Observation: game is completely dead from toxicity

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

27 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

"A big fish in a small pond", as they say. Hah! Gotta love it. "Top Players(tm)" basically rigged the chessboard. Why strive for better when you could just farm unsuspecting newbies here? There's not enough veterans and people in the middle keeping this thing afloat.

And yes, gw2 pvp deserves to fail. I will get the kindling!

For sure and it shows. The entire plat population used to number in the hundreds on each server, now on NA there's a handful and what used to be a slightly above average rating is now considered a godlike rating.

Arenanet murdered the dedicated veteran plat population with no remorse, which probably would have been the population striving to keep this game alive right about now as they do in games like TF2 and the likes, but no they handed PvP over to the wintrading cartel and pip-farmers who play on autopilot.

There is no long-term plan, there is no sustainability, and I couldn't be happier. They've been leading some of these people along for like 10 very real years (like half or more of some of our lifespans). An end to this would be a mercy and closure.

27 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I've supposed heard that gw2 has "the best mmo pvp". If that IS true, then I'd shudder to see what the worst is! lmao! 

😆It is hard to believe; I know, but I think they were actually telling the truth there, if not only because there's very little competition and most other MMOs have pretty basic combat that is pretty cut and dried from the get-go, whereas Guild Wars 2 has gameplay.

Gw2's invention of this "gameplay" was considered revolutionary for the time (2012) when your other options were W🤣W and uh... 🤔Runescape maybe? Club Penguin, does that count? Either way, all dogwater compared to Guildie, and Guildie is literally catwater already.

27 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Meanwhile, I will be playing Age of Empires 2. mmos are SOOOOOOO done.

There is some unexplainable, but very real phenomena in which former scarred veterans of this game are drawn to playing strat games after the fact. I do the same. My theory is that this game sucked all the energy and competitive ambition out of us.

If there are any clinical psychologists or confident redditors in this thread willing to analyze this phenomena, please 🤙

[JTGuevara.9018]

50 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

For sure and it shows. The entire plat population used to number in the hundreds on each server, now on NA there's a handful and what used to be a slightly above average rating is now considered a godlike rating.

Basically: gold is the new platinum.

50 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Arenanet murdered the dedicated veteran plat population with no remorse, which probably would have been the population striving to keep this game alive right about now as they do in games like TF2 and the likes, but no they handed PvP over to the wintrading cartel and pip-farmers who play on autopilot.

There is no long-term plan, there is no sustainability, and I couldn't be happier. They've been leading some of these people along for like 10 very real years (like half or more of some of our lifespans). An end to this would be a mercy and closure.

Yes. And I think for a simple reason: money talks. To me, pvp communities don't spend money on the game to the level of pve and wvw players. pve goes without saying (skins). wvw players tend to spend a lot on server transfers. pvp, on the other hand...If anything, the higher-ups probably see us as a "loss" or "externality". pvp, from the get-go, was pretty much just tacked-on. They just wanted that League of Legends money, never mind the players. Why else would

But hey! We were all young once. As years pass, people change. They look back and say, 'what was I thinking back then...?' .

50 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

😆It is hard to believe; I know, but I think they were actually telling the truth there, if not only because there's very little competition and most other MMOs have pretty basic combat that is pretty cut and dried from the get-go, whereas Guild Wars 2 has gameplay.

Gw2's invention of this "gameplay" was considered revolutionary for the time (2012) when your other options were W🤣W and uh... 🤔Runescape maybe? Club Penguin, does that count? Either way, all dogwater compared to Guildie, and Guildie is literally catwater already.

gw2 tried to get that MOBA and WoW money, but failed. To me, that was the mistake. You already had a good combat system in gw1, which lent itself nicely to both pve and pvp. But no...the corpos thought they knew best!

50 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

There is some unexplainable, but very real phenomena in which former scarred veterans of this game are drawn to playing strat games after the fact. I do the same. My theory is that this game sucked all the energy and competitive ambition out of us.

If there are any clinical psychologists or confident redditors in this thread willing to analyze this phenomena, please 🤙

It's not really unexplainable. It's less that competitive players lost their desire to play, but that there are other genres. You don't have to settle for mediocre MOBA and mmo slop. RTS games have a pretty good niche. Number one, a lot of them function like 3d chess. Age of Empires, because of the subject matter, has international reach. Number two, unlike mmos, they're easy to pick up and play. You don't need to look into the rabbit hole of classes, skills, builds and complex statistics JUST to get started. An RPG is complex enough, but once you throw the mmo aspect in there, the min-maxing just goes out of control.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

22 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Yes. And I think for a simple reason: money talks. To me, pvp communities don't spend money on the game to the level of pve and wvw players. pve goes without saying (skins). wvw players tend to spend a lot on server transfers. pvp, on the other hand...If anything, the higher-ups probably see us as a "loss" or "externality". pvp, from the get-go, was pretty much just tacked-on. They just wanted that League of Legends money, never mind the players. Why else would

But hey! We were all young once. As years pass, people change. They look back and say, 'what was I thinking back then...?' .

