Guild Wars 2

Hey, hey, hey wait…
There are some issues with Guildwars2 (which is normal for an mmorpg) but is still a great game. Everything can be fixed but sometimes it’s really hard. And the hardest one is the community.

Don’t take it wrong. Guild Wars 2 had the best community ever. I played often 2 games from 2012-2013 which were LoL and Gw2. And trust me… there is a huge gap between those. Anyway i play GW2 for 1 year and i have to admit… the community is turning to be bad. Some will probably say it’s normal or something…. but no… it was so good at the begin and it went every month worse.

I guess nobody has the patience to teach a newbie things in a dungeongroup. In the begin it was fine.. nobody was kicked for being a ranger/thief or having under 3k AP. When the group search tool arrived everyone could do faster dungeon / finding a group. Many people want to clear as fast as they can. Some guys don’t even think and just let guardians and warriors in. <- I don’t understand this meta. In my opinion every class is useful. These listed classes are easier too learn… in my opinion ofcourse.

One example: I got kicked in the end of a fractal boss so a guild member of them could replace my place. Sure i couldn’t ask them why they did this because the group chat will be deleted. They were in the same guild… i guess that’s the answer.

For what is this thread? Saying Arenanet should fix this or something?
No… dont get me wrong. I just want to say my view of this situation so some others could share or saying their opinion and show them Arenanet. Also i can’t understand why the groupchat gets removed. Do they think i would insult them or something? It wouldn’t pay off anything and i get reported. I want to have reasons why the group did this. It makes me sometimes a bit angryof if you get kicked in the end with no reason…

Edit: Ouch… My English isn’t the best anyway… Had some nice people after this. I asked how i could look to the groupchat and told this to them. They offerd me a place in fractal or tried to help. There are still so many friendly players here but the amount of the others is getting more.

Maybe there are other examples, but, since you just talk about dungeons, I’d like to point out that the dungeon community is a distinct subset of the overall community.

I don’t do dungeons often (not generally my thing,) but the times that I had, I didn’t have any issues with people. Just steer clear of “experienced only/speed clear” runs, and, if you’re worried about getting kicked, there’s the old standby of starting the group yourself. Hopefully your future experiences will be better.

There are bad apples out there, but don’t let them spoil it for you.

Its always been this way. Its probably more noticeable now due to the LFG tool. Don’t just join the 1st group available for the dungeon you want to do be picky.

There are certain things people type in the LFG tool that indicate that its probably going to be a bad group: Anything about Experienced players only or speed clears. Asking for or excluding certain classes is definitely at the top of that list. Asking players to ping gear. Rolling swamp for fractals.

The problem with a lot of these players is that they don’t really want to play the game. They only care about the rewards. Most of them don’t even have an understanding of the mechanics of the dungeons they farm, all they really know is the safe places to stand and how to skip certain parts of the dungeon.

a t s e.9614:

The problem is that alot of people dont tell the truth about why they got kicked. Let’s say you join a party that says berserker only\ melee’ing all bosses and you do not meet those requirements and join anyway. They have the rights to kick you out whenever they want , since you didnt read the Lfg and wasted the time of those people.
Or some people simply get kicked because they are always laying on the ground but they will never tell it on the forums. Kicking at the end with no reason deserves a bann in my opinion but if you dont meet the requirements of the lfg post or constantly dieing , I think its perfectly fine to kick you out.

To kick you out as the beginning of the dungeon. If you require zerkers you’ll ask to ping armor, if you ask for meeleing all bosses, the first mob will be enough to realize the requirements are not met.

As for the rest, the comunity is getting worse, probably because most of the people that used to play initially have left the game a while ago. A 200 people dead guild and over 20 friends show it.
Second of, true, all professions can be good, but unlike warriors and guardian that every brainless kid can handle feeling a God, the others require true skills and let’s be honest, you’ll find these skilled rangers, necros and engis way too little.
And, as long as dungeons will be a stack-on-a-corner-dps-feast and just an unchallenging grind, don’t expect many people out there to be willing to teach or to accept a wipe with a “lol”.

a t s e.9614:

The problem is that alot of people dont tell the truth about why they got kicked. Let’s say you join a party that says berserker only\ melee’ing all bosses and you do not meet those requirements and join anyway. They have the rights to kick you out whenever they want , since you didnt read the Lfg and wasted the time of those people.
Or some people simply get kicked because they are always laying on the ground but they will never tell it on the forums. Kicking at the end with no reason deserves a bann in my opinion but if you dont meet the requirements of the lfg post or constantly dieing , I think its perfectly fine to kick you out.

