The Increasing Toxicity in the Community

[mikko.4013]

I can see we will agree on our disagreement 👍.

 

You did a very good summary.

 

I am optimistic about people's ability to adapt, you are pessimistic.

[Raknar.4735]

15 minutes ago, Hybrid Theory.7361 said:

Don’t forget, gw2 players seem to be more sensitive than most games, call them a doo doo head and they make forum post about it 

Outrage drives clicks 🤷‍♂️

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

Find it ironic that people saying the toxicity haven't increased, and yet yesterday Someone used an alt account to lure players into another DE map, to try to get his buddies into the same map as the commander. Went as far as to tell said people that the map was dead to make people leave. What makes it even more funny is the fact that this commander is part of a guild of a well known streamer.

If that level of gatekeeping isn't toxicity? I swear we'll soon see people ddossing the DE maps by the end of this, and people will still say said action is justifiable.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Astralporing.1957]

47 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

And ? DE's meta is not all that EoD has to offer, isn't it ? Not all gw2 players did buy EoD, didn't they ?

The less players will be interested in EoD, the less Anet will be interested in investing in another expansion. Even if that lack of player interest is their own fault to begin with.

Notice, that i am not advocating here for players to "get interested" in EoD only in order to keep the game alive. It's the devs job to design their game properly. If after all those years they still do not understand their community, and have no idea what different subgroups of players like and dislike (and, moreover, why each of those groups like some types of content, and dislike others), then nothing players might do could help this game anyway.

It's not players' job to "fix" this game for devs. It's not players' job to adjust themselves to the game either. It's devs job to design the game so it fits their chosen target group of players - and if that target group ends up being too small to sustain the game, it's again, their problem to solve (or not). Not the players'.

[Zok.4956]

2 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

First, I NEVER stated that those genuine bad players couldn't get better. Read again. There is a non negligible part of low players that will refuse to make any efforts to improve. You can't deny it.

There are no "low players" in GW2, the wording itself is pejorative and condescending.

GW2 has a lot of different game modes and content/player types. I believe, most players in GW2 do improve - in the content/game type they have fun playing. And I also think that a lot of players do not care much to improve in content types they have no fun playing. Nothing wrong with that. I think the only "genuine bad players" in GW2 are the ones that behave badly and toxic.

 

[mikko.4013]

11 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

There are no "low players" in GW2, the wording itself is pejorative and condescending.

There we go.

Ok so there are only "non dodging, non jumping, non cc-ing, non reading players".  I won't call them "low" anymore. I didn't mean to hurt them.

Edited March 18, 2022 by mikko.4013

[Zok.4956]

2 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

I won't call them "low" anymore. I didn't mean to hurt them.

Good. Then there is still some hope to become a good player.

[Jski.6180]

When ppl cant use there words to disagree with each other then your community becomes toxicity.

[Zok.4956]

54 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

Ok so there are only "non dodging, non jumping, non cc-ing, non reading players"

BTW: There is not so much jumping in the DE-Meta. If you want challenging  open world content with jumping, I recommend "Chalice of Tears" and "Not So Secret" instead. That's what I would call jumping.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Zok.4956

[Astralporing.1957]

29 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

There we go.

Ok so there are only "non dodging, non jumping, non cc-ing, non reading players".  I won't call them "low" anymore. I didn't mean to hurt them.

let's imagine an example: football (or soccer for all you Americans out there).

You can have 3 different groups of players here:

The first group are the "kids" (notice: they do not actually need to be kids, adults do that as well) that, for fun, occasionally get together to kick the ball around. They aren't very good at it, don't do any preparations or training, and treat the rules as more of a general guideline than hard restrictions.

The second group are the "sportsmen" (many years ago it was being called "amateur sport". Nowaday seeems to be less popular). They do train, whenever they have time for it (which may not be all that often, because it's a hobby, not work), they use strategies and planning, they keep to the spirit and letter of the rules. At this level some sort of preselection already takes place - not everyone is just good enough to play at this level.

