Guild Wars 2

With the release of harder content recently such as AR, the Candidate Trials, and Liadri I’ve noticed more elitism than usual on the forums. Essentially people saying stuff like:

“You don’t deserve to beat this content”
“You’re just not good enough, go do something else”
“This content is for hardcore players, not for casuals like you”
“You’re not entitled to beat all content in the game, stop whining”

You get the idea.

Instead of coming across like a jerk, why not share tips and strategies on how to beat harder content like this? Why not be supportive of your fellow players? And why not understand the frustration they’re experiencing?

There are players who strive to help others and provide videos, guides, tips, etc. to others and they’re awesome. I personally wouldn’t have beaten the Liandri fight without their help. But if I had listened to the elitists I would probably have just given up.

As for “hardcore” content, I have no problem with it. But I don’t think it should be mixed in with casual content or story content. The Queens Gauntlet was essentially a bunch of moderately easy fights then Liadri comes out and is nearly impossible. She should have been an optional boss, or maybe even a secret boss for those who are worthy, like Akuma in the old Street Fighter games. Making her the final boss has really frustrated and alienated a lot of people who simply can’t beat her and therefore can’t complete the Queens Gauntlet. GW2 should make players feel like kitten heroes, not failures.

Also for dungeons like AR, why not have a normal mode then when that’s beaten a hard mode is unlocked for greater rewards? It wouldn’t be that hard to remove/slow some of the lasers, have shorter barrage phases, and shrink Mai’s health pool for the normal mode.

The point is that it really sucks that some players are feeling left out and excluded by this “hardcore” content, especially since it is apart of the Living Story which is essentially what sets this game apart from other MMOs. GW2’s primary target audience is the casuals after all, they shouldn’t have to feel excluded from this content.

I think all content should be completable by the majority of the player base with a reasonable amount of effort/skill. Then you can always add unlockable hard mode type content on top of that for those who want a real challenge.

I hate to say it, but this is one of the things WoW got right with normal dungeons and hard mode “heroic” versions of those dungeons. (even though heroics are easy now…) This way no one is excluded from the content and the “hardcore” gamers still get a challenge.

I think this is a good PSA, and I do these things (mostly in-game).

What I will not do is agree that content should be brought down to the level of the players. While a little bit of elitist attitude exists in the forums no matter what, I feel that what you are describing is the response to the people that post endless whine threads on things being too hard.

Look a the obsidian sanctum, for instance. For a place that you can 1) bring more people 2) stealth 3) come back later when it’s empty 4) come back later and get a port right to top, etc. And those threads were full of these helpful tips. But those players weren’t having any of it – they threw tantrums like little children. This has been the case with Liadri, AR, Molten Facility, and every other piece of content with any challenge.

It’s a two way street, and quite frankly I don’t believe there has been a person honestly asking for help on the forums that did not receive helpful suggestions. No one has come and said, “hey, any tips on Liadri?” and not gotten them. The people receiving the responses you speak of are the ones that create whinefest threads.

When I just get “I play how I want!” spewed at me, what’s the point in trying to be helpful?

Barabbas.8715:

With the release of harder content recently such as AR, the Candidate Trials, and Liadri I’ve noticed more elitism than usual on the forums. Essentially people saying stuff like:

“You don’t deserve to beat this content”
“You’re just not good enough, go do something else”
“This content is for hardcore players, not for casuals like you”
“You’re not entitled to beat all content in the game, stop whining”

You get the idea.

Instead of coming across like a jerk, why not share tips and strategies on how to beat harder content like this? Why not be supportive of your fellow players? And why not understand the frustration they’re experiencing?

There are players who strive to help others and provide videos, guides, tips, etc. to others and they’re awesome. I personally wouldn’t have beaten the Liandri fight without their help. But if I had listened to the elitists I would probably have just given up.

This I agree with, 100%. The rest of your post, though, I have to disagree with.

It’s firstly important to note that the Gauntlet is optional. Anet even said themselves that it was meant to be difficult, and as such separated it from the rest of the Living Story content. You don’t need to do the achievements there in order to finish the Queen’s Jubilee achievements, and doing the Gauntlet doesn’t award anything significant, just a minipet (which few players use anyway) and some gold you could probably earn quicker by doing easier content. What I would have disagreed with was if the Gauntlet gated a reward, as in doing it was the ONLY way to get a highly desirable skin, or doing it gave you an item that gave you an advantage over other players, like how PvP arenas give highest-tier gear in other games. However, that is not the case, as I said earlier. You also do not have to do the Gauntlet to view the story, unlike the AR dungeon.

