Guild Wars 2

Hot is not the scapegoat for toxic mapchat. Ever kill a champ out of turn in old Queensdale? You would think you were drowning kittens.

No, I must disagree. Toxic is whenever and where ever bad mannered players reside that think your negatively impeding their progress. It’s not new in GW2 and it’s not simply a result of more challenging HoT content; it was also a result of absolutely mind-numbing scrub content in core GW2 too. It’s not even indicative of the population in general in the game. It just takes one or two.

Bottomline is that if toxic mapchat is a problem for you, GL finding ANY online game where you play with others you will not have this problem.

Harper.4173:

If you got blindsided you got blindsided because you’re not an informed consumer and didn’t research the product you were planning to buy before buying it. That’s nobody’s fault but your own.

Blindsided? I think not. In fact, I started a few very strident threads before HoT, as my concerns were that if ANet thought LS2 was the road to the future (i.e. make everything extremely difficult), then I wasn’t going to continue with the game by buying HoT.

But, they fooled me. They made changes that implied they had heard the (very loud) message on the forums and backed off some of the most onerous garbage in LS2.

They fooled me into buying HoT, and I’ve regretted it nearly every day since release. But, I DID do my research.

IndigoSundown.5419:

If you think about it, this trend was foreshadowed in events like the Marionette, with people complaining in map chat about the event failing. […] However, since people tend also to have an inflated opinion of their own capabilities, and since they failed, someone else must be at fault.

The thing with events in the style of marionette is that it can be provably true that your failure was the fault of other players. If my platform mops up its regulator in 30 seconds flat and then the regulator event fails, it is absolutely because at least one other platform was playing objectively worse than mine.

Likewise, if my squad kills a gerent on the second fight phase and then another lane fails to kill theirs it’s a similar deal. You can’t say for certain which players in the successful lane were good and which ones were being carried and you can’t say which players in the failed lane were bad and which ones were let down. What you can absolutely say that the team that killed their gerent in under 2/3rds the available time played better than the team that failed to kill it at all.

toxicity is love, toxicity is life.
y’all should just l2p and join us, the elite.

zaced.7948:

toxicity is love, toxicity is life.
y’all should just l2p and join us, the elite.

It is kind of funny how people equate “elite” with “toxic,” when the two are only the same some of the time. Sometimes it’s noobs who act toxic and sometimes the “elite” are actually very chill and understanding.

This probably happens more in GW2 than most other MMOs, noobs being toxic, because it’s harder to measure skill in this game, so there’s tons of people who think they’re amazing and aren’t, but there’s no objective proof to show them otherwise.

Interesting, I can’t remember a single instance of someone being mean in this game.
I think some people choose to get their feelings hurt too often.

PopeUrban.2578:

Right, but is it a slap in the face to loyal veterans?

Can’t speak for others but I don’t think so. We aren’t just paying for the at release content but future updates too.

I think this community is absurd sometimes. Confrontation is a normal part of human interaction. Emotions run high, that’s ok. It just a part of being emotionally invested in the game. People vent their emotions, and then life goes on. The same guy you were arguing with can end up being a good friend, because you built a bond overcoming that challenge together.

I don’t think your problem is gw2. I think your problem is interacting with humans in a team situation. In which case I would say, maybe mmo’s aren’t for you.

Harper.4173:

Also – nothing was taken away form anyone – the game that these people enjoyed for over 2 years is still there – none of it has been touched, changed or made harder. The entire core GW2 experience is still there for people to enjoy at their “casual” pace and skill level.

Amazing how people can view things completely opposite .. this guy clearly sees things totally differently:

Vayne.8563:

It’s a 4 zone expansion that rewrites much of the game, with more coming. If you don’t think it’s worth it, don’t buy it, but $50 is the price.

I’m pretty sure that over time this will be worth a lot more than $50 even if right now you might question that price.

That’s from a different thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Full-Price-for-HoT-for-Core-Accounts

So which of you is correct, you can’t both be!

Have you played leagues? That’s the place where the toxicity is at its thickest, as the worst players tend to bark the most when they lose their precious pips.

Aside that, I don’t really encounter toxic behaviour in this game. While I don’t doubt there’s some definitely out there, I don’t believe it’s of such a density as you make it out to be. Even the raids, I have not encountered any ill-mannered players, not even in some of these “hot stuff” teams. Are you sure you are not mistaking poor choices of words or jokes as a sign of toxicity? Even back when I played FF14, I was often accused of elitism in any mid/hardcore content if I offered advice or tried to scrape the group together, disregarded mostly by these “I play how I want” types. And I even use emojis to help people understand good intentions. :p

As I said, the toxicity is surely out there. But it’s most likely just a small minority of big barkers or misunderstood statements that seem to make it more apparent to some than others.

I have seen quite a lot of this lately and here are my two cents on the topic:

It’s easy to forget that you have different people from all over the world playing together. One has to decide if it’s worth calling them names or making them feel bad about playing this game. I know i have to work on this myself, even though it’s in pvp where i tend to be more frustrated by mistakes that could have been avoided. At least i only complain about it on teamspeak or sometimes in guild chat not directly in the matches.

