I don't get all the whining in this forum, if you want to do content like world events, you still can, even with fractals being around. In open world I've never seen anyone being poisonous up to date and the community is the same it used to be. Noone is forcing you to go into the more "elitist" part of the game.
I personally didn't the like the game at all before fractals/raids. The content just wasn't challenging, and in a consequence boring to me. It seems to me that all Anet did was allowing players to chose to play a more challenging content if they like, and yes, since it is group based an challenging, you will be evaluated by other players. If you don't like that, do the open world like we were all forced to do when the game came out, where there is no blaming and poison, but also no joy and relieve after completion.
Btw you can do fractals in tier 1 where the difficulty is about below dungeons and noone cares about your build or gear, so Anet provides choice even there.
I personally like the way the game is heading, being open for a wider range of people who enjoy different things.
PS: I assure you, even in T4 fractals, people don't spread as much poison as in this forum, so as MJ said, maybe you should start with the man in the mirror if you want to make a change.
Very friend, very helpful, both in game and on the forums. I would wager one of the most welcoming communities I had ever been in.
Then, they put in Fractals, and that became a breeding ground for a more Toxic player base, and it only got worse from there, and finally climaxing to Raids being put in, to cater to the most elitist and toxic of the player base.
Might be why they are trying to reverse that kind of damage and go back to their Living Story/Community Driven content, but, truth be told, once that kind of damage is done, it's near impossible to reverse.
You have to wonder why devs listen to these raid people at all. Devs if they took the time to do some research they would see that this is the modern mmo's biggest problem. Just look what happened to the community in ESO now. That community is so split and toxic now.
I have to agree, and it's really gets bad when you look at it. Because, get this, when HoT launched, with their Raids, a bunch of casuals took to the forums and told them this was a bad idea.
Imagine that for a moment, people who take a casual approach to games, and often do not have a lot of play time, putting aside their limited play time, to post on your forums that this is a bad thing to do. Now as a game company, there are few things that are signs that you screwed up, that would be one of them.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I don't get all the whining in this forum, if you want to do content like world events, you still can, even with fractals being around. In open world I've never seen anyone being poisonous up to date and the community is the same it used to be. Noone is forcing you to go into the more "elitist" part of the game.
I personally didn't the like the game at all before fractals/raids. The content just wasn't challenging, and in a consequence boring to me. It seems to me that all Anet did was allowing players to chose to play a more challenging content if they like, and yes, since it is group based an challenging, you will be evaluated by other players. If you don't like that, do the open world like we were all forced to do when the game came out, where there is no blaming and poison, but also no joy and relieve after completion.
Btw you can do fractals in tier 1 where the difficulty is about below dungeons and noone cares about your build or gear, so Anet provides choice even there.
I personally like the way the game is heading, being open for a wider range of people who enjoy different things.
PS: I assure you, even in T4 fractals, people don't spread as much poison as in this forum, so as MJ said, maybe you should start with the man in the mirror if you want to make a change.
Hi, Welcome to the forums.
As for your quote by MJ. Well, I did make a change, to another game, and gladly spent my money there, leaving GW2 to their elitist they so desperately wanted. Apparently, I was not alone, nor was catering to elitis profitable, as they have since needed to lay off half their staff to stay solvent.
It was very sad to witness what happened to that once great game.
Glad you're happy tho.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
"Noone is forcing you to go into the more "elitist" part of the game" this is true, but its also true your forcing not to be able to go into this part of the game
"Noone is forcing you to go into the more "elitist" part of the game" this is true, but its also true your forcing not to be able to go into this part of the game
This is very spot on. Not only that, when games put in these "More Challenging" content, they also put in the highest tier of gear into it, which means, anyone who does not do this content, will have to content themselves with doing Second Class Content, with Second Class Gear, and be made to feel like Second Class Players.
Now for games that made it clear this was a Raid Game, like WoW, Wildstar, Etc, anyone walking in knew that if you were not in raids and doing the "hard stuff" then this was not going to be the game for you, and total respect for a company that wants to make that kind of game.
Yet, GW2, marketed themselves as the game for everyone else, for all the people jaded by the traditional MMO culture. To then go down that path of raids and trying to cater to their hardcore minority .. well...
Honestly, it was Just painful to watch them shoot themselves in the foot like that.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
It just sucks that all of this Dungeon/Fractal/Raid content is content I want to experience, but thanks to the Min/Max culture, I just find myself avoiding.
