The Increasing Toxicity in the Community

[Dami.5046]

I have a solution for all your meta fails! Just blame me, i could be in the loo, on the bus or watching TV and it will still be my fault. I don't care.  I get blamed for everything.

Now how about people helping others like they do in Teq and comms actually explaining stuff instead of this e-peen that i have seen in other games, which is making itself known here, too.

The toxicity has always been here, just well hidden and i should know. 🤷‍♂️ 

 

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Dami.5046

[Caitybee.3614]

18 hours ago, lain.3148 said:

I think many of us have noticed the large increase in toxicity in game after the EoD expansion launch. A big example is many discussions around the dragon's end meta, but it's not limited to that at all. I've seen commanders of open world metas (not just DE) making fun of people for dying, telling people they shouldn't play the game or shouldn't get rewards if they down a lot, boasting about how much dps they are doing, etc. All of this in open world metas that are probably quite unlikely to fail no matter how 'badly' the squad performs and where many of the players are likely new to the map and maybe even new to the game.

Since the EoD launch I've also seen people saying things and having discussions in map chat that are frankly very offensive and would probably make many people feel unwelcome in the game.

That I've seen this kind of toxicity from commanders and veteran players and not just random newish players is inexcusable and I feel points to a major growing problem in the community.

People talk about how great and welcoming the gw2 community is, and in many parts i agree with them. There are so many amazing commanders and guilds in game that help new and veteran players so much, and these kind of people and guilds definitely are in the vast majority. The toxic commanders and players I've seen don't seem like they're affiliated with a guild that participates much in the community, aren't doing guild meta runs, and don't really seem to participate in the larger gw2 community at all. But the fact remains that many new and returning players will end up joining their squads in lfg and seeing them talking in map chat, leading to a worse experience with the game and a bad impression of the community.

This might sound a bit silly but I've noticed a lot of these players using certain terms, ie, asking for "big pumpers" in lfg and using 4chan slang in chat. This isn't something I saw at all in the game before EoD launched.

One of the biggest reasons many people, including me, play this game is because of the wonderful community. Because of that I think its really important to try to address or at least pay attention to things happening within the game that could make the experience with the community worse for people. Personally I don't know where this kind of behavior is coming from or why it's happening more now or what can be done about it, but I think its important as a community to take note of it and to talk about it.

There is a lot of toxicity in the GW2 community unfortunately, and depending on the game mode, or who you deal with, it can be on par with League of Legends in my experience. It's why I gave up doing Fractals/Raids. People are just unwilling to help train new players in those areas, and I was harassed on multiple occasions for not "getting good enough".

Same thing is happening with the new Dragon's End meta. Some are taking it out on the players for not having a build good enough at dishing out HUGE amounts of DPS. I'm sorry but that's childish and wrong, I will never blame anyone for failed attempts as everyone is already trying their best, or their version of what best is. Let people play how they want, and be open and more accepting to new players - that's how you keep a community and game alive longer.

[SnackParty.3178]

36 minutes ago, Caitybee.3614 said:

There is a lot of toxicity in the GW2 community unfortunately, and depending on the game mode, or who you deal with, it can be on par with League of Legends in my experience. It's why I gave up doing Fractals/Raids. People are just unwilling to help train new players in those areas, and I was harassed on multiple occasions for not "getting good enough".

Same thing is happening with the new Dragon's End meta. Some are taking it out on the players for not having a build good enough at dishing out HUGE amounts of DPS. I'm sorry but that's childish and wrong, I will never blame anyone for failed attempts as everyone is already trying their best, or their version of what best is. Let people play how they want, and be open and more accepting to new players - that's how you keep a community and game alive longer.

I think the problem is there's a lot of inability to handle frustration. That person yelling probably was trying meta several times and decided just to "lose it.," which is not constructive at all.

I did meta 2 times and both leaders were cool, collective and understood players are learning the fight, which is Anet's intention to begin with, having players overcome the challenge.

(Second try was a winner and it felt awesome 👍🏼. )

 

 

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Allen.9310

[fixit.7189]

agree, there seems to be an influx of really nasty people since EoD release but...that's probably due to tourists who will hopefully (fingers crossed) go back to their original mmos soon.

[Preppy.7046]

Our very well-organized squad with great DPS and great mechanics minus wisp had the commander crying in Discord after our last fail.  It got worse when it was revealed that some hateful trolls had deliberately failed wisp phase. 

 

And there's also the (necessary?) elitism of trying to get everybody "not serious" off the map, of getting upset with everybody not in discord, etc.  The Dragon's End meta is a really horrid place for casuals right now... and not much better for serious players.

