Perceived toxicity

[Astralporing.1957]

@"yann.1946" said:So as a question: What are you're suggestions to reduce this problems.The only way to do that is to reduce the reasons why tensions happen in the first place. This happens when the group does not match the expectations some (or all) of the players in that group have. And the primary expectation is always "i want a group with which i willl be able to clear the content without any major problems". The more likely it will be for the (semi-)randomly matched 10 LFG players to fulfill that expectation, the lower the toxicity is going to get.

Of course, the consequences of actions leading to that end might not be all that desirable for raiders.

Spoiler: this mostly worked in dungeons, because they were much, much easier. It isn't going to work for raids though, unless you will somehow find a way to separate players with different expectations in such a way that will make all their expectations able to be fulfilled, without conflicting with each other. Which is not possible in raids as they are now, and to solve would require introducing some things many raiders would definitely not be comfortable with.

[Agrippa.1693]

@"Pip.2094" said:Honestly, to what I've seen so far, as soon as they see people demanding the right build for the right context, they scream elitism and toxicity.The people who scare new players about toxicity in raids and fractals are, in my experience, those who run invented and totally unfitting builds that barely work for open world and claim to use in a group 'hardcore' content. Like it was seriously possible to get even just one raid boss kill with stuff like dire, pvt or rampager.You can even be the kindest and most welcoming person willing to be patient and teach, in the same moment you try to explain you need to run meta builds you'll be the evil elitist killing the game diversity.

Hmm, this is interesting. And I think you're right about the raiding community wanting new people to put in an effort by bringing at least meta gear. But the problem is, that there's only very few stat combo's out there that are considered to be good, while by far most of it is to be considered to be trash, really! Now obviously, you can't balance a game where every stat combo is as good as the next one, but like I said, pretty much 80% of all stat combo's is considered te be bad, atm!Should ANet not do something about that? Or is it the community that should change its opinion towards "bad" stat combo's? Technically, it is possible to achieve victory with every stat combo, I'm sure. Right?!?

Btw, with stat combo's it's quite obviously a thing, but there's also something to say about gear levels/colors (Ascended, Exotic, etc.) and even class differences. Sure, there are probably no real "bad" classes out there, but some classes are definitely FAR better at filling a certain role than others. And not just a few percent better, but miles apart, really!

[Nephalem.8921]

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Should ANet not do something about that? Or is it the community that should change its opinion towards "bad" stat combo's? Technically, it is possible to achieve victory with every stat combo, I'm sure. Right?!?

What should they do? delete bad combos? As a power dps you want power, prec, ferocity. The only stats helping your role. As condi condi dmg expertise, prec, power with grieving in some situations.Soldier is helping nobody except yourself leeching the content.

[yann.1946]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Should ANet not do something about that? Or is it the community that should change its opinion towards "bad" stat combo's? Technically, it

is

possible to achieve victory with every stat combo, I'm sure. Right?!?

What should they do? delete bad combos? As a power dps you want power, prec, ferocity. The only stats helping your role. As condi condi dmg expertise, prec, power with grieving in some situations.Soldier is helping nobody except yourself leeching the content.

Tbh, marauder isn't such a decreas in dps. And an argument can be made for it to be effective.

[yann.1946]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"yann.1946" said:So as a question: What are you're suggestions to reduce this problems.The only way to do that is to reduce the reasons why tensions happen in the first place. This happens when the group does not match the expectations some (or

all

) of the players in that group have. And the primary expectation is always "i want a group with which i willl be able to clear the content without any major problems". The more likely it will be for the (semi-)randomly matched 10 LFG players to fulfill that expectation, the lower the toxicity is going to get.

Of course, the consequences of actions leading to that end might not be all that desirable for raiders.

Spoiler: this mostly worked in dungeons, because they were much, much easier. It isn't going to work for raids though, unless you will somehow find a way to separate players with different expectations in such a way that will make all their expectations able to be fulfilled, without conflicting with each other. Which is not possible in raids as they are now, and to solve would require introducing some things many raiders would definitely not be comfortable with.

I wonder if that really true. In essence the perception of toxicity has become so ingrained in how people perceive raids that I don't think decreasing toxicity in a raids would help much.

Did the idea that dungeons where full of toxic players decrease because they became easier? Or because interest wained on them?

[Astralporing.1957]

@"yann.1946" said:Did the idea that dungeons where full of toxic players decrease because they became easier? Or because interest wained on them?Unlike with raids, that idea existed mostly on forums, as it was trivially easy to avoid it completely in game. The real problem now is not that toxicity itself exists, but that players think they cannot avoid it.

