Is it just or me or is the in-game community becoming more and more toxic?

[Maulclaw.4365]

I understand that with the whole "quarantine" thing a lot more people have decided to come back to GW2 or to try it out for the first time. However, for the past few weeks I've noticed that the amount of toxicity has increased quite drastically when it comes to a few months ago. I don't know if this is just a NA thing, but it's really ruining my overall experience with the game. I keep crossing paths with really shitty people in pretty much all game modes, mainly PvP (more so than usual, really).

Has anyone else been experiencing this?

P.S: I was going to ask this on Reddit, but knowing how things are over there, I would just end up being downvoted to oblivion.

[robertthebard.8150]

I really think that some/most of this can be attributed to the current global situation. There's a lot of people that aren't used to being "shut ins" joining the shut in crowd, and they're freaking out. I think it's officially called "stir crazy" or maybe "cabin fever", depending on one's region. For me, other than the toilet paper shortage, it's just another day that ends in Y, but I've been "social distancing" for about 15 years now, due to chronic migraines. Initially, it drove me bat kitten crazy, but once I got used to it, things mellowed out. I expect that something similar will happen here.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I just saw a mentor and a commander both sit through a 20 minute wait to run an event chain for someone who needed a drop from it for a collection. This is PvE, obviously, Desert Highlands. It was in NA. Definitely not "toxic." As in all cases, there is good and bad in people. I can't speak to PvP, but it's possible that -- since I have seen no venom in PvE and only a little in WvW in the last little while, it may just be PvP, or it may just be bad timing on your part.

[Cerioth.7062]

Not more toxic than usual. I think you have just had a bad luck.

[Woop S.7851]

Sorry to hear you've experienced this...it's an under reported issue years back

Several factors are involved: game mechanics, trinity, solo, age group/demographics of audience

• At the moment, collaboration isn't as high due to single profession super builds (no trinity - something GW1 had), it's understandable since the initial goal when game launched was to allow all classes the freedom to solo or roam on the PvE continent, there are always pros/cons to both design styles
• As you reach level 60-80 and transition from PvE to PvP + WvW, certain professions/builds will out-shine others, self-sustained healing and damage then becomes the norm (no outside group needed)
• Quite a bit of the demographics has changed compared to the golden GW1 era, with rise of moba play styles (the pleasure hormones or the kick you get after winning a 15 minute match compared to MMOs where you'd customize, learn, upgrade and form better builds over months)
• Free to play was introduced quite a while back when the numbers of players started to drop, there was a need to 'bridge' veterans & new players during that time for sure
• In WvW and PvP, there's alot of emotion running around when people lose, not everyone can be the 'hero' in PvE, Players of different skills share the play space, but plays alone with the "strongest solo builds" and not everyone comes out victorious
• For PvE there's a need to collaborate fighting bosses, scenarios of emotional outbursts are less frequent, unless it's a group that has failed a raid or mission more than 3 times due to the skill gap between a veteran and new players, only then would frustration & emotions run wild in chat
• Most WvW commanders before the recent 'work from home' trend were reluctant to tag up unless it's a guild run, this is due to what you've experienced, they (alone) become the cushion to not only face losses (entire team wipes) - high stress, less rewards, but also the emotional punching bag by their own team mates

Short-term bitter solution for the player until this is looked at by the game design team from a holistic perspective:

• In PvP/WvW, turn chats off, and set self as offline, quite a lot of people do this in order to avoid toxic vents after matches, this of course again is enforced by solo builds that do not rely on trinity where the team loses together, not the individual & contributes to further player segregation (venturing alone - being the hero construct)

Reference: Book quote "Being the Hero" by Salen and Zimmerman - Rules of Play

Hope that helps!

[Naxos.2503]

One might argue, you wont really find particularly agreeable people among competitive modes. Either you'll face all-business teammates who just want to win, and dont care what you have to say, or you'll find blatantly antagonistic opponents, either sore from losing, or boasting at how easily they trounced you.

The only time you have a good time in a competitive setup is when you know your teammates from outside the mode itself. When you compete -As a team- you actually get a starkly different view. Otherwise, all you'll find is strangers at their worse, on your team or against you.