The third group is the "professional players". They train full time, are (usually) deadly serious about playing and winning, use strategies and planning, and team only with other people on their level. They play to win, which means that while they keep to the rules, they are not above discarding them if it is to their advantage (meaning, if they think they won't get caught, or if the gain will be bigger than the loss).

Now imagine a situation, when players of all those groups here end up thrown together and asked to cooperate and team up.

Some players will soon start commenting how those of the first group are just plain terrible at this - i mean, why they  play if they don;t bother to spend time on training? Why they just act solo on the field instead of coordinating a strategy? And who let that overweight kid in here that apparently can only run at fraction of the speed of everyone else?

At the same time, others will start commenting on how some people here treat all this way too seriously, and try to boss around. And didn't that person just now attack someone else out of the blue, speaking something about a "tactical foul"? And why that other one is now rolling on the grass screaming, when everyone could see he wasn't really hit?

Pure madness. And everyone ends up very angry about it very fast.

So, which group was right in that picture? And which was wrong?

The answer is that all of those players were completely right to want to play their own way. The one in the wrong is the person that put them together - and noone else.

If Anet does not want the "unskilled" players in the game, and shares your look that they are "bad", they should make it very clear and do not let them in at all. But if they do not want those players to leave, they do have to live with them. And they should not try to pressure the "neighbourhood kid" players into becoming professional ones.

And they should never, ever let those groups team together, unless in a setting where their playstyles do not clash.

[mikko.4013]

5 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

BTW: There is not so much jumping in the DE-Meta. If you want challenging content with jumping, I recommend "Chalice of Tears" and "Not So Secret" instead. That's what I would call jumping.

Jumping is one of the tools you can use to avoid shockwave. Thank you for pointing JP I did long ago.

 

So then, let's not call jumping "jumping" anymore, if might hurt some JP elitists.

Maybe calling jumping "jumping" is pejorative and condescending.

 

With your permission, I will replace "jumping" by "using default spacebar binding".

Edited March 18, 2022 by mikko.4013

[mikko.4013]

9 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You can have 3 different groups of players here:

The first group are the "kids" (notice: they do not actually need to be kids, adults do that as well) that, for fun, occasionally get together to kick the ball around. They aren't very good at it, don't do any preparations or training, and treat the rules as more of a general guideline than hard restrictions.

I can see you like the comparison.

All good, except for the rules. Rules for "kids" were not the same as rules for "sportsmen" and for "pros".

 

DE's meta is different in the fact that the "rules" are the same, for "non-dodging non-jumping non-ccing non-reading players" as well as for "deeper involved players". Timer is the same, healthpool is about the same.

 

Moreover, your "kids", "sportsmen", and "pros" don't share the same goals, whereas it seems that most gw2 players share the same goal which is "let's win DE's meta, eventually". If that wasn't the case, no people would whine about failing DE's meta.

 

Personally, I don't care if DE's meta succeeds or fails. I had my share of fun playing it, and commanding it. But I do have to acknowledge that few people share my feelings.

 

21 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The answer is that all of those players were completely right to want to play their own way. The one in the wrong is the person that put them together - and noone else.

Yeah sure, let's blame ANet for people "lack of abilities". Let's nerf raids too. Let's delete CM fractals (wait ?), and T4s.

 

23 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If Anet does not want the "unskilled" players in the game, and shares your look that they are "bad", they should make it very clear and do not let them in at all. But if they do not want those players to leave, they do have to live with them.

"Bad" is just a word, but it seems that people can't accept objective statements. They put their emotions in it, and feel hurt. Everybody is bad at some point. Everybody can improve at some point. Stop "bad shaming".

 

DE's meta did set a skillgate (very not high imho).

You think this skillgate is a bad thing, because it may drive people off the meta-event (I highly doubt people will quit the game for 1 meta-event, otherwise this game has nothing to sell).

