Guild Wars 2

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

cygnus.8913:

Why has the game become like this?

Because people are running the same old content up and down for up to three+ years now with only minor changes, one actual new dungeon path and the expense of an old one while there are still annoying bugs which ANet doesn’t fix because they lack a proper fix, give the issue a low priority or whatever else may apply.

Dungeons are as stale as they possibly could be and it won’t change.

Because you’re joining farm-type groups for the dungeon, who just want to get it out of the way ASAP because they’ve been playing it as-is for literally years. So, since a non-80 unfortunately contributes a lot less than an 80 due to full access to traits, lower levels aren’t very welcome, since they’ll just slow down the run. Same goes for inexperienced players (although, don’t get this forum started on how inexperienced most of the people in “experienced” only groups are…).

Try making your own, all welcome group. In my experience, such groups usually fill quite fast. Heck, you can even put something in there like ‘first timer, wanting to learn’ or similar. Again, you’ll very likely find helpful people joining your group. Want to watch the cutscenes? Add ‘watching cutscenes’. It’s really pretty easy and painless to make a group in this game. Give it a try!

Thanks guys – I do make my own groups, most of the time. As mentioned though, I was kicked from one I created for not being 80 (a CM P1 run), which I gotta admit I found really irritating. These experiences are with groups that don’t specify any level requirement ( I don’t bother even attempting to join the 80 zerk groups), and then kick you when they haven’t made their requirements clear. It’s really that more than anything else.

I get that the content is old for players who have been around a long time, but for new players it’ll suck. My fiance who has an 80 character and hasn’t pre-purchased HoT yet doesn’t plan to after watching me play (or not, as might be the case) in these groups. Now if you contrast that with FFXIV, it’s a night and day change except for high end raiding content. The game isn’t all that accessible for fresh blood.

Dear op. I started this game little less then 3 years ago. When i started, lfg was still not implemented so you searched your group on map chat I was too kicked quite a few times too. Then i decided to run it with my guild once i hit 80. Problem solved. The thing is, nobody wants to carry players because it’s annoying.

Oxidia.8103:

Dear op. I started this game little less then 3 years ago. When i started, lfg was still not implemented so you searched your group on map chat I was too kicked quite a few times too. Then i decided to run it with my guild once i hit 80. Problem solved. The thing is, nobody wants to carry players because it’s annoying.

Yeah, I remember that about the lack of a tool.

The thing is, this content isn’t that difficult (the lower level stuff, I mean). But I dunno, things seem to have become markedly less friendly. I can see from the upvotes and consensus that newer players are going to be a burden (I guess it depends how you define ‘carry’). And that’s kinda unfortunate. When I do get this alt kitted out, I’ll try to be different. Guess it is what it is.

You can always just do the dungeon on your main and switch to your alt at the last boss. That´s how many people power-level their alts and nobody has a problem with that generally.

This is why you should do what I do: bring 3 people you know and kick whoever tries to get you kicked. Bonus points if you talk trash to him beforehand.

I pug most dungeons and fractals I run (about 90%) and I almost never have a negative experience. I’m always on an 80 but I’ve run a few dungeons where we had sub 80s and they are usually sub par but we don’t kick them it’s all fun.

Being kicked from a LFG you joined isn’t that big of a deal being kicked from your own is that one you’ve a right to be angry about.

You can’t compare dungeons on this game with a game FFXIV’s without coming to the conclusion of GW2’s being really terrible, and that’s because we have had no maintenance on them for years.

When content is left to rot and no meaningful changes are made along with no new content that has engaging combat is implemented, this is what happens. Everybody hits the max level, everybody ends up repeating the exact same things over and over again and nobody feels like settling for less than what they’re used to.

Miku FTW. That’s it in a nutshell, I was going to say the same thing but take 6 more paragraphs.

dlonie.6547:

Miku FTW. That’s it in a nutshell, I was going to say the same thing but take 6 more paragraphs.

We’re on the same wavelength here, buddy!

-salutes-

OP, I agree with you and I’ve owned the game since it came out and played GW1 a couple years.

I cancelled my preorder for HoT and will just stick with FFXIV as it does instances better and more epic than than this game ever will. Also, don’t like the direction this game is currently headed so I’ll just stick with other MMOs that already does better what this one is trying to strive for (and will ultimately fail IMO).

This game should have built more upon its open world and crafting systems and cleaned its dungeon game up more as that is why I originally bought it for (you know, its own niche), but their outright refusal to include an automated grouping system still rubs me the wrong way (seems like the game is being ran by a bunch of wannabe hipsters) as every other MMO I play has it and it works well (especially FF where its casual content is still slightly challenging).

Ah well, I’ll spend my time and money elsewhere until the dust settles after this one. I’ll still do holiday event until then though. Those are still awesome!

cygnus.8913:

The game isn’t all that accessible for fresh blood.

GW2 is the only mmo I’ve played so far so I can’t compare. I regularly pug dungeons and sometimes I join those “all welcome” “noob here” or when they are stuck on a certain event in a dungeon and ask for help in lfg.

The thing is, majority of the new players are not only new to the content, they are utter noobs in playing as a team (aka with other humans). Many times I spent long time with a party only to get to some event/fight that requires a bit more coordination/skill and suddenly people leave party without saying anything, go afk forever or even few times, they flame me cos the strategy I told them about didn’t work on first try or cos they think lvl 80 should carry 4 lowbies entirely.

Yes, it is very frustrating to run dungeons with under lvl 80 character but OP, try to see the other side of the problem, what it might be like for those lvl 80s willing to run with lowbies.

I like playing with lowbies!

They can just hide under my D-Series Golem defensive bubble. It works wonders :P

Edit: No really, I love it. Makes playing dungeons challenging again, great fun.

Purple Miku.7032:

You can’t compare dungeons on this game with a game FFXIV’s without coming to the conclusion of GW2’s being really terrible, and that’s because we have had no maintenance on them for years.