Well I don’t play bad. I die sometimes as full dmg, but i do a good job. See whatever you want. If they require things which i don’t have i dont join the group. And why should i lie? It’s anonym here… you condemn me that i don’t listen to them.

a t s e.9614:

I think its perfectly fine to kick you out.

That’s pretty offensive what you say. Even if i play “bad” … using me until the end so an other one could replace me. You really sound like one out of my group.. Fun…

This is to be expected and is visible in other games.

The players doing the dungeons are no longer doing them for the experience but instead the reward. They want to clear it and get it over with as soon as possible. They’ve done it too many times. Anyone would find this type of gaming experience boring.

Playing a game for the rewards instead of the experience is an unfortunate reality in the MMO genre.

As one poster already mentioned I think it comes down to different areas of the game, personally I would add soloQ as being the most toxic space in GW2.

there’s an extremely rare drop i’ve been looking for.. it’s not special, just an exotic.. but you need to obtain it from loot.. it’s on a low level dungeon, i figured out how to do in very little time.. i try to be a reasonable person, i put in my lfg ‘speed run, not for leveling’
a guardian and mesmer from the same guild showed up and the next person was a lvl 75 mesmer, they kicked him immediately.. i was like, That was kinda rude.. i was then kicked from my own party, no one needs an elementalist anyway, right?
i agree with what kopi typed
it’s in every corner of the game though, “the community getting worse” is actually just more exploits becoming apparent.. some people don’t want a broken game fixed
gl expressing your discontent in a way that won’t get you banned though, we’ll see in a year or so if this game holds to enriched content and community standards

Idk, the people on my server are nice enough still. But you are more likely to see nasty people in fractals and dungeons unfortunately.

Forum posters =/= entire community, also this “community” is actually a hell of alot more tame compared to other mmo communities, especially smaller ones where theres less control and moderation, not to mention Sc2, or god forbid the massive League of Legends community, the official forums alone will horrify you or get you auto infracted by super strict mods, then you see the unofficial forums

I don’t expect much from forums, truly. They’re usually pretty mean and don’t reflect the game. I just remember when I started GW2, thinking, “People are helping each other! Nice in chat! This is amazing!” But after awhile, it seemed less so. It’s hard to get a sense of where it’s gone since I played, without re-installing the game, so I thought I’d give it a shot & look over the forums. Probably a bad idea.

Redenaz.8631:

I don’t do dungeons often (not generally my thing,) but the times that I had, I didn’t have any issues with people. Just steer clear of “experienced only/speed clear” runs, and, if you’re worried about getting kicked, there’s the old standby of starting the group yourself. Hopefully your future experiences will be better.

Except it doesn’t matter if he/she starts the group. It only takes 2 people to kick. What kind of idiocy is that? Who at A-net thought that a minority should have the leverage over the whole group? It boggles the mind. Not only that, but the person who starts the cutscene of the dungeon is the leader, and so if he/she is kicked, or leaves, the rest of the group gets kicked.

There’s a huge difference between elitism and efficiency aka farming. Asking for zerker only is not elitism but common sense . Asking for warriors only is elitism and its dumb since 2 warriors is more than enough.

Everybody should play how they want though . You can roleplay in a dungeon for an entiere day , just dont expect the others to carry you .

I think people use the Anet has only had GW2 out for a year excuse way to much. That excuse worked for World of Warcraft up to Wraith of the Lich King because they where pioneering new idea’s. Arena.net had a very solid foundation to run the game off of. They had the original Guildwars, World of Warcraft, Rift, and Starwars the Old Republic to pull ideas from. Instead they decided to focus on one area of the game (living story) and that was just straight poorly done.

I think that’s whats leading to the toxic environment the game is starting to form. People feel lied to about the direction the game was suppose to go in. The game was meant to be casual friendly instead its extremely casual unfriendly with extreme RNG’s and new time gated items (from crafting and vendor’s).

That does not even mention the fact they have blatantly lied to the community as of late. I am sorry if you don’t like that anet your deserve to be called what you are.

Where are the fractal boxes with skins you can pick?
Where are the fractal leader boards?