The truth of the matter is that it’s difficult to pin down an “average” skill level. No matter what you do, there will be some people who will be unable to accomplish a challenge and will complain about things being too hard, while other, more skilled people will stomp it flat and get bored. Also, people’s definitions of “optional” vary, in that people will always think it’s unfair if they can’t do a certain piece of content, no matter where the content is located or how it’s labeled. The best thing you can do is have something for everyone, even the hardcore players (and yes, you can be hardcore and still be a genuinely nice person, like the people who give advice on Liadri), and make sure that you aren’t forced to do something or forever be at a disadvantage.

Also, regarding myself, I am a dedicated player, halfway between casual and hardcore. I love pushing myself to the fullest, being the best I personally can, honing my skills and testing them against extreme odds, but I don’t obsess over min/max or berate other people for not being experienced. I haven’t gotten far in the Gauntlet due to connectivity issues. I know for certain that I’m not skilled enough to do a 5-gamkittenallenge, nor the Light Up The Darkness achievement. I don’t even know if I have what it takes to beat Liadri. But it doesn’t bother me. I’ll just give it a try and see how it goes. If I win, good, if I fail, I’ll decide whether I want to put in the practice and time to beat her, or say “Meh” and walk away. In either case, I’m actually pretty thrilled about the Gauntlet, since I’ve spent almost every hour in the game learning and finetuning my skills with my beloved elementalists, and I like seeing a chance to find out if it bore fruit. If I’m not good enough, it just means I have some more work to do.

EDIT: And I agree that some aspects of the Gauntlet are kind of stupid- the timer especially forces you into a DPS race and disadvantages defensive builds and condition builds. But the overall concept is all right with me.

The hardest part is, whenever I give advice, people just accuse me of being elitist and refuse to listen.

The other day on the guardian forums I mentioned how it perplexed me that people would refuse to run wall of reflection, even in areas where that skill is incredibly useful. It does damage, protects the team, makes a light field to comb off of, and can be used in any build with no required traits to be effective. The responses I received were along the lines of:

“You don’t have a right to tell me how to play!”
“You have no respect for other playstyles!”
“I choose not to use it out of principle”
“If you don’t like how others play then you should form a static group on your own”
“If you didn’t check beforehand when forming a pug, you deserve what you get”.
“I’m not responsible for keeping you alive. Learn to dodge.”

And so on. Of course, this just infuriates me. It always has, from videogames to real life.

I often say that reasoning is dead. For reasons unknown (though I could probably write a book about my theories as to this), people have stopped bothering to be self critical, and they lack the ability to respond to criticism meaningfully. The moment you mention anything, these people put up a defensive wall and spew a torrent of generic entitlement garbage from their mouths. Their standard practice in life is to surround themselves with yes-men, and to despise anyone who doesn’t unconditionally support them. They consider all those who don’t agree with them as less than human, and the thought that there is intelligence behind any decision contrary to their own never once crosses their mind.

In this sense, society has become more bigoted than ever. This is an issue that is far larger than just videogames, since it poisons society from the cultural level to the political one. However, it continues to leak downward into everyday lives, to recreational entertainment. I assume that the mass amount of information available at our fingertips has always left us with an excuse to refuse to listen, and with a prepared response for everything already said, a refusal to reason.

So, the big question becomes this: How do you help a person who refuses to be helped and fights you all the way? The answer is simple: you don’t. Instead, you exclude these people from your group, and then you only play with people who do listen to what you say. If socially ostracizing the helpless doesn’t instruct them on the error of their ways, then at least you don’t have to put up with their nonsense anymore. When someone justifies bad decisions in life with some grand philosophical statement, I don’t want to associate with these people. I don’t want to play next to a player who plays kittenome kind of political statement. It is worse than a regular bad player, because then a regular bad player can get better.