I think this skillgate could have made people improve themselves, and made them realize that other "endgame" contents are not out of reach (fractals, raids... strikes ????).

 

29 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And they should not try to pressure the "neighbourhood kid" players into becoming professional ones.

No one forced players to play DE's meta, didn't they ? They tried it, they did discover the "rules".

We are talking about basic skills (again, dodging, jumping, cc-ing, reading a chat), not tryharder CM's tactics. We are not comparing "kids" to "pros", or else it would be pretty insulting for "unskilled" players (not my word).

 

Let's make another short comparison. Imagine your country has a driving examination and that driving license is not mandatory for a living. There is a minimal requirement which is 80% correct answers to graduate. All the students have the teachers/tools necessary to reach 80%, but some of them decide to not use these tools. They fail to graduate. Then they whine at their teachers.

Would schools have to reduce the 80% correct answer gate ?

Would schools have to tell them to take some time to improve with the tools they have ?

 

32 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And they should never, ever let those groups team together, unless in a setting where their playstyles do not clash.

Hi there, "segregation" 🙀.

[Zok.4956]

38 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

Maybe calling jumping "jumping" is pejorative and condescending.

With your permission, I will replace "jumping" by "using default spacebar binding".

You do not need my permission. Don't be so salty. Don't you want to "git gut" with words? 😁

The point is: Anet initially made some questionable decisions and even mistakes in connection with the open world DE-Meta and the open world turtle (some of them are already corrected). So a lot of "open world" players felt (and were!) excluded from a content type they had fun playing the last (more or less) 10 years. But this change attracted some other type of players and those came into the light of the open world from their instanced content.

And that (some!) players from the 2nd group were neglecting Anets mistakes and telling those players from the 1st group "It's easy. you're just a bad player, git gud or go away" was neither nice, nor helpful nor de-escalating. 

 

[Gehenna.3625]

8 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

But it doesn't change the fact that many players are genuinely bad at playing the game, and they have shown no will to improve themselves. Moreover, those same players demand to win endgame events without efforts. Isn't it another form of toxicity ?

No it isn't. Not wanting to be a "good player" isn't a requirement for this game. You say they have no will, but I would say they have no interest. That's an important difference. Where does it say you have to be a "good player" to play this game? 

8 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

Getting wiped because no one knew how to dodge, how to jump over a shockwave, how to cc, or HOW TO READ a chat... and then, whining about the difficulty of the meta event... is very childish.

Whining about those players is also childish when it comes down to it. The whole problem is that they gated the egg behind a meta that is simply too hard for casuals. So I'm glad that there is an alternative way to get the egg now. That takes away the need to nerf this meta.

8 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

"Casual players" and "bad players" are not the same, even though these 2 populations can overlap. 

Well casual players have fun doing different things. I wouldn't want to say they are bad players. They simple are not good at one aspect of the game, the combat system. Now that aspect is quite a big one, but just because they aren't proficient in that area, doesn't deserve the term "bad". Casual players have different interests and they are the largest group of players as it is.

It's when the two groups meet where the problems begin. Anet just shouldn't have gated the turtle egg behind it. There would've been a lot less whining here. And in the end now a vendor sells the egg for 200 writs. Honestly, they should've had that option from the start. /shrug

[mikko.4013]

1 minute ago, Zok.4956 said:

You do not need my permission. Don't be so salty.

I'm sorry you didn't like my humor. Maybe I should have put a smiley, but it's not my style.

 

7 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Don't you want to "git gut" with words? 😁

Don't use words I didn't use, and don't suppose I would use them. That is a trial of intent, and it doesn't serve your point.

 

6 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

So a lot of "open world" players felt (and were!) excluded from a content type they had fun playing the last (more or less) 10 years.

No one excluded any players of DE's meta. Every player is free to try it, to make a squad, to command, to improve, to fail, to succeed.

 

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

telling those players from the 1st group "It's easy. you're just a bad player, git gud or go away" was neither nice, nor helpful nor de-escalating. 