There are other human beings sitting behind every character in game (except for bots, let’s just forget bots) and we should extend the same courtesy and follow the same rules as we do in real life when interacting with people.

In the end i guess all i am trying to say is, if what you would say is negative at least try to just not say it.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Those of you blaming HoT for turning the GW2 community into a cesspool clearly didn’t play GW2 pre-HoT.

The amount of bile in dragon stand has nothing on the trolling in WvW, the smack talk in sPvP, or booting people last minute out of a dungeon run.

Yeah, all of those are not so incidentally tied to more challenging/competitive content (and at least the last of those was really rare, and visible mostly due to a lot of publicity). Problem is, since Anet is now pushing this type of content everywhere, all that stuff spilled into the open world.

TL/DR: no, before HoT only small subgroups of community tended to be toxic. The vast majority was really fine. Now, the toxicity levels spiked way, way higher than before.

Too much doom n gloom in this thread. Its no secret that any community has friendlies and hostile.

Dont know what toxi are you talking about, but it sure coming not from elite and “l2p” players, but the other way. And to my great sadness whiners started to complain about whatever even in map chat.
A few days ago I was peacefully crabbing some Auric Basin, and there was some enraged player, who was just straight up hard-blaming Anet about some minor pvp stuff (like some skill is damaging more than intended, or whatever). Why cant people go and complain on forum, or in pvp lobby? Why some pvp talk is happening in pve maps? And that person just wont shut up. Of course I left for another map, bcz no point of making fuss when you can simply teleport away.
Idk… almost all fractals, dungeons and raids I was pugging has been pretty good, and people didnt talk nonsense, and were behaving. Actually learned some new tricks there. Well, of course from time to time there were some wild people, who were apparently on a drugs or something, but in fractals/dungeons we were able to do all things even being effectively 3-4ppl. In raids I’ve seen only good knowing and behaving people, and raiding was fun and smooth (closed raid yesturday in about 3 hours, including afking and DC-s, got Eternal title). Dont know why ppl are afraid of teamspeak, lol. Its actually funny most of times, all kinds of words and emotions.
IMO, most of ppl who are seriously affected by toxicity should either level Itzel Poison Mastery, or just seek problem in themselves, rather than throwing all this stuff in forums.

Well, here’s my two cents :
toxic players usually don’t even realize they are.

It generally comes from an inability to think outside one’s own box.

Playing with friends and guilds is a good way to avoid dealing with them.

Coldtart.4785:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If you think about it, this trend was foreshadowed in events like the Marionette, with people complaining in map chat about the event failing. […] However, since people tend also to have an inflated opinion of their own capabilities, and since they failed, someone else must be at fault.

The thing with events in the style of marionette is that it can be provably true that your failure was the fault of other players. If my platform mops up its regulator in 30 seconds flat and then the regulator event fails, it is absolutely because at least one other platform was playing objectively worse than mine.

Likewise, if my squad kills a gerent on the second fight phase and then another lane fails to kill theirs it’s a similar deal. You can’t say for certain which players in the successful lane were good and which ones were being carried and you can’t say which players in the failed lane were bad and which ones were let down. What you can absolutely say that the team that killed their gerent in under 2/3rds the available time played better than the team that failed to kill it at all.

That is certainly true. I’d also bet that most everyone in the failed lane is going to be blaming the rest.

I think the toxicity resides mostly here in the forums! it goes in all forms call them HoT haters, Balance haters, people that argue just to defend a point made earlier, Anet haters, dev abandonment haters,… and the self called elites that I would call errors intolerant instead. I see most real elites being veteran players mostly coming from GW1, a game with a rather mature population of gamers who enjoys thinking over manual skill …etc.. not the topic, but those players are usually happy to help, most of them are organized tho, so they are those nice souls in your guild that helps new players go through the content.

Personally, I have explored all game modes and I see mostly friendly players willing to help or minding their own business … There is tho some toxicity I can acknowledge and the only place I have seen it is in the speed runners community. I am talking about the people that wants to finish dungeons and fractal runs in the less time possible (even while pugging xD )but you can spot them in the lfg tool. To be honest I thought that was the normal and the thought kept me from playing Dungeons, since I was a first timer I wouldn’t be welcomed so … (I missed the whole gold rush thing T_T) ..same happened with fractals… I took a long break from GW2 and came back, that’s when I gave dungeons/fractals a second chance … now it’s easier to spot casual runs in the lfg window…if you don’t see them, you can organize them and people will join just to have fun.. youll see lots of people saying it’s my first time or I don’t have experience beforehand (same applies for fractals) and it’s totally fine, nobody complains and they give short explanations… all those runs end up well !!! maybe a swipe or two occasionally, we explain the situation and finish the thing.. people being so happy they wanna keep rerunning.

Now to be fair, not all speed runners are toxic, neither speed running is bad… is a valid way to have fun or get profit but some might put in perspective… The time they save by running with the perfect team, they spend it by trying to assemble it.

Edit: While the old elites would try to craft a legendary weapon, the new “elites” would re run dungeons (Now chest farming) ..until they can buy it.

Harper.4173:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Harper.4173:

This toxicity you mention is mostly because the game requires you to succeed now and many players are still very bad at the game – which leads to bad experiences, frustration and conflict.