AKA: you surround yourself with your own yes-men. Negotiation and reasoning in general requires two willing parties in order to function. Either both sides are working toward an agreement, or neither of them are. When someone calls you a doodoo head and leaves the negotiation, what are you to do? The answer: the same thing. The breakdown in reasoning is contagious, and reinforces itself over and over until the whole social contract breaks down. Doing otherwise is difficult.

And yet here I am, constantly reaching out to people who despise me for it. The last reasonable man.

Wow – walls of text!

Some people are jerks – that’s all.

@ blood red arachnid
I actualy had the exact same thing early a guardian and mesmer were getting oliberated by oozes, so i figured id mention feedback/wall of reflection.

I got something like: its a dps race, i need moar deeps, not some silly reflection!
And the mesmer actually explained his whole build to me and told me why taking feedback was impossibru. Yea, things like that.

Some people in general are jerks, not only good players :/.

One time i died in the gauntlet, and there were 2 from the aame guild farming it. They didnt even revive me… Just farmed it and saw me as some kind of obstacle >_<.

Or the situation that happens eery single time im with 1 other person:

1. person goes in a fight
2. i revive person
3. i go in the gauntlet
4. i die
5. person goes in
6. person dies OR he wins and just ignores me and goes in again >_<.

Contiguous.1345:

Wow – walls of text!

Some people are jerks – that’s all.

Once you spend enough time in game, you’ll change that to Most (if not all) people are jerks.

The more “hardcore” content that gets added to the game, the more the elitist- GTFO attitude leaks out to all the other content.

What Blood Red Arachnid said sums it up perfectly. You don’t even need to read any more of this thread or have any additional posts.

/thread

Some people are mean, but not most.

Trying to hand out helpful advice in a calm and kind way sometimes gets back thrown biological waste materials. This eventually stops nicer folks that just want a calm and kind play environment from giving advice. They start just guild grouping, or dropping groups that are not working.

Tone does not translate well over text after all, in a way it is really quite tragic.

The thing is, majority of the topics that deal with not being able to complete content boils down to people asking for stuff to be made easier. A lot of times it’s not even directly stating that, but rather complaining about how difficult it is and how they should be able to complete it.

And in a lot of those cases, the people who are having trouble are completely unwilling to adapt. On the first day of Queen’s Jubilee, there were tons of posts complaining about the 2 minute time limit for the Gauntlet matches. There were also complaints about how it supposedly favors zerking. And there were complaints about how people were unable to beat it with their current gear/trait lineup.

A condescending tone (or lack of) makes a big difference in how a person interprets your advice, even if it is genuinely helpful by reasoning. Some people are sensitive, and using such a tone will cause them to get defensive. Such situations tend to leave advisors perplexed as to why they are being scolded when the advice they give is truly helpful.

There’s a right way to do the right things, and when it comes to jumpy people, ‘the end justifies the means’ is unsound reasoning.

Just my $0.02.

Lindbur.2537:

A condescending tone (or lack of) makes a big difference in how a person interprets your advice, even if it is genuinely helpful by reasoning. Some people are sensitive, and using such a tone will cause them to get defensive. Such situations tend to leave advisors perplexed as to why they are being scolded when the advice they give is truly helpful.

There’s a right way to do the right things, and when it comes to jumpy people, ‘the end justifies the means’ is unsound reasoning.

Just my $0.02.

Tone does not translate well over text.

Getting defensive over advice gets them worse sounding advice over time, and less nice helpful people to group with. As the “nice helpful” people restrict themselves to only playing in their guild groups, and dropping bad groups like a hot potato.

Nice helpful people are occasionally allergic to drama.

Personally I think there’s a variety of different, related problems. I’ve found myself on all sides of the debate when it comes to the Gauntlet and it’s made me feel pretty convinced that there is no easy way to make everyone happy.

At one extreme I’ve seen people saying Living Story achievements should be literally a checklist of activities that you just have to look in on to receive credit for. Like one of the Sanctum Sprint achievements which you got just for entering a race. So you can get all the rewards without ever actually doing the content, but if you’re interested it’s there.

At the other extreme we have 2 groups. Those who are entirely motivated by loot and consider any activity without a material reward a waste of time and effort and wouldn’t touch it unless it was rewarding something. Preferably something they can farm over and over again. And those who are basically achievement hunters, but who want the challenge rather than simply credit for participating. They want hard content and they want achievements or titles or some other reward to show for it at the end.

