The majority of the community sucks (or does it?)

Disclaimer 1: leave out flaming out this thread, only post if you've read all the posts in the thread and write carefully yours. Please.

Disclaimer 2: I'm not flaming anyone, not attacking anyone, I'm simply asking questions with the genuine intention to contribute to what I believe is an important topic. (I personally know people who're great at teaching how the game works)

The title summarises an idea very wide-spread that you can often read on Guru. This thread's purpose is to question and challenge this idea:

1) Are GW players really that bad?

2) Could it be that they haven't been taught how to play the game correctly? Maybe they missed resources like GW wiki, PvX and Guru (without even going into the "cookie cutter build" mentality)? Or they didn't have the time, given that it's a game and they don't want to invest much time in it?

3) Isn't it rather so-called "good players" that are bad at teaching how the game works? (not helped by lack of in-game good tutorials on many aspects of the game)

This thread may even lead us to the old-and-classic discussion on "skill" and "noobs" (as opposed to "newbies"). I guess. But I wonder if people can be critic of themselves and their approach and go beyond such prejudiced views... unless it's completely true of course!

GW players I knew weren't bad at all.

Of course they all left long before I did. Apparently good players are also smart (smarter than me, as it took me longer).

Yes, people are bad at the game. Nobody managed to beat doa until pvpers went in and showed 'em how to do it, then everyone copied that one build and refused to use anything else.

It's partly that they never learned how to play - there is a huge learning curve in PvE content. It goes from stupidly easy grindy PvE (nightfall campaign, for example - none of the monsters are particularly hard, but you do the same kind of quests over and over and never really learn anything from it).

Then all of a sudden, once you beat abaddon, you're thrown into DoA or Hard Mode, both of which are *leagues* harder than the normal PvE campaign, with no explanation of it whatsoever. People try to bring their mending whammos into hard mode and DoA and get obliterated - then instead of getting better and learning to change their build, they whine to ANet about the area being too hard.

(In terms of DoA, they're sort of right - the design is a huge joke and I can't believe ANet actually put it in the game).

And the PvE-to-PvP tutorials are notoriously lacking. You learn a bit about Heroes' Ascent from the crystal desert in Tyria, but that's about it - nothing tells you to go to the battle isles and start Random Arenas. You're just supposed to read ANet's mind and find it yourself.

So yeah, the majority of the community does suck. This is really evidenced by ANet putting in huge crutches for them - ridiculously overpowered PvE skills, ridiculously broken consumables, and paragons. The community whined and whined about the elite areas being too hard, so ANet made the areas easier by giving players Godmode instead of teaching them how to play the game.

Reason #18397512435 why Guild Wars sucks now.

1) Short answer: yes.

2) What are the criteria of correct gameplay?

3) Probably, but at no fault of their own. Experience is the key in all aspects of the game, even the fundamentals.

You forgot to mention that most places are deserted now. I personally learned a lot from more seasoned players. This works well provided there ARE seasoned players around. As for the rest, epic truth /closethread :P

Agreed with Auron.

And the jump from PvE to PvP...it used to be easier. If you don't run the right builds now or play with the right people, you aren't getting into high(er) end. Vets should teach new-comers, but that doesn't happen, and I can't blame people who know what they're doing for not taking the time to show PvEr's how to PvP.

The gap has widened so much that the veteran players basically have to teach newbs how to play the game all over again. That takes patience beyond almost anything else in the game.

Yup, an when yu jump in right now you're at too much of a disadvantage to catch up with the people that have been playing since proph release.

Exactly. Which leads to the, "Screw this, I'm going back AB!" response.

It's understandable though.

The answers are No to all 3.

You forgot one question thou, Are people lazy to play the game and the answer is yes :P a lot of the thing in the game can be done if you are "not lazy" to do it. and does not need any special skills to complete actually. this is supported by my own experience of playing in sorrow furnace, i use to get wipe out, sometime even in simple situation but now i can sweep thru sorrow furnace wtih my h/h lol easy, cos i've done it thousands of time. so, yeah! its laziness. not suckiness.