At the times of dungeons playrs wishing to avoid toxicity could simply make an "all welcome" lfg, which caused most of the players with any more stringent expectations to stay away, while still allowing for a relatively safe (even if longer) clear. In case of raids it is not so - sure, you can still put up such LFG, but this will likely mean that most players capable of doing the content will not show up, and you are extremely likely to end up with a group that will keep wiping over and over again. Which also breeds toxicity. So, basically, you have no choice - you either need to go into high-expectation groups, where tensions are high and people are judgemental, or risk it with a group that will probably fail and then start spreading the blame all around. In both cases, it's a loss. The only winning move is to not play at all.

It's of course not a problem for the people that fulfill those high expectations, but they are not the ones afraid of toxicity in the first place. They are the ones others (justly or unjustly) are scared of.

[Armen.1483]

@Fangoth.4503 said:

@Pip.2094 said:Honestly, to what I've seen so far, as soon as they see people demanding the right build for the right context, they scream elitism and toxicity.The people who scare new players about toxicity in raids and fractals are, in my experience, those who run invented and totally unfitting builds that barely work for open world and claim to use in a group 'hardcore' content. Like it was seriously possible to get even just one raid boss kill with stuff like dire, pvt or rampager.You can even be the kindest and most welcoming person willing to be patient and teach, in the same moment you try to explain you need to run meta builds you'll be the evil elitist killing the game diversity.

all player are toxic raider or not, nothing new about it :)those that complain abour raider being toxic are the very same people that were toxic for asking people buy elemental powder to kill tequatl or asking AP for dungeon or asking ascended gear for dungeon.

I agree with you that everyone can be toxic.. But asking a KP or an AP is not toxicity. It can be overly exagerrated sometimes I agree, but as long as you can create your own groups and ask whatever requirement yourself, asking a kill proof shouldn't be considered toxic.Verbal abuse is toxic. Abusing lfg system is toxic. Asking requirements is not.

[Fangoth.4503]

i totally agree with that but it seems that many players rather call toxicity if they don't fit requirement instead of starting to play the game and meet the requirement

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"yann.1946" said:Did the idea that dungeons where full of toxic players decrease because they became easier? Or because interest wained on them?Unlike with raids, that idea existed mostly on forums, as it was trivially easy to avoid it completely in game. The real problem now is not that toxicity itself exists, but that players think they cannot

avoid

it.

At the times of dungeons playrs wishing to avoid toxicity could simply make an "all welcome" lfg, which caused most of the players with any more stringent expectations to stay away, while still allowing for a relatively safe (even if longer) clear. In case of raids it is not so - sure, you can still put up such LFG, but this will likely mean that most players capable of doing the content will not show up, and you are extremely likely to end up with a group that will keep wiping over and over again. Which

also

breeds toxicity. So, basically, you have no choice - you either need to go into high-expectation groups, where tensions are high and people are judgemental, or risk it with a group that will probably fail and then start spreading the blame all around. In both cases, it's a loss. The only winning move is to not play at all.

It's of course not a problem for the people that fulfill those high expectations, but they are

not

the ones afraid of toxicity in the first place. They are the ones

others

(justly or unjustly) are scared of.

While I agree with the assessment, let's rephrase that one part a little please:

you either need to go into groups with some expectations, or risk it with a group that will probably fail and then start spreading the blame all around

Yes, there are expectations. Yes, those can pertain to setup or a certain performance. Yes, this can mean having to adapt to a groups desire.

No, those expectations are often not high, at least not in all groups. Please keep an objective perspective on the broad spectrum of groups here. Not every group treats players like that 200 Dhuum KP static one. Especially groups aimed at newer players or inexperienced players have often a LOT more leeway. Unfortunately, as is typical for the forums, people treat all groups as being the same.

If players who are interested in raids actually interacted with groups intending to introduce those players to raids, a lot of issues would disappear. Obviously one of the problems here IS the fact that it is hard as a new players to understand where to go or which group would be the correct one to join/look for.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:While I agree with the assessment, let's rephrase that one part a little please:

you either need to go into groups

with some expectations

, or risk it with a group that will probably fail and then start spreading the blame all around

Yes, there are expectations. Yes, those can pertain to setup or a certain performance. Yes, this can mean having to adapt to a groups desire.

