Guild Wars 2

In general as many have said the community is overall friendly, pleasant, welcoming, patient and polite, especially in open world pve.

However you are likely to run into the odd sad kitten, usually in instanced pve (fractals/raids) or pvp – I’ve been sent horrible messages in the vein of cyber bullying, by elitists who think their apparent prowess at a game allows them to demean others. I could understand if it was ranked/tournament pvp for example, but people being rude in hotjoin/unranked makes no sense to me.

Fortunately the block feature exists so it’s easy to not have to suffer further insult after the initial offence.

In wvw at least you don’t see enemy chat so the most abuse you could get is jumping on your corpse or tossing siege on it – easy to ignore.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you phrase a question. Rude people will always be rude.

Most of the time I am lucky and people are really nice ingame. But sometimes I am asking something(very nicely, really!) and someone rude gives a mean answer.

But luckily, most of the players are really nice and we can just ignore the few rude ones.

Curunen.8729:

In general as many have said the community is overall friendly, pleasant, welcoming, patient and polite, especially in open world pve.

However you are likely to run into the odd sad kitten, usually in instanced pve (fractals/raids) or pvp – I’ve been sent horrible messages in the vein of cyber bullying, by elitists who think their apparent prowess at a game allows them to demean others. I could understand if it was ranked/tournament pvp for example, but people being rude in hotjoin/unranked makes no sense to me.

Fortunately the block feature exists so it’s easy to not have to suffer further insult after the initial offence.

In wvw at least you don’t see enemy chat so the most abuse you could get is jumping on your corpse or tossing siege on it – easy to ignore.

Not really true they can block you to get account name and then whisper you in wvw.

If this game was more consistent, and didn’t expect you to muddle your way thru with
trial and error for every new area, or objective. If players could look at the situation
they are trying to accomplish and knew what they were expected to do, but still had
to figure out the best way to use the tools they have to accomplish the objective. If
this game could be played, without needing a encyclopedia of wiki for each new piece
of content, But rather the game itself led the player into each challenge intelligently…
The player could look at the information the game has given them, instead of relying
on map chat to explain what the game failed to.

The game explains things well. players refuse to read

I agree with Ashen. However, even in the more positive posts on the forums there are a few players that seem to post to intentionally open the gate for hostility. In game I get a mix of helpful players and obnoxious. Overall the veterans I meet tend to be helpful. There are only a small number of times I’ve run into the experienced players that seem intent on closing the game to new players. I just block them now.

…and Ashen’s post is gone.
lol, now my post seems out of place.

Lately if I get a negative whisper in PvP I add the offender to my friend list and whisper a friendly greeting to them anytime I see them logged in. I know it’s not mature but it does feel nice to get their awkward replies.

Rhiannon.1726:

When someone asks something in map chat, it will normally be answered in a very helpful manner. Especially in starting areas you also often see something like “join my group, I’ll show you…”.

Even in “end game” maps like Verdant Brink you often find people helping others to find the way to a mastery point or help at a hero challenge.

You’ll find rude people everywhere now and then in every mmo and also in real life.

I can’t agree that questions in mapchat are “normally” answered helpfully. I’d say answers are helpful around 60-75% of the time depending on the time of day, situation, question, etc. But a LARGE percentage of the time the answers are trolls and no one else replies except me to say not to listen to them, or insults.

Linken.6345:

Curunen.8729:

In general as many have said the community is overall friendly, pleasant, welcoming, patient and polite, especially in open world pve.

However you are likely to run into the odd sad kitten, usually in instanced pve (fractals/raids) or pvp – I’ve been sent horrible messages in the vein of cyber bullying, by elitists who think their apparent prowess at a game allows them to demean others. I could understand if it was ranked/tournament pvp for example, but people being rude in hotjoin/unranked makes no sense to me.

Fortunately the block feature exists so it’s easy to not have to suffer further insult after the initial offence.

In wvw at least you don’t see enemy chat so the most abuse you could get is jumping on your corpse or tossing siege on it – easy to ignore.

Not really true they can block you to get account name and then whisper you in wvw.

True but they have to make the effort of doing that which in my experience rarely happens, unlike in pvp or pve.