Personal opinion.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@Naxos.2503 said:One might argue, you wont really find particularly agreeable people among competitive modes. Either you'll face all-business teammates who just want to win, and dont care what you have to say, or you'll find blatantly antagonistic opponents, either sore from losing, or boasting at how easily they trounced you.

The only time you have a good time in a competitive setup is when you know your teammates from outside the mode itself. When you compete -As a team- you actually get a starkly different view. Otherwise, all you'll find is strangers at their worse, on your team or against you.

Personal opinion.I think that is a fair assessment and not just a personal opinion.

Would be readers should mark @Naxos.2503 s words well, s/he isn't necessarily criticizing the playerbase in competetive modes but merely pointing out a pretty fundamental piece of information that is often overlooked and misunderstood. Multiplayer games involves multiple players and competetive multiplayer gameplay involves competing as a team, as any team sport, and that is far more fun and safe to do within a likeminded group of your own choosing. You don't necessarily have to look for a group of friends outside of the mode to find that, but you really should try to find that as it will alter your experience of the game mode completely. That's why there are such differing perspectives between players in guilds in the modes and players without guilds when they visit the modes. It's like two different games and while Anet have put effort into making eg., WvW pickup gameplay more akin to the PvE mentor system and tried shaping that behaviour, what is the natural state of competetive multiplayer is to act within a team and as a team.

[Orthonen.9470]

Well when people start making a huge deal about everything, it becomes just that, a huge deal. Just last night we had this nerd-level know-it-all who kept rudely interrupting our raid lead in a training raid, and fighting with other members in our guild about the littlest things, that aren't even important. In PvE and WvW I never do this.

I myself lost it when I was in an spvp team that were simply four other walking free kills. Literally our match was tanked by 30-500, you bet your cats I was toxic. And there was this one time this salty troll kept saying I sucked even though he could only 2v1 /laughing at me, I challenged him to a duel and he refused. I swear by all things he started it and I was sure I could shut him up, just kept arguing with me. He eventually blocked me, but I had a guildie send him 5 stacks of packs of salt to him and call him bad.

I've also had to argue with people on this forum about how lazy they are being regarding raiding. But I don't want to get banned again. I literally ended up sending a message and blocking the dude I was arguing telling him I hope his ego never lets him raid in game because he was being a whiny nutcase about it. The toxicity isn't just in PvP man and most certainly not just among more challenging players, it's also in the casual community as well. There's people determined to ruin the game by adding fluff to make it into a Korean echi MMO, and worse, a World of Warcraft without progression.

[Blocki.4931]

Not more than usual. Rare, unfortunate encounters with people sometimes happen in a row and may leave that impression.I stopped bothering with this stuff when I realized that for any rando asshat there are sixty other people who are just fine.

[Danikat.8537]

I can't say I've noticed anything different, but then I don't play PvP and haven't played much WvW recently. I spent a few hours in Draconis Mons today doing the Druid's Henge collection, and because it was the Season 3 daily map there were lots of people doing various things and people seemed just as inclined to help each other out as usual. There were people in chat asking for where to find various items and several people answered each time. Someone asked to fight Ignis first when the legendary destroyers spawned, so the commander went there first. The next time around (with a different commander) someone else asked to do Aestus first, so we did that.

It wasn't all nice of course, we weren't able to do both legendary destroyers in one go, and there was a bit of argument over whether we didn't have enough people, if it was a lack of CC, if the people commenting on other characters appearence during the fight should have spent less time typing and more time fighting, if it was due to people lying dead, if it's really worth using a waypoint when there's 20 seconds left on the event and so on. But that was the worst of it, and not unusual for this game.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Haven't noticed anything different ingame, seems mostly business as usual.

