemy guards and npcs.

Assist or kill enemy players.

Run with zergs.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track#Increasing_Participation

 

If your life in wvw revolved around repairing walls and walking yaks then I'm sorry, but you're doing the bare minimum to participate in wvw and really shouldn't earn as much as someone who's constantly out taking objectives and killing enemy players. There's usually a lot of downtime in between big objective fights, you need to fill it with something to keep up your participation.

 

• Quote

  I scout ahead of the squad and end up missing out on the experience and the participation for capturing objectives. So why would I ever scout?

 

If you are scouting for a squad than they could place you on the shared participation slot. Ask your commander about it if they're sending you to scout.

 

"By joining a squad and being marked to receive shared participation, a player can receive participation from their entire squad. One player can be marked to receive shared credit for every five players in the squad. This feature allows players to focus on scouting and defending while still making progress."

•  

• Quote

  I want to escort dolyaks because they seem to be important for upgrading keeps and towers, but doing so doesn't reward participation. So why would I ever protect dolyaks?

  Far as I'm aware of, escorting dolyaks still gives participation as it's still listed on the participation list, but you need to escort them a certain amount of distance, you can't just be with it for a couple seconds and expect full participation in it's event.

 

Quote

I understand that the majority of players are already level 1200+ and with 20 legendries each, so they don't care if they have 0 participation, but these issues really affect the gameplay until then.

Everyone wants participation even the veterans as everyone still needs it for the reward tracks to get rewards, the ones complaining about it are the ones that sat in objectives and repaired mostly. Everyone is is constantly going around looking for stuff to do and earn more participation.

 

Quote

 

And some other minor feedback/questions:

• Why do vegetable/herb/berry nodes exist? Half of the items they yield are in such excess they don't even have buying lots on the AH because you can't set it lower than 2 copper. 

 

•  

I believe they're random nodes... if you don't want them, don't pick them? We didn't even have nodes in the beginning, leather is where it's at anyways.

 

• Quote

  The siege vendor seems to be selling overpriced siege comparing to the AH? Everything but catapults costs copper on my server. Superior siege still costs less than this vendor's.

 

The siege cost on vendors is the most expensive way, but there are multiple ways to buy siege and even get it for free. The vendor one is more of a "if you're desperate to get siege right away" (because it's also available on the Permanent portable provisioner) it's there, it's prices obviously does not fluctuate so use it as the very last option. You can buy siege with badges, testimony of heroics, skirmish chests(which gives you superior siege or even badges or heroics instead), or even off multiple reward tracks that even have regular and superior versions, and yes the auction house if you really want to spend your gold that way.

 

• Quote

  Why isn't there better customisation of nameplates? If I use simplified nameplates, enemies without a guild become indistinguishable from pets. If I use full nameplates, they get filler names, making them difficult to distinguish from NPCs. So far I settled on treating every pet as if it were a player because there's no other option.

  Pets usually look like animals or monsters? So look at the model of what you're targeting? Look at the target plate which also shows their portrait? and not blindly tab targets?

•  

•  

• Quote

  Why isn't there more incentive for comms to play on border maps? Everyone seems to be stacked on EBG for reasons unknown to me, but why not give comms a bonus of like 1 pip or extra participation for leading a squad on a border map? Recently I experience this situation: 30-50 player queue to EBG, meanwhile on every border map everyone are just flipping camps and there's zero other activity. It just makes me want to log off for the day, because it's like watching your birthday party being celebrated without you while you're stuck in a tailback.

  Everyone is on EBG because it's easier to find fights, objectives are closer, and the central Stonemist castle draws fights from all sides in the middle of the map, so when it's low population time players congregate there until there's more action on the border maps like tower/keep defense calls.

• Commanders already get 1 extra pip for having a private squad of 10, they can get 3 extra pips instead if they have a public tag up with 10 in squad. Borderland maps tend to heat up during prime time hours of your server population, so for NA you'll find the zergs on there during 8-12pm est. Usually because ebg is near full or queued, and they can't get their full squad in there either. But nothing wrong about borderlands providing a place for smaller fights to happen anyways.

[Cuks.8241]

5 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I disagree with these kinds of viewpoints.

 

Players are allowed to do whatever they want; the game has already funneled them mostly into PPTing for any kind of rewards, which is ironic since PPT has been a complaint for years from many, not a compliment.

 

WvW is at its best at small scale, 5v5, 10v10 and so on, not 80v80...

I didn't advocate at all that everyone should just zerg. A balance of everything is best. It's good if server has multiple options; ppt squads, fight squads, roamers, dueling... I also like to play at different scales. I think most players agree with this, at least in the groups I play.

I agree that 80 vs 80 clouding is not the most fun thing. It's the least fun for me but to everyone what they want. But organised guild or just familiar squads that work well together is something completely different to some open tag zerging. 

Anyway, my point was just joining discord and the community and actually knowing what is going on the server changes a lot and will help new players learn the game at all scales.