At the end of the day this seems to be a YMMV situation. There are many factors influencing your personal result: the time of day you usually play, your language settings and/or knowledge, the people usually sharing map instances with you due to how the megaserver system works etc. From my personal experience I can say that friendly, helpful people are common enough in this community that the unfriendly kittens stick out like a sore thumb.
For every clown answering a question in map chat with a troll there is at least one other player answering to the best of his knowledge. (And sometimes the clown himself proceeds to help after getting that one joke off his chest.)
For every lazy person running right past a downed or dead player there is at least one spare time paramedic taking a legitimate detour to revive that poor guy.
And for every elitist jerk telling you you are not good enough for him there are at least dozens of players not even caring about your build and playstyle unless you get yourself or them in serious trouble. (Seriously, longbow rangers and greatsword mesmers, you don’t have to use your knockback just because it is off cooldown… )

Locce.8405:

For every clown answering a question in map chat with a troll there is at least one other player answering to the best of his knowledge. (And sometimes the clown himself proceeds to help after getting that one joke off his chest.)

Two reasons I do this:

• The answer is really obvious and easy to figure out if they took even an iota of initiative and looked things up for themselves. Gentle reminder to use that beautiful mind of theirs.

• Some snowflake will take great personal offense at the Carlos tier crap joke I make and will legitimately move heaven and earth to help the person asking.

Win/win for everyone.
And yes if no one helps the guy and they’re a good sport about the joke, I’ll honestly answer them.

I do not mind:

• explaining people things.
• helping ppl with content
• suggesting solutions
• sponsoring a small item to get someone on the right path
• answering simple questions in map / whisper
• helping a person to get into fractals or dungeons (so me doing a t1 run for a new guildie or person I met not long before)

I do mind:

• people boosting characters to 80 and having no clue and wandering about not knowing what to do, complaining and downtalking everything.
• people buying gear for raids and fractals and joining expereinced groups or t4 without any clue whatsoever.
• people forcing raid meta upon new players without considering their interests
• people not learning Failure to learn is a problem. there are polenty of guides and training guilds for a LOT of content
• peole not gearing (I have a guildie who played PvP and PvE and is in PvE garbage gear for the last 3 years. I refuse running her in t1 and t2 fractals cause in this time she got some rings and she has a mixed build not suited to PvE content, with 6 different runes and even though I gave her a complete armor once in the hope she’d improve she salvaged it for ecto’s, and is still in her junk gear.)
• people expecting carries, donations or long time tutoring
• people not listening to advice
• people not making an effort to improve
• people griefing, trolling, harrassing, or being impolite, discriminatory or aggressive
• people who always want something for nothing.

CETheLucid.3964:

Of course always remember:
One of the best ways to get accurate information is to BS something. The OCD and general kittens out there will reflexively correct you to make a point.

That’s fantastic!
Harnessing the power of “Um, Actually” for the sake of knowledge. I never thought of that.

Makai.3429:

3) If you have a disability, keep it to yourself. Because of the elitist mentality that came with HoT, any slight variance from a flawless run will get you scorn.

Oh yeah I have ran into that one. I tried to do a light comment about how a vision disability would affect gameplay and the response from someone was basically ‘get gud’.

In general though, treat map chat as youtube comments. Do you judge the whole internet from what some random stranger says on one? There are plenty of people more than willing to help (although we might be busy at the time and unable to do so). For example, when I have gone around starter areas map chatting newbie tips (like looking for events rather than just focusing on hearts) I have had other vets chime in that it was good advice. Just ask for help on most starter maps (I think you need to have bought the game to get /map chat though) and odds are someone will help unless there is a big event going on.

I have seen this too at times, new players getting yelled at by vets for not knowing what they are “supposed” to be doing. But I have seen far more of the opposite, vets taking time to show new players around and explain things to them if they have time.

Last night in Queensdale I found a true newbie to the game while I was starting a new character, and we partied up and killed things for a little while. I explained things to him and then got him a staff and a few mini’s off the trading post (he was level 4, I think I spent a gold and a half at most and he thought I was breaking the bank, it was hilarious!), then turned him loose like “have fun!” It took all of 20 minutes, probably, but I’m pretty sure I made a new friend, and now the game has a new enthusiastic player instead of someone dropping it the first day because everyone was mean. Little things go a long way, sometimes!