No, those expectations are often not high, at least not in all groups.Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

Please keep an objective perspective on the broad spectrum of groups here.From an objective perspective, the expectations are way above the level of an average gw2 player. There's a reason why people keep prefiltering players through using different LFG requirements. It's because they

know

, that without doing that they run the very high risk of not getting the clear run they wanted.

Not every group treats players like that 200 Dhuum KP static one. Especially groups aimed at newer players or inexperienced players have often a LOT more leeway.They do have a lot more leeway. But they also tend to

fail

. And, as i pointed out, failure (especially repeated failure) also generates tension. Not to mention, nobody's really interested in failing in the first place.

If players who are interested in raids actually interacted with groups intending to introduce those players to raids, a lot of issues would disappear.Sure, if most players were interested in having to do a lot of training before attempting to clear a content succesfully, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And raids would be the baseline, not the the high-end content. It just so happens however that most players do

not

play this way. And there's absolutely nothing you, me, devs, or anyone else can do to change that.

Frankly, the "toxicity" problem never really affected the players with the raider mentality. Those players are, for the most part, always capable of finding the necessary info on their own. The whole issue is caused by the fact that raids are being attempted also by the players whose playing style is inimical to the one raids are designed for. And that is caused by raids having stuff in them (not necessarily the same for everyone) that is interesting on their own to those players (And by Anet trying to funnel them into that content).

We may spend a ton of time trying to put the blame on one or the other part of the community, but that will not actually solve anything. Nothing will get better that way - at most, the relations between different parts of the community will become even worse than they already are. If you want to fix the problem, you have to accept that some people play differently than the others, and craft the solution based on this. Or, look at what must be done to fix it and decide, that for you the cure is worse than the disease.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:While I agree with the assessment, let's rephrase that one part a little please:

you either need to go into groups

with some expectations

, or risk it with a group that will probably fail and then start spreading the blame all around

Yes, there are expectations. Yes, those can pertain to setup or a certain performance. Yes, this can mean having to adapt to a groups desire.

No, those expectations are often not high, at least not in all groups.Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

No, the ability of a vast amount of players is not high enough. Expectations for joining groups are not solely based on the ability that players have when they join a group.

Please don't mix those 2. There are training raids which have 0 requirements as to what players show up with. That is absolutely unrelated to the ability of individual players or the player base which you are once again mixing up here.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Please keep an objective perspective on the broad spectrum of groups here.From an objective perspective, the expectations are way above the level of an average gw2 player. There's a reason why people keep prefiltering players through using different LFG requirements. It's because they

know

, that without doing that they run the very high risk of not getting the clear run they wanted.

No, we know that more advanced groups expect a certain performance. That does NOT give any indication as to what low performance groups expect. Unless you can prove there are literally 0 groups, this includes training groups, which have no requirements, you can not prove your claim this way.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Not every group treats players like that 200 Dhuum KP static one. Especially groups aimed at newer players or inexperienced players have often a LOT more leeway.They do have a lot more leeway. But they also tend to

fail

. And, as i pointed out, failure (especially repeated failure) also generates tension. Not to mention, nobody's really interested in failing in the first place.

Debatable, because you are going from one extreme to the opposite. I'd say there are groups with a decent amount of veteran players mixed in with completely new players and even with very poor performance, these groups succeed in achieving their goal, most often paired with success at the fight.

I'd even go as far and make the claim that the vast majority of training groups in today's game are made up of such a mix versus a full group of inexperienced players.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:If players who are interested in raids actually interacted with groups intending to introduce those players to raids, a lot of issues would disappear.Sure, if most players were interested in having to do a lot of training before attempting to clear a content succesfully, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And raids would be the baseline, not the the high-end content. It just so happens however that most players do

not

play this way. And there's absolutely nothing you, me, devs, or anyone else can do to change that.

Frankly, the "toxicity" problem never really affected the players with the raider mentality. Those players are, for the most part, always capable of finding the necessary info on their own. The whole issue is caused by the fact that raids are being attempted also by the players whose playing style is inimical to the one raids are designed for. And that is caused by raids having stuff in them (not necessarily the same for everyone) that is interesting on their own to those players (And by Anet trying to funnel them into that content).

We may spend a ton of time trying to put the blame on one or the other part of the community, but that will not actually solve anything. Nothing will get better that way - at most, the relations between different parts of the community will become even worse than they already are. If you want to fix the problem, you have to accept that some people play differently than the others, and craft the solution based on this. Or, look at what must be done to fix it and decide, that for you the cure is worse than the disease.

I wasn't blaming anyone. I was pointing out a misrepresentation on your part.