When did I say I called other players by some bad names in game ?

You are missing my point, again.

 

Yes there is room for self-impovement, yes there are players (not elitists) who will be pleased to explain how and when to dodge/jump/cc.

Saying in chat window "dodge now, dodge forward, jump, use special action" is not toxic.

Explaining the meta in squad is not toxic.

Trying to make people improve is not toxic (I never forced anyone to do so, again).

 

But, when you explained 25 times the mechanics and the basics, over a week, and that you see no improvement (25-30 ppl always downstate), it is legitimate to have some interrogations about people's will to improve.

 

We are talking about simple mechanics, basics.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 minute ago, mikko.4013 said:

But, when you explained 25 times the mechanics and the basics, over a week, and that you see no improvement (25-30 ppl always downstate), it is legitimate to have some interrogations about people's will to improve.

Because many players do not play to "improve". They play to have fun. Improvement is purely optional. If those players will not have fun, they may decide to improve, but alternatively may also decide to just not play. Especially if "improving" will do nothing for them about how (un)fun the play is.

[Chromatic Drake.3168]

I don't know about toxicity, I don't care either as this word doesn't mean anything anymore, but holy I did this meta first week, and I wish we could have a votekick from map. Some players are just hopeless.

[Peterson.5172]

1 minute ago, Chromatic Drake.3168 said:

I don't know about toxicity, I don't care either as this word doesn't mean anything anymore, but holy I did this meta first week, and I wish we could have a votekick from map. Some players are just hopeless.

thats toxic dude

[Zok.4956]

2 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

No one excluded any players of DE's meta. Every player is free to try it, to make a squad, to command, to improve, to fail, to succeed.

I like your humor. 

 

4 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

When did I say I called other players by some bad names in game ?

When did I say you did? I think you missed my point.

 

5 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

Saying in chat window "dodge now, dodge forward, jump, use special action" is not toxic.

Explaining the meta in squad is not toxic.

Of course not. That is not toxic. That is nice and helpful.

 

6 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

But, when you explained 25 times the mechanics and the basics, over a week, and that you see no improvement (25-30 ppl always downstate), it is legitimate to have some interrogations about people's will to improve.

I saw them too. If its only 30%, it was a good run. 😎

How much of those in downstate were first timers? I guess in the first weeks were a lot of players first-timers and were expecting an open world boss like the others we already had. 

I too went in downstate from the first attack. In my first 2 tries. Because I could no see it coming beeing melee and I was not expecting it. I had to adjust my camera angle/zoom to see it.  It needed some practice. Some players need a little bit longer to understand and practice such a fight (if they want to).

Maybe you did not see any improvement because you could not just /gg and restart the fight with the same players but had to wait until the next meta with different players. That's why I think this fight should have been in an instance were you just can /gg and try again. Would be a better learning experience.

 

30 minutes ago, mikko.4013 said:

We are talking about simple mechanics, basics

I disagree. Not for most first-timers. The combination of several mechanics, the DPS requirement, the CC, the visual noise and the amount of mobs and the RNG made it in combination a lot of things, but not really easy. At least in the first weeks. I haven't tried it again after the latest patches.

Sure, if you know how you do your top-DPS rotation in this environment, than it is easy. But to know this you usually have some fractal/strike/raid experience.

I think it is only easy as in "it is easy to be a world class piano player - just hit the right keys at the right time in the right way".

 

[Vancho.8750]

7 hours ago, Raknar.4735 said:

I‘m just quoting this as it seems to be the core of your responses and I don‘t think there’s any merit to respond to the other parts, as we’ll just restate our positions over and over again until one of us gets bored (which is me in this case).

I’ll just post my own statement:

”The DE meta it too hard for the average player. Players will not adapt, they’ll just start ignoring the meta. The solution to this debacle: Anet will either change it based on their stats, or leave it to die based on their stats, just like the other, similiar content that was left to die in the past. People will complain either way.