The very few times I’ve seen anything of the sort happen was during fractals and stuff, and it was because the “new guy” wasn’t pulling his own weight while simultaneously refusing to take advice.

If you’re in a group you’re using everyone’s time, not just your own, so you’re expected to put as much effort into it as everyone else. I don’t feel bad for those newbies being called out.

Other than that all I see is people helping each other: advice, JP portals, thank-you-mails and so on. I don’t pvp tho so can’t really talk about toxicity there.

Dall.9752:

If you’re in a group you’re using everyone’s time, not just your own, so you’re expected to put as much effort into it as everyone else. I don’t feel bad for those newbies being called out.

^^^^^This x1 ,000,000.

It’s great that you have a non-meta build, have no clue what your class’ strengths are, or are trying something for the first time and know zero mechanics. That’s all fine by me – just don’t feel entitled to have others spend their time carrying you, or teaching you things about the game that are in the tooltips.

To be fair to the OP and many other new folks, there’s nothing wrong with asking a direct and reasonably focused question in map chat, and such questions merit helpful responses. It’s not unusual to see someone ask a question and get 3 simultaneous helpful responses from various people in the map.

Overall, community seems very friendly when I read the map chat. I always see 2 or 3 replies when someone asks for guidance.
The only exception is pvp, where I locked dozen of players. Unfortunatelly, pvp is always the most poison part in any game.

it happens, at times….
not gonna expect nice replies 24/7
but so far majority of the times are ok

Dall.9752:

I don’t feel bad for those newbies being called out.

There is a colossal difference between “calling out” genuinely bad behavior and being verbally abusive. I did Dragon’s Stand today, and there were people lying dead at the blighting trees or running around opening pods during that fight, and I have zero sympathy whatsoever when that sort of thing is called out on voice chat, squad chat and map chat. But there is absolutely no excuse ever for hatespeech, threats, stalking, etc.

And if someone’s definition of “bad behavior” includes things like “has less than 10k AP” or “has no mastery points” or “plays class X” or “asks any questions” or “tries to play a dungeon at the level the game tells them they can instead of level 80 with full ascended” or “dares to deviate in any way, shape or form from the One True Way as handed down by the Infallible Spreadsheet Meta Gods”, then they are the problem. Not the other person.

Maps are allright. Group content, on the other hand…

I’ve been farming Arah tokens. A kittening dungeon one can sleepwalk through. Joined the group with my Reaper, no problems. Somewhere in the mid of the run we lose one of players, and another Reaper, with low mastery level, comes in. He insantly recieves vote-kick and leaves on his own, obviously offended. When I ask “why did we vote him?” answer is “I don’t like low-level necros”.

…

Do you mean some veteran players are hostile to new players? :/

Not all of us are super hostile. I loved GW2’s friendly atmosphere when it launched, and I still mostly see it.

Chadramar.8156:

Dall.9752:

I don’t feel bad for those newbies being called out.

There is a colossal difference between “calling out” genuinely bad behavior and being verbally abusive... there is absolutely no excuse ever for hatespeech, threats, stalking, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree, but the experiences I was referring to never got to that point.

Chadramar.8156:

And if someone’s definition of “bad behavior” includes things like “has less than 10k AP” or “has no mastery points” or “plays class X” or “asks any questions” or “tries to play a dungeon at the level the game tells them they can instead of level 80 with full ascended” or “dares to deviate in any way, shape or form from the One True Way as handed down by the Infallible Spreadsheet Meta Gods”, then they are the problem. Not the other person.

If you create a group it’s absolutely your right to put whatever requirements you want, even if they are ridiculous (you likely won’t see your party filled, but that’s on you).

Reasonable leaders will add reasonable requirements for the purpose of enhancing the success rate of whatever the group is being formed to do. If you’re looking for a DPS and you find yourself having to choose between a Tempest and a Reaper, which do you think gives you the best odds? An average Tempest equals the DPS of a perfectly played Reaper and assuming they’re both strangers to you the chance of the Tempest being average is greater than that of the Reaper being godlike, being reasonable to pick the Tempest. So if you add “no necros” does it make you a meta-slave or just aware of the odds?