If you think about it, this trend was foreshadowed in events like the Marionette, with people complaining in map chat about the event failing. Whether this is due to inexperienced or less-skilled players or not is not what matters.

In order for content to be harder, there has to be a possibility to fail. However, no one likes to fail. Add in the human tendency to blame anyone and everyone other than oneself for failure, and that’s a recipe for bad feelings. The absolute skill of the people present is not a factor. They may all be below average. However, since people tend also to have an inflated opinion of their own capabilities, and since they failed, someone else must be at fault.

Throw in internet anonymity and you’ll see those thoughts expressed.

The skill of the people present is a factor because it leads to frustration – the higher your skill level is the higher your frustration will be when an event or encounter fails and you realize you gave it 100%, did everything as best as you could ( which at a high skill level means a lot) and only failed because some people had no idea what they were doing and were twiddling their thumbs.
It sucks to go through an encounter at your best – pushing as hard as you can, straining yourself for those few extra percentages of performance and playing at your peak only to notice those around you going “yolo swag what am i even doing i’ll just press keys now”.

That’s where the frustration comes from.

I have no problem losing an encounter with on-point teammates – even if our best isn’t good enough to succeed I feel fine if I know everybody gave it their best and was as on-point as they could have been.
I get terribly annoyed when I do my best and others do the same only to fail because Carefree Chris has no idea what’s even going on ( no offense to people called Chris).

The other main source of frustration is from casual players having a highly inflated opinion of themselves because of core GW2 now being told to “get good” not only by “elitist scum” but by the game itself which is now punishing them much more than it did before.
Having your bubble burst and realizing you’re not as good at the game as you thought you were can only infuriate people.

This is probably spot-on.

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

If you got blindsided you got blindsided because you’re not an informed consumer and didn’t research the product you were planning to buy before buying it. That’s nobody’s fault but your own.

Blindsided? I think not. In fact, I started a few very strident threads before HoT, as my concerns were that if ANet thought LS2 was the road to the future (i.e. make everything extremely difficult), then I wasn’t going to continue with the game by buying HoT.

But, they fooled me. They made changes that implied they had heard the (very loud) message on the forums and backed off some of the most onerous garbage in LS2.

They fooled me into buying HoT, and I’ve regretted it nearly every day since release. But, I DID do my research.

Examples? Support? Reasoning?

Sorry if I’m asking too much.

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

Also – nothing was taken away form anyone – the game that these people enjoyed for over 2 years is still there – none of it has been touched, changed or made harder. The entire core GW2 experience is still there for people to enjoy at their “casual” pace and skill level.

This is false. Dungeons were nerfed and gold generation actions Tyria-wide were reduced. And Spirit Shards are no longer earned (they made earning XP useless after masteries are complete). By making XP worthless, they are essentially telling us that side activities are now useless (like doing events, rezzing people and NPCs, etc.)

On the flip side, Fractals is greatly improved. But, that’s also a change.

I’m sorry to say but dungeons being nerfed had nothing to do with toxicity – also dungeons are still there. The rewards got nerfed – but not the content.
If people are sincere in their claim that they enjoyed “the content” then that should not be a problem since dungeons are still there.
If people enjoyed the reward that’s a different issue altogether – I can understand that – but that’s not what was initially claimed.

Spirit shards can be obtained through doing one’s daily. This change was also made quite a bit of time before HoT came out.
Also side activities were practically useless a long time ago. I don’t remember the last time I went “Xp farming” by doing events in a pre-HoT GW2.

Harper.4173:

Harper.4173:

Also – nothing was taken away form anyone – the game that these people enjoyed for over 2 years is still there – none of it has been touched, changed or made harder. …

I’m sorry to say but dungeons being nerfed had nothing to do with toxicity – also dungeons are still there. The rewards got nerfed – but not the content.
If people are sincere in their claim that they enjoyed “the content” then that should not be a problem since dungeons are still there.
If people enjoyed the reward that’s a different issue altogether – I can understand that – but that’s not what was initially claimed.

Spirit shards can be obtained through doing one’s daily. This change was also made quite a bit of time before HoT came out.
Also side activities were practically useless a long time ago. I don’t remember the last time I went “Xp farming” by doing events in a pre-HoT GW2.

Your post said that “nothing was taken away”. I correctly labeled that as false.

Daddicus.6128:

It’s kind of expected, if you think about it. ANet chose to cater to the hard-core elitist crowd, and they were already the quickest on the draw with insults. They’ve been emboldened because ANet’s moves have validated that they are important.

Previously, we would just treat them as we would any other bully: ignore them (both figuratively and literally) until they go away. But, with HoT, that’s no longer possible. The action is intense and only barely able to be played solo. Long-term progress is nearly impossible as a solo or casually.

ANet’s actions brought out the worst in the elitists. The problem is that they now actually believe they are entitled to their hostility against casual players. Just read the forums for an hour and you’ll see it all over the place. Any time you see the words “learn to play” or “L2P”, it’s a cinch you’ve uncovered one of them. Or, “it’s not that hard. I did it …”.