I have to agree with you 100%
This is what's also happening in ESO. All the group content is in control of the mid/max elitist who kick you from teams if you don't have the gear they want. I used to think PVPer's were bad but these guys and climbing to the top in every mmo.
GW2 was really great for reasons mentioned in the article. Now, about those specialization...I didn’t roll an Engineer to be melee! I don’t know WTF Anet was thinking. I think I’m the only Rifle Tureteer left. Haven’t played in 6months or so...
I feel like the problems came about when they introduced raids. They became very insular, and without having been there from the start, even creating your own LFG post is painful. Not to mention they can be easily hijacked, and the LFG tool as a whole needs to be overhauled.
I didn't feel as though the path of fire maps really had inclusive meta events. There was a big focus on bounties, but it seemed like small groups had a chokehold on them, and now that the maps are mostly dead, it's not really possible to solo all of them without being geared to the teeth in Ascended.
They keep adding more and more gold sinks while regulating how much gold you can get per hour without doing dungeons/fractals/raids, which require using the awful LFG system, to be quite low. Time gating grinds to the point that if you're able to catch up, you'll be so late to the game on instanced content nobody in LFG will let you in.
I feel like most of the raids could have been created as metas and made inclusive, rather than them trying to cater towards a hardcore crowd that GW2 doesn't really have.
Unless you're going into GW2 with a large group of friends already, most of the instanced content is going to be off limits.
For what I do, questing, exploration, and general gameplay without needing to min/max, I still manage to login everyday and have fun with the content. In that area I've found other players helpful most of the time in GW2 and ESO. So solo stories and open grouping are going well for this one.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
It just sucks that all of this Dungeon/Fractal/Raid content is content I want to experience, but thanks to the Min/Max culture, I just find myself avoiding.
I have to agree with you 100%
This is what's also happening in ESO. All the group content is in control of the mid/max elitist who kick you from teams if you don't have the gear they want. I used to think PVPer's were bad but these guys and climbing to the top in every mmo.
To be honest, the PvE Min/Maxers, especially the raid crowed, have shown me that they are far worse than any PvP player I have ever met to date. Which is odd, because I used to raid in other games, I don't remember them ever being this bad.
As such, this is not to say every single one of them is a horrible person, but overall, as a general whole, they tend to being nothing but a toxic poison to any games community they invade.
Maybe it more stark because of GW2's once really welcoming friendly community, but to give an example. I posted something on Reddit explaining that Raids in GW2 would a bad addition to the game as it would not synergize well with their existing model of mainly inclusive content, and the wanna-be-raiders swarmed in and down voted it into oblivion.
They would later go on to cry on the GW2 official forums that they wished they could do the same there.
So, when I posted same thing on the GW2 official forums, suddenly all my posts got reported, and I was getting an infraction point for a post I made over a year ago. yes these people are that petty and worthless to any community, and it was a post in the PvP topic, that the other PvP players didn't feel it was report worthy.. that should tell you all you need to know about the quality of people in each of the groups, right there.
They were so petty about this attacking anyone that said anything negative about their precious raids, that Gyle Gray had to change their infraction policy, and after I had a discussion with her about my very old post getting an infraction, she explained that they had no features in place to record who was reporting what posts, they basically had no way to validate if someone was abusing their report function or using it to harass other players. Nice Huh?
The introduction of Raids into that game, showed me just how really bad Anet was running their own show (which kinda explains their bad decisions really), and how toxic the raider community was, as such, I have come to accept that any game that caters to them.. well.. deserves what they get for that.
Maybe WoW classic will pull all these toxic raiders back, and they can return to that dark hole they crawled out of for another decade.
and GW2 can die under their own foolish mistakes.. and maybe.. just maybe.. other game developers can learn from all this.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
GW2 was really great for reasons mentioned in the article. Now, about those specialization...I didn’t roll an Engineer to be melee! I don’t know WTF Anet was thinking. I think I’m the only Rifle Tureteer left. Haven’t played in 6months or so...
Well i am an engineer, duel pistol tureteer so were close in arms
It just sucks that all of this Dungeon/Fractal/Raid content is content I want to experience, but thanks to the Min/Max culture, I just find myself avoiding.
I have to agree with you 100%
This is what's also happening in ESO. All the group content is in control of the mid/max elitist who kick you from teams if you don't have the gear they want. I used to think PVPer's were bad but these guys and climbing to the top in every mmo.
