When someone doesn't understand what elitist and casual are

[Labjax.2465]

A thread got posted on the subreddit where someone organizing a CM strike mission in LFG shares a screenshot of a player who they rejected for not having KP; a player who subsequently went off on them after being rejected. The post and comments portray it as "toxic casual," as someone who is a casual player and is being "toxic" in that they feel entitled to being carried by others.

But the actual context of what's said in the screenshot is an elitist rant. The person essentially saying things along the lines of "I'm good at the game, you're bad at it, and this is such an easy boss, it's pathetic that you'd need KP for it." (that is not an exact quote, it's the gist of the attitude I take away from it, it was more vicious than that)

Instead of this being the takeaway, that someone who is elitist got rejected for not meeting requirements and went off on an elitist rant, the takeaway of the thread is that people should do training groups if they don't like dealing with KP. Even though the attitude presented was one of someone believing the content isn't hard and doesn't need KP. Which is NOT the same thing as someone believing the content is hard and they deserve to be carried (an attitude that seems mostly made up as something casual players sincerely believe).

The attitude was gross and uncalled for (assuming we are seeing the full story), but to use it as ammo against casual players is also gross and uncalled for. And I bother to bring this up because it's a narrative I see with some persistence and it's a detriment to the health of the game for the instanced PvE community to have this reputation and attitude about other players. If people are dead set on insisting that there is a horde of casuals banging on the doors of their club, if people are dead set on looking for whatever opportunity they can to vilify said casuals as mindless and entitled, all it's going to do is scare away mature skilled players who want no part of the drama and mature unskilled players who want to learn but are afraid of being looked down on.

And for those who promote this kind of narrative, I ask you, do you think someone who doesn't play the game and is considering it, or is new or veteran player and is considering instanced PvE, is going to take your side and think the game is great for instanced PvE when seeing such things posted?

It's sad and frustrating to watch this bizarre reaction to accusations of elitism where people make the narrative binary (as casuals vs. elitists) and then try to flip it to convince the community that actually, it's the ones being rejected who are entitled villains and the people rejecting them are tragic and patient heroes who have to put up with too much. Friendly reminder here that just as no one is owed a spot in your pug group, no one owes you a pug group that is tailored exactly to your desires and though vile rants at you are not at all justified over a kick for not filling requirements, communication is a two way street and if you treat people like inconveniences, every once in a while, you may find that one of them decides to embrace the role.

And someone not liking your group desires or methods does not automatically make them casual. You ever seen experts go at it? They can disagree vehemently. Maybe you need to consider that some of the calls are coming from inside the house.

[AliamRationem.5172]

I assume you read this forum, yes?  Then certainly you have seen clear examples of a toxic casual mindset on numerous occasions.  Does this story make that any less of a fact?

[Shikaru.7618]

Why would mature players identify with the toxic casual portrayed in the reddit post?  Toxic casual is a player that exhibits a very specific behavior pattern which is:

1. Ignores requirements listed on LFG because they think it doesn't apply to them.
2. Proceeds with verbal abuse when said requirements are enforced upon them (despite the reqs being very clearly spelled out before they joined the group)
3. Then spreads extravagant stories about how the raiding community is toxic because they were kicked while conveniently leaving out the reason they were kicked
4. Ignores any post that offers actual advice (join a training run, join training communities, join guilds)

Players that have come to ask for genuine help (eg. I don't understand this boss mechanic, I don't understand how to play this class, where can I find like minded players) the end game community are more than happy to help. So again, the casual players that identify with the toxic casual mindset laid out above, why do we care about them?

Edited July 29, 2022 by Shikaru.7618

[Sobx.1758]

14 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

It's sad and frustrating to watch this bizarre reaction to accusations of elitism where people make the narrative binary (as casuals vs. elitists) and then try to flip it to convince the community that actually, it's the ones being rejected who are entitled villains and the people rejecting them are tragic and patient heroes who have to put up with too much. Friendly reminder here that just as no one is owed a spot in your pug group, no one owes you a pug group that is tailored exactly to your desires and though vile rants at you are not at all justified over a kick for not filling requirements, communication is a two way street and if you treat people like inconveniences, every once in a while, you may find that one of them decides to embrace the role.

Looked for that thread on reddit, found one from yesterday, pretty sure that's the one you're talking about. The player joined a squad, didn't communicate what role he wants to fill, doesn't fulfill -or even communicate about from what I understood from that thread- 1 kp requirement, goes on a ~20 message long flame-spree (over 13 minutes) and... Even though you initially describe it as "elitist rant" and a "gross attitude", then you still try to turn it around by saying it's understandably caused by that 1 kp and wish for people to communicate their role. At this point, what kind of mental flip does one need to perform to draw this conclusion from what happened there is beyond me.