I have to agree with what this user said, mostly. I'll add one thing though: lazyness. It's not that they can't learn, but when their 1-2-3 retarded build fails, I honestly believe that most of these bad players don't bother thinking, and trying things on their own. Either quit the game, whine and do nothing about it, or either turn to PvX and blindly copy what they see, or those buffed 1-2-3 retarded builds, aka 'the' pve builds. But, to get into topic:

1) Probably more than half, yes. But not all stay that way, and those that don't I wouldn't even consider bad players. Just unexperienced.

2) Since time to play the game is something so relative, I'll go with the first part: if they haven't been taught, they should learn it themselves. I finished Prophecies long ago with a crappy armor and build, with no Elite and henchmen. My own brain cells got me through it, and I had no idea PvX or guru existed back then.

3) Again, they shouldn't rely on others to pull them through the game, asking for help and helping others isn't in any way wrong, be it with their builds, equipment, and general tips, it's all great. But through my own experience, most of them will either ignore what you're saying, or, out of pride or whatever, tell you to shove it if you ask them to completely scrap their build. That just makes me ignore most of them...

Sort of a rant here, but hey.

The exact opposite is also understandable. People QQ that the community sucks, yet, as you said, vets (may) spend less time "teaching" (well, maybe not, pointing in the right direction?) new players. It's a positive contribution to the community that ensures that there's a flow of fresh new "good" players (if we agree on a notion of "good" that is basic, i.e. basic elements of the game mechanics, not complete understanding of the fine details). Teaching players challenges you to pass on the knowledge and then create new opponents (or allies). PvP is dying because of, indeed, the extremely long history of metas and knowledge that player accumulated, and overall little has been taught (I know guilds like KiSu are making great efforts towards that, yet they've reached their physical limits if I understand correctly).

I can understand people being fed up of noobs/kids who not only make no effort to learn (some are already doing it at school, but I digress!) but also become aggressive and stupid when (politely) told that something is completely wrong with what they're doing. Let's leave this case aside because it's not interesting, these guys have to grow up or change their behaviour.

I'm more talking about all those players that will accept criticism and will listen to vets/experienced players. Are the vets/experienced players doing a good job of passing on the knowledge? Is Wiki/PvX officially responsible of that teaching job? If you answer yes, I'll have to disagree because these tools are quite bad tools (as the "cookie cutter build" mentality can show). Teaching is a process, not a product. Plus, in PvP the history of what happened and why is important in understanding the meta, and that can't be taught from Observer mode or reading Gladiator's Arena.

I hope this thread can go beyond the viewpoints expressed so far, which are all relevant I guess (inspired from in-game experiences?). I'm not blaming anyone, nor am I asking for whose fault it is. I'm also not saying it is our sole responsibility, I suggested in the OP that Anet have also a huge part of this responsibility. Nevertheless, I'm almost arguing that they're not the only one.

Completely true! (as I just said above, I'm leaving noobs out of the equation, or lese this thread will end up in a big QQ about noobss, we can't help them if they can't help themselves) Yet it's vets/experienced players that QQ here about suckyness.

(aside note: I teach mathematics to non-scientists, and they suck at maths; yet part of the responsibility is with their teachers; the other part if with them of course; now back on-topic)

I don't think GW is worse than any other game it just attracts a more casual crowd who aren't as serious about winning.

If you play any of the steam games or popular RTS games like Warcraft or the Age of Empires series you will notice just as many awful players but its not so bad when your playing against them, you notice them a hell of a lot more when you have to play alongside them.

I played Age of Empires 2 for a long time in public games and never really improved beyond the opposition but after a while i started playing ladder matches against intelligent players and worked my way up, it wasnt until played a couple of public games after that i realised how retarded the majority of the player base was.
The same applies to all FPS games, you don't appreciate how bad people actually are until you've got into private matches.

the game is more complex and expansive since propocies remmber...
4 new proffesions
probably double the skills for each core character type
new conditions, hexes
much more diverse locations
we also didnt have the ability to see others skills, the noobs have always been around, heck i was deffinatily one, probably still am xD
i also used to think i wasnt good enough todo the "elite" area's of the game, but im now doing them

pvp probably does teach you alot, if you want to win. competitive environments do that.