Interestingly, the actions of many casual players have indirectly contributed to this phenomenon. Many casuals have left the game, leaving fewer people willing to challenge this perceived “right” to be obnoxious. Thus, like the schoolyard bullies who shrink from real confrontation, they are emboldened by the drop in the number of people willing to challenge them.

But, I can’t really fault the casuals for leaving. Intentional or not, the game is moving to marginalize casual players, and that’s a 180 from what it used to be. It’s just not the same game any more. By definition, the casuals have other things they can be doing. GW2 is just pushing them to explore other options for their entertainment.

Can it be fixed? Only by a radical shift back to the games roots. Sadly, two things argue mightily that that will not happen:

First, fewer casuals means fewer people asking for changes back to the good old days.

Second, ANet doesn’t seem to be listening even a little bit.

I’m trying to stick it out. But, I’m having a more difficult time every day coming back to the game, and as time is passing, I’m spending less and less time playing than I used to. And I used to be one of the game’s and ANet’s biggest supporters.

This.

There was definitely already elitism, in the game (especially in dungeon paths), but it always seemed kind of out-of-place.

Now, the elitists have had their dodgy positions on things confirmed and reinforced by the devs, so there will be no stopping them.

By elitists, I don’t mean just anyone who likes a bit of a challenge.

I, specifically, mean people who look down upon others and like the idea of people, who they view as less worthy, getting nothing in the game.

While they get everything.

By siding, almost entirely, with people like that, this xpac, Anet have made an interesting choice, to say the least.

When you dance with the devil, expect to get burned.

AzureDream.4819:

A few days ago I was peacefully crabbing some Auric Basin, and there was some enraged player, who was just straight up hard-blaming Anet about some minor pvp stuff (like some skill is damaging more than intended, or whatever). Why cant people go and complain on forum, or in pvp lobby? Why some pvp talk is happening in pve maps? And that person just wont shut up.

Complaining about the game isn’t toxicity.

Toxicity is being toxic to, or about, other people.

You are not the game, so someone complaining about it really shouldn’t bother you, frankly.

Unless they’re threatening to kill a specific dev, or something…

BTW, re. the whole, tired “Nothing has been taken away.” meme:

This is the HoT sub-forum.

When people talk about things having changed, they are talking about the original GW2 casual style of gameplay having been ditched in the HoT xpac content, specifically (i.e .the subject this sub-forum deals with).

Of course the core game is still there, but the core game is not HoT and no one would, knowingly, pay anything up to $100 to continue to play 3 year old content that they can continue to play for free.

This is not something that should have to be explained (yet again), frankly.

Certain people should stop being so blatantly (and repeatedly) disingenuous.

Not that I hold out much hope that that will, ever, happen…

Not while they imagine it suits their cause to continue to be so.

“I think the toxicity resides mostly here in the forums! it goes in all forms call them HoT haters, Balance haters, people that argue just to defend a point made earlier, Anet haters, dev abandonment haters,… and the self called elites that I would call errors intolerant instead.”

Yes and No. Many negative topics did indeed emerge after HoT’s release, but from what I’ve seen most of the complaints were written without too much foul language or “toxicity”. But then the opposition arrived, which is normal and fine, and decided to activate their “Elistist” mode with provoking, over generalising statements, flamebaits and other BS. And from then on it’s quite clear how it had to turn out. Or, the opposition started topics about HoT being fine in a first civil, well-written tone but decided suddenly to dismiss their manners and ended the opening post with the usual flamebait comments, as if their drugs started to take effect. Unfortunately, the few people on the “opposing party” were vastly overshadowed by their ill-mannered brethern who had decided to leave any form of reading comprehension in the cloackroom before they entered a thread (usually seen by responses akin to "I don’t understand why this is a problem, because […]).

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

Harper.4173:

Also – nothing was taken away form anyone – the game that these people enjoyed for over 2 years is still there – none of it has been touched, changed or made harder. …

I’m sorry to say but dungeons being nerfed had nothing to do with toxicity – also dungeons are still there. The rewards got nerfed – but not the content.
If people are sincere in their claim that they enjoyed “the content” then that should not be a problem since dungeons are still there.
If people enjoyed the reward that’s a different issue altogether – I can understand that – but that’s not what was initially claimed.

Spirit shards can be obtained through doing one’s daily. This change was also made quite a bit of time before HoT came out.
Also side activities were practically useless a long time ago. I don’t remember the last time I went “Xp farming” by doing events in a pre-HoT GW2.

Your post said that “nothing was taken away”. I correctly labeled that as false.

Since we were discussing content and how HoT content was harder it was implied that nothing referred to content.

Tigaseye.2047:

Now, the elitists have had their dodgy positions on things confirmed and reinforced by the devs, so there will be no stopping them.

I like how you make things up – “dodgy position” – you’re saying my choices on how I play and whom I choose to play with are “dodgy”?
That they matter less than yours? a non-elitist?.

Tigaseye.2047:

I, specifically, mean people who look down upon others and like the idea of people, who they view as less worthy, getting nothing in the game.

I like your strawman – nobody said anything about less skilled player getting nothing. They can get a lot of things as far as I’m concerned – all I want is that the high-skill rewards remain high skill and people that have them should have earned them.

I by no means want less skilled players getting “nothing” but I don’t want them having all the prestige skins, titles and rewards either. And Anet has allowed a lot of room for them to eventually get those rewards.