[Marikus.1875]

11 hours ago, Voltekka.2375 said:

Not ONCE did people spew toxic nonsense. Some bitterness, yes, some trolling too. But toxicity? No. Unless i have been lucky with the groups i joined...

Again, someone declining you from a group or kicking you out because you can't parse isn't toxic. It's that group leaders decision and should be respected.

If people thought this type of mentality was exclusive to LoL or WoW then idk what rock you've been living under. This is the NEW age way of thinking and it's hyper-META focused. 

No game can escape it now.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Marikus.1875

[yann.1946]

15 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Nah. Even before condi change and all the nerfs Teq went through it was never an event where completion was based on any RNG elements. After few days of getting used to mechanics, if you had big enough well-organized group on map (and no, that did not mean a full squad of raiders), the success was practically guaranteed. And you knew if it was going to succeed or not within first 2-3 minutes of the event.

This event is very much not like that.

While they are indeed not the same, and I completely agree that the Rng is problematic. 

What you said does not counter the statement that they are around the same difficulty. 

[Voltekka.2375]

9 hours ago, Marikus.1875 said:

Again, someone declining you from a group or kicking you out because you can't parse isn't toxic. It's that group leaders decision and should be respected.

If people thought this type of mentality was exclusive to LoL or WoW then idk what rock you've been living under. This is the NEW age way of thinking and it's hyper-META focused. 

No game can escape it now.

This is an exaggeration, to me.

I have never ever seen someone kicked out of a squad, on any map i was, even prenerf.

 

[Woof.8246]

10 hours ago, Marikus.1875 said:

Again, someone declining you from a group or kicking you out because you can't parse isn't toxic. It's that group leaders decision and should be respected.

If people thought this type of mentality was exclusive to LoL or WoW then idk what rock you've been living under. This is the NEW age way of thinking and it's hyper-META focused. 

No game can escape it now.

If we cannot escape it, then then we can split it. 

(we can offer a hard mode (like public) 1 hour after the Public starts. So the LFG posts don't collide) 

Edited March 12, 2022 by Woof.8246

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

While they are indeed not the same, and I completely agree that the Rng is problematic. 

What you said does not counter the statement that they are around the same difficulty. 

The same difficulty for 100% success, and for like 10-20% of success is not really the same at all. Not to mention Teq mechanics can easily be trivialized by high enough dps - and that's what happening nowadays. In DE meta however dps matters less, it's the mechanics and how they chain that truly decide the success. You can have highly organized groups with massive dps failing, while at the same time far more casual ones will succeed simply because the individual mechanics happened to spawn at different order.

Also, remember, that Teq became popular only after the nerfs. Until that it was being done by highly organized groups, but without those groups the map was pretty much empty and nobody bothered. TT is still like that.

[yann.1946]

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The same difficulty for 100% success, and for like 10-20% of success is not really the same at all.

That is ignoring that the difficulty for teq and TT was not 100 percent succes when they came out. Even stronger, what i have read DE is easier then TT in that regard as it took way longer for the first kill to happen on TT then DE if we go by succesrate.

This has probably a lot todo with the community getting better in general however, so it becomes difficult to compare.

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not to mention Teq mechanics can easily be trivialized by high enough dps - and that's what happening nowadays. In DE meta however dps matters less, it's the mechanics and how they chain that truly decide the success.

Sort of but

A) Higher dps will eventually trivialize it also to some degree (not all people have all the masteries and new players are also joining the map) 

B) The mastery of mechanics will impove over time.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You can have highly organized groups with massive dps failing, while at the same time far more casual ones will succeed simply because the individual mechanics happened to spawn at different order.

I do agree, and that is important to say before people jump to conclusions, that the present use of RNG is a problem. The locking of the turtle is a problem. It feels really kitten to wipe on things the boss does to cheeze a loss out of you.  

 

A person can say that two things are equally difficult while one is problematic designed and the other isnt.

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Also, remember, that Teq became popular only after the nerfs. Until that it was being done by highly organized groups, but without those groups the map was pretty much empty and nobody bothered. TT is still like that.

They dont consider the TT participation to be a problem however. What TT does is motivate communitybuilding which is what i think there goal is.

[Xion.5694]

Well, OP, this is normal and don't be surprised that you see more people being toxic, as the player base slightly increased after the DLC drop.

 

We've seen content drought for the last 2 years or so. Many players left due to that and now they came back to  see what has been added in this DLC. I cannot blame them for wanting to beat the content efficiently, asking others to use 'good' builds and break break bars.