When content is left to rot and no meaningful changes are made along with no new content that has engaging combat is implemented, this is what happens. Everybody hits the max level, everybody ends up repeating the exact same things over and over again and nobody feels like settling for less than what they’re used to.

That’s a good point, the fact that there’s two ways to do every instance (the regular way, and the fast way with exploits) is a clear indicator that Anet simply doesn’t spend enough resources fixing things and adds too much burden of knowledge making the new players vs veteran problem much worse.

They need to fix those shortcuts and increase the reward, right now the whole thing is a mess, I’m spamming instances pretty much all day and there isn’t a single one where I do as i’m told by the NPC or quest because there’s always a faster way to do it.

But I get the feeling old content is gonna be left to rot, I hope I’m wrong.

So you’re basically saying that you can’t do dungeons fast without it being exploiting?

You should know that whatever “regular way” means to you, it is subjective. To me what is a regular way to do dungeons is to normally go with 1-2 friends, not caring at all about what classes we’re using and we will not kill trash mobs unless it’s necessary. This is a regular occurrence for me and it’s not cheating. Is it regular for most people to do dungeons without groups of 5? Certainly not.

Arenanet gives us a choice of whether or not we want to kill enemies, skip events, take shortcuts or whatever. You need to get it out of your head that just because somebody doesn’t like doing something exactly the way that you do it’s exploiting something unintended, because that’s simply false. You don’t know what the original creators of the dungeons intended and at this point they probably don’t even remember because they’ve stopped working on them years ago.

tl;dr – You need to look at the situation from more perspectives than just the way you feel about it. Being close-minded will not only prevent you from being able to understand other people, it will make it more difficult for you to cope with different interests and conflicts that come along the way as a result of them.

Half a year ago, at the 10 Euro sales, I bought a mule account and leveled an elementalist just for fun on that account. I did about the same thing like you (OP), but only in PvE. All alone, nothing with guild. In dungeons, under 80, I was not kicked once. After reaching 80, I even started with fractals, having about 1500 AP at the time. I did that until about fractal level 30. I was also not kicked even once. I witnessed the kicking of other people, though.

Overal, it was a pleasant experience and much fun. I was under the impression that nobody looks at the AP but in fact at how you actually perform in combat.
Of course I never joined groups with “4000 AP+” and such, but only groups whose description suggested that casuals are welcome.

I must admit, a real beginner probably will have difficulties, because I did know how to play the elementalist and always got myself the best equipment for the given level. Always rare with under 80, exotic with 80, and after some fractal levels even ascended, which I all sponsored from my main account.

Purple Miku.7032:

So you’re basically saying that you can’t do dungeons fast without it being exploiting?

You should know that whatever “regular way” means to you, it is subjective. To me what is a regular way to do dungeons is to normally go with 1-2 friends, not caring at all about what classes we’re using and we will not kill trash mobs unless it’s necessary. This is a regular occurrence for me and it’s not cheating. Is it regular for most people to do dungeons without groups of 5? Certainly not.

Arenanet gives us a choice of whether or not we want to kill enemies, skip events, take shortcuts or whatever. You need to get it out of your head that just because somebody doesn’t like doing something exactly the way that you do it’s exploiting something unintended, because that’s simply false. You don’t know what the original creators of the dungeons intended and at this point they probably don’t even remember because they’ve stopped working on them years ago.

tl;dr – You need to look at the situation from more perspectives than just the way you feel about it. Being close-minded will not only prevent you from being able to understand other people, it will make it more difficult for you to cope with different interests and conflicts that come along the way as a result of them.

Lol, the lecture was unnecessary.

You’re telling me merging paths in AC was something ANet intended? what about outright skipping entire jumping puzzles with teleports? or doing something in completely unpredictable ways like the arms seals in the colossus fractals. This isn’t about perspective, it’s about their lack of foresight and the burden of knowledge new players have to go through before being eligible by elitists to join their groups, which is what this thread is all about.

Personally I would be upset if they forced us to take the long route without adding better rewards, but making it an even ground would be fairer for all, and certainly less frustrating for new players.

Purple Miku.7032:

Truthbomb! pheeeeeeoooowwwww BOOM

This. This. This. This. This.
Gimme a reason to conquer a dungeon fun&efficiently, without either running past by most “threats” or by just killing a threat before it kills you.

Fractals (And to some degree the aetherpath of TA) where, for me, a promising step in the right direction back when they were introduced – a spark of hope, if you will.
Still, old tactics apply mostly, but in high LV fractals, some groups showed, that you don’t have to be DPS focused as a group to be efficient.

Not to mention, that some fractals require a certain amount of group coordination, where in most dungeons, it’s just berserk left and right for the win, where people could literally ego-trip around and still finish the dungeon as a group.

I still don’t like fractals, tho. It’s like “Hey, look at all these cool mechanics, we could’ve made a whole dungeon out of, if we wanted.”

HoT won’t adress dungeons, sadly. I wanted to come back for it, but now i’ve looked at the druid and nope, not touching that.
Why does the guardian gets everything rangers wanted since day 1? T_T
They have a bloody AoE on their LB AA. I’m so super jealous.

@OP:
PUGs just work like that, especially within a rotting enviroment. They just want to “get over with it as quickly as possible” for the rewards.
And i can’t blame them for that.

Don’t like it? Well, the game’s very title already gives away a solution…

Being kicked from yuor own group is pretty funny lol

Mitch.4781:

Being kicked from yuor own group is pretty funny lol

Yeah, I suppose it is.

Well, I figure the best way to avoid it is this…if I join a group that doesn’t specify zerk/80s only, and everyone else is an 80 (like my experience today), I’ll just say:

“Hey, is this 80s only?”

And if they say yes, (like today) then I’ll just go “Okay, thanks” and leave. Beats being booted before I start.