[subversiontwo.7501]

5 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

WvW is at its best at small scale, 5v5, 10v10 and so on, not 80v80. It looks good on paper, and the devs like it because it attracts new players to the game by making it look epic, but it loses its fun real fast when you realise that most battles just come down to a 1push where one side disappears entirely depending on whether they had a good comp or made mistakes or not, with very little influence from player skill beyond that.

While I would subscribe to this idea for personal reasons, I think it is also apt to point out that the route to get there has shifted from when the game released to current norms.

What the OP finds confusing is that WvW is the most "MMO" of the modes in GW2. Players like me got the game, formed- or joined a guild and went into WvW. The first time I saw a pickup, we were the pickup.

GW2 has whole ingame-generations of players who have been casually trudging about on their own so the very basic required MMO-perspectives in WvW can seem daunting to them.

Their route towards 5-man or 10-man shine tends go more from a solo perspective into a pickup perspective and from there into something more socially self-made. Even players who go in solo to more ambitiously play solo (or pair) rarely expands into small-group content with small guilds today. At the very least that too takes them more time through a longer route.

On that backdrop, the suggestion you qouted isn't necessarily bad at all. If you get funneled into pickups you are not more prone to get stuck there then you are anywhere else in your horizontal progression.

Tangent but relevant here:

Spoiler

There is also more of a design-philosophical discussion here, whether games (or a mode like WvW) should be more accomodating to players in this behaviour or among these entry norms. However, I do not agree with that. You do not help an MMO game in the MMO genre by subtracting everything that makes it an MMO to better accomodate players who are not looking to play an MMO. I'm not saying that people can not play alone or shouldn't play alone. I'm just saying that even if there is a demand for it, I think it is one of those things that should not be compromised or budged on if a company is set to make an MMO. That just makes the product worse and those players have drifted in on the wrong current and are prone to drift off again anyway when they find their orientation.

A business needs to make money but popularity and short-term gain isn't everything. I think this game and this mode is an excellent example of that (so is the broader small-business revitalisation of the industry). The MMO genre may not be as popular (and attractive to other types of players) as it was at its boom, but it still has a place and it still has its stable development processes (ie., its business appeal, when dope exits the industry). So overall, making games in this genre less of its genre is not good or likely to be successful when you can make other games for other players. It's the same reason why I don't think WvW should look to appeal to PvE players of GW2. It should look to appeal to WPvP or BG players of other games.

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Gorem.8104]

9 hours ago, dou.7083 said:

I feel cut off from about half of the gameplay because it doesn't reward participation.

• I defend keeps, complete the "repel the enemy attack" event and get zero participation for it . Defending in few numbers is possible if the keep is upgraded, but defending in few numbers doesn't yield you kills, so you end up having your participation decay. So why would I ever defend?
• I scout ahead of the squad and end up missing out on the experience and the participation for capturing objectives. So why would I ever scout?
• I want to escort dolyaks because they seem to be important for upgrading keeps and towers, but doing so doesn't reward participation. So why would I ever protect dolyaks?

I understand that the majority of players are already level 1200+ and with 20 legendries each, so they don't care if they have 0 participation, but these issues really affect the gameplay until then.

 

And some other minor feedback/questions:

• Why do vegetable/herb/berry nodes exist? Half of the items they yield are in such excess they don't even have buying lots on the AH because you can't set it lower than 2 copper. 
• The siege vendor seems to be selling overpriced siege comparing to the AH? Everything but catapults costs copper on my server. Superior siege still costs less than this vendor's.
• Why isn't there better customisation of nameplates? If I use simplified nameplates, enemies without a guild become indistinguishable from pets. If I use full nameplates, they get filler names, making them difficult to distinguish from NPCs. So far I settled on treating every pet as if it were a player because there's no other option.
• Why isn't there more incentive for comms to play on border maps? Everyone seems to be stacked on EBG for reasons unknown to me, but why not give comms a bonus of like 1 pip or extra participation for leading a squad on a border map? Recently I experience this situation: 30-50 player queue to EBG, meanwhile on every border map everyone are just flipping camps and there's zero other activity. It just makes me want to log off for the day, because it's like watching your birthday party being celebrated without you while you're stuck in a tailback.

 

1. Unless you are in EBG, defence objective ticks do not grant grace period for rewards, so even if you repair a wall and fend off siege and stop the attackers, you will not get rewarded for actively playing unless you manage a pvp kill, as that is now the only way defenders outside of EBG can get rewards due to the recent patch - a patch that most hate. 

2. if you are scouting in a squad, make sure they gave you shared participation, then you will get rewards for basically just being in the squad. That way it doesn't matter if you miss out on the camp capture, you will get it anyway and are able to keep scouting, outside of this of course there used to be methods but they were removed, with the recent update to wvw which made wvw worse. 

3. You can actually get grace time from dolyaks, but you have to actively be buffing them, on my Ranger I use the warhorn to give the yak swiftness, if you do so for the run, you get 5 mins of grace time, tested this working on ebg and alpine maps. If you don't buff the yak or kill someone within range (which gives 10minutes anyway) you won't get grace time. 