The necro has just as much right to create his own group with whatever rules he wants and play with like-minded folk, so that would not be “bad behavior” on anyone’s part, no one would be the problem. Going on and on about being declined for being a Reaper, now that I would consider not only bad but an entitled and selfish attitude.

Dall.9752:

Reasonable leaders will add reasonable requirements for the purpose of enhancing the success rate of whatever the group is being formed to do. If you’re looking for a DPS and you find yourself having to choose between a Tempest and a Reaper, which do you think gives you the best odds? An average Tempest equals the DPS of a perfectly played Reaper and assuming they’re both strangers to you the chance of the Tempest being average is greater than that of the Reaper being godlike, being reasonable to pick the Tempest. So if you add “no necros” does it make you a meta-slave or just aware of the odds?

The necro has just as much right to create his own group with whatever rules he wants and play with like-minded folk, so that would not be “bad behavior” on anyone’s part, no one would be the problem. Going on and on about being declined for being a Reaper, now that I would consider not only bad but an entitled and selfish attitude.

Yes, he will be a meta-slave. And pretty dumb at that. Because Reaper is that much easier to play than Tempest, and when talking regular pug skill levels, will most likely deal more damage by virtue of not being dead all the time. If that was supposed to be example of something greater, it was a really bad one. Pug Tempests suck. Because most of them lack skill and awareness to get away with melee zerker gear on glass class, but will still blindly follow meta-builds. Oh, the irony.

Yes, the necro has just as much right to create the group. Too bad he is necro, and a lot of people will go past said group because of, well, meta-slaving. You know how much fun is it when you are not allowed into content you are perfectly able to clear because some dumbkitten somehwere said that your class is unviable, and then another dumbkitten denied you group based on it? And when, to boot it, said group is the only one that appeared for entire hour? Yeah. You are happy that you don’t.

There’s no profession in the game that isn’t able to clear any and all content, as long as its build is optimized for the task. There are specific people who are bad, but said people can play any class and any build whatsoever and cost you your run.

They are not hostile to newbies. They are hostile to newbies who won’t adapt themselves to the request of the veteran.

If I see you playing pistol/pistol thief in a fractal or running a mainhand axe necro, you can bet your kitten’m gonna ask you to change or leave. You’re causing us a huge DPS deficit.

Wintermute.5408:

Dall.9752:

Stuff

…

There’s no profession in the game that isn’t able to clear any and all content, as long as its build is optimized for the task. There are specific people who are bad, but said people can play any class and any build whatsoever and cost you your run.

The meta is a tool you can use to get better control over certain things, but some players demonize it while others worship it as a cult; some take it as a personal attack to their class/build/playstyle while others confuse the meaning of “viable” and “optimal”. IMO both sides are stupid and destructive. Nonetheless the meta is useful and if a group leader wants to follow it it’s none of anyone’s concern.

Also, when I first started my Necro I knew that would be an issue later on, but I chose to play it anyway so I accepted the consequences of that decision. I don’t blame some random dude for it, if anything I blame myself and ANet’s balance team.

Bottom line is if you want to play in a group (and you don’t want to form a new one) you adapt to it, not the other way around.

Returning player here, and this is still the best community I’ve ever seen in a game. Of course, I’ve steered clear of raids and haven’t even gone back into WvW yet, so maybe that’s where all the angry people are? I never touched PvP to begin with, as the small scale fights seemed boring compared to the widespread chaos of WvW.

Anyway, I’ve never played another game where people were as friendly and helpful as they are in GW2. Heck, last night I was doing a group event with a bunch of random players, and someone asked if anyone had a merchant. Four people dropped a merchant just like that, including myself, and then we all laughed about so many merchants standing around. Any other game, people would have gotten mad about wasting their merchant, or more than likely not even bothered to drop one in the first place.

Linken.6345:

Not really true they can block you to get account name and then whisper you in wvw.

As someone who played WvW a lot, the few times that actually happened it made me feel like I “won” the game, so to speak. Someone felt that I was important enough to block me for my account name and then try and tell me how great they are. Again, it didn’t happen often, but I laughed out loud for real every single time it did.

Honestly, I think GW2 has one of the better communities, especially in map chat- people will actually be helpful usually. They tell you where to go for dailies, and for bosses- without people even asking most of the time.