I dunno why my experience doesn’t tally with others in this thread who report very little of this. I’m not going to pretend I’m pro in dungeons, but I certainly don’t think I’m bad at them, and I don’t think I fare much worse than anyone else. I haven’t been kicked mid dungeon – it’s either right at the start before we start clearing or just after I’ve joined, which to me says I didn’t fit the group composition they were looking for. It’s also not an issue for my 80 toons – just my little 75 staff ele.

On the upside, I’m not that far from 80 now, so I can look forward to no more of this stuff until I roll Revenant.

Daharahj.1325:

Lol, the lecture was unnecessary.

You’re telling me merging paths in AC was something ANet intended? what about outright skipping entire jumping puzzles with teleports? or doing something in completely unpredictable ways like the arms seals in the colossus fractals. This isn’t about perspective, it’s about their lack of foresight and the burden of knowledge new players have to go through before being eligible by elitists to join their groups, which is what this thread is all about.

Personally I would be upset if they forced us to take the long route without adding better rewards, but making it an even ground would be fairer for all, and certainly less frustrating for new players.

No, Miku never actually said anything about AC merging.

1. That’s an exploit and most speedrunners won’t do it and
2. You actually get about 45 LESS silvers and 40 LESS tokens for doing combined. No it doesn’t change the fact that’s its an exploit nor making but because less reward ppl just do path 1 and 2 and skip path 3 due to time-gated events. Not to mention it actually takes longer than path 1&2 separate if the person setting it up is bad/slow.

What’s miku’s talking about are different strategies: for example:

Spider queen:

• pug strat: kill the spiderlings, jump down, kill the heads, ranger: shoot a arrow, shoot another arrow, shoot another arrow… spawn the queen, group wipe, try again 5 mins later: queen dead
• regular strat: go straight to the spawn spot, ele LS, freeze, dps, it’s dead moving on.

Next graveling groups:

• pug strat: stack at the corner of the door, dps, getting knocked down, getting blown up everywhere, blame the dps. finally it’s dead
• regular strat: shadow refuge, thief shadow steps, disable the trap, moving on.

Kohler:

• pug strat: everyone runs up the left stairs, stack at corner, lure kohler, kohler came, it spins, everyone down, blame the guard, blame the dps, finally kohler dead
• regular strat: everyone go right, get ready at stairs, go in ele LS, freeze, guard wall, dps, kohler dead.

etc etc etc.

cygnus.8913:

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

In a game where the game starts at level 80 – and where most players are already level 80 – the simple fact that you’re not 80 means you don’t fit in.
And if you don’t fit in people will kick you.

The older the game gets the more stale the “gameplay” experience becomes – and the population in the game shifts towards a more “reward-oriented” instead of “gameplay and experience oriented” group.

Why? Because the old content is old – and people who played it for gameplay or experience got bored and moved on – so most people that are left are “reward-oriented” they stuck around because their fun is in the rewards not the content itself.
And for those players a non-80 character is a problem – because it means it will take them longer to get their rewards – which is against their play philosophy.

If you think that’s elitism, prepare yourself once raids come out.

My experience as newbie:
I heard about GW2 is ftp so i tried it.
Even though this half tab targetting, clumsier combat style, compared to another action mmorpgs, i liked gameplay, and heard about how welcoming comunity it has. Decided to buy game.
Now after some time im having bit hard time to find anything but elitism and meta elitism, either in forums or in game, lfg tool seems useles meta meeting tool. Got some random invite to two half dead guilds, which i left after week of nothing.
Do i miss something? Where is this warm welcoming comunity?
Im wondering how to do some PVE content, and hearing dungeons are rotten old – are there any even worth doing?
I like mesmer and necro playstyle, reading so many stuff how bad they are in PVE, still not sure what should i main, inclining to necro bit more, but mesmer seems more useful.
In hope that HoT brings something new, but it starts looking that it brings even more elitist demanding raids.
Getting so lost, seems farming sw events or chests is only thing i can do lol.

Guild Wars 2 has one of the worst PvE communities due to stuff like this. I’ve never bothered pugging a dungeon because of stuff like this. Best thing to do is to join a guild and run them with your guild. What makes it more hilarious is that people actually want you to have a certain amount of achievement points to join their group. It’s pretty sad that people determine your skill by the amount of AP you have.

Raids will probably be a lot worse to pug. Join a nice guild and enjoy the endgame with them.

Seems its thing which im missing, some guild. Gotta look for some.
Honestly i played more mmos more than year each, not wow type, more action dynamic fight type like tera neverwinter etc, allways up to hardest endgame – and i never seen this meta crap, its ridiculous, and this class unballance (is that even possible for so evolved mmorpg as gw2 claims to be????). Makes me wonder.

kiki.6250:

Seems its thing which im missing, some guild. Gotta look for some.
Honestly i played more mmos more than year each, not wow type, more action dynamic fight type like tera neverwinter etc, allways up to hardest endgame – and i never seen this meta crap, its ridiculous, and this class unballance (is that even possible for so evolved mmorpg as gw2 claims to be????). Makes me wonder.

So much salt past few posts lel.

The thing is, you whine you can’t do “difficult endgame content” yet you don’t run…well anything with anyone. Pugs kick you because you are probably being carryed (which everyone can feel while doing a dungeon run) so you eat a kick. You whine how you join a half dead guild and expect some activity there, everyone inviting you left and right and you joined like 15 min ago.

In non half dead guilds it’s even more difficult. You have to befrend the members and not be a dead weight in pve in order to get invited or invite them. Sometimes they ask you to run a certain build or gear. Now, you can be a rebelious little noob and leave the guild because how dare they ORDER you arund, and you have been playing this game for two full months. Not to mention ts3 is allmost allways a must.