[Fangoth.4503]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:

Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

I don't know man, I just went to snowcrow website copied the build, took the right gear (except infusion, too much farming for those) for GS/SC DH and I am already at 48% benchmark (1st try and I haven't read the rotation yet):

Then I went and read the rotation bit and tried to click same icones and got 88% benchmark:

I think if I read their notes, raid guide and start using my keyboard I should easily reach 90+ B) even though if all were getting 88% pug would be heaven and no one would ask for li/kp =)

[Astralporing.1957]

@Cyninja.2954 said:No, the ability of a vast amount of players is not high enough. Expectations for joining groups are not solely based on the ability that players have when they join a group.

Please don't mix those 2. There are training raids which have 0 requirements as to what players show up with. That is absolutely unrelated to the ability of individual players or the player base which you are once again mixing up here.Again, if people were joining the right groups, if all players were willing to join training groups first before starting on normal clears, and if they happily accepted the results if they at some point learned that no, they will never be able to graduate, we wouldn't be having this conversation here.

Your arguments are about the perfect world and perfect players. That world of yours don't need any fixes, because there's no toxicity on it at all. We don't actually live in that world though.

No, we know that more advanced groups expect a certain performance. That does NOT give any indication as to what low performance groups expect. Unless you can prove there are literally 0 groups, this includes training groups, which have no requirements, you can not prove your claim this way.Of course there are low performance groups. Me and/or some of my friends have even run in some of them (as both newbies, and later, as veterans). Success of all those groups hinges on the willingness of the few veteran players present to carry the rest, which may be possible on some bosses, but can be way less possible on others. And, depending on said veterans, and the performance of the other players, often also results in some amount of behaviour some may consider to be toxic. And, again, that's when they succeed, where often they simply don't.As a player that does not pass the muster you can't really count on lucking out with such a group. Nor can you count on the run being pleasant, instead of, again, full of tension and bad vibes.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Not every group treats players like that 200 Dhuum KP static one. Especially groups aimed at newer players or inexperienced players have often a LOT more leeway.They do have a lot more leeway. But they also tend to

fail

. And, as i pointed out, failure (especially repeated failure) also generates tension. Not to mention, nobody's really interested in failing in the first place.

Debatable, because you are going from one extreme to the opposite. I'd say there are groups with a decent amount of veteran players mixed in with completely new players and even with very poor performance, these groups succeed in achieving their goal, most often paired with success at the fight.That usually only happens when a group of veterans already made their clear on that week and are bored so they decide to carry some noobs. This does happen, but is not very common, and you definitely can't count on ending in one.As the situation is now, even a

veteran

cannot just join a no-requirement group and expect a clear. All those joining have to know that there's a great possibility this will be a wipe. And thus, anyone that wants a unproblematic clear

will

stay away from those.

If that were not true, reqs in LFGs would be far less common than they are.

I'd even go as far and make the claim that the vast majority of training groups in today's game are made up of such a mix versus a full group of inexperienced players.Sure, but, again, if you go into training group, you extect to train, not to clear. The purpose of such groups is completely different.

Again, if people needing that training were picking only training groups and moving to other ones only after they gained enough experience, we wouldn't be having this conversation (and LFG reqs would be much, much simpler).

I wasn't blaming anyone. I was pointing out a misrepresentation on your part.This wasn't a misrepresentation though. It was looking at the game and seeing it not for what it should be, but as it is.

Perhaps the difference between our views is that you believe things happen only because people don't know better, and as soon as we find a way to inform them things will improve. I think that it is a result not of lack of information about the purpose of different types of groups, but of a completely different approach to gaming. So, something that won't change, and must be accepted (and either adjusted for, or ignored).

[Astralporing.1957]

@Fangoth.4503 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:

Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

I don't know man, I just went to snowcrow website copied the build, took the right gear (except infusion, too much farming for those) for GS/SC DH and I am already at 48% benchmark (1st try and I haven't read the rotation yet):

Then I went and read the rotation bit and tried to click same icones and got 88% benchmark:

I think if I read their notes, raid guide and start using my keyboard I should easily reach 90+ B) even though if all were getting 88% pug would be heaven and no one would ask for li/kp =)The last point is the key here. People that are willing to change and learn will have no problem with raids. They are unlikely to ever run into any toxicity either (unless they'll be the onest to start it). The truth remains however that people like that are in minority. And the whole discussion we have here is because they are in the minority.