That said- the pvp community is brutal. I don’t think that’s anything unusual, but the ability to talk to the enemy team is what makes it truly toxic here- and players don’t even have to change factions to keep pestering you. Dunno how dungeons are, haven’t done any since I came back… I recall them being extremely unpleasant, but that was years ago so it may have changed.

Dall.9752:

I wholeheartedly agree, but the experiences I was referring to never got to that point.

For a lot of people, they did.

If you create a group it’s absolutely your right to put whatever requirements you want, even if they are ridiculous (you likely won’t see your party filled, but that’s on you).

Still no excuse to be verbally abusive when you ask the person to leave or kick them.

Also, there is a really annoying tendency for some (many?) of those wannabe leetpros to consider every single group that isn’t explicitly tagged as new player friendly to be off-limits for “worthless scrubs” and “filthy casuals”. The abuse I have seen and heard about happened in groups that were very much not tagged as “experienced speedrun meta only”, yet treated as such anyway.

So if you add “no necros” does it make you a meta-slave or just aware of the odds?

Yeah no, I agree with Wintermute here. Experience with a class, the durability of one class versus another, and other factors can all massively change how much a person can actually contribute. But as it is, you’re kitten ed if you do (play a “meta” character that you’re not “perfect” with) and kitten ed if you don’t (play a non-“meta” character that you’re better at staying alive on).

The necro has just as much right to create his own group with whatever rules he wants and play with like-minded folk, so that would not be “bad behavior” on anyone’s part, no one would be the problem. Going on and on about being declined for being a Reaper, now that I would consider not only bad but an entitled and selfish attitude.

When it comes to joining a particular group that has politely declined them? Yes. But if a game’s balance is so messed up that many classes/builds are considered “useless”, and if the playerbase is so messed up that they not only accept that but gleefully use it as a source of frequent abuse, that is definitely a much bigger problem still, and IMO people can absolutely complain both about the bad balance and the ugly attitudes.

Well, the game is still an online multiplayer game.

This comes with a few inherent downsides, the biggest of which is that you will experience other players, and with that, there’s a very high chance you’ll run into a lot of toxic kittens. It’s just a sad reality of online gaming.

That being said, GW2 tries to, for the most part, alleviate this a bit. What it does is clever, for open world PvE, it makes “helping” one of the most efficient ways of going around. Loot is shared, xp is shared, there is no tagging, rezzing gives significant xp, and so on. As a result, even the toxic players feel less toxic, they get “triggered” less.

However, game modes where other players can “waste more time”, like raiding or sPvP, will inherently do what MOBAs do, and bring out the worst in these players, constantly getting them to rage.

I am… unsure where to fix this. Other than playing single player games, tbh (which is my favorite solution, much as I like playing together). I mean I can’t see many countries bringing out legislation where you need to pass a “driver’s license test” for the internet, and lacking that there’ll always be an endless amount of toxic players in every online game.

What could be done maybe is to make other game modes inherently more forgiving, much like open world PvE. In turn that’ll lead to cooperative, “nice” play being more optimal.

Zenith.7301:

If I see you playing pistol/pistol thief in a fractal or running a mainhand axe necro, you can bet your kitten’m gonna ask you to change or leave. You’re causing us a huge DPS deficit.

Honest question: in addition to staff, what should a thief use instead of P/P in fractals in your opinion?

Reality is that you might be asked to leave if you show up with a shortbow. If I saw a shortbow thief in a fractal pug, I would ask him politely to switch weapons. But I’ve never seen a shortbow thief in Fractals because people are aware it sucks. I’ve once asked a thief to switch from P/P to staff when we were fighting monks in Urban Battlefield. I switch from staff to P/P and back constantly in most fractals. I rather shoot down harpies in Uncategorized from a distance than stepping on their toes and get shot by 2 more harpies because I stand in their range. And guess what, my dps is the highest of the group there. There are lots of situations where you do more damage with P/P than with staff.

I’ll stop here because you are obviously out of touch with the thief class. Thief and Engineer are good examples that those meta guides should be taken with a grain of salt. Metabattle recommends staff/shortbow for a fractal power thief. If you follow that advice, you’ll cause a huge dps deficit. They don’t even mention Basilisk Venom as elite skill. If you come with a thief to fractals and don’t slot it, I’ll politely ask you to do so.