Whining about the complaints on the forum is useless and doesn’t improve the situation.”

The problem here is that they are forcefully trying to teach the player to do something, while the rest of the game through 1-80 and 2 expansions didn't push anyone to do it and actually the difficulty of the expansion was skipped by using tankier builds.

The issue is that it is way too easy to have a bad build, stats are not worth much without good multipliers or traits, there are a lot of bad weapons a lot of bad skills, the damage rotations are over complex for no reason, actually the whole rotation thing is bulshit since the game is quite dynamic and a lot of movement and the rotations will be missed.  Other games use like 6 buttons max as a rotation here you can reach ridiculous levels stuff like engi or elementalist. Currently making a build is not intuitive and without dps meter you do not actually know if you are doing well.

Arenanet said it themselves the average player does 1/10 of the average raider dps and trying to force people to get better isn't going to happen in one Meta event, they should reduce the gap with balancing the classes and the stat/armor system to reduce the probability of bad builds, the difference between not optimised build and optimised one should not be 10x, maybe 1/2 will still be allot, but way way better than now, It should be made by reworking and buffing generally bad, useless or not functional traits and skills instead of nerfing already good ones, basically pulling the bottom end up.    

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

But, when you explained 25 times the mechanics and the basics, over a week, and that you see no improvement (25-30 ppl always downstate), it is legitimate to have some interrogations about people's will to improve.

We are talking about simple mechanics, basics.

That's one of the reasons this meta is such a contentious issue.  Even people like you who enjoy the fight hate it in practice because it's too difficult - not for you, but for enough people to cause it to fail most of the time if you don't cook your squads to win. 

It's open world.  Every time you play this meta it'll be a different group of players, including new players you didn't personally try to teach anything to.  So how is "interrogating" them for failing mechanics helpful and non-toxic?  It absolutely is toxic, but your frustration is understandable.

Perhaps all we need is time.  It's happened before where a meta was too hard initially because too many players were new to it.  However, it could also just be overtuned and will continue to have a high failure rate.  If that's too much for you to handle without having a go at rando #537 on your 10th fail of your 20-hour marathon of DE, maybe you should get on board with changing this meta to be a little more forgiving?

[Telgum.6071]

6 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

But, when you explained 25 times the mechanics and the basics, over a week, and that you see no improvement (25-30 ppl always downstate), it is legitimate to have some interrogations about people's will to improve.

I legit can't believe when the DE boss does that hand attack and +10 people is instantly downed. I can understand one or two persons being distracted, but two full parties not looking at the screen!?

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, Hybrid Theory.7361 said:

Only toxic players are the open world fairy’s that complain that everything’s too hard if content isn’t auto attack friendly. 
 

pvp is toxic because they won’t learn the class

raids are toxic because people don’t want you because you can’t do mechanics 

fishing is going to be toxic soon because moving the cursor is too hard 

low key funny tbh 

Wow, I haven’t heard the word “fairy” used as an insult in decades.

Kind of undermines your authority on what is and isn’t “toxic”.

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, mikko.4013 said:

I can see you like the comparison.

All good, except for the rules. Rules for "kids" were not the same as rules for "sportsmen" and for "pros".

 

DE's meta is different in the fact that the "rules" are the same, for "non-dodging non-jumping non-ccing non-reading players" as well as for "deeper involved players". Timer is the same, healthpool is about the same.

Well, yes. That's part of the problem, isn't it. You've just put the "neighbourhood kids" on a normal football field, with normal timers and strict adherence to the rules. But they will still play the way they are used to, because they play for fun, and that's how they find it fun. And yes, they will likely complain about how the field is way too big, and the timer for the match too long. And they will be perfectly right for doing so.

Quote

Moreover, your "kids", "sportsmen", and "pros" don't share the same goals, whereas it seems that most gw2 players share the same goal which is "let's win DE's meta, eventually". If that wasn't the case, no people would whine about failing DE's meta.