To be honest, the PvE Min/Maxers, especially the raid crowed, have shown me that they are far worse than any PvP player I have ever met to date. Which is odd, because I used to raid in other games, I don't remember them ever being this bad.
As such, this is not to say every single one of them is a horrible person, but overall, as a general whole, they tend to being nothing but a toxic poison to any games community they invade.
Maybe it more stark because of GW2's once really welcoming friendly community, but to give an example. I posted something on Reddit explaining that Raids in GW2 would a bad addition to the game as it would not synergize well with their existing model of mainly inclusive content, and the wanna-be-raiders swarmed in and down voted it into oblivion.
They would later go on to cry on the GW2 official forums that they wished they could do the same there.
So, when I posted same thing on the GW2 official forums, suddenly all my posts got reported, and I was getting an infraction point for a post I made over a year ago. yes these people are that petty and worthless to any community, and it was a post in the PvP topic, that the other PvP players didn't feel it was report worthy.. that should tell you all you need to know about the quality of people in each of the groups, right there.
They were so petty about this attacking anyone that said anything negative about their precious raids, that Gyle Gray had to change their infraction policy, and after I had a discussion with her about my very old post getting an infraction, she explained that they had no features in place to record who was reporting what posts, they basically had no way to validate if someone was abusing their report function or using it to harass other players. Nice Huh?
The introduction of Raids into that game, showed me just how really bad Anet was running their own show (which kinda explains their bad decisions really), and how toxic the raider community was, as such, I have come to accept that any game that caters to them.. well.. deserves what they get for that.
Maybe WoW classic will pull all these toxic raiders back, and they can return to that dark hole they crawled out of for another decade.
and GW2 can die under their own foolish mistakes.. and maybe.. just maybe.. other game developers can learn from all this."
Dam i love your post, but we better put this thread to an end, or were going to get labeled as whinny,carebears who thinks there entitled to be able to play a game they payed for
The fact that you think the DS and AB meta requires a specific composition of that specific classes are needed shows that you do not have a good enough understanding of the game to remotely make a post touching on the “meta” of the game.
In any game, video or sports, there will be a meta. Viability is inevitable. Playing something that is suboptimal, especially in PvP, raids where it involves the time or 9 other players is extremely selfish. Imagine going to a pick up basketball game and shooting with your head instead of your hands becuase that’s how you wanted to play the game.
Viability and an efficient way of doing things is inevitable. Any sort of game will have its own ways of being done more efficiently, faster or done at all. Games a designed for enjoyment, yes. But they are also designed by Developers to be played a certain way. If your skills don’t scale with condi damage yet you build a condi damage build, you’re playing the game wrong and shooting yourself in the foot.
Many players need to learn to stop this habit of victimising themselves when the topic of meta is brought up or when they receive objections to what they play. GW2 is far from a hardcore game. The pool of meta classes for each game mode is small, yes. But viability expands more than just the meta. Learn to work a way around it than complain that the community hates you because you play for fun.
The fact that you think the DS and AB meta requires a specific composition of that specific classes are needed shows that you do not have a good enough understanding of the game to remotely make a post touching on the “meta” of the game.
In any game, video or sports, there will be a meta. Viability is inevitable. Playing something that is suboptimal, especially in PvP, raids where it involves the time or 9 other players is extremely selfish. Imagine going to a pick up basketball game and shooting with your head instead of your hands becuase that’s how you wanted to play the game.
Viability and an efficient way of doing things is inevitable. Any sort of game will have its own ways of being done more efficiently, faster or done at all. Games a designed for enjoyment, yes. But they are also designed by Developers to be played a certain way. If your skills don’t scale with condi damage yet you build a condi damage build, you’re playing the game wrong and shooting yourself in the foot.
Many players need to learn to stop this habit of victimising themselves when the topic of meta is brought up or when they receive objections to what they play. GW2 is far from a hardcore game. The pool of meta classes for each game mode is small, yes. But viability expands more than just the meta. Learn to work a way around it than complain that the community hates you because you play for fun.
No surprise. I could be wrong, but it’s probably been that way since the beginning. I have similar stories of EQ and WoW, the only difference being they didn’t try to have some ideal community where everyone gets along. People are awful. No gameplay features can change that, imo. Know that going in and make do, as with any online game.