Look at Magnetite Shards – fail a lot – get lots of shards – and buy the reward you want from the vendor.
Is it easy? No. Is it attainable? Yes – because you don’t really have to succeed consistently to get it. Some effort is required though as you still have to at least kill the bosses once – so in my book it’s a good middle ground.
Plus some of the items (Infusions) you can get off the TP.

Tigaseye.2047:

While they get everything.

I’m sorry did I get anything in this game without playing? Did high-end skill-based rewards suddenly pop in a daily log-in chest?

I work for the stuff I get in game – if the stuff’s harder to get I work harder and get better. So should everybody else.

Tigaseye.2047:

By siding, almost entirely, with people like that, this xpac, Anet have made an interesting choice, to say the least.

Except Anet has kept a balanced middle ground – the are ways for even the most casual and unskilled player to get to what he wants provided he is at least motivated and determined to do it.

Tigaseye.2047:

Toxicity is being toxic to, or about, other people.

Because criticism is “toxic now” and everyone is special so we can’t ever complain about something another player does.

Tigaseye.2047:

Of course the core game is still there, but the core game is not HoT and no one would, knowingly, pay anything up to $100 to continue to play 3 year old content that they can continue to play for free.

HoT was heavily marketed as being more difficult. They promised more difficult content with HoT more times than I can remember.
Raids were promised with HoT. Beta weekend events filled the forums with posts of “mobs are now harder”.

Can you honestly say the fact that HoT is “harder” than core GW2 just came out of nowhere and surprised people? I honestly can’t.

Plus – as another poster on these forums told me when I complained about HoT ( for different reasons – lack of content) nobody forced you to preorder – and we all know what risks preordering comes with.

Harper.4173:

I by no means want less skilled players getting “nothing” but I don’t want them having all the prestige skins, titles and rewards either. And Anet has allowed a lot of room for them to eventually get those rewards.

LOL, prestige.

It’s a GAME, man, it’s not real-life, there’s no lolprestige i getting some pretty pixels on a character in a video game.

It’s a game man, everyone should have everything and skill, dedication and competence shouldn’t even matter because it’s a game man.

The pixels themselves don’t matter – but they’re a visual indicator of what you achieved. They say something about the way you play, how skilled, dedicated, competent you are.

I’ll give you an example – if you see someone with a Liadri Miniature you’ll know that said person has a decently high skill level since he was able to beat Liadri.

If skins and skin rarity don’t matter why is CS:GO making absurd amounts of money off rare skins? Same as Dota 2, same as LoL.

Skin rarity matters – if everyone had access to all skins then rarity would disappear.

HoT has increased the toxicity quite a bit.

Most of casual players work during the day.

They come back home …log on GW2 to do a meta event and they realized they need to wait another hour because the meta already started.

They get the message to move on a more populated map and they get in an MORE EMPTY ONE !!!! ( Devs please stop smoking crack and fix this).

When they finally get into a meta , not every one still knowhow it works, so they make mistakes and they received rants from comms.

Most people don’t have full asc set but maybe missing few pieces ….no sorry you can’t raid because you miss 0.9% dmg increase.

HoT maps are quite complicated and things sometime are very hard to find , and to progress you MUST work with other people ….all these things make the game not anymore relaxing and fun like in old Tyria and bring some toxicity around.

I personally a part from raid …..don’t play anymore HoT , not because I don’t like it …..but because is a time gate and you depends from other players to succeed, it miss the event fluidity old Tyria have.

Yes I think this is one of the most problematic parts of HoT maps – that you can’t do your own thing.
In Old Tyria you didn’t need huge numbers to do metas and your progress was not gated behind other people.
You could complete events on your own, you could map on your own – you can’t do that now.

Capitalism vs Communism 101

kuritsutian.2987:

Capitalism vs Communism 101

Nope.

Capitalism would be making the most money, you possibly can, from a product.

What, at least certain parts of, the games industry is managing to do, ATM, is pretty much the opposite of capitalism.

As they are making games for the (very often poor IRL) minority and expecting them to be funded by the (very often casual) majority.

That’s not capitalism, that’s communism, or at the very least socialism.

Or, at least it would be, if everyone needed to play games to survive and/or thrive.

If that was the case, it would be a good thing (IMO) if poorer players were still able to play, via the financial contributions of the less poor ones.

But, everyone does not need to play games – games are just a luxury – so, unless you provide something for everyone, it’s basically insanity.

I’m starting to think that all the elitist, forum posters have now become the games devs.

So, when I wonder why games devs are now colluding with, what should be considered the enemies of gaming and making good money from gaming, I’m on completely the wrong track…

As the “enemy” is now, quite possibly, within the walls.

So, it is less collusion and more sabotage.

BTW, Harper, I didn’t say you, specifically, were an elitist, who looks down on other people (i.e. casual players) and wants those people to have nothing.

You have once again, however, confirmed that you are that definition of one, by choosing to answer those accusations on a personal level.

No one is saying there shouldn’t, also, be some challenging content in games – I like some challenging content, from time to time, myself.

But, there is a huge difference between adding some challenging content and some less challenging content (or less challenging versions of the challenging content), within the same xpac and just going full-on hardcore, for everything.