We had a huge content wipe for these amazing fractal leader boards that where advertised as part of a patch that never manifested.

This does not even go into broken class system in the game that seems to show untold amounts of favoritism in design.

nexxe.7081:

Redenaz.8631:

I don’t do dungeons often (not generally my thing,) but the times that I had, I didn’t have any issues with people. Just steer clear of “experienced only/speed clear” runs, and, if you’re worried about getting kicked, there’s the old standby of starting the group yourself. Hopefully your future experiences will be better.

Except it doesn’t matter if he/she starts the group. It only takes 2 people to kick. What kind of idiocy is that? Who at A-net thought that a minority should have the leverage over the whole group? It boggles the mind. Not only that, but the person who starts the cutscene of the dungeon is the leader, and so if he/she is kicked, or leaves, the rest of the group gets kicked.

Who ever enters the dungeon first is the owner of the dungeon not who ever starts the first cut scene.

Aste is right, you dont have to agree with him but hes right. If you arent having a good time in dungeons start your own group and avoid all the problems. They cant kick you without kicking themselves.

stobie.2134:

I haven’t played GW2 for almost a year now. When I left, it seemed like the community was degrading rather fast. I sometimes check in to see how it’s doing, but this doesn’t sound too promising. I started in beta, & at the time, it seemed like GW2 was going to have an exceptionally nice player base. A friend tried it again this spring, & said it had gotten considerably worse. People were meaner, chat just had to be turned off…

So how is it? Not in dungeons only, but in general. Whenever I think I could try it again, I see stuff like this, & think… well, maybe not. Is that – I hope – a bad impression from forums only?

Come to TC, we’re very nice there.

Also had nice experiences on Ehmry Bay when I guest there.

I don’t get what the surprise is, LFG community is just like that. I never understood why people want LFG in a game, I never use it. That’s why you have guilds with friends… I never used LFG in WoW either (after learning about the community in a few weeks). It’s the worst thing that happened to WoW community, I’m not surprised if it’s similar in GW2.

The GW2 community is just fine, and in no way unusual. Basically it does nothing more than mirror our real life communities where a small percentage of people are consistently super-nice and honest, another small percentage of people are consistently total jerks with no respect and an evil streak, and the overwhelming majority of people are somewhere in-between.

You will find that in MMOs the jerk/disrespectful/prankster elements are higher in percentage in certain parts of the game than others. And traditionally, Dungeons (where the phat loot is), has always attracted a higher percentage of the immature posing e-thug nerds (real life overweight virgins = gaming super heroes). So when you go on dungeon runs, your chances of encountering a jerk are higher than usual. Having said that, its not a majority, nor is it even close to that.

As to folks not being very helpful to “newbies” on dungeon runs … that has far more to do with the designs of the dungeons and the lack of in-game voice-chat options than it has to do with anything else.

So while I can sympathize somewhat with the OPs argument, I cannot agree with it in general. Because my experience with this games community, despite some unfortunate exceptions, has been fairly positive – and fairly consistent with my experiences in other MMOs.

The problem I see with the community is the LFG tool. Idk how many times I have asked for exp level 80 people and get the exact opposite. How many high lvl fractals people with no AR will join.

I agree to the OP to a certain degree. The bad apples are more obvious to spot now, especially on the LFG tool, champ trains, and … even in WvW. I also find that the living story is also susceptible to more bad apples too (Especially many are aiming for achievements!)
Now it’s much more difficult for me to run dungeons and that I’m not familiar with as many are speed runs/zerker only. Not that it’s bad, but how are the new people able to learn? I admit that I run certain dungeons for the rewards, but I usually stay until the end to help a first timer out.
In saying this, the GW2 community is still nice but hoping that things might change so that we have a friendly, nice community.

“Nice” community. Gross, especially the self-proclaimed ones. A lot of it is very fake and transparent. The ego just oozes out of some people, and I find these kinds of people far more repulsive than the guy raging and cursing because he died. At least he is honest.

I will admit that on the whole, this game’s community is a lot nicer than others I have seen. But from day one I’ve also seen toxic and spiteful insults and attitudes, on many different servers (the EU ones have been far, far worse than the NA ones I’ve been on – one of the reasons I’m a Brit playing on NA), but again, bad people come in different forms, and some of the worst offenders are the most well-spoken. But then again I don’t think most people are self-aware enough to see these things… that or they’re just one of them.