Also, grats. Personally, after hours and hours of training i could barely pass 80% (that was over a year ago though, i don't really know if the rotation has changed since then). And from what i have seen there were people that couldn't do even that. Again, assuming they even tried to adjust their builds and train in the first place, which most players don't do at all.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Fangoth.4503 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

I don't know man, I just went to snowcrow website copied the build, took the right gear (except infusion, too much farming for those) for GS/SC DH and I am already at 48% benchmark (1st try and I haven't read the rotation yet):

Then I went and read the rotation bit and tried to click same icones and got 88% benchmark:

I think if I read their notes, raid guide and start using my keyboard I should easily reach 90+ B) even though if all were getting 88% pug would be heaven and no one would ask for li/kp =)The last point is the key here. People that are willing to change and learn will have no problem with raids. They are unlikely to ever run into any toxicity either (unless they'll be the onest to start it). The truth remains however that people like that are in minority. And the whole discussion we have here is because they are in the minority.

Also, grats. Personally, after hours and hours of training i could barely pass 80% (that was over a year ago though, i don't really know if the rotation has changed since then). And from what i have seen there were people that couldn't do even that. Again, assuming they even tried to adjust their builds and train in the first place, which most players don't do at all.

The thing is, players can beat every single raid boss with 48% of benchmark numbers just fine. Anything above 50% is only useful to brag and to shave time, but not required in any way to beat a raid boss. Yes, even bosses like Gorseval and Twin Largos can be beaten when your squad is at 50% of the benchmark damage and this was very easy to check using gw2raidar when that was active. My teams were always in the 50% range, for some bosses even way below that, some rare ones at 60%, yet we managed to beat every boss in the game with time to spare.

Edit: point is, the "problem" aren't players that can reach 50% of the benchmarks, but those that perform far far worse than what you'd get if you copied a snowcrows build and auto-attack.

[Fangoth.4503]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Fangoth.4503 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

I don't know man, I just went to snowcrow website copied the build, took the right gear (except infusion, too much farming for those) for GS/SC DH and I am already at 48% benchmark (1st try and I haven't read the rotation yet):

Then I went and read the rotation bit and tried to click same icones and got 88% benchmark:

I think if I read their notes, raid guide and start using my keyboard I should easily reach 90+ B) even though if all were getting 88% pug would be heaven and no one would ask for li/kp =)The last point is the key here. People that are willing to change and learn will have no problem with raids. They are unlikely to ever run into any toxicity either (unless they'll be the onest to start it). The truth remains however that people like that are in minority. And the whole discussion we have here is because they are in the minority.

Also, grats. Personally, after hours and hours of training i could barely pass 80% (that was over a year ago though, i don't really know if the rotation has changed since then). And from what i have seen there were people that couldn't do even that. Again, assuming they even tried to adjust their builds and train in the first place, which most players don't do at all.

The thing is, players can beat every single raid boss with 48% of benchmark numbers just fine. Anything above 50% is only useful to brag and to shave time, but not required in any way to beat a raid boss. Yes, even bosses like Gorseval and Twin Largos can be beaten when your squad is at 50% of the benchmark damage and this was very easy to check using gw2raidar when that was active. My teams were always in the 50% range, for some bosses even way below that, some rare ones at 60%, yet we managed to beat every boss in the game with time to spare.

Edit: point is, the "problem" aren't players that can reach 50% of the benchmarks, but those that perform far far worse than what you'd get if you copied a snowcrows build and auto-attack.

Gw2 raidar 50percentil was based on uploaded log and not % of benchmarks. with 50% benchmark dps wise you would most likely have been close to if not the lowest log uploaded.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:The thing is, players can beat every single raid boss with 48% of benchmark numbers just fine. Anything above 50% is only useful to brag and to shave time, but not required in any way to beat a raid boss. Yes, even bosses like Gorseval and Twin Largos can be beaten when your squad is at 50% of the benchmark damage and this was very easy to check using gw2raidar when that was active. My teams were always in the 50% range, for some bosses even way below that, some rare ones at 60%, yet we managed to beat every boss in the game with time to spare.

Edit: point is, the "problem" aren't players that can reach 50% of the benchmarks, but those that perform far far worse than what you'd get if you copied a snowcrows build and auto-attack.There's a massive difference between being able to do a certain percent of benchmark dps on golem, and on actual boss. Your numbers on boss will almost always (with the possible exceptions on builds that heavily depend on confusion and torment on damage) be lower than on golem - quite often significantly so. And, obviously, if even the players that can perform the rotation well will suffer from dps loss on raid bosses, the ones that had significant problems with rotations even under the perfect and safe conditions, will have even higher effectiveness degradation in actual fight when you have to pay attention to other things as well.