To the detriment of the less hardcore players and therefore, by default, to the game as a whole.

There are ways to cater to both types of player – as long as you don’t ever cater to the demands of outrageously selfish people, who want everything their own way.

It’s a bit like dealing with children, frankly.

You wouldn’t give everything to one child and nothing to the others, just because the first child said he couldn’t be happy if the other children got anything at all.

Even if he was doing the best at school…

…and you certainly wouldn’t chase your other kids off, just because he said he didn’t even wish to tolerate their presence.

It is (or should be) just a case of common sense, fairness and morality and yet, the gaming industry are acting like it’s an unsolvable conundrum, only somewhat solvable by selling a big chunk of their playerbase down the river, at every turn.

Unfortunately, I think that says quite a lot about the people making games; that they, apparently, can’t cope with these, very simple, moral questions, at all.

Either that, or they simply don’t care…

Look, it’s no (or very little) skin off my nose what Anet have decided to do to their game and their core players, in this xpac.

I’m mainly an observer, at this point, as I tend to bowl around EotM (which hasn’t changed that much) and occasionally, mess around on a HoT map.

However, I do find it fascinating how much of this part of the games industry has seemingly gone into full-blown, self destruct mode, ATM.

WoW messed with the middle of the road (i.e. the semi-casual to semi-hardcore) type players in WoD and lost half their player base.

That’s WoW, for goodness sake…

Wildstar was a flop, from what I keep being told and I’m not in the least surprised…

From what I understand, it took the least universally popular things from Gw2 and WoW and tried to make a universally popular game out of them.

Universally is the key word, here and it’s the word the devs should really try to focus on, if they want to maintain the “capitalism”.

Welcome to the human race.

Toxicity in any game has nothing to do with the game itself, it is just the nature of some to be toxic when they don’t get their own way. Mix that mentality with the anonymity provided by the internet and it is always going to be a recipe for toxic behaviour. This is not GW2’s fault.

That said, there are certain conditions where these kinds of people thrive, and therefore you will find some games, or some areas of a game, will have more of these kinds of people than others. For example, PvP tends to have more toxic players than PvE, due to the competitive and adreneline filled nature of it. But wherever there is a challenge that can be completed faster, by playing a specific way, there will always be the impatient, arrogant and emotionally immature few that scream and shout and try to spoil everyone else’s game for their own gains. Not all players are like this of course, but the toxic players are often the loudest and most visible among us. I guess they think it makes them look big and important, kind of like how animals puff themselves up or colour themselves brightly to warn others that they are dangerous, when in reality they are the complete opposite.

At the end of the day, if someone is being abusive to you, report them. It is not worth getting yourself stressed over, and they certainly do not deserve your time.

Harper.4173:

Yes I think this is one of the most problematic parts of HoT maps – that you can’t do your own thing.
In Old Tyria you didn’t need huge numbers to do metas and your progress was not gated behind other people.
You could complete events on your own, you could map on your own – you can’t do that now.

I also believe this aspect of HoT to be a flaw that will become more evident the later one gets into it.

Tigaseye.2047:

so, unless you provide something for everyone, it’s basically insanity.

This is exactly what HoT did with the addition of hardcore content. GW2’s content remains in its majority casual – but now there are truly hardcore areas and encounters for those who are truly hardcore.

Tigaseye.2047:

what should be considered the enemies of gaming

This is just absurd – nobody is the enemy of gaming – people play games differently and take them more or less seriously. Nobody is an “enemy of gaming” just because they don’t enjoy the game the same way you do.

Tigaseye.2047:

BTW, Harper, I didn’t say you, specifically, were an elitist, who looks down on other people (i.e. casual players) and wants those people to have nothing.

I don’t think the average “elitist” cares enough about a casual to specifically want that casual to have nothing. I think elitists mostly want that the rewards in the game be earned – and not handed out easily.
I think an elitist cares more about the encounter being difficult and people needing to step up their game in order to obtain said encounter’s rewards.

Tigaseye.2047:

You have once again, however, confirmed that you are that definition of one, by choosing to answer those accusations on a personal level.

I don’t deny you would probably categorize me in that group. I however don’t consider myself elitist because I’m not the elite here – there are far better players – but to you I can be considered that I suppose.
I’m an efficiency driven player.

Tigaseye.2047:

No one is saying there shouldn’t, also, be some challenging content in games – I like some challenging content, from time to time, myself.
But, there is a huge difference between adding some challenging content and some less challenging content (or less challenging versions of the challenging content), within the same xpac and just going full-on hardcore, for everything.

And HoT has a mix of both really challenging, moderately challenging and easy content.

Yes – Raids are tough – but they’re a small part of HoT.
Most maps in HoT have more difficult enemies but I won’t call them challenging. If Open World Core Gw2 was so easy you could sleep through half of it HoT’s open world at least requires you to be awake. That’s pretty much it.

Yes meta events are difficult but not all of them – TD meta was recently nerfed because of a “bug” apparently.
Auric Basin meta is so easy it’s basically on farm now – I haven’t seen a Tarir fail in the last month or so.
VB meta is also not difficult – and mostly perceived as hard because of the number of players that gates success, coordination and investment in the new mastery lines.