 

Don't worry - in a month thing will get back to normal. Player base will drop again and most of the 'toxic' people will just move on.

[Phantassel.3564]

I somewhat agree. There's a few good players left, though, heh. 

 

I've attempted the meta about five or six times, failing each time. It's crazy because it seems like we have enough people, a squad of 50 and some outside the squad, doing CC, hitting Soo-Wan's tail, coordinating our attacks with high DPS but it still isn't enough.

 

Anet needs to fix this. It's REALLY difficult to get the siege turtle in my experience. I want it so badly, and it's one of the main reasons why I purchased the expansion...

[Astralporing.1957]

12 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

That is ignoring that the difficulty for teq and TT was not 100 percent succes when they came out. Even stronger, what i have read DE is easier then TT in that regard as it took way longer for the first kill to happen on TT then DE if we go by succesrate.

There were next to no raid-tier players then, and partywide permabuffing was also not so common. Not to mention most people were still in rares and exotics, ascended were a completely new thing. Also, which is more important, that was before megaservers. most attempts simply failed because a lot of servers didn't have enough players on map to do it. People were guesting to high-pop ones in order to even be able to participate.

12 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

This has probably a lot todo with the community getting better in general however, so it becomes difficult to compare.

Yes, proliferation of better builds and better gear is now higher (and even the top-tier players operate on better levels, because the harcore community's understanding of what makes a better build and how theoretical knowledge thanslates in practical usefulness is also higher due to use of dps meters)

12 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Sort of but

A) Higher dps will eventually trivialize it also to some degree (not all people have all the masteries and new players are also joining the map) 

B) The mastery of mechanics will impove over time.

dps is not really going to get any higher unless there will be some powercreep happening (and, contrary to what some people claim, the overall situation remains pretty stable since HoT, so we should not expect that to change in the future). And as for mechanics, the issue (again) is not mechanic mastery, but the fact that some mechanics simply stop you from doing dps for several seconds and delay the fight, and wit enough of those at bad moments you might simply run out of time even with very well-organized squad.

Imagine how Teq would feel if bonewall was not controllable but was a rng-based mechanic, and you could get anywhere from 1 to 15 of those in one event. Add to it one or two more similar mechanics that would stop the crowd from attacking on very irregular and unpredictable basis, and we'd have some major problems with the event.

12 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

They dont consider the TT participation to be a problem however. What TT does is motivate communitybuilding which is what i think there goal is.

That's because most players do not consider TT a problem anymore. And it is so because next to noone actually cares about this event - after all it is something that's not part of a main storyline, happens in a map noone cares about anymore, doesn't have any rewards players might care about, and does not lock access to anything.

[Zauriel Mooncat.4968]

I really cant say this has been something I have seen or experience outside Dragons End (if we are specifically talking arround the new maps) because so far people have been pretty okey.  

 

I cant say there are not times thst there is the occasional bad apple here and there but every one very much deal with them quickly and try to change subjects swiftly and such, so I dunno. 

 

Other big proble tho and maybe this is a cause for toxicity are groups asking for KPs and  LIs on open maps and some groups asking over 250 LIs on strike missions when strike missions are supposed to be an entrance to raids, maybe that is a part of what is causing toxicity? 

[ugrakarma.9416]

calm down folks: when the power creep "balance patch" make new specs rain damage from heaven,  u will be completing the meta with timer at 10  min remaining. 

Edited March 12, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[yann.1946]

58 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

There were next to no raid-tier players then, and partywide permabuffing was also not so common. Not to mention most people were still in rares and exotics, ascended were a completely new thing. Also, which is more important, that was before megaservers. most attempts simply failed because a lot of servers didn't have enough players on map to do it. People were guesting to high-pop ones in order to even be able to participate.

Yes, these are all the reasons why it was difficult. So you agree that it was a difficult event then.

58 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, proliferation of better builds and better gear is now higher (and even the top-tier players operate on better levels, because the harcore community's understanding of what makes a better build and how theoretical knowledge thanslates in practical usefulness is also higher due to use of dps meters)

 

58 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

dps is not really going to get any higher unless there will be some powercreep happening (and, contrary to what some people claim, the overall situation remains pretty stable since HoT, so we should not expect that to change in the future). And as for mechanics, the issue (again) is not mechanic mastery, but the fact that some mechanics simply stop you from doing dps for several seconds and delay the fight, and wit enough of those at bad moments you might simply run out of time even with very well-organized squad.