[Danikat.8537]

@"Woop S.7851" said:Sorry to hear you've experienced this...it's an under reported issue years back

Several factors are involved: game mechanics, trinity, solo, age group/demographics of audience

• At the moment, collaboration isn't as high due to single profession super builds (no trinity - something GW1 had), it's understandable since the initial goal when game launched was to allow all classes the freedom to solo or roam on the PvE continent, there are always pros/cons to both design styles
• As you reach level 60-80 and transition from PvE to PvP + WvW, certain professions/builds will out-shine others, self-sustained healing and damage then becomes the norm (no outside group needed)
• Quite a bit of the demographics has changed compared to the golden GW1 era, with rise of moba play styles (the pleasure hormones or the kick you get after winning a 15 minute match compared to MMOs where you'd customize, learn, upgrade and form better builds over months)
• Free to play was introduced quite a while back when the numbers of players started to drop, there was a need to 'bridge' veterans & new players during that time for sure
• In WvW and PvP, there's alot of emotion running around when people lose, not everyone can be the 'hero' in PvE, Players of different skills share the play space, but plays alone with the "strongest solo builds" and not everyone comes out victorious
• For PvE there's a need to collaborate fighting bosses, scenarios of emotional outbursts are less frequent, unless it's a group that has failed a raid or mission more than 3 times due to the skill gap between a veteran and new players, only then would frustration & emotions run wild in chat
• Most WvW commanders before the recent 'work from home' trend were reluctant to tag up unless it's a guild run, this is due to what you've experienced, they (alone) become the cushion to not only face losses (entire team wipes) - high stress, less rewards, but also the emotional punching bag by their own team mates

Short-term bitter solution for the player until this is looked at by the game design team from a holistic perspective:

• In PvP/WvW, turn chats off, and set self as offline, quite a lot of people do this in order to avoid toxic vents after matches, this of course again is enforced by solo builds that do not rely on trinity where the team loses together, not the individual & contributes to further player segregation (venturing alone - being the hero construct)

Reference: Book quote "Being the Hero" by Salen and Zimmerman - Rules of Play

Hope that helps!

But the OP is talking about changes in behaviour in the last few weeks. I find it unlikely that things which have been in the game since it was released, or for several years, would have prompted players to act differently, but only just now. Whatever impact GW2's fundamantal design has on player demographics and behaviour will have been there from the begining, at this point that would be the baseline 'normal' for this game.

[kharmin.7683]

@Aridon.8362 said:

I've also had to argue with people on this forum about how lazy they are being regarding raiding. But I don't want to get banned again. I literally ended up sending a message and blocking the dude I was arguing telling him I hope his ego never lets him raid in game because he was being a whiny nutcase about it.Aren't these examples of what the OP is asking?

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I've noticed this immediately after Strike Missions came out, integrating PvE with Raiding type content. This escalated with the Eye of the North hub that merges easy access to story, daily content and strike missions in one spot. This lets the kind of players you get from all three to intersect. I've seen a lot of people in chat bring it up and even more mock those very players.

The raider mentality of "best DPS" and talking down to "the easy mode" casuals is poisoning the well.

[AliamRationem.5172]

I can't say that I've noticed anything. I had some moderately toxic players in ranked PvP last night, but outside of that I haven't had any issues lately. I expect it's just more people playing means more toxic people playing, too. Mostly GW2's population seems pretty decent as far as online games go.

[aspirine.6852]

Only in pvp, but then again that mode is always getting lots of toxic players..Perhaps also in raids since they feel so good about themselves they found a way to kill that healthsponge.....

[Game of Bones.8975]

With the "quarantine" I was hoping more people were around so I could get more meta-events done that were blocking me from continuing collections or crafting. I've ended up spending more time with my dogs. :3

Without specific examples I can't speak to your situation, but like most people I haven't seen what you have. I don't spend much time on WvW or Fractals and I haven't broken into Raids so close teamwork hasn't been an issue.

I had an issue with connectivity during a Fractal run and I hope the guys didn't think I rage quit. An Ethernet cable seems to have fixed that problem.

[greenlights.7960]

I dunno, I mostly WvW, I don't do any PvE outside of catching up on past LWS solo, and I haven't seen any toxicity. Only longer queues ?‍♂️

[Solanum.6983]

I've noticed a lot more edgelords in map chat saying inappropriate things to try get a reaction but usually nobody bites and they stop.

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

No i> @"RandomWolf.3986" said:

I understand that with the whole "quarantine" thing a lot more people have decided to come back to GW2 or to try it out for the first time. However, for the past few weeks I've noticed that the amount of toxicity has increased quite drastically when it comes to a few months ago. I don't know if this is just a NA thing, but it's really ruining my overall experience with the game. I keep crossing paths with really kitten people in pretty much all game modes, mainly PvP (more so than usual, really).