The thing is…. if someone who is playing this game for 3 years gives you advice, he is probably trying to help you. Not to boss you around, just to improve your gameplay so you can carry yourself through any content in this game and shorten the time spent in the dungeon. That’s why people sometimes state AP xx is req, just to be sure player spent enough time ingame so they understand how things work.

Why is zerker meta so popular? Why is elitism so popular on lfg? Because people try to maximize their dmg to speed things up, because the loot on the end/during is not so good. Time is money for some people, especially is they are grinding for something.

Simple solution: make your own lfg (omg i know so much effort) stating casual/friendly/lvl build or class not important.

And another thing, generalising the whole community based on a few lfg reads and 2 pug kick is really showing how much you actually do have experience in mmo/game content in general. Good luck finding a guild and take care.

Oxidia.8103:

kiki.6250:

Seems its thing which im missing, some guild. Gotta look for some.
Honestly i played more mmos more than year each, not wow type, more action dynamic fight type like tera neverwinter etc, allways up to hardest endgame – and i never seen this meta crap, its ridiculous, and this class unballance (is that even possible for so evolved mmorpg as gw2 claims to be????). Makes me wonder.

So much salt past few posts lel.

The thing is, you whine you can’t do “difficult endgame content” yet you don’t run…well anything with anyone. Pugs kick you because you are probably being carryed (which everyone can feel while doing a dungeon run) so you eat a kick. You whine how you join a half dead guild and expect some activity there, everyone inviting you left and right and you joined like 15 min ago.

In non half dead guilds it’s even more difficult. You have to befrend the members and not be a dead weight in pve in order to get invited or invite them. Sometimes they ask you to run a certain build or gear. Now, you can be a rebelious little noob and leave the guild because how dare they ORDER you arund, and you have been playing this game for two full months. Not to mention ts3 is allmost allways a must.

The thing is…. if someone who is playing this game for 3 years gives you advice, he is probably trying to help you. Not to boss you around, just to improve your gameplay so you can carry yourself through any content in this game and shorten the time spent in the dungeon. That’s why people sometimes state AP xx is req, just to be sure player spent enough time ingame so they understand how things work.

Why is zerker meta so popular? Why is elitism so popular on lfg? Because people try to maximize their dmg to speed things up, because the loot on the end/during is not so good. Time is money for some people, especially is they are grinding for something.

Simple solution: make your own lfg (omg i know so much effort) stating casual/friendly/lvl build or class not important.

And another thing, generalising the whole community based on a few lfg reads and 2 pug kick is really showing how much you actually do have experience in mmo/game content in general. Good luck finding a guild and take care.

Which makes me wonder, theres 3 years still same stuff, instances to run, nothing new? That would explain a lot. And fyi my both toons are meta builds, and im not whinning for being kicked, i even wasnt, so far.
It just seems theres no comunity at all, definitely not welcoming and warm. Theres no global chat, only map, and 99,99 comunications between people is TY for resing, dancing emotes, and i dont see much else. LFG tool is just taxi or meta. I could give a shot for some lfg noob dungeon shrugs, but guild will be probably better idea.
I just expected more, especially in social area, and way way less in elitism/meta area.

You seem to forget that gw2 IS still mmo, full of different people, there is elitism, trolls and much more like in any other mmo, along with friendly people. Somehow you think gw2 is some magical place where everybody all the time shoot rainbows from their behinds. Just like in real life, unrealistic expectations lead to major disapointents.
But gw2 community in this day and age still has one of the best communities out there. I made quite a few really good friends during this three years.

Mitch.4781:

Being kicked from yuor own group is pretty funny lol

I have doubts we’ll see it retroactively applied to dungeons, but it looks like this is solved for raids. The Squad UI sounds pretty much like the strong instance-owner model I’ve been clamoring about us needing for years

This last week has been full of surprises

Harper.4173:

cygnus.8913:

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

In a game where the game starts at level 80 – and where most players are already level 80 – the simple fact that you’re not 80 means you don’t fit in.
And if you don’t fit in people will kick you.

The older the game gets the more stale the “gameplay” experience becomes – and the population in the game shifts towards a more “reward-oriented” instead of “gameplay and experience oriented” group.

Why? Because the old content is old – and people who played it for gameplay or experience got bored and moved on – so most people that are left are “reward-oriented” they stuck around because their fun is in the rewards not the content itself.
And for those players a non-80 character is a problem – because it means it will take them longer to get their rewards – which is against their play philosophy.

Well, my Ele hit 80 today (whee!). Not in zerk yet, though.

I agree with your assessment. It could just be that I forgot things were like this – I did take a long break.

FFXIV has down-leveling in its dungeon system and dailies that revolve around them (rewards only motivation). Yet I’ve seen (and been) raid geared characters paired with fresh players who were patient and helpful to a fault, with ‘elitism’ being very uncommon. I guess the difference is that FFXIV gives you no choice who you’re matched with if you want those rewards – when people have no incentive to be more inclusive then you’re right, they generally won’t be. For the benefit of new(er) players, though, the game could use a random matchmaking system with greater rewards for completion. ‘Spose I can’t really blame the players when the game mechanics encourage this sort of thing.

Having said that, I’ll try to make a point in future of taking varied groups to dungeon content so I don’t become exactly what I’m complaining about now that the alt I was leveling is 80. All I ask is full Ascended and 10k AP. Sheesh.

If you guys think this game’s community is terrible I’m actually kind of glad you never had to experience something like Runescape’s, where you actually had to be scared of people finding out about your Skype or any other applications you used (people would often times make names related to the ingame name they had) because they would do anything and everything they could to DDoS you so that you would die while disconnected and they could loot your stuff, both in PvE and PvP settings.

You should be grateful that there’s nothing terrible to deal with on this community other than elitism and trolling, as opposed to having everything in your bank wiped from being keylogged and having to worry about interacting with people knowing that so many people were scamming and social engineering people into trusting them so they could lure them and steal everything in a heartbeat. You actually had to be careful about letting people know you were wealthy on this game due to the fact that it would make you a bigger target for abuse/hacking. If you were wealthy, you had to worry about whether or not somebody is being kind to you to try to one day be able to snatch your stuff.