Imagine how Teq would feel if bonewall was not controllable but was a rng-based mechanic, and you could get anywhere from 1 to 15 of those in one event. Add to it one or two more similar mechanics that would stop the crowd from attacking on very irregular and unpredictable basis, and we'd have some major problems with the event.

Did you miss the part were i said that i agree that the rng is problematic.

58 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

That's because most players do not consider TT a problem anymore. And it is so because next to noone actually cares about this event - after all it is something that's not part of a main storyline, happens in a map noone cares about anymore, doesn't have any rewards players might care about, and does not lock access to anything.

That is not what im talking about though. I said, the devs dont consider the current participation numbers of TT a problem. Meaning that even if what you say about it is true (that it is unpopular), that doesnt matter to the population the devs want doing the meta.

[Zok.4956]

2 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

They dont consider the TT participation to be a problem however. What TT does is motivate communitybuilding which is what i think there goal is.

When TT was released, it was before HoT, before High-Level Fractal-CMs, before raids, before strikes. For players that liked such challenging content (and for a lot of other players), there was not really (a lot of) content to do in the PvE-(end-)game. Please don't forget, that it was really a different situation in the game back then. The ones that liked TT could form communities and the others could just ignore TT. And: TT is not really challenging. The only real challenge lies in organizing such an event.

No we are in a different situation in the game. We already have (in a way) different communities in the game that all have "their" content. And we already know, that "mixing" a few of this communites/player styles is not a good idea. Because they like and dislike different things (and sometimes even despise what the other communities like the most).

Maybe Anet wanted some communitybuilding between different communities, and for some this may worked, but overall I think they made it worse and split the communities more than before.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Zok.4956

[yann.1946]

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

When TT was released, it was before HoT, before High-Level Fractal-CMs, before raids, before strikes. For players that liked such challenging content (and for a lot of other players), there was not really (a lot of) content to do in the PvE-(end-)game. Please don't forget, that it was really a different situation in the game back then. The ones that liked TT could form communities and the others could just ignore TT.

Ones they fix the turtle acquisition a similar thing should happen here

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

And: TT is not really challenging. The only realy challenge lies in organizing such an event.

The same can be said about DE though.

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

No we are in a different situation in the game. We already have (in a way) different communities in the game that all have "their" content.

Sort of, these communities mix more than you might think though.

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

And we already know, that "mixing" a few of this communites/player styles is not a good idea.

We dont know that, because that is a false statement. You can get communities to intermingal with minimal toxicity. The question is more how though. DE failed in that purpose.

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Because they like and dislike different things (and sometimes even despise what the other communities like the most).

Maybe Anet wanted some communitybuilding between different communities, and for some this may worked, but overall I think they made it worse and split the communities more than before.

I would say that the implimentation sucked in regards to use DE to mix playerbases. (there does seem to be some weird ideas going around that it are only raiders which like DE, which is just not true.) The rng is problametic with how it is implemented, the turtle should not have been locked behind a succesful meta and the meta should have felt not bad to fail. But i dont think the concept of mixing playstyles is a problem perse. 

 

Also, what people like or dislike is fluid ovr time, there might be moments where a person wants a more laidback experiences, sometimes a more laidback , and sometimes something else entirely. It is not a problem to make people explore these other playstyles.

 

 

[BluePickle.9253]

Sure the toxicity might be there, though it's always been there. You're probably experiencing more toxicity due to there being new content I.E more new/returning players. But you know what else is in the game? A Block/Report feature. Give those a try, it'll make your life a lot better I guarantee.

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

That is not what im talking about though. I said, the devs dont consider the current participation numbers of TT a problem.

Because they do not really care about whether anyone is actually doing that event or not. It's an old event they have already forgotten about and the less they'll be reminded about it the better (for them, anyway).

[yann.1946]

34 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Because they do not really care about whether anyone is actually doing that event or not. It's an old event they have already forgotten about and the less they'll be reminded about it the better (for them, anyway).

So your saying that after they specificly said that they want DE to be at the level of participation as TT they just pulled that out of thin air, they didnt actually mean that TT had good enough participation? Or are you saying they subtly want DE to die?

[Zok.4956]

And we already know, that "mixing" a few of this communites/player styles is not a good idea.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

We dont know that, because that is a false statement. 