In EQ it was about having no clue what you're doing. The rotations weren't exactly rocket science, and there were no specializations. Also, wearing bad gear on your character when you can easily get better would get you shamed. Back when LDoN released, a mage, necro, or beastlord without a Pet Focus deserved shaming - because not having was just lazy as it took an afternoon to farm the instances and get it.
Not having Epic 1.5 was worth shaming, because they basically trivialized Epic 1.0 to help people get the 1.5 easier. Epic 2.0 was different, you needed Anguish Raids for that. Back when Epic 1.0 was a thing, people didn't expect it, since they were very difficult to get and only raiders got them quickly. They also weren't nearly as Powerful as the 1.5/2.0 Epics were.
Extra DoT Crit Chance was OP on Necros, and Temp Pets that healed you (IIRC) when you Lifeburned was also borderline broken (as it removed much of the risk of LBing) - I played Necro in EQ.
EQ's community didn't really go to crap until it went F2P. Same thing happened in EQ2. GW2 having an awful community is due to the B2P business model making it easier for awful people to camp the game. Subscription games have a natural resistance to this, as many awful people can't afford (or don't want) to pay the recurring cost.
ESO has a similar community.
Typically after subscription games go B2P/F2P, I quit soon after, for this very reason.
GW2 has always been like this. It's why the PvE in the game was always awful. People always expected Meta Builds and Speed Runs in dungeons, etc. Nothing has changed, over the years :-P
Im not a elitest (very far from it) but I can understand there frustration when they try and do a 10 man raid, and your not commited to being your best (min/max of stats) playing the proper role/skills. Essentially your wasting there time, I for one cherish my time and get annoyed by those who waste it (Thats you telemarkerters calling me at supper time!) When people get mad they tend to get harsh, aggresive, or downright retarded. But what may not seem important to you, could be the absolute goal of those your calling elitest, and you could be denying them that for your own selfish play...........then you are the one being toxic first by ruining there experience.
If your goal is to experience raids, find like minded people? Not hard. I played WoW for years and always played in subpar raid guilds because they were like me, its the experience of raiding, not the loot thats fun. If someone is Trying there best to clear content and doing what it takes, why can they not expect you too as well if there letting you into there raid?
Same with ESO, my daughter is ok at the game, and shes kicked from groups alot because of her build/gear. Does it hurt her feelings, yes, does it hurt mine seeing her sad about it, yes. But I also understand that its a GROUP of people spending there time. You know how I remedied this for her? I logged into ESO, scoured the web and found a guild for her, now she gets a shot at the dungeons (not the trials yet, but she had some people help her out with practicing) but she also understands theres a degree of dedication to do certain things in life. As someone stated if you tried playing basketball with your head you are not seeing much court time with strangers. Shes a preteen and understands this.
Games are for everyone, hardcore and casual, and game companies want both. Can you blame them with the industry state right now? Entertainment is life this generation.
Did you ever attend a highschool in a big city? Or go to a proffesional sporting event? A sold out concert? Theres a-holes everywhere, so a online game is no different. I have a feeling, that people think communties are toxic because they see toxic everywhere. The thing is, the non toxic ones, are busy playing with there non toxic friends to contribute to the WOW trade chat (every game has one.........Barrens chat *shudders*I firmly believe elitest are the minority, always will be. There easy to avoid and a community as whole shouldnt labled as toxic over a few strange apples. People just blow it out of proportion.
Baseball is a game, theres double A, triple A and such, not talking majors, talking little league which makes it not a career but a game. You think triple players want there coach letting a double A player be there starting pitcher? And wouldnt raise there voices about it? When they are trying to "win" it all? Why should raids be diffrent? Little league is a pasttime just like gaming...
Just my 2 cents, its about what its worth, but maybe make some of you think before you get to ham on elitism.
OGDeathRow i read your post , but sorry i dont know what the hell your talking about, its all over the place
Nope, its in 1 box just above yours, not sure what other place it would be in. But thank you for reading ( or trying to read it)
I get it, but what happend to people trying to help others, i am sure your daughter was quickly booted, when someone could of took 5 mins to get her up to speed. And i can see its part of the games fault, Why to games have builds that suc?
OGDeathRow i read your post , but sorry i dont know what the hell your talking about, its all over the place
Nope, its in 1 box just above yours, not sure what other place it would be in. But thank you for reading ( or trying to read it)
I get it, but what happend to people trying to help others, i am sure your daughter was quickly booted, when someone could of took 5 mins to get her up to speed. And i can see its part of the games fault, Why to games have builds that suc?