Also having tried Archeage last fall, can say without a doubt that community was horrible by comparison. The map chats were literally filled with autotypers, racism and people trash talking new players.

Seriously, this community is angelic compared to what else is out there. I feel like I’m getting too old having said all of this because it’s just like… I don’t know, I’ve experienced so much worse on so many different levels including people sending death threats over pixellated wealth, real life harassment and hacking of emails/facebooks and whatnot… and I’ve not heard of anything as remotely terrible happening on GW2 in nearly 3 years of gameplay other than getting phishing mail and kicked from pug groups from the LFG etc.

Forgive me for being insensitive to your issues, but get some thick skin. Forget the elitism on this game because it is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things it’s just stupid to let it affect you so much. There are so many different things you can do to avoid it, such as joining guilds and making friends that you can play with for one.

Purple Miku.7032:

If you guys think this game’s community is terrible I’m actually kind of glad you never had to experience something like Runescape’s, where you actually had to be scared of people finding out about your Skype or any other applications you used (people would often times make names related to the ingame name they had) because they would do anything and everything they could to DDoS you so that you would die while disconnected and they could loot your stuff, both in PvE and PvP settings.

You should be grateful that there’s nothing terrible to deal with on this community other than elitism and trolling, as opposed to having everything in your bank wiped from being keylogged and having to worry about interacting with people knowing that so many people were scamming and social engineering people into trusting them so they could lure them and steal everything in a heartbeat. You actually had to be careful about letting people know you were wealthy on this game due to the fact that it would make you a bigger target for abuse/hacking. If you were wealthy, you had to worry about whether or not somebody is being kind to you to try to one day be able to snatch your stuff.

Also having tried Archeage last fall, can say without a doubt that community was horrible by comparison. The map chats were literally filled with autotypers, racism and people trash talking new players.

Seriously, this community is angelic compared to what else is out there. I feel like I’m getting too old having said all of this because it’s just like… I don’t know, I’ve experienced so much worse on so many different levels including people sending death threats over pixellated wealth, real life harassment and hacking of emails/facebooks and whatnot… and I’ve not heard of anything as remotely terrible happening on GW2 in nearly 3 years of gameplay other than getting phishing mail and kicked from pug groups from the LFG etc.

Forgive me for being insensitive to your issues, but get some thick skin. Forget the elitism on this game because it is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things it’s just stupid to let it affect you so much. There are so many different things you can do to avoid it, such as joining guilds and making friends that you can play with for one.

I did play Archeage and yes, its ‘decent to crummy player’ ratio didn’t motivate me to play long term. I didn’t play Runescape, but that doesn’t sound like fun…also doesn’t sound like their game was very stable. If it was more hackable then Archeage then you have my condolences, as I thought that was pretty bad.

I’m not physically upset, I thought it was something worth discussing. No forgiveness necessary: I’m insensitive to your insensitivity, or I wouldn’t have made the post in the first place. I’ve been playing MMOs for 15 years, so I know what to expect on gaming forums, if you get my drift. Yes, for the sake of argument, GW2’s instanced PvE community is not the worst out there. But it’s not the best either.

It’s kinda funny. This is my first mmo and I was lucky/bless to have found/made a great network of friends and family. It’s interesting how different the game is in the PuG world.

I do catch your drift and just to make it clear I wasn’t posting with the intent of singling you out at all, but I read about 90% of the posts on the thread so far (or at the very least, skimmed through them) and there’s quite a lot of people under the impression of how this community is supposedly awful.

It’s certainly not perfect and there are obviously a lot of problems that need to be addressed, but people on here really need to understand that elitism is something that will always exist in the world of gaming and like any MMO, there is a large spectrum of good, bad, nice, mean, stupid, and intelligent players.

In that regard, it can be very similar to real life and as such the best way to handle a situation is often times the same way— ignore and avoid those that cause you trouble to the best of your ability.

Purple Miku.7032:

I do catch your drift and just to make it clear I wasn’t posting with the intent of singling you out at all, but I read about 90% of the posts on the thread so far (or at the very least, skimmed through them) and there’s quite a lot of people under the impression of how this community is supposedly awful.

It’s certainly not perfect and there are obviously a lot of problems that need to be addressed, but people on here really need to understand that elitism is something that will always exist in the world of gaming and like any MMO, there is a large spectrum of good, bad, nice, mean, stupid, and intelligent players.

In that regard, it can be very similar to real life and as such the best way to handle a situation is often times the same way— ignore and avoid those that cause you trouble to the best of your ability.

I agree. The OP was because I couldn’t avoid the gits because they often don’t make their entry requirements specific. It would be a shame for newbies to run into that, especially for content that was kinda intended for them.

This game is the best you can expect from a modern game. It’s not the games fault, it’s not this communities fault, it’s simply the way the internet has become. I’ll say this is not the best community I’ve seen in an MMO, not even the second best, but it’s not nearly as kittenome people make it out to be. It’s not any worse than anything you’ll see at this point.

I do miss my old EQ community, where I could let strangers just put their dungeon path purchases on a tab and pay me the next time they saw me, or even just pay me whenever they got the cash, I literally never didn’t get paid. I was worried once as the person disappeared after it was over for like 2 days, the next day I get a whisper from them to meet me in the main hub so they could pay me. Really awesome community in that game, but that was a super old game, and still had it’s negatives, on the PVP servers we certainly mastered griefing (I was a kid then so I participated my fair share, my guild even got famous at the time for one of it’s members http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php) thankfully that was pretty much reserved for the PVP servers and left there. The non PVP servers if someone was a jerk, you simply didn’t play with them, never really had issues.