In pvp is way worst, it doesn’t help also that 70% are warriors, minion necros or mesmers…

Yes, taking the time to read the LFG can avoid some problems. Yes, explaining that you are new, and seeing if you can find a good learning group is a good thing, and yes, starting your own dungeon group is the best way to avoid being kicked, however…

The poster could have said it so much better.

There are a LOT of people out there who are not simply looking for the next farm or the speed clear.

Post your own LFG asking for people who are learning. Ask in map chat if there’s anyone who wants to run with a new player. Communicate with the group before you go into the dungeon.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to absolutely guarantee that you won’t be kicked for one reason or another, but if you lead, others will follow. Take the chance, and don’t let the farmers and speed clearers get you down.

Good luck to you!

Yeah i gotta admit dungeons are the ugly side of community. For me it’s less the speedrunners (i like an efficient fast run), but the profession elitits, kicks for low achi points or group “leaders” that quit after one single wipe at lupi. And i pity the fools who think thief is subpar in dungeons. Obviously they know nothing of both damage and support a thief can bring to the table.

Either way OP you can either take the time out to watch/read a guide on how to do the dungeon and not slow your team down or get kicked.

You can either have the proper gear or get kicked.

Or you can easily just start your own party and avoid all those problems.

as was pointed out,there are super nice ppl and a small percentage of spitefull ones,stay clear of the more elistist specific classonly or speed experienced requeiremements and you should be fine,but i agree,there is a change,it can be due to a lot moreppl playing the game at launch and it increased the percentage of helping ppl,also being new everyone wasdoing the same so it payed to help out,but i party up frequently,now mostly with my Guild but still,i got a random guy do the L.A vistas,guiding me and helping me out,recently Kor of [MIST] took the time to do the nightmare events with us and guide some new fellas to some local vistas there,there all round nice ppl that are worthy of being added to the friends list,just have to look carefully

Here is a tip…if you don’t know the dungeon don’t join a group that says EXP only…If they are all asking for exp only make your own lfg post and people will come.

You probably meet a lot of kittens because you don’t know what is going on and joined a group asking for people who are exp and know the dungeon.

A lot of the problems of the community could be solved easily if people would read the lfg before clicking join. I have had countless people join my LFG who have no clue what they even signed up for path wise and want to kitten and moan when it isn’t the path they wanted. It said p2 in the description not p1…who’s fault is that?

Don’t even get me started on fractals…do a lvl 38 and we get in there and someone dies instantly when they get hit by agony and then want to complain about getting kicked? You don’t have any AR…that isn’t our fault. It is in the game and you need AR to progress in fractals.

Really when it comes down to it there is a time and place for teaching and then doing nice smooth runs. Just don’t come in and join a group asking for exp players only then get kitten when they kick you as you have never done it before. That is your fault for not reading. Start your own group and let people know you are learning or for someone to teach. I’ve joined groups where it said they were new to help out.

Don’t worry OP. Keep joining those “exp only” groups because most aren’t experienced anyway so they won’t notice. You’ll learn everything in no time.
About “warriors only”, there’s a very good reason for that. Pugs love themselves some warriors and they mostly run berserker gear. This is so deeply set in their minds that some people just call warriors “zerker” for some silly reason. Chances of seeing a ranger without bow/axe is abyssmal and carrying said ranger around isn’t so bad but between piercing arrows and pet AI being kittened you’re looking at aggroing the whole map at once.

Maybe it’s because I’m in europe but pug groups usually still have a nice mentality. Most of the time I don’t mind bringing inexperienced ppl into a dungeon IF they warn us beforehand. In my experience 99% of the time they’ll blatantly lie or don’t respond when I ask if they’ve done it or not. I hate having to wipe twice just because a person doesn’t know what to do. I don’t mind explaining, but I need to know whether I need to explain something or not.

There are of course times when I just want a smooth run because I’ve had a long day or don’t have that much time. At those moments I will put experienced only and kick you if you don’t know what to do. I think that’s fair.

Sure you’ll always have ppl raging, quitting, etc etc but that comes with every game. Let’s face it, not all gamers have the best social skills.

Lastly, why not do the dungeons a couple of times with your guild? There are loads of guilds out there with friendly members, often even with Teamspeak. This way you learn all the mechanics instead of just “stack here and DPS” and have a blast at the same time. After doing it twice you know more than enough to join most “experienced” PUG groups and then I give it a month (or maybe 2) at most before you’re considering to kick certain ppl from parties as well.