MMO worlds are alot like the real world sadly now, whats the fastest path to success and who cares who i step on to get there. When mmos were taking off it was nerds playing (no offence, i became one haha) And we all know, nerds stick together.
But since gaming is mainstream now, its been molded to resemble the real world, heartless and proving selfworth.... now i mean this as a generalization. All my post was trying to reference was instead of complaining about the elitism that exists in the game world, and flagging a paticualr game community as "toxic" or "elite" is to accept that this is how it will be from here on out until the nerds of the world take over (again, no offence, im a "nerd" too) in pretty much any mmo.
I like happy times, i like happy people, i like trying to understand the minds of others. I was just trying to shed light on that maybe, just maybe we should leave the elitest to themselves? They can be worked around? Instead of talking about the negative minority of the community in a game, why not boast about the positive ones.
This article was a fair review, its the posts I read thru out that make this thread seem off. Alot of hate. I like being a light in a dark room : )
Edit, balancing, thats why classes suck, when u mix 20-30 diffrent specs, hard to balance and keep abilities unique
People are too often confusing the game mechanics, and min/maxing.
It's almost like they forget that each class has 2 specializations, and a slew of skills.
Prior to specializations and heart of thorns you could play anything. You could be a turret engineer. You could be a conjurer elementalist. You could be a minion master necromancer.
You could be all of those things, and more, and be viable in every single aspect of the game.
Now people make the argument that if you aren't min/maxing.. if you aren't playing the right specialization, you don't deserve to do the content you want to play.
I play a condi engineer in SPVP. People verbally attack me time and again because my scrapper isn't using a hammer, he isn't holding points. It doesn't matter if I'm on the top of the damage boards, or that I have better survivability than other DPS classes, and it doesn't matter that I finished the last season in platinum... the community treats me terribly, and attacks me immediately if I don't play the way they want.
So on the one hand, yes, it's partially the developers, they've failed in their mission to make different specializations and skills viable for many different players.
On the other hand it's the community, who attacks anyone who isn't playing what they want them to play, regardless if the player in question is actually viable in different situations.
The developers created a bad situation, the players perpetuate it with a bad community experience for raids, high level fractals, and PvP.
I get it, but what happend to people trying to help others, i am sure your daughter was quickly booted, when someone could of took 5 mins to get her up to speed. And i can see its part of the games fault, Why to games have builds that suc?
MMO worlds are alot like the real world sadly now, whats the fastest path to success and who cares who i step on to get there. When mmos were taking off it was nerds playing (no offence, i became one haha) And we all know, nerds stick together.
But since gaming is mainstream now, its been molded to resemble the real world, heartless and proving selfworth.... now i mean this as a generalization. All my post was trying to reference was instead of complaining about the elitism that exists in the game world, and flagging a paticualr game community as "toxic" or "elite" is to accept that this is how it will be from here on out until the nerds of the world take over (again, no offence, im a "nerd" too) in pretty much any mmo.
I like happy times, i like happy people, i like trying to understand the minds of others. I was just trying to shed light on that maybe, just maybe we should leave the elitest to themselves? They can be worked around? Instead of talking about the negative minority of the community in a game, why not boast about the positive ones.
This article was a fair review, its the posts I read thru out that make this thread seem off. Alot of hate. I like being a light in a dark room : )
Edit, balancing, thats why classes suck, when u mix 20-30 diffrent specs, hard to balance and keep abilities unique
That would be a grand idea to leave the Elitist to their own devices, maybe lock them off in a small corner of the game, where they can farm for their elitist baubles, and be safely ignored and forgotten by the general masses.
To Anet's Credit, they actually did something like with their Dungeon system, that when they started out, which might explain why their community at one time was one of the best out there.
I will have to give Anet credit for this, their Dungeons were a stroke of brilliance, they had 2 separate modes (Story and Explorer), with the story mode being for casuals that want the lore, and the Explorer mode being for the elitist that wanted the loot to brag about. But the loot was all exotic, the same tier of gear that anyone and everyone else could get very easy. But, the Dungeon Armor and Weapons all had their own unique skins, so as players farmed the hardest dungeons in the game, they would have their little cosmetic skins to brag about.. and nothing more than that.
Truly a smart plan really, as all the gear was the same level, same tier, and it became a game of how "cool" someone looked. Even legendary weapons were just a skin, and nothing more than an exotic weapon with soldiers stats.