Anyways getting off track in nostalgia (if you want a laugh that link is pretty funny, note you couldn’t kill people under level 6 on PVP servers, so he did a lot of things to mess with people, some of the most beautiful trolling/griefing I’ve ever seen), but GW2 is as good as it gets now. Follow that same mentality I saw in EQ and you don’t have many problems. Treat people with respect, avoid people that are jerks (you can usually tell withing the first minute of playing with someone) and your time isn’t wasted often. I’ve personally had very few issues. The thing I find most trollish in this game is the megaservers

Yesterday I played through a Sorrow’s Embrace with a party of 4 new FreePies (F2P-account holders).

It was a long and very fun run.
I had fun, because it was super cool relive how exploring a dungeon for the first time is.
And they had fun because they felt like they had super support asura on their team.
A real great time.

I really start loving all the new people that come into the game exploring everything for the first time and having loads of fun.
Looking forward to be using Scrapper’s function gyro a lot in the future.

Jerus.4350:

This game is the best you can expect from a modern game. It’s not the games fault, it’s not this communities fault, it’s simply the way the internet has become. I’ll say this is not the best community I’ve seen in an MMO, not even the second best, but it’s not nearly as kittenome people make it out to be. It’s not any worse than anything you’ll see at this point.

I do miss my old EQ community, where I could let strangers just put their dungeon path purchases on a tab and pay me the next time they saw me, or even just pay me whenever they got the cash, I literally never didn’t get paid. I was worried once as the person disappeared after it was over for like 2 days, the next day I get a whisper from them to meet me in the main hub so they could pay me. Really awesome community in that game, but that was a super old game, and still had it’s negatives, on the PVP servers we certainly mastered griefing (I was a kid then so I participated my fair share, my guild even got famous at the time for one of it’s members http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php) thankfully that was pretty much reserved for the PVP servers and left there. The non PVP servers if someone was a jerk, you simply didn’t play with them, never really had issues.

Anyways getting off track in nostalgia (if you want a laugh that link is pretty funny, note you couldn’t kill people under level 6 on PVP servers, so he did a lot of things to mess with people, some of the most beautiful trolling/griefing I’ve ever seen), but GW2 is as good as it gets now. Follow that same mentality I saw in EQ and you don’t have many problems. Treat people with respect, avoid people that are jerks (you can usually tell withing the first minute of playing with someone) and your time isn’t wasted often. I’ve personally had very few issues. The thing I find most trollish in this game is the megaservers

Interesting link, I didn’t know EQ was like that. My brother used to play it a lot. I got hooked with WoW and my future lack of productivity was history.

I definitely agree that the internet has become more trollish, but that some games encourage that more than others. A game’s design encourages certain types of player behaviour (emergent behaviour).

GW2 has done away with most of the things that encourage poor behaviour in other MMOs. It doesn’t encourage (or at least not sanction) cheating and swindling players like Archeage did because it is part of the ‘yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’ experience. It doesn’t allow for kill stealing like WoW did, so other players can help you achieve your goals in world PvE (a brilliant addition).

What the devs did for dungeon PvE was also done with the best of intentions. MMOs get older and the lower level dungeons would have become ghost towns (ish) down the line if they didn’t make it rewarding to do so. Ergo, you have a large glut of level 80s doing this content, but taking new players or under 80 players is the least efficient way to do that – naturally these players will be relatively excluded because they are now a hindrance.

I personally think this could be bettered somewhat with random grouping tools, as long as the rewards are worth it to the player. Aside from wanting to be helpful or welcoming, there is no incentive to take random 50 Joe to your nth run of dungeon x. This is one area where FFXIV did it right: have a daily linked to a random group dungeon, give extra rewards if the player hasn’t done it before, and give extra rewards for completion. Throw in some achievements around that for the achievement hunters and newer players will be less reliant upon the ‘charity’ of other players or the availability of their guildmates to run the content. It’s Pavlovian but I think it’s got potential.

Inverse.2967:

Yesterday I played through a Sorrow’s Embrace with a party of 4 new FreePies (F2P-account holders).

It was a long and very fun run.
I had fun, because it was super cool relive how exploring a dungeon for the first time is.
And they had fun because they felt like they had super support asura on their team.
A real great time.

I really start loving all the new people that come into the game exploring everything for the first time and having loads of fun.
Looking forward to be using Scrapper’s function gyro a lot in the future.

That’s awesome. Are FTP players easily recognizable? I have seen groups saying no free players, but I wouldn’t know which ones were free if I ran into them.

cygnus.8913:

Harper.4173:

cygnus.8913:

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

In a game where the game starts at level 80 – and where most players are already level 80 – the simple fact that you’re not 80 means you don’t fit in.
And if you don’t fit in people will kick you.

The older the game gets the more stale the “gameplay” experience becomes – and the population in the game shifts towards a more “reward-oriented” instead of “gameplay and experience oriented” group.

Why? Because the old content is old – and people who played it for gameplay or experience got bored and moved on – so most people that are left are “reward-oriented” they stuck around because their fun is in the rewards not the content itself.
And for those players a non-80 character is a problem – because it means it will take them longer to get their rewards – which is against their play philosophy.

Well, my Ele hit 80 today (whee!). Not in zerk yet, though.

I agree with your assessment. It could just be that I forgot things were like this – I did take a long break.

FFXIV has down-leveling in its dungeon system and dailies that revolve around them (rewards only motivation). Yet I’ve seen (and been) raid geared characters paired with fresh players who were patient and helpful to a fault, with ‘elitism’ being very uncommon. I guess the difference is that FFXIV gives you no choice who you’re matched with if you want those rewards – when people have no incentive to be more inclusive then you’re right, they generally won’t be. For the benefit of new(er) players, though, the game could use a random matchmaking system with greater rewards for completion. ‘Spose I can’t really blame the players when the game mechanics encourage this sort of thing.