Totally agree and see where you're coming from. When it comes to people changing, that's a given, but this whole company changed. Old Arenanet got by pretty chiller; feeding PvP the absolute bare minimum to get by, but feeding it something nonetheless.
Old PvP dev(singular) would at least pop in from time to time to communicate; now its impossible to tell what the kitten is going on anymore, and then beyond that there's a fairly decent chance everyone currently involved with PvP also resents us and want to bring out the worst in us. Angry sun developer was proof this could very well be the case.

22 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

gw2 tried to get that MOBA and WoW money, but failed. To me, that was the mistake. You already had a good combat system in gw1, which lent itself nicely to both pve and pvp. But no...the corpos thought they knew best!

The only way they were ever going to get that WoW money is if they threw everything away and added a sub fee. Because I'm very convinced that's the only way WoW makes money in 2023.

And yeah, I remember living through Arenanet's MOBA phase. That's around the time Ranked was born. Not the strange pip version, but the typical numerical Ranking system present in just about every game ever. They really thought they could make an Esport out a game who's pros mostly all belong in prison or stuck wearing an ankle bracelet.

22 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

It's not really unexplainable. It's less that competitive players lost their desire to play, but that there are other genres. You don't have to settle for mediocre MOBA and mmo slop. RTS games have a pretty good niche. Number one, a lot of them function like 3d chess. Age of Empires, because of the subject matter, has international reach. Number two, unlike mmos, they're easy to pick up and play. You don't need to look into the rabbit hole of classes, skills, builds and complex statistics JUST to get started. An RPG is complex enough, but once you throw the mmo aspect in there, the min-maxing just goes out of control.

Both very good points, I suppose it isn't unexplainable in that respect, but I still want to know why this game managed to make me feel as though it aged me 20 years in just 10. Does nobody else?!

[apharma.3741]

Wait, are you telling me that when some people cheat the system and are not punished for it, that diminishes the enjoyment of competition?
Well, kitten, I wish someone had figured this out before. How did we go on for hundreds of years without realising that competition requires people to play fair, honestly, and that rewards for winning shouldn't be sold to the highest bidder.
[insert shocked pikachu's here]

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

12 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

Wait, are you telling me that when some people cheat the system and are not punished for it, that diminishes the enjoyment of competition?
Well, kitten, I wish someone had figured this out before. How did we go on for hundreds of years without realising that competition requires people to play fair, honestly, and that rewards for winning shouldn't be sold to the highest bidder.
[insert shocked pikachu's here]

Bearing in mind that it's illegal to refer to someone as a not truth teller or disingenuous here on the forums, I will just say that anyone who ever supported DuoQ at the expense of SoloQs are a part of the group that cheated and gamed the system. To the extent where wintrading/match manipulation in this game may as well be synonymous with Ranked DuoQ.

A bit weird to claim blood of cuh and then go on to praise the same systems that push people away from the game and encourage toxicity and resentment in the community.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Multicolorhipster.9751

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 3/29/2023 at 6:30 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Totally agree and see where you're coming from. When it comes to people changing, that's a given, but this whole company changed. Old Arenanet got by pretty chiller; feeding PvP the absolute bare minimum to get by, but feeding it something nonetheless.
Old PvP dev(singular) would at least pop in from time to time to communicate; now its impossible to tell what the kitten is going on anymore, and then beyond that there's a fairly decent chance everyone currently involved with PvP also resents us and want to bring out the worst in us. Angry sun developer was proof this could very well be the case.

Oh yes! The good old days of rotating "community managers"! You knew they were pushing the company line, but at least you knew what was happening.

On 3/29/2023 at 6:30 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

The only way they were ever going to get that WoW money is if they threw everything away and added a sub fee. Because I'm very convinced that's the only way WoW makes money in 2023.

Dare I say, not even then. Even mainstream mmos with subs like WoW, ESO and FF14 are feeling the financial pinch. Well...less so for FF14...

On 3/29/2023 at 6:30 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

And yeah, I remember living through Arenanet's MOBA phase. That's around the time Ranked was born. Not the strange pip version, but the typical numerical Ranking system present in just about every game ever. They really thought they could make an Esport out a game who's pros mostly all belong in prison or stuck wearing an ankle bracelet.