Nah, it's the same. In all cases the general goal is the same, but the purpose behind it, and the methods used are different.

i.e both "sportsmen" and "pros" play to win, but while the second group is interested in win itself, and perfectly willing to use underhanded methods (like fouls) for it, because they threat it as business, the first group wants to win fairly, because they treat it as a challenge.

Here is the same - some players will want to "get rid" of casuals from the map, in order to increase their chances. Others will try to organize and help out anyone. Some will just try to the extend of their abilities (which will not be necessarily all that great), and think that should be enough. Additionally, some will play the meta because it is fun (for them), while others will be there only for the turtle, or other rewards.

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"Bad" is just a word, but it seems that people can't accept objective statements. They put their emotions in it, and feel hurt. Everybody is bad at some point. Everybody can improve at some point. Stop "bad shaming".

Again, "bad" is a result of your judgement about how other people should be playing. Not everyone agrees with you that mastering of gaming skills is important (or even desired) to get fun out of this game however.

You might as well call a city commuter "bad" because not only they're not driving at F1 level but do not even bother to have any driving licence at all, and prefer to use public transportation, a bike or even their own feet.

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DE's meta did set a skillgate (very not high imho).

You think this skillgate is a bad thing, because it may drive people off the meta-event (I highly doubt people will quit the game for 1 meta-event, otherwise this game has nothing to sell).

Well, this whole expansion is not very engaging for casual players tbh, so yeah, one more meta someone will not be playing might decrease interest in the whole game. Sure, in theory people can always just go back to the old content, but remember what this expansion was for - it was supposed to rekindle a waning player interest. So, if enough players will give up on expac, it will fail in that intended purpose.

Many players waited over 4 years for that expansion. If they'll end up too much disappointed in it, they might not want to stay around to see the next one.

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I think this skillgate could have made people improve themselves, and made them realize that other "endgame" contents are not out of reach (fractals, raids... strikes ????).

Oh, yeah, i bet you did think that way. Problem is, last 7 years proved that this way of thinking is just wishful thinking with no relation to reality. Forcing players to improve just doesn't work in a statistically meaningful quantities. Less skilled players either ignore that kind of pressure and try to engage the content without improving, or (if you make it impossible) just stop engaging with it at all.

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No one forced players to play DE's meta, didn't they ? They tried it, they did discover the "rules".

Yes, nobody can force players to play this meta (or the game). So in the end either that meta will be adjusted for them, or they will stop playing it. And there's not enough hardcore players to keep it alive for long (especially considering the rewards).

Quote

Hi there, "segregation" 🙀.

i do not want to turn this thread into a political (and very volatile) one, but you obviously have no idea what segregation is.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Tsakhi.8124]

This whole thing makes me incredibly sad; people can agree to disagree but don't.  People can get better without being told they suck or they're a hinderance: positive reinforcement is a thing. Now I'm not saying you should pamper them or sugar-coat things, I am saying that  calling people trash or whatever doesn't improve the over-all morale. I'm actually pretty disappointed  in some "veterans" that believe that they are better than others , thus we get people get with an ego that deep down doesn't seek improvement for others, only validation through virtue of years they played. I'm not calling out all "veterans", as there are a lot good people in game; in fact my mentor for my Mesmer was a veteran and I learned a great deal from them, they displayed empathy and patience and I will forever be in their debt (within reason, of course. XD) 

If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm beginning to think that I'm not wanted in game because I don't follow a meta that changes with every patch or with people that are either unable to or don't want to change. Don't misunderstand me, I love this game and I've been playing for six or so years, but I do tire of this constant barrage of negativity. I know that the answer is to not deal with the forum or Reddit, but it's hard because I've grown to care about a select few; maybe that is dumb and maybe I shouldn't, but I like to believe even the most jaded person can be a valuable asset to this game. 

If this doesn't make sense, I apologize: I had surgery today and I'm still loopy from it. XD