As for the feedback points:
The nodes exist for other benefits, such as gathering also giving volatile magic, most of my volatile magic gains comes from wvw nodes. Get a good infinite tool with a good glyph and they pay for themselves over time on the wvw nodes. Only buy siege with badges or from the TP yes, as those prices are terrible. 

On EBG, it depends on Server as some do spend most of their time there, but also that on EBG its just easier to keep grace time up, everything is close by and its just more rewarding to play. It gets filled cause zergs go there to fight. EBG for some reason is like the grace period farm, even afking there is easier as defence ticks do give 10minutes of grace. To prove my point earlier I watched a movie and afk'd in smc for most of my diamond chests after the update came out that made wvw worse. 

Edited November 14, 2021 by Gorem.8104

[subversiontwo.7501]

9 hours ago, dou.7083 said:

Why isn't there more incentive for comms to play on border maps? Everyone seems to be stacked on EBG for reasons unknown to me, but why not give comms a bonus of like 1 pip or extra participation for leading a squad on a border map? Recently I experience this situation: 30-50 player queue to EBG, meanwhile on every border map everyone are just flipping camps and there's zero other activity. It just makes me want to log off for the day, because it's like watching your birthday party being celebrated without you while you're stuck in a tailback.

I'm pulling this a bit loose from its context, but this is one of those things that are more of a culture thing so you should get to know your server (and other servers).

Some servers play their home borders defensively as that was much of the original design of the mode (defend your HBL, attack ABL's and fight the tiebreaker on EB). Those command more on EB. Traditionally they have clouds on home, guilds on away and pickups on EB. Most servers used to be like that. Other servers defend nothing so they are more prone to have more organised groups anywhere. However, they tend to go where content goes. If they face home-defense servers then, yes, their content ends up on EB. Then you have the servers who have figured out that EB is easier to defend, stalemate and/or upgrade once you get momentum. They tend to play more organised on the borders and defend EB.

Finally you have the issue of DBL (the desert borderland). It is different from the other maps and that is not very good for the mode as holistic thing. Larger groups tend to avoid DBL and that just makes them more prone to end up on EB (or ABL's). So a server can have a culture of HBL defense but if HBL is DBL then they may defend less that week. DBL tend to shift in content alot. It is not necessarily defended or clouded. It is often rather roamed up until a point when one side starts playing objectives on it and then force the other sides to do too. Most servers prefers to leave it flat and let roamers fight and trade small objectives only. That is generally good for the holistic system too, letting that offside map impact as little as possible.

Edited November 14, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Shiyo.3578]

On 11/14/2021 at 6:18 AM, Cuks.8241 said:

I would strongly suggest all players that they join server discord or team speak if it exists. This will get you a much clearer picture on how your server plays, where are it's priorities and where you might fit in, what kind of play are commanders looking for (ppt, only fights...) It will also get you access to invite only tags which might be hidden for players outside of the squad. You will get to know different guilds and might join one for alliances. Many players never write, only talk on discord.

Lately, especially with the changes to participation, there are lot's of post of mostly solo players that seem to be angry about various things. Not only about participation changes but also other stuff like commanders not doing what they expect. Getting into discord will at least give you a clearer picture whats going on, again it really depends on the server, maybe there is no community.

It might be frustrating for you as a solo players but it's also frustrating for squads, when you're facing 2 full squads of enemies on discord and you have only 30 players and a queue. You can't get people in the squad on the border to do anything and there's a bunch of players on the border that are doing their own thing, most likely nothing really helpful, could be even detrimental to overall play (wasting supply, repairing walls when comm wants to trap inside, running unstealthed next to a squad revealing stealthed squad, rally bot...). 

You shouldn't need to be on voice chat on a different program with randoms to be able to play a game mode at all.

This is a design issue that's being band-aided via community tools. Aka the devs need to fix their games issue(s)

[Cuks.8241]

6 minutes ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

You shouldn't need to be on voice chat on a different program with randoms to be able to play a game mode at all.

This is a design issue that's being band-aided via community tools. Aka the devs need to fix their games issue(s)

I don't see how this is a design issue, care to elaborate? Unless you mean Anet should implement internal voice communication?

Voice communication has been a part of online gaming since we have good enough internet bandwidth to support it. Voice communication is not mandatory but it greatly enhances game play because typing in a game where you actually need both hands to play is just vastly inferior. The amount of information that can be transmitted is just not comparable. You also make much better ties with people, firstly because the amount of information that is being transmitted (which leads to chatter which is just social and fun) but also because it is more personal and people get to know each other better.

Discord is also not only voice comm. There are many other functions it offers. Commanders and other players can align in advance when and when they will play. You can get notified outside of the game when and where someone is going to play. Guild recruitment, other info about the game and server activities.

No one is saying you need to join the community but it definitely greatly elevates the gaming experience. Also at least in my experience people on voice are much more relaxed and nice and fun.