Has anyone else been experiencing this?

P.S: I was going to ask this on Reddit, but knowing how things are over there, I would just end up being downvoted to oblivion.

I'm playing on EU no it is here as well. Toxicity is on an all time height

In wvw all public commanders lately do voice chat only squads which was in the past not so(meaning we had at least some who weren't) and they do or announce things which let your head shake .

A) Making the 'public' invisible.B) Posting a waypoint (which lead to another map and your map has queue) in the squad to get rid of everyone who isn't on voice . (which were in the end 2 just people but ___ your are the public )c) Announcing you will take the public and make GvG instead with them with the intend to let everything else fall during that.In the end I have a hard time to find commander who isn't on my BL....

In fractals cms I have a lot of players with 250kp but can't do the mechanic properly or their class I thing those are people who returned because of the "quarantine" I had 3 days in a row where it ripped my team apart because they couldn't do anything. In general I have a problem with heal fb I search most of them doesn't know how or when to use stabi or agies . The last 2 days I run as hfb myself because of that otherwise I wouldn't have seen the end of those 2 runs.

And then there are people who starts complaining without reason before we even start /:Also I must say everyone seems to run a different meta wherever I 'm e.g in fractals Discretize, Snow Crow, Meta Battle, own builds which isn't so bad in fractals but people start to mimi on each other builds or group build s this so...

In wvw this bad because the comander says skills which only a part of the zerg has then. So far I can say the wvw meta is in a total chaos state atm.

In general a good part of all this is the "quarantine" but there are also some miss judgements from other sides which let to this.

[Icewolf.1076]

it certainly dont help that anet force everyone who want legendary amulet to get 120 ranked wins and 20 tournament match wins when they simply hate the game mode like me. forced to play ( aka grind) through the insane amount of wins when wvw is easy as f.

[Orthonen.9470]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Aridon.8362 said:

I've also had to argue with people on this forum about how lazy they are being regarding raiding. But I don't want to get banned again. I literally ended up sending a message and blocking the dude I was arguing telling him I hope his ego never lets him raid in game because he was being a whiny nutcase about it.Aren't these examples of what the OP is asking?

No because I am all PMA. Confidence 100.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I see more RPers now in PVE compared to January/February. WVW t/mchat is as stupid as always.

[Krzysztof.5973]

Doesn't matter what game it is, competitive game modes will always be toxic to some degree. I would argue that it's not that people are becoming more toxic but more fragile. Getting angry over nothing and living a life of a precious snowflake. I laugh when somebody is mad in PvP even when I'm the the losing. They literally have zero impact on you, why should you be mad over some angry boi in PvP?

[Etria.3642]

@Aridon.8362 said:Well when people start making a huge deal about everything, it becomes just that, a huge deal. Just last night we had this nerd-level know-it-all who kept rudely interrupting our raid lead in a training raid, and fighting with other members in our guild about the littlest things, that aren't even important. In PvE and WvW I never do this.

I myself lost it when I was in an spvp team that were simply four other walking free kills. Literally our match was tanked by 30-500, you bet your cats I was toxic. And there was this one time this salty troll kept saying I sucked even though he could only 2v1 /laughing at me, I challenged him to a duel and he refused. I swear by all things he started it and I was sure I could shut him up, just kept arguing with me. He eventually blocked me, but I had a guildie send him 5 stacks of packs of salt to him and call him bad.

I've also had to argue with people on this forum about how lazy they are being regarding raiding. But I don't want to get banned again. I literally ended up sending a message and blocking the dude I was arguing telling him I hope his ego never lets him raid in game because he was being a whiny nutcase about it. The toxicity isn't just in PvP man and most certainly not just among more challenging players, it's also in the casual community as well. There's people determined to ruin the game by adding fluff to make it into a Korean echi MMO, and worse, a World of Warcraft without progression.

Wow. I cannot say I have ever felt the need to have someone else, or me either, ever send someone stacks of salt. If someone ever sent them to me, I would definitely laugh, share with friends, laugh at the loser who took the game that seriously, and then never think about it again. Like, really? Care enough about it to go out of your way to call someone bad?