I decided to take a break from GW2 few days ago because of the community in this game~ I cannot understand how you can say it has better community than games you have played before and I don’t even want to imagine how bad it is in games you mentioned (I just know from my boyfriend that LoL has worse one, but it does not surprise me)… I played some games before and I never met so many mean people! Dungeons are one thing, I am never let into dungeon with my favorite characters – Necromancer and Engineer, when I start myself party even with those characters, very often people just won’t join, which makes me really sad. I never minded letting not experienced players in, however what I find vital in the successful run is ability to communicate, which is not always present. Not trying to be racist here or so but often French people, sometimes German ones, playing on their own server join the party even though I ask for English speaking players. It was bugging me as well I get told what to play, everyone just wants zerkers and sometimes warriors only. It takes whole pleasure of the game away, once I was playing with my support Elementalist and got asked why I don’t use conjured weapons and that I would be noob to not do so (it was in AC and I was just spawning them at burrows part but at other parts another skills). Some people as well join MY party and then they say stuff like “We don’t need 2 mesmers.” and try to kick me. If it would just be that I would be ok, after all you can look for people for dungeons in guild but I was in 3 guilds and no one went for dungeons without guild officers and people which were in those were just awful and making stupid jokes like giving people randomly speed buff at jumping puzzle so that they fall and die. Or they burp during talks at TS3 or so (which may happen, I dun say anything) but they dun even care to apologize. I just get frustrated and sad while playing the game because of community… In WvW commanders call people bugs if you disagree with them or give them ideas they dun like. The game as it is now is really making me sad and frustrated and I find it bad because otherwise I really like it and I am sure if I met at least 1 friend there it would be at once more pleasant.

angelpaladin.7921:

snip

+10.

Sadly your right, I’ve never run into jerks before but, doing dungeons there are more than a few.

To me the biggest issue is not doing anything to keep the group together, if one member falls behind and get’s downed nobody seems willing to go back and help them! If you are running the group keep everyone together it will help in the long run!

The goal should be to have fun, not see how fast you can run!

You really can’t expect random people to hold your hands or be nice to you. I mean sure, I would do that but half of the people are more evil than an average person.

Do what you can to help yourself. Find friends/guilds, make a clear lfg telling your intentions (preferably with CAPS so all idiots are able to read it), keep spamming them that it’s a casual run and so on.

Sola.7250:

Sadly your right, I’ve never run into jerks before but, doing dungeons there are more than a few.

To me the biggest issue is not doing anything to keep the group together, if one member falls behind and get’s downed nobody seems willing to go back and help them! If you are running the group keep everyone together it will help in the long run!

The goal should be to have fun, not see how fast you can run!

People going back to pick up downed people is a good way to turn a bad break into a wipe. Being able to do trash runs without having your hand held is dungeon 101 level stuff, but apparently even running through the trash in open world is too hard for some given the complaints I’ve seen.

You don’t have to fight every mob, some mobs are really annoying and wipe disorganized pugs, skipping is safer even for inexperienced players for the most part. If they can’t figure out how to skip mobs then you don’t want or need them. They need to learn how the game works instead of forcing people to carry them. And no, its not “i made a simple mistake and nobody helped me, why so mean” Its, “Idk what I’m doing, come do this hard part for me so I can continue playing how I want you should be carrying me!”

Rule of thumb, when you pug in LFG and see the same guild tag on more than 2 of the members of the group….just drop group immediately and look for a new group. Partial and pre-formed groups like that are usually going to expect anyone else that joins to play how they want since they think its their group to begin with. They are usually running pvt anyway and it will be a slow and painful run.

My only frustrations with dungeons are the lack of filters in the LFG tool. There should be a way to filter out low AR liars in high level fractals. There should also be a way to filter out PVT/Clerics/Celestial users. There would be a lot less kicking in pugs if the people who joined actually had to match the group expectations…instead of just lying their way into the group. There should also be an experience filter in mid/higher level fractals. There’s nothing like the oblivious “leroy” player charging into old tom’s room on fractal level 20+. Clearly this person has skipped levels 10+ and tried to go straight to 20+ and does not have the prerequisite experience letting him know that it requires a little bit of set up before face rolling once you pass level 10.