Also, the 50% of raidar was not the 50% of top benchmark level, but the level of dps 50% of players were running at. So, if you were at 50% it means you were pretty average. For raiders, that is.

Notice also, that someone being able to do 50% of benchmark is still, according to devs, doing 5 times more dps than an average player.

Edit:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Edit: point is, the "problem" aren't players that can reach 50% of the benchmarks, but those that perform far far worse than what you'd get if you copied a snowcrows build and auto-attack.Well, the point i am making is that you won't change those players. Most of them either don't want to improve, or are incapable of doing so. As such, there are four realistic options here:

• adjust the content to those weaker players, so their presence is no longer a problem
• somehow prevent those weaker players from even trying to join, so their presence will no longer be a problem
• make it so those players can still join, but (unless they aer interested in the raiding gameplay style itself) are not interested in doing so
• somehow make it so the players of those differing playstyles aren't grouped together, by utilizing multiple difficulty modes

The fifth solution that Anet and a number of forum posters are fond of ("make the weaker players improve somehow") is not realistic.

[yann.1946]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:While I agree with the assessment, let's rephrase that one part a little please:

you either need to go into groups

with some expectations

, or risk it with a group that will probably fail and then start spreading the blame all around

Yes, there are expectations. Yes, those can pertain to setup or a certain performance. Yes, this can mean having to adapt to a groups desire.

No, those expectations are often not high, at least not in all groups.Those expectations being "not high" is extremely subjective. They may not be high to you. They are too high for a vast majority of GW2 players, though.

Please keep an objective perspective on the broad spectrum of groups here.From an objective perspective, the expectations are way above the level of an average gw2 player. There's a reason why people keep prefiltering players through using different LFG requirements. It's because they

know

, that without doing that they run the very high risk of not getting the clear run they wanted.

Not every group treats players like that 200 Dhuum KP static one. Especially groups aimed at newer players or inexperienced players have often a LOT more leeway.They do have a lot more leeway. But they also tend to

fail

. And, as i pointed out, failure (especially repeated failure) also generates tension. Not to mention, nobody's really interested in failing in the first place.

If players who are interested in raids actually interacted with groups intending to introduce those players to raids, a lot of issues would disappear.Sure, if most players were interested in having to do a lot of training before attempting to clear a content succesfully, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And raids would be the baseline, not the the high-end content. It just so happens however that most players do

not

play this way. And there's absolutely nothing you, me, devs, or anyone else can do to change that.

Frankly, the "toxicity" problem never really affected the players with the raider mentality. Those players are, for the most part, always capable of finding the necessary info on their own. The whole issue is caused by the fact that raids are being attempted also by the players whose playing style is inimical to the one raids are designed for. And that is caused by raids having stuff in them (not necessarily the same for everyone) that is interesting on their own to those players (And by Anet trying to funnel them into that content).

We may spend a ton of time trying to put the blame on one or the other part of the community, but that will not actually solve anything. Nothing will get better that way - at most, the relations between different parts of the community will become even worse than they already are. If you want to fix the problem, you have to accept that some people play differently than the others, and craft the solution based on this. Or, look at what must be done to fix it and decide, that for you the cure is worse than the disease.

Do you think we could reduce toxicity by informing people more about when they would enjoy the game mode vs not.

People who don't find pvp enjoyable don't try to play pvp in general for example.I think it's important to make people aware about what parts of the game are for them and which parts aren't.

[Astralporing.1957]

@yann.1946 said:Do you think we could reduce toxicity by informing people more about when they would enjoy the game mode vs not.

People who don't find pvp enjoyable don't try to play pvp in general for example.I think it's important to make people aware about what parts of the game are for them and which parts aren't.People that don't like pvp don't play it usually because they feel no need to do so. That's because usually there's nothing there they could not get by any other means. Anytime this happened to be not true (gift of battle, attempts to do some LS parts in WvW, legendary backpack, etc.) it generally always ended up badly, with toxicity levels rising all around.Still, why do you think there are complains in SPvP about AFKer leechers? I can tell you that those people are definitely not ones that are there because they like the content.

For the most part, people that attempt raids do know (or learn very fast) whether this is something they might like. One of the problems we run into is that there are people that dislike the gameplay style raids are designed for, but do like/desire some other things that are there. Be it story elements, or plain loot.