It’s a feature rather unique to this game as one would have to have perspective of how other communities operate.

Gw2 lacks the developer created safeguards like tutorials, split difficulty, and tied in modes such how dungeons are basically training raids in other games. While in this one they operate differently without the need of trinity elements. Even story elements as well as Anet has developed a game with lacking educational tools forcing new players to get answers from the older base.

Sure there are education based guilds but every MMO has those but the amount of toxic elite is staggering and doesn’t balance out.

Anet has delved head first into some of the most toxic aspects of MMOs be it their time with esports or the more recent raids yet they never add in the tried and true rotective measures for the community.

Part of the problem is multiple modes get thrown together and it is easy to wander from one to the other. Casuals and newbies will find the best experience in open world PVE. Your results with map chat will vary, sometimes helpful, sometimes toxic. This is also where you can use any equipment you want without worrying too much it will be called out as ‘wrong’ all the time (you might still want to optimize things, but it is not as critical as the other modes). Fractals, PVP, etc …. well, be very very careful that you know what you are doing first, even if you think you will like those other modes more.

For anything other than non-instanced PVE I would suggest joining a party/squad with friends the first few times. The nature of those modes is to be more intense so you do not want that piled on just learning the game.

Chadramar.8156:

Also, there is a really annoying tendency for some (many?) of those wannabe leetpros to consider every single group that isn’t explicitly tagged as new player friendly to be off-limits for “worthless scrubs” and “filthy casuals”.

It’s absolutely stupid IMO but they are within their rights. From experience however most of the players who do that are trying to compensate their own flaws.

…as it is, you’re kitten ed if you do (play a “meta” character that you’re not “perfect” with) and kitten ed if you don’t (play a non-“meta” character that you’re better at staying alive on).

A stranger can’t tell how good you are so he will probably assume you’re average and the way things are right now most average full-meta will contribute more than most average non-meta.

…if a game’s balance is so messed up that many classes/builds are considered “useless”, and if the playerbase is so messed up that they not only accept that…

Players don’t accept anything balance related, we complain about it all the time, but until balance shifts we adapt to it best we can.

…but gleefully use it as a source of frequent abuse, that is definitely a much bigger problem still, and IMO people can absolutely complain both about the bad balance and the ugly attitudes.

A player that abuses another over something like this will also abuse over pretty much anything, it’s nothing to do with content, meta or balance. Toxic people will toxic, hopefully be reported, hopefully be banned.

Chadramar.8156:

Yeah no, I agree with Wintermute here. Experience with a class, the durability of one class versus another, and other factors can all massively change how much a person can actually contribute. But as it is, you’re kitten ed if you do (play a “meta” character that you’re not “perfect” with) and kitten ed if you don’t (play a non-“meta” character that you’re better at staying alive on).

Here’s my perspective on this, using an example from a few days ago at a fractal pick up group.

We were at Cliffside fractal, I play thief, and we had another thief in the group. We kept wiping, and from my point of view, because we didn’t kill the Fanatics fast enough. I saw that the other thief did only about 25 to 35% of his potential damage, but he stayed alive more often. My guess was that he’s using Soldier’s gear, I was curious and asked who has most health, to be suited for carrying the hammer. He said he had 17k health. Now, my thief has <12k health but does 3 times the dps.

I did not mention my thoughts to him at all. After the fifth wipe or so, he wrote in party chat “we are too glassy!”.

He was better at staying alive, sure. But he contributed only 30% of what he was supposed to: dealing damage. He trades about 70% of his dps for 40% more health. His thought was that we were too squishy and therefore, caused the wipes. My thinking is that if he had come close to my thief’s damage, we would not have wiped that easily. And of course he died too, and wasn’t even the last man standing most of the time.

It’s a proven fact that this game favours fast, offensive dps over defensive builds in PvE. But this guy probably tells the story to his buddies like “Wiped in T4 with a bunch of filthy pugs who used glass cannons instead of proper, sustainable builds. There was this thief who only had 12k health. If they all had put on some gear with Vitality and Toughness, we would have made it!”

He was the one who dissed us, we accepted that he wants to play this build (although we were not happy with it, I was chatting with two other members of the party).

You can play like you want and survive longer, but you might be the reason for the struggle, and for your party members dying in the first place.