About "communication being a two way street" -true. But from what was being said in that thread (although sure, that's just one side talking about it), the only one refusing to communicate (about role and kp) -even after being specifically asked about it- was the person that got kicked. So who's not communicating here? How is this on someone creating the squad when the joining person refuses to even speak about anything in the first place?

14 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

the takeaway of the thread is that people should do training groups if they don't like dealing with KP

If that was the takeaway of that thread, then it indeed wasn't a fully truthful one. The truth is that you can make your squad with or without any requirements and it doesn't automatically mean it's a training one. You can just note that you want people to "know what to do" and at that point it fits the idea of the kicked player that... loudly voiced his opinion about not needing kp if the player knows what they're doing. There's no reason not to do it, unless... he doesn't trust people with no kp (for whatever reason), which is obviously pretty ironic when compared to the stance that particular player is presenting himself.

Edit: actually that wasn't "the takeaway of the thread", only OP (of that reddit thread) wrote about it (none of the commenters mentioned anything about training runs, from what I see?) and the context of what they said was "but how do you even start without any li/kp?". Here's the quote without being cut out context: 

Quote

"But how do you even get started as a new player if every group is asking for high amounts of kp/li?". The answer are training groups. If you dont want to organize your own training group just ask the people listing in the lfg, they will probably kindly redirect you to the various training organisations that are around.

So it's a tip for "new players not knowing where to start", not "if you don't want to deal with kp, play in training squads". 🙄

 

I initially though I'll link the thread for full context for anyone not being able to find the thread themselves, but actually there's just pure flame on that screenshot so probably a nono to link it here.

 

tl;dr: opening post contains some convenient half-truths to draw conclusions they wanted to draw.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[A Hamster.2580]

Not defending the flamer, I am just confuse on why you would keep the strike CM coffer as kill proof and not open them? Looking at the wiki, they have a chance to drop the new precursors worth over 100 gold and items used to upgrade the modules. I can understand not opening the Raid coffer as they don't really drop anything expensive. 

 

I would be skeptical and not join that group just because they strictly ask for strike cm coffer as kp.

[Linken.6345]

15 minutes ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

Not defending the flamer, I am just confuse on why you would keep the strike CM coffer as kill proof and not open them? Looking at the wiki, they have a chance to drop the new precursors worth over 100 gold and items used to upgrade the modules. I can understand not opening the Raid coffer as they don't really drop anything expensive. 

 

I would be skeptical and not join that group just because they strictly ask for strike cm coffer as kp.

You get that from the normal coffers aswell so saving the cm ones dont really matter.

[A Hamster.2580]

38 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

You get that from the normal coffers aswell so saving the cm ones dont really matter.

 

Don't you double your chances by opening both instead of just the normal one?

[Linken.6345]

54 minutes ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

 

Don't you double your chances by opening both instead of just the normal one?

Double the chance of 0.00000000001 is not much I rather keep untill I have enough to get into competent groups were I can earn more.

[vanguard.8397]

THANK YOU. I've had to deal with certain groups like that in the past you made my points thank you thank you you have no idea how much this pleases me that you called out certain toxic behaviors that are not welcome

Edited July 29, 2022 by vanguard.8397

[vanguard.8397]

8 hours ago, Shikaru.7618 said:

Why would mature players identify with the toxic casual portrayed in the reddit post?  Toxic casual is a player that exhibits a very specific behavior pattern which is:

1. Ignores requirements listed on LFG because they think it doesn't apply to them. Yes communication is a two way street.
2. Proceeds with verbal abuse when said requirements are enforced upon them (despite the reqs being very clearly spelled out before they joined the group)
3. Then spreads extravagant stories about how the raiding community is toxic because they were kicked while conveniently leaving out the reason they were kicked
4. Ignores any post that offers actual advice (join a training run, join training communities, join guilds)

Players that have come to ask for genuine help (eg. I don't understand this boss mechanic, I don't understand how to play this class, where can I find like minded players) the end game community are more than happy to help. So again, the casual players that identify with the toxic casual mindset laid out above, why do we care about them?

you have points but remember there are certain people out there in every community that make them look bad for example just recently the destiny community when they threatened to kill there devs.

[vanguard.8397]

8 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I assume you read this forum, yes?  Then certainly you have seen clear examples of a toxic casual mindset on numerous occasions.  Does this story make that any less of a fact?

too true too true.

[Ashantara.8731]

If you don't have a sufficient amount of KP but know the respective content's mechanics well, you can always whisper the commanding player and explain this in short and ask to be taken along. I rarely ran into Commanders that would refuse you when you are being honest, back when I couldn't meet such KP requirements.