Additionally, telling people they probably won't like raids and it's not content for them was the last thing Anet ever wanted to do. For the whole of GW2's raids' history they were doing a lot trying to funnel as much of the normal, core players into them as possible. Even raids were effectively cancelled, Anet didn't stop doing that. If you remember, their whole explanation for strikes was all about doing exactly this.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Fangoth.4503" said:Gw2 raidar 50percentil was based on uploaded log and not % of benchmarks. with 50% benchmark dps wise you would most likely have been close to if not the lowest log uploaded.

If we take the 99% percentile of gw2raidar as the "benchmark" then someone doing 50% of gw2raidar damage is the equivalent of someone doing 50% of benchmark damage. Keep in mind that it's not the lows that are lower on harder bosses, but the 99% too.The question was about unrealistic expectations, and specifically about them being "very high".

I don't know man, I just went to snowcrow website copied the build, took the right gear (except infusion, too much farming for those) for GS/SC DH and I am already at 48% benchmark (1st try and I haven't read the rotation yet)

A player can reach 50% benchmark dps just fine, as you found out, even without following a rotation. 50% of the top dps is more than enough to beat every single raid boss, I'd say from experience that the real value is closer to 30% of the 99% to beat all bosses. Even though gw2raidar lowest showing was 50% you could easily do the math, how much dps the 99% squad does, and how much your squad did and succeeded.

Which leads to the rather simple question. Is 30% (one third) of the top benchmark dps an unrealistic expectation for Raids? Since you can reach 50% randomly mashing buttons that is.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:There's a massive difference between being able to do a certain percent of benchmark dps on golem, and on actual boss.

Of course. It's a rather simple rule of three situation here. Example:Benchmark on golem: 10k damage, benchmark on golem by a player just mashing buttons: 5k damage, that's 50% of benchmark damage on the golem.Benchmark on boss A: 6k damage, the question is how much damage should be "expected" of a player mashing buttons to perform on Boss A.Given the 50% difference on the benchmark, the number in this example should be about 3k damage. Now obviously it will depend on role and boss as well, but let's say this on average.

I never expected a player to do 50% of golem benchmark damage on Dhuum, not even the best player in the game can achieve that. But a player reaching 50% of the benchmark on the golem, will be more likely to reach 50% of Dhuum benchmark damage as well. But if they CANNOT even reach 50% of golem benchmark dps then they will never reach any kind of damage on Dhuum.

Well, the point i am making is that you won't change those players.

I'm just curious here, how are those players incapable of reaching that damage threshold when it can be achieved simply by auto attacking.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:I'm just curious here, how are those players incapable of reaching that damage threshold when it can be achieved simply by auto attacking.First, not all dps builds can reach 50% of benchmark by just autoattacking. And some of the builds that can may suffer in actual boss fight scenarios (due to being pure melee, for example, like staff dd - try to get nice dps numbers on staff dd with deimos mid strat, for example).

Second, a number of builds can easily reach lower than autoattack numbers if they actually do press other buttons. Cancelling autoattack chain for any reason can result in massive dps loss.

Third, like i said, players that have major problems with dps rotations are far more likely to have bigger problems with boss fight mechanics, so they would be losing far more of their dps than the players that can perform rotations in their sleep. Yes, even people that are "just autoattacking" may suffer due to that, due to abovementioned case of cancelling autoattack chains.

Also, with that autoattack example you assume everyone is running the right gear and build. When, as you well know, majority of players don't.

[yann.1946]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@yann.1946 said:Do you think we could reduce toxicity by informing people more about when they would enjoy the game mode vs not.

People who don't find pvp enjoyable don't try to play pvp in general for example.I think it's important to make people aware about what parts of the game are for them and which parts aren't.People that don't like pvp don't play it usually because they feel no need to do so. That's because usually there's nothing there they could not get by any other means. Anytime this happened to be not true (gift of battle, attempts to do some LS parts in WvW, legendary backpack, etc.) it generally always ended up badly, with toxicity levels rising all around.Still, why do you think there are complains in SPvP about AFKer leechers? I can tell you that those people are definitely

not

ones that are there because they like the content.

True, but I said informing people better about what parts of the game they enjoy, because it's not only about keeping people out who wouldn't enjoy the content, but getting the people in who would, but don't think they would.

For the most part, people that attempt raids do know (or learn very fast) whether this is something they might like. One of the problems we run into is that there are people that dislike the gameplay style raids are designed for, but do like/desire some other things that are there. Be it story elements, or plain loot.

Sure, but how would you address that in a reasonable way.