So how exactly did HoT provide you with only hardcore challenging content?
Where’s the challenge in most HoT? Almost everything in HoT’s open world can be zerged down – the only challenge being getting enough people to zerg the content with.

Tigaseye.2047:

There are ways to cater to both types of player – as long as you don’t ever cater to the demands of outrageously selfish people, who want everything their own way.

There are selfish people in both camps – I remember people asking for Teq and any harder content to be nerfed as soon as it got in the game.

Tigaseye.2047:

You wouldn’t give everything to one child and nothing to the others, just because the first child said he couldn’t be happy if the other children got anything at all.
Even if he was doing the best at school…
…and you certainly wouldn’t chase your other kids off, just because he said he didn’t even wish to tolerate their presence.

I do like your exaggerations – you do have a certain talent for it but how exactly has Anet chased you off?

Tigaseye.2047:

It is (or should be) just a case of common sense, fairness and morality and yet, the gaming industry are acting like it’s an unsolvable conundrum, only somewhat solvable by selling a big chunk of their playerbase down the river, at every turn.

Because it might just be that this way of doing things is the most effective one.

Tigaseye.2047:

Unfortunately, I think that says quite a lot about the people making games; that they, apparently, can’t cope with these, very simple, moral questions, at all.

You do realize they’re just a business making a living right? I don’t think your questions of morality have any relevance. I certainly know most businesses aren’t run on “what’s morally right about how we do things?”

Tigaseye.2047:

Either that, or they simply don’t care…

Possible – as long as they make money why would they care? Do you think you have some personal worth to a company just because you’re a client? You have worth because they can sell you a product or service – but other than that what worth do you have?

Tigaseye.2047:

However, I do find it fascinating how much of this part of the games industry has seemingly gone into full-blown, self destruct mode, ATM.

Except the game is probably doing better financially than it did before. Your perception might not be what’s happening.

Tigaseye.2047:

WoW messed with the middle of the road (i.e. the semi-casual to semi-hardcore) type players in WoD and lost half their player base.
That’s WoW, for goodness sake…

A game with an entirely different player base, with very different motivations and factors that keep them playing or make them leave. Remember WoW has a sub fee- people will be far more likely to drop it.

Tigaseye.2047:

Wildstar was a flop, from what I keep being told and I’m not in the least surprised…

It was a flop for many reasons – one of them being its theme – another the terrible visuals. I didn’t get it because of those two reasons – and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Harper.4173:

Yes I think this is one of the most problematic parts of HoT maps – that you can’t do your own thing.
In Old Tyria you didn’t need huge numbers to do metas and your progress was not gated behind other people.
You could complete events on your own, you could map on your own – you can’t do that now.

I also believe this aspect of HoT to be a flaw that will become more evident the later one gets into it.

This is why I prioritized open world HoT at the beginning even though I disliked it and didn’t want to have much to do with it. I realized it would be much harder later, once the first wave of dedicated players finished and moved on.

Harper.4173:

Tigaseye.2047:

so, unless you provide something for everyone, it’s basically insanity.

This is exactly what HoT did with the addition of hardcore content. GW2’s content remains in its majority casual – but now there are truly hardcore areas and encounters for those who are truly hardcore.

GW2 core content, yes. HoT? No, not even close. And that’s the problem – HoT was paid mostly by people it is not meant for. It was expected to be paid by people it was not meant to (because the population it caters to is too small to pay for its creation on their own).

People may say anything they want now about how “all those complaining players weren’t paying attention to Anet’s warnings” but it still doesn’t change the fact that Anet obviously intented for a vast majority of players to pay for something that was never meant for them. And while it may be a good business move short term (business has nothing to do with morality, after all), it is a terminally stupid thing to do if you are thinking more longterm. People you have cheated once are far less likely to trust you with their money next time, afer all.

Harper, I took the time, on here, to say what my specific definition of “elitist”, in this context, was.

It may not be your definition, but it is mine.

So, when I use that word, I expect you to understand what I mean by it.

It is not someone who just wants harder content for him (or her) self.

BTW, I’m not really a casual – so, they haven’t really chased me off (yet).

But, I can totally imagine what it would feel like to be one, ATM.

That wasn’t an “exaggeration”, it was an analogy.

You’ve heard of analogies, right?

An appreciation of basic morality and how getting that wrong can affect your business negatively, is very important, for any business.

Especially one that deals directly with the public and hosts a situation which allows their customers to interact directly with each other.

Astralporing.1957:

Harper.4173:

Tigaseye.2047:

so, unless you provide something for everyone, it’s basically insanity.

This is exactly what HoT did with the addition of hardcore content. GW2’s content remains in its majority casual – but now there are truly hardcore areas and encounters for those who are truly hardcore.

GW2 core content, yes. HoT? No, not even close. And that’s the problem – HoT was paid mostly by people it is not meant for. It was expected to be paid by people it was not meant to (because the population it caters to is too small to pay for its creation on their own).

People may say anything they want now about how “all those complaining players weren’t paying attention to Anet’s warnings” but it still doesn’t change the fact that Anet obviously intented for a vast majority of players to pay for something that was never meant for them. And while it may be a good business move short term (business has nothing to do with morality, after all), it is a terminally stupid thing to do if you are thinking more longterm. People you have cheated once are far less likely to trust you with their money next time, afer all.