 

Its not a false statement. A few examples:

• PvE open world players that wanted the world completion achievement but were required to do this also in WvW maps (Anet changed that in the past and removed the WvW requirement)
• PvE players that wanted easy access to crafting stations from PvE maps without waypointing and jumped into WvW maps and blocked WvW maps slot (Anet removed crafting stations from WvW maps)
• Players that want build a Legy the Gift of Battle but dont like WvW and are just AFKing at spawn and blocking map slots during prime time. (as an also WvW players I hear/see complaints about this on a regular basis)
• Players that like the "play how you want" aspect of GW2 and did it for years without problems and then experienced challenging instanced content ("play what its best for the encounter and group") the first time.
• Players that want to play the class/weapons/pets they like the most versus players that play whatever is the most "effective"
• Players that wanted to experience the lore/story aspect of raids (yes, I know, there is not much ... nonetheless) and asked for some additional story/easy mode and a lot of (not all of them) vocal raiders were against it.
• Players that like to complete living world story/map meta achievements for years and had a lot of choice which achievements they do and then were "forced" with IBS in a few episodes to do strikes.

 

I  have seen, that in a lot of this cases, there is not only increased discussion but also toxicity and blaming and devalueing of the playstyles of others. I know that playing different modes, playstyles can be fun (because, I do). And GW2 has a very helpful community, most of the time. But whenever I see some form of toxicity it is when different player / player styles, that have a different understanding, of what "fun" is, are playing the same content. And no, I do not blame only "the hardcore" and I do not blame only "the casuals".

[yann.1946]

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

And we already know, that "mixing" a few of this communites/player styles is not a good idea.

 

Its not a false statement. A few examples:

 

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

• PvE open world players that wanted the world completion achievement but were required to do this also in WvW maps (Anet changed that in the past and removed the WvW requirement)
• PvE players that wanted easy access to crafting stations from PvE maps without waypointing and jumped into WvW maps and blocked WvW maps slot (Anet removed crafting stations from WvW maps)

These were problems indeed. although i would argue the first one had more to do with the fact that world completion was impossible if your server sucked at wvw.

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

• Players that want build a Legy the Gift of Battle but dont like WvW and are just AFKing at spawn and blocking map slots during prime time. (as an also WvW players I hear/see complaints about this on a regular basis)

And they still changed the gift of battle such that more WvW is nessecary. Why do you think that is?

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

• Players that like the "play how you want" aspect of GW2 and did it for years without problems and then experienced challenging instanced content ("play what its best for the encounter and group") the first time.

Are you suggesting we shouldnt have challenging content ever?

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

• Players that want to play the class/weapons/pets they like the most versus players that play whatever is the most "effective"

 

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

• Players that wanted to experience the lore/story aspect of raids (yes, I know, there is not much ... nonetheless) and asked for some additional story/easy mode and a lot of (not all of them) vocal raiders were against it.

This being against it had very little to do with mixing playstyles though. Also since when is just disagreement toxic?

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

• Players that like to complete living world story/map meta achievements for years and had a lot of choice which achievements they do and then were "forced" with IBS in a few episodes to do strikes.

Now how big of a percentage of the population do you think had a problem with that?

And do you think that there could have been gains there in some way?

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

I  have seen, that in a lot of this cases, there is not only increased discussion but also toxicity and blaming and devalueing of the playstyles of others. I know that playing different modes, playstyles can be fun (because, I do). And GW2 has a very helpful community, most of the time.

Do you think it would be good for the game if more people pplayed more gamemodes?

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

But whenever I see some form of toxicity it is when different player / player styles, that have a different understanding, of what "fun" is, are playing the same content. And no, I do not blame only "the hardcore" and I do not blame only "the casuals".

I sort of agree with this part, but this does not show the original statement. I can grant you that toxicity as observed in the community has some link with mixing playstyles and still think it is a good idea to get people to mix. What you have shown above is that there can be problems with mixing, but you havent shown in any meaningfull way that these things are a net negative. 

 

If i would give an analogy, you have shown me a list of problems that can arise from taking  a headache medication, and then said you should never take headache medication. That logic does not really follow.

 

For example, for the turtle you need to do a strike. And i have read the treads complaining about it.

I still think more good then bad will come  to the game by making people try 1 strike. (more playtime will be gained from the people who will get invested into strikes then gametime will be lost by people quitting over it).

The DE meta made the strike thing slightly more problematic though, but that is not because of the strike perse.

[Zok.4956]

35 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Are you suggesting we shouldnt have challenging content ever?

Not at all. Thats not what I wrote and what this sub-thread and my post was about. It was about that mixing players that like challenging content with players that dislike challenging content is (mostly) not such a good idea and that content types for each of these groups should not be mixed too much and each should have "their own".