And in between you’ve got a whole load of people who fall into more than one group, or whose opinion varies depending on different factors.

Me for example. I love the Gauntlet because it’s one of the hardest things I’ve done in a game in a long time. I haven’t been able to beat Liadri but I’ve really enjoyed trying and I was annoyed to log in tonight and find that I’m locked out of trying again when I’d spent all day thinking up a new plan. But on the other hand I’m very annoyed that the reward is an account bound mini because to my mind it doesn’t fit with the content. Minis primarily appeal to casual players, and within that group they appeal to a subset who find their own challenge in trying to collect all of them. If a collector is unable to get one because it’s only available one way and that’s too difficult then the whole idea is diminished. There’s no point collecting something when you know for a fact that the set will never be complete.

Then on top of that you’ve got the fact that a lot of people will jump to conclusions about the motivation behind a forum post based on their own feelings and/or other posts they’ve read recently.

For example a while ago I asked for advice on beating Strugar and Chomper and specified that I didn’t want to be told to go full zerker. I neglected to mention that’s because I’d already changed my build that way as much as I could afford to (I’m not going to buy a full set of new gear for one part of one update, especially when switching from Knights is not a huge difference) and I was looking for other ideas to add to it. Immediately I was lumped in with players who refuse to change their build or approach and whose requests for help are thinly veiled hints that the content should be made easier.

So when I encountered someone else asking the same thing I tried to give them constructive suggestions. I’d managed to beat them by this point so I explained the skills and approach that worked for me. Including things that had very little to do with your build, like killing Strugar first because Chomper has no ranged attacks so he’s easier to kite. And I wakitten with accusations that I was trying to force them to play in a way they don’t want to and why couldn’t I just admit that it’s too hard?

And on top of all that we’ve sometimes got issues with language too. Particularly with the Gauntlet and the word nerf. People use it to mean both making content less financially rewarding and making it easier to complete. Or sometimes they’ll say a particular boss should be nerfed and what they mean is a technique to beat them should be nerfed – actually making it harder. So someone will ask for a particular boss to be nerfed and they get hit with accusations that they’re just whining because they can’t do it – when actually they meant the rewards should be reduced, or vice versa.

It’s a mess and I don’t think there is a real solution. Although keeping calm and civil and remembering that you might have misinterpreted someone would be a good start.

My issue is they are timed. If they never went away, then I would say they can be as hard as they want and you just have to get better. But they are not, so you have to be good enough now. I beat Belcher’s Bluff’s masters before the event ended cause I had to before it was too late. Otherwise Id have waited awhile. Same with the guantlet. I dont to do it much, but I dont want to miss out either. If it was permenant with the same reward then I would say you have to earn it, but since its going away rather soonish, it should be doable by anyone who puts the effort in at all.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The hardest part is, whenever I give advice, people just accuse me of being elitist and refuse to listen.

The other day on the guardian forums I mentioned how it perplexed me that people would refuse to run wall of reflection, even in areas where that skill is incredibly useful. It does damage, protects the team, makes a light field to comb off of, and can be used in any build with no required traits to be effective. The responses I received were along the lines of:

“You don’t have a right to tell me how to play!”
“You have no respect for other playstyles!”
“I choose not to use it out of principle”
“If you don’t like how others play then you should form a static group on your own”
“If you didn’t check beforehand when forming a pug, you deserve what you get”.
“I’m not responsible for keeping you alive. Learn to dodge.”

And so on. Of course, this just infuriates me. It always has, from videogames to real life.

I often say that reasoning is dead. For reasons unknown (though I could probably write a book about my theories as to this), people have stopped bothering to be self critical, and they lack the ability to respond to criticism meaningfully. The moment you mention anything, these people put up a defensive wall and spew a torrent of generic entitlement garbage from their mouths. Their standard practice in life is to surround themselves with yes-men, and to despise anyone who doesn’t unconditionally support them. They consider all those who don’t agree with them as less than human, and the thought that there is intelligence behind any decision contrary to their own never once crosses their mind.

In this sense, society has become more bigoted than ever. This is an issue that is far larger than just videogames, since it poisons society from the cultural level to the political one. However, it continues to leak downward into everyday lives, to recreational entertainment. I assume that the mass amount of information available at our fingertips has always left us with an excuse to refuse to listen, and with a prepared response for everything already said, a refusal to reason.

