Social No More

Can't say I really play anymore but I just wanted to get this off my chest. When I first started playing Guild Wars I wasn't very social but being forced to team up for harder quests/mission I made friends and learned to love that part of Guild Wars. Any mission I went to I could find a team to help and do it with.

Recently this has not seemed to be a part of Guild Wars at all. Not even the 8 skill setup that allowed limitless combination to suit your needs/mood is implemented anymore in a way. I personally after years have grown bored of playing with heroes and henchman and would like to play with a solid team again. But it's not what it was before, people don't go through the effort of setting up builds and making plans all they seem to do now is throw on Ursan and big heals and go in. Since when is a preset bar the point of Guild Wars or even fun to begin with? I personally don't care to get Norn rank 10 across all my characters to run a build I don't find fun. For that reason I was unable to get any elite areas done my last few weeks playing. Heroes are no better, everyone just tells me to resort to them instead if I don't feel like running Ursan or something and that completely defeats the point of wanting to play with real people. Personally don't mind it as a skill but what it's made the society into...the way you HAVE to have it...just drove me away.

I can't tell whether heroes, forms, and OPed skills were made to compensate for not being able to get a team and a dieing game, or if it's what destroyed them. People just prefer to hero/hench or Ursan something and never deal with others for the most part. Even in PvP there are fewer active GvG guilds by the day it seems and to be honest most are mostly smurfs and main guilds, I know this was always the case but now more than ever. Either it's an amazing guild or a guild trying to learn. Just one good win to get on ladder last I checked.

Basically it just seems so much harder to get a team and play with other people now and most people that go out their way to say something just go to show the downgrading social standards of the game. I assume everyone's noticed this but I have to wonder..is there no hope?

Basically people just don't seem as willing to team up or even put up with each other.

find a guild that doesnt use ursan...though after thursday it might get nerfed....so wait until after then.....

otherwise tons of people have ranted about ursan.....sorry.

yes people have grown stupid because of ursan
i've seen seriously bad skills lately and you can be even surprised when they even have an elite
just a quick example of how bad builds can be
note that the person that owned this hero was an ursan

people have to think to set up builds, now it's just ursan and some resses

Henches were equivalent to bad players, so most people didn't use them except for easy quests.

Heroes were introduced, and since you could give them whatever skills you had unlocked AND control them, many times people would just use these. Nightfall was very unsocial.

Ursan just utterly destroyed pve, because, like you said, people don't think about making builds anymore.

Current PVE = Ursanway, Heroway, Getting Run places, or Solo Farming.

Not so much worried about Ursan than the lack of people willing to team up for missions and the fact that people wont take me on harder tasks without it which I find absurd! Either way, I helped an Ele earlier that had E/R with 2 preparations, no bow, and flare to do damage and still made it through missions. I find helping others outweighs just running a gimmick. Nothing will get better if nothing is done..

I miss going to towns and just joining a team of real people to do a mission, even if I didn't need it. Now at best I get another person with heroes..

yes some people still help
i found a ranger in augury rock today and he needed to find Heroes audience outpost
i was mapping the desert and i've been in the outpost he needed
i gladly helped him to reach the outpost

Thats the worst you've seen....?

the most recent example
i hope you noticed the 11 in death magic and no death magic skills

Lack of sociability is a disadvantage of a purely instanced world.

ArenaNet should have implemented a global LFG channel, at the least.

I'd agree, but even in towns people make H/H groups for the same mission/quests it's just...I don't know what to call it. Is it really that fun to play alone learning nothing instead of teaming up, or has a team become a joke since heroes exist now?

I agree...there has been a lot less socializing in GW these days. It's almost impossible to get dungeon teams together (at least at the hours I play)

I agree with Zinger that there should be a global LFG channel. That way if enough people are interested in doing a certain area they can join wherever it is without having to go to an outpost and waiting there for two hours just hoping someone will show up.

QFT

Build a raft, and wait until Thursday. Massive QQ will be massive (hopefully).

I hope that wasn't directed towards me, already stated I have no problem with the skill but more so how people are with it. As in not taking you into their team unless you have it maxed when there are many different things you can run to get the job done and even better at times.

Mostly brought that up because it further gives people a reason to not team up and when they do to put less into it. Sorry if that went over your head.

Because in the Era previous to Ursan, no one ever used the wiki. Ever.

that was actually the first thing i noticed and then i lol'd.

@OP your best bet is to go to the "PvE Looking for Guild" forum here and apply to a couple of them. that's really the only way to ensure you can get a team together with semi-competent players.

damn i lived on buildwiki, i still do. i like to go see whos tryin what and if it is effective. but to the point ofthe Original Post, i miss the days of old. i think anyone who broke there teeth on mmo's with guild wars miss's those days. ive said many times back when sorrows first was introduced it was fun. i mean laughing talking oh crap we cant kill the monk boss stalemate fun. we talked about the drops we got, we were happy when someone got ragos gear or razorstones loot. we always were hopin for superior vig 50k at the time abs 60k from the chests. BUT nothing has been released on that scale in some time. ill sum it up like this, once EVRYTHING has been done by nearly everyone something happens. people refocus there efforts on speed and quantity over quality. ursan, 55monkies, Perma sins are born.

im not sayin all solo builds are born out ofthis situation, but once youve done it all people seperate and begin the mad dash for the loot. as they say the guy with the most toys at the end wins! period!



Cronk

I personally hate teaming up with actual people because its so draining to find decent players. H/H is just easier and it always works how you want/need it to. I don't play anymore but I really only played with about 2 or 3 different people in PvE; that was only so we could both get the 2man 6hero setups going!

I'd have to say that claiming Ursan destroyed PvE is kinda silly. What it DID do is make elite areas much easier to do and require less skill. People who just throw on ursan and a crappy monk are still gonna fail in 60% of guildwars. As for destroying the social aspect of the game... there are tons of ursan parties doing elite areas... so in that way the game is still very social, you just need ursan or HB to realistically play in these parties. In other words, dumbing down the skill required may have actually increased social playing in elite areas... perhaps this is a lesson learned from WoW?

I used to find it fun to group with real people too...though sometimes frustrating.

But when my time became more precious, I realized I could beat missions more consistently using heroes. Outside of 'elite' areas, most pugs involve little planning; thus, they suck (won't listen to good advice, no matter how kindly stated)

Advice to OP: Find a group of like-minded players who will do things like vanqing Majesty's rest w/ 6 people and Proph only skills...make your own challenges and have fun. Who cares what others do?

and lol @ the build^^

while I enjoy playing ursan now and again, I also use all of my other skills and builds. I have tended to stick with mostly guildies or hench since factions came out...and then went to mostly heros and hench when nightfall came out. Not sure how many of you farmed sorrows furnace, but I spent many a day with utterly insane people, trying to get thru 1 run. this was way back in the day of mm, ss, bonder, healer, stance tank, and you'd get mm's that had NO clue what mm meant...or had only 5 or 6 in death...healers...LOL with NO heals...bonders all heal...and stance tanks with attacks...and...my personal fav...ss as full on mezzie...so...lol after all of that...heros and hench are a nice change...AT TIMES...I still love an actual group of live players...and love the interaction...but I get tired of the name calling...childish behavior...which is why...normally...in town...my local chat is off. No matter where you go...what time you arrive...there's someone there arguing about something...just my thoughts