Well the elitist complained this was not good enough, so Anet put in Fractals and Ascended Gear to give these elitist their "One step above the filthy casuals" gear, and that led them down the path of finally putting in Raids and Legendary Armor.
In the end, they will cry and complain to the developers to ensure that they get the best stuff locked behind content only they feel they can do, making sure everyone else is looked upon and made to feel like second class players with their second class gear.
So.. no they can't be worked around, they need to be ignored by the developers, and told flat out to find some other game, otherwise, they will poison any game they go to.
Anet did try to placate them while still keeping things level and fair for their more casual community, which is why they had the amazing and welcoming community they had for as long as they did.
Tis a Pity they succumbed to the wants and cries of the elitist, and inevitably shot themselves in the foot in the process.
A real sad pity, it was a great a game with a great community..... was.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Comments
I personally didn't the like the game at all before fractals/raids. The content just wasn't challenging, and in a consequence boring to me. It seems to me that all Anet did was allowing players to chose to play a more challenging content if they like, and yes, since it is group based an challenging, you will be evaluated by other players. If you don't like that, do the open world like we were all forced to do when the game came out, where there is no blaming and poison, but also no joy and relieve after completion.
Btw you can do fractals in tier 1 where the difficulty is about below dungeons and noone cares about your build or gear, so Anet provides choice even there.
I personally like the way the game is heading, being open for a wider range of people who enjoy different things.
PS: I assure you, even in T4 fractals, people don't spread as much poison as in this forum, so as MJ said, maybe you should start with the man in the mirror if you want to make a change.
Imagine that for a moment, people who take a casual approach to games, and often do not have a lot of play time, putting aside their limited play time, to post on your forums that this is a bad thing to do. Now as a game company, there are few things that are signs that you screwed up, that would be one of them.
As for your quote by MJ. Well, I did make a change, to another game, and gladly spent my money there, leaving GW2 to their elitist they so desperately wanted. Apparently, I was not alone, nor was catering to elitis profitable, as they have since needed to lay off half their staff to stay solvent.
It was very sad to witness what happened to that once great game.
Glad you're happy tho.
Now for games that made it clear this was a Raid Game, like WoW, Wildstar, Etc, anyone walking in knew that if you were not in raids and doing the "hard stuff" then this was not going to be the game for you, and total respect for a company that wants to make that kind of game.
Yet, GW2, marketed themselves as the game for everyone else, for all the people jaded by the traditional MMO culture. To then go down that path of raids and trying to cater to their hardcore minority .. well...
Honestly, it was Just painful to watch them shoot themselves in the foot like that.
This is what's also happening in ESO. All the group content is in control of the mid/max elitist who kick you from teams if you don't have the gear they want. I used to think PVPer's were bad but these guys and climbing to the top in every mmo.
That's just, like, my opinion, man.
I didn't feel as though the path of fire maps really had inclusive meta events. There was a big focus on bounties, but it seemed like small groups had a chokehold on them, and now that the maps are mostly dead, it's not really possible to solo all of them without being geared to the teeth in Ascended.
They keep adding more and more gold sinks while regulating how much gold you can get per hour without doing dungeons/fractals/raids, which require using the awful LFG system, to be quite low. Time gating grinds to the point that if you're able to catch up, you'll be so late to the game on instanced content nobody in LFG will let you in.
I feel like most of the raids could have been created as metas and made inclusive, rather than them trying to cater towards a hardcore crowd that GW2 doesn't really have.
Unless you're going into GW2 with a large group of friends already, most of the instanced content is going to be off limits.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
As such, this is not to say every single one of them is a horrible person, but overall, as a general whole, they tend to being nothing but a toxic poison to any games community they invade.
Maybe it more stark because of GW2's once really welcoming friendly community, but to give an example. I posted something on Reddit explaining that Raids in GW2 would a bad addition to the game as it would not synergize well with their existing model of mainly inclusive content, and the wanna-be-raiders swarmed in and down voted it into oblivion.
They would later go on to cry on the GW2 official forums that they wished they could do the same there.
So, when I posted same thing on the GW2 official forums, suddenly all my posts got reported, and I was getting an infraction point for a post I made over a year ago. yes these people are that petty and worthless to any community, and it was a post in the PvP topic, that the other PvP players didn't feel it was report worthy.. that should tell you all you need to know about the quality of people in each of the groups, right there.