So, the big question becomes this: How do you help a person who refuses to be helped and fights you all the way? The answer is simple: you don’t. Instead, you exclude these people from your group, and then you only play with people who do listen to what you say. If socially ostracizing the helpless doesn’t instruct them on the error of their ways, then at least you don’t have to put up with their nonsense anymore. When someone justifies bad decisions in life with some grand philosophical statement, I don’t want to associate with these people. I don’t want to play next to a player who plays kittenome kind of political statement. It is worse than a regular bad player, because then a regular bad player can get better.

AKA: you surround yourself with your own yes-men. Negotiation and reasoning in general requires two willing parties in order to function. Either both sides are working toward an agreement, or neither of them are. When someone calls you a doodoo head and leaves the negotiation, what are you to do? The answer: the same thing. The breakdown in reasoning is contagious, and reinforces itself over and over until the whole social contract breaks down. Doing otherwise is difficult.

And yet here I am, constantly reaching out to people who despise me for it. The last reasonable man.

That’s all well and good, but there’s a difference between excluding the people that refuse to be helped from groups or dungeon runs or whatever and straight out shutting out EVERYONE but your own little clique on account of everyone being too stubborn to accept help, when said help is typically given in the form of massive walls of math that most people don’t give a flying finger about.

Unfortunately, pretty much everyone who adopts that “some people don’t deserve to be helped” mentality actually mean “nobody besides me and my buddies deserve to be helped”

Pinny.9018:

That’s all well and good, but there’s a difference between excluding the people that refuse to be helped from groups or dungeon runs or whatever and straight out shutting out EVERYONE but your own little clique on account of everyone being too stubborn to accept help, when said help is typically given in the form of massive walls of math that most people don’t give a flying finger about.

Unfortunately, pretty much everyone who adopts that “some people don’t deserve to be helped” mentality actually mean “nobody besides me and my buddies deserve to be helped”

The sensitive person who is trying to be helpful online often has no defenses vs the mean. We’re online, we may not be the most socially adept, please excuse us all.

You can start by assuming people actually mean what they say. That they intend to be giving advice with a nice “tone”. That they are not “the devil” and trying to hurt or deceive you. Sometimes you may be wrong in this, but /report and /ignore fixes that problem nicely if/when they start calling you names.

I should note that math is often the least subjective way to communicate a complicated idea. Math is the game. In general any math heavy text also will have a summary explanation.

The “tone” of a person’s written message is first and foremost determined by the reader. If someone thinks there is some sort of hidden subtext attacking them, they should first examine themselves, as they are the ones drawing horns and mustache on their mental image of the other guy.

I find it funny when people try to claim the “high ground” in such exchanges, as if they weren’t just as thin skinned or emotionally vulnerable as the other person. Letting themselves be drawn into a hostile exchange simply shows how “sensitive” they are as well. Why? Because they didn’t just walk away. They had to get the last word in or used the situation as justification to unleash their own pent up frustrations.

Things devolve because both parties are “sensitive”. One person thinks they are being insulted and lashes out, causing the other person to lash back because they feel insulted.

Contiguous.1345:

Wow – walls of text!

Some people are jerks – that’s all.

For example, the jerks who come on to text-based communication mediums and say that they can’t be bothered to read all the text.

Yea, I’ve already resigned to the fact that some of this content is too difficult, even for me (I would say I’m a solidly good gamer) to complete in any reasonable time frame. If I can’t beat it in 5 tries then it requires too much effort (unless you can retry the content really quick, but having to wait for others to fight before I can go again? Meh, my ADD is kicks in).

I know I could face Liadra dozens of times, learn every aspect of the fight, etc., etc. I’ve done that in other games, that’s not what I’m looking for in this game. So I don’t get the mini or the achieves, who cares? Those that get the achievements deserve them. They put the time and effort to defeat hard content and should be rewarded. They shouldn’t be outright jerks about it, but they certainly have the right to say that content may be too hard, or L2P, for those that complaining about it being too hard.

I couldn’t finish the Trials either. That Tier4 was just too much for me to handle and everytime I had to retry it I died a little inside because I would rather be doing literally anything else in GW2 – so I missed out on those achievements.