However, if there are requirements and you do meet them, there is no point in getting into an argument about how "pathetic" it is that they are asking for KP for this and that content. That's up to them. I have often seen LFG entries that had me shake my head, but getting toxic about it is just as pathetic, because usually people have their own reasons and it is not up to you to decide whether they are in their right mind. 😉

[The Boz.2038]

12 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

tl;dr: opening post contains some convenient half-truths to draw conclusions they wanted to draw.

Not a first for that particular poster and this particular topic. 
le sigh

[The Boz.2038]

8 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

Not defending the flamer, I am just confuse on why you would keep the strike CM coffer as kill proof and not open them? Looking at the wiki, they have a chance to drop the new precursors worth over 100 gold and items used to upgrade the modules. I can understand not opening the Raid coffer as they don't really drop anything expensive. 

 

I would be skeptical and not join that group just because they strictly ask for strike cm coffer as kp.

I hate from the bottom of my heart the "chests are KP" idea, but ANet seems to really want us to do that...

Anycakes, sites like kp.me or gw2efficiency can read your unopened boxes and save them, allowing you to open them. Then you need to save again, so it reads the current state as 0, so you can then kill another boss next week and refresh your total accumulated KP count.
It is clunky, it is ugly, but ANet really wants it done that way, I guess.

 

The real special people, however, are the nuclear rocket surgeons that demand loot chest KP, and only that form of KP will work, and if you flash your "I did this boss on CM CM" title at them, they still don't bite. Some people just count on their fingers all their life, I suppose.

[Cyninja.2954]

A yes, another one of those "but look, it's them not us" topics to somehow quantify and qualify who belongs to what group and how inappropriate they might have behaved and make sure to lay blame automatically with everyone else but ones own contribution to the problem.

Meanwhile we will all forget how absolute crazy part of this games community went on the release of the Dragon's End meta. How day to day niche parts of the community are being called names or criticized because they want to play the game the way they want. Or how it takes just 1 bad run of *insert 95% open world win rate meta of choice* to have players go ballistic in map chat most of the time.

Harsh truth: some players are kitten. They will behave like kitten. They will be kitten to be around. Most important of all: they don't care for which group they "belong" to.

 

16 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

snip

As was pointed out by others: none of the behavior of the toxic player indicates that he is "elitist" going by what and how presented himself. His behavior was the run of the mill "let's try to sneak into this group and hope no one notices" and for those of us who make groups regularly with different skill levels in mind, it's not even new or something shocking.  Happens all the time. The seemingly only attributing factor here which makes him elitist is his toxic behavior going by what you are claiming, which says far more about how your own view is limited to a binary approach and how your own assumptions seem to be that one side can do no evil while the other is to blame for everything.

Hint: the correct approach here would have been to explain how there are many different players and 1 bad apple should not be taken as reason to blame an entire segment of the player base, instead of playing the shift the blame game.

Next time, try to be better.

EDIT:

meanwhile, the toxic party in this case gets all the attention. Not 1 person decided to mention how cool it was for the comm to simply disregard this issue, not engage and just be the positive party. Even though he is touched by the devil for asking for KP... /s

Edited July 29, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Cuks.8241]

I would consider someone that comes into my house without invitation and then after I kick him out continues to verbal abuse me much worse than just toxic casual. 

[Labjax.2465]

6 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I would consider someone that comes into my house without invitation and then after I kick him out continues to verbal abuse me much worse than just toxic casual. 

I agree their behavior is awful, but... you're kidding with this analogy right? The LFG system is an open invitation system (whether we like it being that way or not) and it's a group you started in a video game. It's about as far away from a private residence as it gets. If that's how some people are actually seeing it, that would explain a lot.

[Shikaru.7618]

13 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I agree their behavior is awful, but... you're kidding with this analogy right? The LFG system is an open invitation system (whether we like it being that way or not) and it's a group you started in a video game. It's about as far away from a private residence as it gets. If that's how some people are actually seeing it, that would explain a lot.

It's an "open" invitation with very clearly sign posted requirements that state you need to have killed the boss to join the group. If you choose to ignore that requirement and invite yourself in anyway that's completely on you. My squad, my house, my rules.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Shikaru.7618

[Labjax.2465]

On 7/28/2022 at 2:56 PM, Shikaru.7618 said:

Why would mature players identify with the toxic casual portrayed in the reddit post?  Toxic casual is a player that exhibits a very specific behavior pattern which is:

1. Ignores requirements listed on LFG because they think it doesn't apply to them.
2. Proceeds with verbal abuse when said requirements are enforced upon them (despite the reqs being very clearly spelled out before they joined the group)
3. Then spreads extravagant stories about how the raiding community is toxic because they were kicked while conveniently leaving out the reason they were kicked
4. Ignores any post that offers actual advice (join a training run, join training communities, join guilds)

Players that have come to ask for genuine help (eg. I don't understand this boss mechanic, I don't understand how to play this class, where can I find like minded players) the end game community are more than happy to help. So again, the casual players that identify with the toxic casual mindset laid out above, why do we care about them?