Even in HoT some things are incredibly easy. I just did a Tarir tonight – just showing up and mashing 1 ensures success.

. And that’s the problem – HoT was paid mostly by people it is not meant for

Then these people didn’t do their homework very well – because HoT was heavily advertised as a hardcore-oriented expansion.
If they paid for something they didn’t want they should have did better research.
I’m also pretty sure refunds were handed out pretty liberally for a few weeks after launch. And even so – why did people preorder?

I honestly do not believe that Anet didn’t intend that “the vast majority of players” never play or enjoy HoT.
What I do believe Anet intended was to make the player base “get good” – in the sense of improving their skill and understanding of the game.

They’ve been pushing in this direction ever since Living World season 2 came out.
I believe they want people to get better and experience the content.

Also – I’m pretty sure that the long-term effects won’t be that bad. If what you’re saying is true and being cheated once makes people far less likely to trust you and pay for the game well – Anet should have been out of business right now.

There is not one part of the GW2 community that hasn’t been cheated, promised something and then tricked/ignored or in some way or form mislead.

The hardcore took hits with every fractal update basically.
Open World lovers had megaservers and overflows. The RP community basically died then.
WvW has been in a sorry state ever since release.
PvP – let’s not even go there – the state it was in up until very recently.

Let’s face it – their track record is far from good with all parts of the community – and still people are playing.

Tigaseye.2047:

Harper, I took the time, on here, to say what my specific definition of “elitist”, in this context, was.

It may not be your definition, but it is mine.

So, when I use that word, I expect you to understand what I mean by it.

It is not someone who just wants harder content for him (or her) self.

BTW, I’m not really a casual – so, they haven’t really chased me off (yet).

But, I can totally imagine what it would feel like to be one, ATM.

That wasn’t an “exaggeration”, it was an analogy.

You’ve heard of analogies, right?

An appreciation of basic morality and how getting that wrong can affect your business negatively, is very important, for any business.

Especially one that deals directly with the public and hosts a situation which allows their customers to interact directly with each other.

Except I’ve seen posts about how this change or that change “will be the end of GW2” for years now – and the game has been and still is fine.

Remember ascended gear?
“Surely this will be the end of GW2, they forgot the manifesto” the forums cried – but it’s been over 3 years now and the game is fine.

Remember megaservers?
“This is destroying communities and people will no longer have that feeling” – and still the game went on.

Remember the living world season 1 approach of “play it now or miss it forever”?
Yeah – it didn’t destroy the game.

Remember the China release and the “new player experience”? Remember fractured and the fractal level reset?
Yeah – all that happened – game is still here.

In fact – I would dare speculate that moves such as these ( listed above, including HoT) are calculated and people who actually know what they are doing predict the outcome and if it’s worth it financially both in the long and in the short term.
Nothing that has the potential to “kill the game” is taken lightly because in the end Anet is a business and while we might not always like their decisions or agree with them I’m pretty sure they’re only doing what’s going to be best for them as a business in the long run.

Mistakes happen – and if HoT is a mistake and this new approach isn’t financially effective for them I’m sure they’ll backpedal and try something else. They did it with the Living World, they did it with “no expansions” so only time will tell if this is or isn’t the right call.

But please, let’s leave the alarmist attitude out of all this.

Harper.4173:

Since we were discussing content and how HoT content was harder it was implied that nothing referred to content.

Go back and read the post again. I only quoted part of your post.

Harbinger.5129:

Kerin.9125:

Another way to look at it is that the game that those people enjoyed for over two years and which they could play at whatever skill level they had was taken away from them and replaced by something aimed at the hardcore, highly-skilled players who were whining GW2 was too easy.

I don’t really get when people say that the game was taken away from them. Central Tyria is still there just like it was before. They only added a small set of maps which you must buy to play. If you consider yourself a casual that want to be able to play things at any skill level and heard that HoT is hard, why even bothering with the latter then? The whole game you already know is still there waiting for you.

On other MMOs I considered myself a semi-hardcore gamer, but on GW2 I’m just a casual, since I don’t do dungeons (I find them boring) and rarely do fractals (been thinking about changing that soon). I’m loving HoT, have played the raid on the day it was released and I instantly felt that I should improve, just like if I decided to play sPvP seriously. But I was never offended by that, since it’s part of those game modes. If you want to raid just for fun with no risks, World Bosses are there for that.

If you dont get it I take it you dont play WvW.

What Anet did with WvW guilds is the eqvivalent of adding a 5000g entrance fee to vanilla GW2 maps. Everything was taken away.

Dawdler.8521:

If you dont get it I take it you dont play WvW.

You’re right.

No, Harper.

I wasn’t exaggerating and I’m not being “alarmist”.

You’re misunderstanding/projecting/being disingenuous, again.

Always hard to say which.

I’m trying to stick to the facts in my replies and answer your points, as simply as possible; as I do not enjoy these strained interactions we always tend to have.

On that basis, I think it’s better if we just ignore each other, from now on, because our “conversations” never seem to get us anywhere…