Do I cry about it? Nah. Who really cares? So I don’t have the cool shadow Liadra minipet (and boy do I want it because it is awesome), but I didn’t earn it so I shouldn’t get it. It makes me respect those that do have it.

Sometimes content is too hard for the average player, and that’s OK. You shouldn’t be able to complete 100% of the content being an average gamer, there has to be challenging content for those that want to set themselves apart and there should be unique rewards tied to it.

You aren’t missing out on any content by not being able to beat her. Heck even if you don’t make it to Tier3, you technically have experienced the Gauntlet content. Confined arena fighting a boss with a time limit. That’s the content. What boss you fight is irrelevant. You beat the first boss? Sweet, you’ve basically experienced the Gauntlet in its entirety.

I just can’t stand the people who whine constantly that content is too hard for them so it needs to be changed.

Achieving something is wonderful, so long as it’s about the achievement and not about someone else’s loss. It’s the difference between this and this.

Barabbas.8715:

Instead of coming across like a jerk, why not share tips and strategies on how to beat harder content like this? Why not be supportive of your fellow players?

Let me reverse that for you: Instead of coming across like a jerk, why not ask for tips and strategies on how to beat harder content like this? Why not help your fellow players help you?

To put it in more direct terms, because some people have a harder time catching on, I don’t feel particularly inclined to facilitate an answer when you’re not asking a question.

This is the age of information. It is available and plentiful. Dulfy, for example, publishes guides on how to beat just about everything roughly as soon as it comes out. If you browse youtube you’ll find dozens of people completing just about every part of the game. There were many threads in many different GW2 related places (including these forums) with people posting how they beat Liandri (for example). If you want the information, it’s available. And if you’re having difficulties, it’s ok to ask.

What’s not ok is to whine and complain, kitten and moan, and cry for nerfs and free rides because you can’t figure it out. Get over your kitten. Deal with it. Almost every single “L2P” and “You don’t deserve” type answer I’ve seen anywhere (and typed myself in some cases) were never directed at people who were asking for help. They were directed at people who complained they couldn’t do it so ANet should do something about it. Those ARE “L2P” cases.

Barabbas.8715:

And why not understand the frustration they’re experiencing?

Because I can’t relate to them in any way imaginable. Trying and failing I can understand. I mean, I hardly thought it was unwinnable, but not everyone has been playing these games as long, or as much, as I have. I can respect people who just didn’t feel like trying any harder – not their thing. What I can’t respect or understand in the least are the people who couldn’t do it, gave up, then complained about it demanding something should be done because they couldn’t do it. Entitled whiny losers the whole lot, and they deserve every “L2P”, every verbal and otherwise emotional slap across the face they get.

The Queen’s Gauntlet, and Liandri specifically, was not for everyone. It was a test. It wasn’t a particularly hard test in my view, but it was a test nonetheless. It was hardly unfair (unless you were colour blind – those were right to complain) or unbeatable. If someone wasn’t good enough to earn it, tough, get better. If they want help getting better I’m sure plenty of people will gladly give them pointers… But most don’t, and that’s the problem. Their problem.

Pinny.9018:

That’s all well and good, but there’s a difference between excluding the people that refuse to be helped from groups or dungeon runs or whatever and straight out shutting out EVERYONE but your own little clique on account of everyone being too stubborn to accept help, when said help is typically given in the form of massive walls of math that most people don’t give a flying finger about.

Unfortunately, pretty much everyone who adopts that “some people don’t deserve to be helped” mentality actually mean “nobody besides me and my buddies deserve to be helped”

Pretty much. The “gray” area is shrinking as more people fall into the “us vs. them” category. It reached the point where I can count on one hand the times I’ve had meaningful discussions with people on anything topical.

Anyway, it isn’t about “me and my buddies are the only one who deserve to be helped”. It is more of a natural selection type thing going on: the information is out there, and people will either get it or they will disagree with you for a stupid reason. Then, the people who “get it” will gather together and form their clique, because arguing with those who didn’t get it proves itself unfruitful and time-wasting every time it happens. These people have argued with each other before. A lot. Many of the topical social issues have been debated to death for dozens, even hundreds of years. After awhile, people stop debating, and question if debate is even useful.

Both sides feel this way; that they’re right and arguing with those guys is a waste of time, so don’t even bother. Even in something as mundane as which class and build to use in GW2 this takes place.