The person portrayed isn't a "toxic casual" to begin with though, that's the point. People are slapping the label "casual" on when it doesn't even fit. All we have from that post that fits your list for sure is 2 and we can guess probably 1 based on the specifics of the ranting. Nothing would indicate 3 or 4 fit at all; just the opposite, with the rant indicating they are, or see themself as, a hardcore skill player and others as not good enough.

Also, 3 is a suspect item on the list to begin with because most of the time that's going to come down to hearsay and it's a lot more likely someone in video games that are known to have elitism experienced elitism than that they didn't and made it up because they were mad about being kicked. So if people are really basing their image of "toxic casual" on a belief that someone made up stories without any evidence to prove they did, that just shows how absurd the whole thing is.

[Labjax.2465]

4 minutes ago, Shikaru.7618 said:

It's an "open" invitation with very clearly sign posted requirements that state you need to have killed the boss to join the group. If you choose to ignore that requirement and invite yourself in anyway that's completely on you. My squad, my house, my rules.

It is explicitly open invitation in design. The requirements part is purely a player created and player enforced feature. It's important for people to understand that when considering how they treat other players they come into contact with in working with the system. Anet does not explicitly support such requirements and has yet to do so. That doesn't mean it's unreasonable for players to use the system to have requirements, but it does mean it's unreasonable to insist it's anything remotely like being inside your private residence and having someone come in uninvited.

[Sobx.1758]

22 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I agree their behavior is awful, but... you're kidding with this analogy right? The LFG system is an open invitation system (whether we like it being that way or not) and it's a group you started in a video game. It's about as far away from a private residence as it gets. If that's how some people are actually seeing it, that would explain a lot.

It's an open invitation system everyone can use in the exact same way and yet... some people are refusing to make a group, but instead want to force their way into any other group they want, no matter what. And then you're making a thread that says that someone flaming others (while that person is refusing to communicate beforehand in the first place) is "embracing the role those groups  put them in".

Edited July 30, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Sobx.1758]

7 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

The person portrayed isn't a "toxic casual" to begin with though, that's the point. People are slapping the label "casual" on when it doesn't even fit.

You don't know that person and you don't know whether or not they fit any label. If that person thinks the content is easy, they should be perfectly fine with creating their squad with anyone welcome (or perhaps with just the mention of "knowing what to do", without any additional requirements). Meanwhile for all we know it's a freeloader looking for an excuse to get carried. And no, I am not saying that this is necessarily and surely the case. We don't know that the same way you don't. Meanwhile, after making a point of not mislabeling the players, you immediatelly put a label on a person claiming "hey, see, it's not my guy, it's your guy!" -and you do that based solely on the fact he said the content is easy in an attempt to get into the group he wanted to. Except nobody needs that label, becuse it's not about outlining who's casual or hardcore* here, it's about  the behavor which in this case is just blatantly clear. Stop trying to excuse it in an attempt to throw the blame on a group of people you clearly dislike. (...because they don't do what you don't want to do: create a group with "everyone welcome" -or similar- description)

 

*isn't it convenient for the sake of pushing through your narrative, how you've defaulted into using "elitist" -instead of "hardcore"- as the opposite of "casual"? 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

14 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

The person portrayed isn't a "toxic casual" to begin with though, that's the point. People are slapping the label "casual" on when it doesn't even fit. 

The exact same way "Toxic elitist" is being slapped on stuff people just simply don't like. 
For example: Being rejected by a squad leader from their own squad for not meeting the requirements is not elitism despite some people considering it that.

 

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

2 hours ago, Shikaru.7618 said:

It's an "open" invitation with very clearly sign posted requirements that state you need to have killed the boss to join the group. If you choose to ignore that requirement and invite yourself in anyway that's completely on you. My squad, my house, my rules.

Lets create a auto-lfg (or create an open world legendary (so both groups  ever intermigle)) and you can keep "your squad , your house , your rule" in the old lfg.

Every high end mmo has both options

 

(btw od gg , if we see Raid sellers in the first month in Steam , can we do the same WoW + FF14 did ?:P)

Edited July 30, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Linken.6345]

26 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

Lets create a auto-lfg (or create an open world legendary (so both groups  ever intermigle)) and you can keep "your squad , your house , your rule" in the old lfg.

Every high end mmo has both options

 

(btw od gg , if we see Raid sellers in the first month in Steam , can we do the same WoW + FF14 did ?:P)

What did WoW FF14 do?

If it s auto lfg its not needed you can make your own no rules lfg just as easy as anyone else.