No need to go that far. Just relinquish their rewards and titles! Case in point: Lance Armstrong.

On 3/29/2023 at 6:30 PM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Both very good points, I suppose it isn't unexplainable in that respect, but I still want to know why this game managed to make me feel as though it aged me 20 years in just 10. Does nobody else?!

THAT is called stress. To me, the thought of "Pro Gamers(tm)" having fun at my expense immediately kills any bad juju in me. All they're doing is playing an overpowered build a shoddily designed game. I got better things to do, like drawing and painting, for instance!

[apharma.3741]

5 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

Bearing in mind that it's illegal to refer to someone as a not truth teller or disingenuous here on the forums, I will just say that anyone who ever supported DuoQ at the expense of SoloQs are a part of the group that cheated and gamed the system. To the extent where wintrading/match manipulation in this game may as well be synonymous with Ranked DuoQ.

A bit weird to claim blood of cuh and then go on to praise the same systems that push people away from the game and encourage toxicity and resentment in the community.

You're not allowed to name and shame on the forums, you are allowed to have an opinion that the top spots on leader boards and mAT wins are being sold or manipulated.
There's a difference between 2 people who own the accounts pairing up to play together for their own rewards and 2 people playing accounts they don't own to earn rewards for someone else for real world money. 
The problem isn't duo queue, the problem is ANet doesn't do enough to crack down on account sharing when it's blatantly obvious like someone suddenly going from avg silver to high plat/legend almost instantly while playing from a different IP. Repeat offenders, mostly from NA, also don't suffer consequences and instead are promoted as being partners, asked for balance feedback in a super biased manner and promoted by members of the community who really should know better.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

You're not allowed to name and shame on the forums, you are allowed to have an opinion that the top spots on leader boards and mAT wins are being sold or manipulated.
There's a difference between 2 people who own the accounts pairing up to play together for their own rewards and 2 people playing accounts they don't own to earn rewards for someone else for real world money. 

Agree with all this.

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

The problem isn't duo queue, the problem is ANet doesn't do enough to crack down on account sharing when it's blatantly obvious like someone suddenly going from avg silver to high plat/legend almost instantly while playing from a different IP.

This, no. The problem is DuoQ. It isn't only DuoQ, but DuoQ definitely represents part of larger issue that being poor game design that encourages toxic feedback loops like other people have pointed to in the thread.

Competitive players who want to play the game competitively have no outlet to do so as Solo/DuoQ is not a competitively balanced system. It's a casual system since it offers an advantage to the DuoQ in a 5v5 setting. It shows too. Like I was saying to @JTGuevara.9018the plat population is gonezo, the dedicated, honest competitive playerbase is poof and we're not likely to get them back with the current merged Solo/Duo setting.

It annoys the solo players who play at a disadvantage to the duos, and it also makes match manipulation exactly 200% more effortless, allowing the same people you're describing as the issue to repeatedly get away with what they're doing and have been doing since Season 13 when they weaponized "not being able to play with friends" to redo a mistake, that mistake being DuoQ.

 

There's also no reason to force everyone into Ranked for their rewards too because giving rewards out just for being there is also a casual concept that belong in the casual mode; Unranked, a mode that currently serves very little purpose in its current state. Do you want to play with no matchmaking and no rewards? Go Unranked where only the sweatiest of sweats go.
Do you want matchmaking and rewards? Then go to Ranked, you filthy casual.

It's like up is down and left is right here, I swear. 

[semak.7481]

BS, it could be dead from anything but not this.

[baseendje.8452]

On 3/29/2023 at 1:59 AM, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Yes. And I think for a simple reason: money talks. To me, pvp communities don't spend money on the game to the level of pve and wvw players...

This is a bit of a vicious cycle though. Sure maybe the revenue from pvp focused players is less than from other modes, but on the other hand, the years-long negligence of sPvP by Anet hasn't done the PVP scene any good. I would be very interested to see what percentage of players played pvp 10 years ago vs now. But I'm pretty convinced that if Anet hadn't had such a lackluster stance towards their own sPvP, we may not have seen the massive bleed-out of players and instead it would have been possible to draw more competitively focused gamers in.

But to pull that off, they would have had to address issues with the mode that exist for over a decade. One of which (but not limited to) is better dealing with in-game toxicity, you can have a player grieving a match, reporting and blocking them, and still be matched with them again the next game. You will get punished by the game if you leave a match due to a game crash or people leaving when they felt they played poorly and they want to avoid their teammates from losing rank points, but people who actively throw the match/afk see no consequences.

But I don't know, probably they are too late to fix it now anyway. Probably people that used to play 5 or 10 years ago aren't going t come back now if Anet finally fixes it.