They were so petty about this attacking anyone that said anything negative about their precious raids, that Gyle Gray had to change their infraction policy, and after I had a discussion with her about my very old post getting an infraction, she explained that they had no features in place to record who was reporting what posts, they basically had no way to validate if someone was abusing their report function or using it to harass other players. Nice Huh?
The introduction of Raids into that game, showed me just how really bad Anet was running their own show (which kinda explains their bad decisions really), and how toxic the raider community was, as such, I have come to accept that any game that caters to them.. well.. deserves what they get for that.
Maybe WoW classic will pull all these toxic raiders back, and they can return to that dark hole they crawled out of for another decade.
and GW2 can die under their own foolish mistakes.. and maybe.. just maybe.. other game developers can learn from all this.
In any game, video or sports, there will be a meta. Viability is inevitable. Playing something that is suboptimal, especially in PvP, raids where it involves the time or 9 other players is extremely selfish. Imagine going to a pick up basketball game and shooting with your head instead of your hands becuase that’s how you wanted to play the game.
Viability and an efficient way of doing things is inevitable. Any sort of game will have its own ways of being done more efficiently, faster or done at all. Games a designed for enjoyment, yes. But they are also designed by Developers to be played a certain way. If your skills don’t scale with condi damage yet you build a condi damage build, you’re playing the game wrong and shooting yourself in the foot.
Many players need to learn to stop this habit of victimising themselves when the topic of meta is brought up or when they receive objections to what they play. GW2 is far from a hardcore game. The pool of meta classes for each game mode is small, yes. But viability expands more than just the meta. Learn to work a way around it than complain that the community hates you because you play for fun.
In EQ it was about having no clue what you're doing. The rotations weren't exactly rocket science, and there were no specializations. Also, wearing bad gear on your character when you can easily get better would get you shamed. Back when LDoN released, a mage, necro, or beastlord without a Pet Focus deserved shaming - because not having was just lazy as it took an afternoon to farm the instances and get it.
Not having Epic 1.5 was worth shaming, because they basically trivialized Epic 1.0 to help people get the 1.5 easier. Epic 2.0 was different, you needed Anguish Raids for that. Back when Epic 1.0 was a thing, people didn't expect it, since they were very difficult to get and only raiders got them quickly. They also weren't nearly as Powerful as the 1.5/2.0 Epics were.
Extra DoT Crit Chance was OP on Necros, and Temp Pets that healed you (IIRC) when you Lifeburned was also borderline broken (as it removed much of the risk of LBing) - I played Necro in EQ.
EQ's community didn't really go to crap until it went F2P. Same thing happened in EQ2. GW2 having an awful community is due to the B2P business model making it easier for awful people to camp the game. Subscription games have a natural resistance to this, as many awful people can't afford (or don't want) to pay the recurring cost.
ESO has a similar community.
Typically after subscription games go B2P/F2P, I quit soon after, for this very reason.
GW2 has always been like this. It's why the PvE in the game was always awful. People always expected Meta Builds and Speed Runs in dungeons, etc. Nothing has changed, over the years :-P
If your goal is to experience raids, find like minded people? Not hard. I played WoW for years and always played in subpar raid guilds because they were like me, its the experience of raiding, not the loot thats fun. If someone is Trying there best to clear content and doing what it takes, why can they not expect you too as well if there letting you into there raid?
Same with ESO, my daughter is ok at the game, and shes kicked from groups alot because of her build/gear. Does it hurt her feelings, yes, does it hurt mine seeing her sad about it, yes. But I also understand that its a GROUP of people spending there time. You know how I remedied this for her? I logged into ESO, scoured the web and found a guild for her, now she gets a shot at the dungeons (not the trials yet, but she had some people help her out with practicing) but she also understands theres a degree of dedication to do certain things in life. As someone stated if you tried playing basketball with your head you are not seeing much court time with strangers. Shes a preteen and understands this.
Games are for everyone, hardcore and casual, and game companies want both. Can you blame them with the industry state right now? Entertainment is life this generation.
Did you ever attend a highschool in a big city? Or go to a proffesional sporting event? A sold out concert? Theres a-holes everywhere, so a online game is no different. I have a feeling, that people think communties are toxic because they see toxic everywhere. The thing is, the non toxic ones, are busy playing with there non toxic friends to contribute to the WOW trade chat (every game has one.........Barrens chat *shudders*I firmly believe elitest are the minority, always will be. There easy to avoid and a community as whole shouldnt labled as toxic over a few strange apples. People just blow it out of proportion.