Additionally, telling people they probably won't like raids and it's not content for them was the last thing Anet ever wanted to do. For the whole of GW2's raids' history they were doing a lot trying to funnel as much of the normal, core players into them as possible. Even raids were effectively cancelled, Anet didn't stop doing that. If you remember, their whole explanation for strikes was all about doing exactly this.

We'll where talking about what would help, not what anet would do.

And aren't strikes a good thing in regard to informing people on whether they enjoy the content type?People who don't like strikes because of the mechanics (whisper) or group dynamic is more likely to like raids.While people who hate those aspects don't like these aspects probably won't like raids

[Astralporing.1957]

@yann.1946 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:For the most part, people that attempt raids do know (or learn very fast) whether this is something they might like. One of the problems we run into is that there are people that dislike the gameplay style raids are designed for, but

do

like/desire some other things that are there. Be it story elements, or plain loot.

Sure, but how would you address that in a reasonable way.I'll quote part of one of my earlier posts, because it is relevant here:Well, the point i am making is that you

won't

change those players. Most of them either don't want to improve, or are incapable of doing so. As such, there are four realistic options here:

• adjust the content to those weaker players, so their presence is no longer a problem
• somehow prevent those weaker players from even trying to join, so their presence will no longer be a problem
• make it so those players can still join, but (unless they aer interested in the raiding gameplay style itself) are not interested in doing so
• somehow make it so the players of those differing playstyles aren't grouped together, by utilizing multiple difficulty modesNotice for clarity that "the problem" we're talking about now (people being incentivized to play raids, while not liking the gameplay raids offer) is slightly different than "the problem" i was mentioning then (which was about toxocity resulting from mixing players of different playstyles and expectations in the same content). For the remaining part, when i would be referring to "the problem", i would be talking about the former, not the latter.

The first option solves the problem, by changing the gameplay style of raids. This is not likely to be met with good reception by people that do like how raids are currently.Second option would satisfy current players, but does not solve the problem at all. It just makes it less visible for the raiders. It is also hard to implement (as it's impossible to easily quantify player skill), so runs the heavy risk of being either too weak (and thus ineffective), or too strong (and thus preventing a lot of potential new raiders from trying them)Third option removes the problem, by removing the incentives (either by removing them outright, or by making them available through other avenues, that are fit for players that like different playstyles). Again, some raiders may get angryFourth option is sort of a variation of the third one, that works by offering several different modes of the content, that are designed for players with different playstyles. Notice, though, that for it to work, you would need to make the stuff non-raiders go into raids for available also through those other, "not true raid" modes. Or at least enough of that stuff to heavily minimize the problem. This option also will make at least some raiders angry.

As you can see, there's no option that would be considered good to everyone. There would be some pushback no matter what you picked. I can only tell you that any attempt to make bigger percentage of player population start raiding without changing anything about raids themselves is going to be met with at best a minimal, unnoticeable effect. While possibly causing some fallout elsewhere.

And aren't strikes a good thing in regard to informing people on whether they enjoy the content type?People who don't like strikes because of the mechanics (whisper) or group dynamic is more likely to like raids.While people who hate those aspects don't like these aspects probably won't like raidsTechnically true, but those very same people always had the option of going for raids directly. For such people Strikes aren't any better to start in than Raids are. The barriers that prevent people from raiding are the same barriers that prevent the same people from participating in more difficult strikes. Players that try Whispers and Boneskinner and decide they like what they see would have the very same reaction after trying out Cairn or VG. And it would not have been any harder for them to do so.

basically, for those players, Strikes are not a stairway. They are a detour.

[Nephalem.8921]

@maddoctor.2738 said:I never expected a player to do 50% of golem benchmark damage on Dhuum, not even the best player in the game can achieve that. But a player reaching 50% of the benchmark on the golem, will be more likely to reach 50% of Dhuum benchmark damage as well. But if they CANNOT even reach 50% of golem benchmark dps then they will never reach any kind of damage on Dhuum.

Well, the point i am making is that you

won't

change those players.

I'm just curious here, how are those players incapable of reaching that damage threshold when it can be achieved simply by auto attacking.

Actually good players can achieve close to benchmark on Dhuum. Like 75%-80% close if you filter out the pre. Record even has bench values for main fight.You just cant help the bad players unless all choices are kinda equal with distinct builds for roles. This mmo is the only one i know where you can equip tank gear as dps. I like this system but it is just not working for casuals. a large number of players doesnt even bother to read their traits or skills.