Having said that, I’ll try to make a point in future of taking varied groups to dungeon content so I don’t become exactly what I’m complaining about now that the alt I was leveling is 80. All I ask is full Ascended and 10k AP. Sheesh.

Random matchmaking with different players is something you can’t add retrospectively to a game without causing massive damage and uproar. People don’t like their freedom taken away – especially their freedom to associate with others.

This sort of system works with games that have it from the get-go – you start out with it and if you want to accept it you do and if you don’t you don’t – but adding it halfway through a game’s life cycle is very very bad design.

New players have to adapt – but that’s true for every game – plus matching new and old players together opens a huge door for conflict and abuse on both sides.

Imagine that with the FTP system you can make endless “newbie” accounts to troll others and with random matchmaking there’s nothing they can do about it.

I for one lean towards the other side of the spectrum – I feel people of different playstyles and mindsets should interact with each other very little – and the more filters we have in between the better – avoiding conflict and stress on both sides.

Purple Miku.7032:

I do catch your drift and just to make it clear I wasn’t posting with the intent of singling you out at all, but I read about 90% of the posts on the thread so far (or at the very least, skimmed through them) and there’s quite a lot of people under the impression of how this community is supposedly awful.

It’s certainly not perfect and there are obviously a lot of problems that need to be addressed, but people on here really need to understand that elitism is something that will always exist in the world of gaming and like any MMO, there is a large spectrum of good, bad, nice, mean, stupid, and intelligent players.

In that regard, it can be very similar to real life and as such the best way to handle a situation is often times the same way— ignore and avoid those that cause you trouble to the best of your ability.

With no offense to anyone the things you’re talking about Miku are part of human psychology – it’s called hedonic adaptation.

The better off you are the more sensitive you become to issues that would be considered inconsequential in other circumstances.
You see this in games and in real life – you might think people who “have it all” live peaceful stress-free lives but that’s not actually true – simply their sensitivity to stuff that stresses them increases and their general level of stress tends to stay at about the same level.

So while some people are really worried and uncomfortable about not having anything to eat or a place to live others express similar levels of worry and lack of comfort regarding matters such as pronouns or what clothes to wear and so on.

Some word should be banned when you try to create a topic, I still don’t understand why people complain about the same pointless stuff zZz.

cygnus.8913:

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

So you say you’re getting kicked by the community and yet you tell us the community is great. You just slapped yourself. You see the community is bad to you. It’s either you go with the flow of elitism or play with your friends/all welcome/casuals/whatever. I see those kind of posts all the time getting kicked kicked and kicked blablabla.

Draco.9480:

cygnus.8913:

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

So you say you’re getting kicked by the community and yet you tell us the community is great. You just slapped yourself. You see the community is bad to you. It’s either you go with the flow of elitism or play with your friends/all welcome/casuals/whatever. I see those kind of posts all the time getting kicked kicked and kicked blablabla.

I didn’t contradict myself – the world PvE community is fine – there aren’t any world PvE mechanics that encourage the kind of behaviour I’m talking about in my OP.

I’m also not saying that the groups who kick are ‘bad people.’ I don’t think the current game mechanics encourage people to be more helpful in this situation of course.

That you see these sort of posts all the time might indicate it’s perceived to be an issue?

Not so much in the habit of slapping myself, but thanks.

Harper.4173:

Purple Miku.7032:

I do catch your drift and just to make it clear I wasn’t posting with the intent of singling you out at all, but I read about 90% of the posts on the thread so far (or at the very least, skimmed through them) and there’s quite a lot of people under the impression of how this community is supposedly awful.

It’s certainly not perfect and there are obviously a lot of problems that need to be addressed, but people on here really need to understand that elitism is something that will always exist in the world of gaming and like any MMO, there is a large spectrum of good, bad, nice, mean, stupid, and intelligent players.

In that regard, it can be very similar to real life and as such the best way to handle a situation is often times the same way— ignore and avoid those that cause you trouble to the best of your ability.

With no offense to anyone the things you’re talking about Miku are part of human psychology – it’s called hedonic adaptation.

The better off you are the more sensitive you become to issues that would be considered inconsequential in other circumstances.
You see this in games and in real life – you might think people who “have it all” live peaceful stress-free lives but that’s not actually true – simply their sensitivity to stuff that stresses them increases and their general level of stress tends to stay at about the same level.

So while some people are really worried and uncomfortable about not having anything to eat or a place to live others express similar levels of worry and lack of comfort regarding matters such as pronouns or what clothes to wear and so on.

First world problems? I dunno whether I’d apply what you’re talking about to raising a topic like this (I have a degree in Psych). If we apply this principle to every suggestion or debate on these forums, there wouldn’t be many of them. Should we not discuss these things because there are worse things going on in the world? Are we being over-sensitive in our cushy lives? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you know.

Harper.4173:

cygnus.8913:

Harper.4173:

cygnus.8913:

I returned the game recently prior to HoT, after being a day one player.

I decided to level up an alt – a little Asuran Elementalist. I’ve been leveling her up with a mixture of WvW, world PvE and dungeons.

Several times in the past week, I’ve been kicked from groups, before the first boss (sometimes even before I enter the dungeon), because I am not level 80. I’ve even been kicked from my own group (one I formed to get past the ‘80 exp zerker only 4k exp’ groups). Sometimes, I’ll join a group that doesn’t specify 80s only and be kicked for not being 80. In fact I just had a lovely conversation with a most polite soul who insisted that I get my main for Twilight Arbour or gtfo.

Now don’t get me wrong, players are entitled to set their own ‘filters’ on who they want to join their group. I avoid those ‘full 80 zerk’ parties like the plague anyway. But I can only get around this insistence on top level gear to play lower level content by creating my own groups and being very specific that everyone’s welcome and it’s not an 80 only run.

This ‘culture’ of making sub 80 players feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit is not going to endear it to new players. These welcome parties expect players to know everything.