Baseball is a game, theres double A, triple A and such, not talking majors, talking little league which makes it not a career but a game. You think triple players want there coach letting a double A player be there starting pitcher? And wouldnt raise there voices about it? When they are trying to "win" it all? Why should raids be diffrent? Little league is a pasttime just like gaming...
Just my 2 cents, its about what its worth, but maybe make some of you think before you get to ham on elitism.
OGDeathRow i read your post , but sorry i dont know what the hell your talking about, its all over the place
I get it, but what happend to people trying to help others, i am sure your daughter was quickly booted, when someone could of took 5 mins to get her up to speed. And i can see its part of the games fault, Why to games have builds that suc?
But since gaming is mainstream now, its been molded to resemble the real world, heartless and proving selfworth.... now i mean this as a generalization. All my post was trying to reference was instead of complaining about the elitism that exists in the game world, and flagging a paticualr game community as "toxic" or "elite" is to accept that this is how it will be from here on out until the nerds of the world take over (again, no offence, im a "nerd" too) in pretty much any mmo.
I like happy times, i like happy people, i like trying to understand the minds of others. I was just trying to shed light on that maybe, just maybe we should leave the elitest to themselves? They can be worked around? Instead of talking about the negative minority of the community in a game, why not boast about the positive ones.
This article was a fair review, its the posts I read thru out that make this thread seem off. Alot of hate. I like being a light in a dark room : )
Edit, balancing, thats why classes suck, when u mix 20-30 diffrent specs, hard to balance and keep abilities unique
PS: by the way i am in no way comparing the Toxicity of GW2 to ESO, Eso is by far much worst.
It's almost like they forget that each class has 2 specializations, and a slew of skills.
Prior to specializations and heart of thorns you could play anything. You could be a turret engineer. You could be a conjurer elementalist. You could be a minion master necromancer.
You could be all of those things, and more, and be viable in every single aspect of the game.
Now people make the argument that if you aren't min/maxing.. if you aren't playing the right specialization, you don't deserve to do the content you want to play.
I play a condi engineer in SPVP. People verbally attack me time and again because my scrapper isn't using a hammer, he isn't holding points. It doesn't matter if I'm on the top of the damage boards, or that I have better survivability than other DPS classes, and it doesn't matter that I finished the last season in platinum... the community treats me terribly, and attacks me immediately if I don't play the way they want.
So on the one hand, yes, it's partially the developers, they've failed in their mission to make different specializations and skills viable for many different players.
On the other hand it's the community, who attacks anyone who isn't playing what they want them to play, regardless if the player in question is actually viable in different situations.
The developers created a bad situation, the players perpetuate it with a bad community experience for raids, high level fractals, and PvP.
To Anet's Credit, they actually did something like with their Dungeon system, that when they started out, which might explain why their community at one time was one of the best out there.
I will have to give Anet credit for this, their Dungeons were a stroke of brilliance, they had 2 separate modes (Story and Explorer), with the story mode being for casuals that want the lore, and the Explorer mode being for the elitist that wanted the loot to brag about. But the loot was all exotic, the same tier of gear that anyone and everyone else could get very easy. But, the Dungeon Armor and Weapons all had their own unique skins, so as players farmed the hardest dungeons in the game, they would have their little cosmetic skins to brag about.. and nothing more than that.
Truly a smart plan really, as all the gear was the same level, same tier, and it became a game of how "cool" someone looked. Even legendary weapons were just a skin, and nothing more than an exotic weapon with soldiers stats.
Well the elitist complained this was not good enough, so Anet put in Fractals and Ascended Gear to give these elitist their "One step above the filthy casuals" gear, and that led them down the path of finally putting in Raids and Legendary Armor.
In the end, they will cry and complain to the developers to ensure that they get the best stuff locked behind content only they feel they can do, making sure everyone else is looked upon and made to feel like second class players with their second class gear.
So.. no they can't be worked around, they need to be ignored by the developers, and told flat out to find some other game, otherwise, they will poison any game they go to.
Anet did try to placate them while still keeping things level and fair for their more casual community, which is why they had the amazing and welcoming community they had for as long as they did.
Tis a Pity they succumbed to the wants and cries of the elitist, and inevitably shot themselves in the foot in the process.
A real sad pity, it was a great a game with a great community..... was.