Guild Wars 2 used to be well known for its community. It still has a great community, just not when it comes to dungeon runs. I half expect to see ‘Blue Moa run, 80 zerk 4k AP’ next. FFXIV beats this game hands down for genuinely helpful players. New players who come in after HoT are going to find experiences like these incredibly off-putting. Why has the game become like this?

In a game where the game starts at level 80 – and where most players are already level 80 – the simple fact that you’re not 80 means you don’t fit in.
And if you don’t fit in people will kick you.

The older the game gets the more stale the “gameplay” experience becomes – and the population in the game shifts towards a more “reward-oriented” instead of “gameplay and experience oriented” group.

Why? Because the old content is old – and people who played it for gameplay or experience got bored and moved on – so most people that are left are “reward-oriented” they stuck around because their fun is in the rewards not the content itself.
And for those players a non-80 character is a problem – because it means it will take them longer to get their rewards – which is against their play philosophy.

Well, my Ele hit 80 today (whee!). Not in zerk yet, though.

I agree with your assessment. It could just be that I forgot things were like this – I did take a long break.

FFXIV has down-leveling in its dungeon system and dailies that revolve around them (rewards only motivation). Yet I’ve seen (and been) raid geared characters paired with fresh players who were patient and helpful to a fault, with ‘elitism’ being very uncommon. I guess the difference is that FFXIV gives you no choice who you’re matched with if you want those rewards – when people have no incentive to be more inclusive then you’re right, they generally won’t be. For the benefit of new(er) players, though, the game could use a random matchmaking system with greater rewards for completion. ‘Spose I can’t really blame the players when the game mechanics encourage this sort of thing.

Having said that, I’ll try to make a point in future of taking varied groups to dungeon content so I don’t become exactly what I’m complaining about now that the alt I was leveling is 80. All I ask is full Ascended and 10k AP. Sheesh.

Random matchmaking with different players is something you can’t add retrospectively to a game without causing massive damage and uproar. People don’t like their freedom taken away – especially their freedom to associate with others.

This sort of system works with games that have it from the get-go – you start out with it and if you want to accept it you do and if you don’t you don’t – but adding it halfway through a game’s life cycle is very very bad design.

New players have to adapt – but that’s true for every game – plus matching new and old players together opens a huge door for conflict and abuse on both sides.

Imagine that with the FTP system you can make endless “newbie” accounts to troll others and with random matchmaking there’s nothing they can do about it.

I for one lean towards the other side of the spectrum – I feel people of different playstyles and mindsets should interact with each other very little – and the more filters we have in between the better – avoiding conflict and stress on both sides.

Good points, although perhaps if it wasn’t mandatory, it would be more ideal. I guess though that if the rewards were very good, people might consider it mandatory. So perhaps you’re right. In which case, maybe in time there might be better ways for groups to add criteria for runs, so it’s clearer as to what groups want sometimes – e.g. minimum gear required filters and such.

cygnus.8913:

Harper.4173:

Purple Miku.7032:

I do catch your drift and just to make it clear I wasn’t posting with the intent of singling you out at all, but I read about 90% of the posts on the thread so far (or at the very least, skimmed through them) and there’s quite a lot of people under the impression of how this community is supposedly awful.

It’s certainly not perfect and there are obviously a lot of problems that need to be addressed, but people on here really need to understand that elitism is something that will always exist in the world of gaming and like any MMO, there is a large spectrum of good, bad, nice, mean, stupid, and intelligent players.

In that regard, it can be very similar to real life and as such the best way to handle a situation is often times the same way— ignore and avoid those that cause you trouble to the best of your ability.

With no offense to anyone the things you’re talking about Miku are part of human psychology – it’s called hedonic adaptation.

The better off you are the more sensitive you become to issues that would be considered inconsequential in other circumstances.
You see this in games and in real life – you might think people who “have it all” live peaceful stress-free lives but that’s not actually true – simply their sensitivity to stuff that stresses them increases and their general level of stress tends to stay at about the same level.

So while some people are really worried and uncomfortable about not having anything to eat or a place to live others express similar levels of worry and lack of comfort regarding matters such as pronouns or what clothes to wear and so on.

First world problems? I dunno whether I’d apply what you’re talking about to raising a topic like this (I have a degree in Psych). If we apply this principle to every suggestion or debate on these forums, there wouldn’t be many of them. Should we not discuss these things because there are worse things going on in the world? Are we being over-sensitive in our cushy lives? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you know.

We should discuss them – what I’m saying is simply that human beings adapt.
They adapt to good and bad conditions – which is an intrinsic trait that allows us to survive incredibly harsh conditions.
If humans couldn’t adapt like this past generations that were forced to live in very difficult, hostile and deadly conditions would have simply “given up” – but they didn’t – they just took things as “the norm” and pushed on.
The reverse is observable today – many things that would appear as wonders straight out of a utopia for people just a few dozens (not to go as far as hundreds) of years ago are considered “baseline” and not even given much thought. We consider them a given and thus still find room in our lives for the so called “first world problems”.

I do believe that yes – ultimately we’re being over-sensitive – we see it in many aspects of our society – humans have once again adapted and take a huge number of things for granted. The risk there is as far as I’m concerned immense.

But that’s simply a different discussion all together. I would simply like to add that gamers 10 years ago didn’t push as much to be “included” – and if people didn’t like their play style these gamers were much more open to changing and adapting – in contrast today’s gamers seem entitled( I make this claim with no intent of aiming any of it at you – you seem to be a very moderate person).

When I wanted to do The Fissure of Woe in GW1 and couldn’t find groups I tried to join a FOWSC ( speed clear for FOW) – and when I was booted for having the wrong build I didn’t flood the forums ( as many players do today) with cries of “elitists are ruining my life” – I simply looked up the FOWSC meta, got the right build – watched a youtube video on it and then went with a group. And it worked. I got FOWSC done.

Why is it that people don’t do this anymore?