1) I think expectations have risen, because people have more experience. If you've been doing something for three years, you're supposed to learn something from it. If you're new, you're expected to try to learn. (I wouldn't call a newbie who isn't quite up to par yet bad per se. I would call a newbie who refused to learn bad.)

2) If you refuse to learn, of course you're going to be a bad player. If you don't think you need to improve, you're going to stagnate. Beating the game does not a good player make. Especially not today, considering you can beat it in NM. Wiki is great if you're trying to find out something specific - but it should not be a crutch. If you don't get it the first time, stfu and try again.

There was a thread here about how much help you can afford to give before it becomes a crutch. The people who persistently beg better players for cash, runs, equip etc? Are almost guaranteed to be the bad players, because they're not learning. Joining the game late is not an excuse.

3) Well, I met some lovely people who gave me tips and advice... but nobody can really 'teach' you the way the game works. You can help out, and point out flaws in builds and why - but it's still experience that counts.

I agree. But the players that are willing to accept criticism are also the quieter players who move on when yelled at to do something and just do it. They may come to forums like this, but they don't post as much more than likely. This is the vast majority of mediocre to good PvPers. They play because they like to play, not because they have to win.

That's the mindset that's really the problem in PvP - people want to win, they don't want to learn. Learning takes more effort. Goes back to the laziness that was mentioned earlier. But it's not just that. If you're constantly being dominated in PvP, even with different builds and different characters, can you expect people to keep coming back?

QFT

it's always hard to catch up when a game has been out for so long


there are still a few groups of experienced players willing to teach others and newcomers willing to be good at the game


but there is a huge number of dumb players : most people don't act rationally in real life (happens to anyone to make dumb things, the only difference is actually how often it happens ), would you expect them to be different in GW ? ( and I think it's even worse on GW for various reasons)


in pve, you don't need that much practice to understand the basics : how the monsters AI works (danger circle, how they chose their targets, what makes them scatter...), what skills you have to use to be successful, which build makes your profession most useful for a group in a defined area

more advanced things can be found by yourself or shared across the community : farming builds, farming places, AI tricks (left wall...), good heroes builds (sabway, discordway...)

even a casual player can access all this knowledge easily (forums, wiki, guild, friends...), even if he doesn't need it

remember a few years ago when thunderhead keep was said to be so difficult ?
pugs failed horribly there, after a few tries, I decided to take a full henchmen team (no heroes at that time) and give it a try
guess what ? henchmen all agreed that camping the king was the best option, no leeroy to rush to the gates and die alone, I even figured out by myself that this mission was actually easier with the bonus
even now, you can find people that firmly believe that splitting to guard both gates is the best option there... and I'm not talking about newcomers


pvp is globally the same, it's all about knowing what you have to do and doing it well, except it requires more brains as you're facing real opponents, so you have to anticipate and adapt strategies

i pretty much think its a bit of people lacking experience and people are given things to easy in one area, and then left to get shafted in another.

i didnt start playing GW until after the release of factions. i only knew one person who played it which was my brother, who barely played it anyways. so i basically just went through the game with h/h, and a few pugs. and this was back when you couldnt ping your build.

i didnt know pvx or wiki existed, i just bought skills and made a build. and while this probably made me seem 'nooby' at first, it made my learning curve a lot easier. because i was forced into understanding game mechanics, and build manipulation quicker. i was forced to test and try builds in order to get myself through missions and quests.

where now, if you have any problems, pvx - wiki, (which is even in the game to make life easier) grab a build, and just use it. do you need to understand how it works? of course not. rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, paper beats rock. thats basically all pvx is. and thats all you need to understand.

there is no need to understand how the game works. which is a shame. you do have really good players, who can take a skill set of their own after looking at the foes in the area and just roll through it. understanding how a build works.

where most of the pve community just loads up an overpowered build and goes. that is why there is so much QQing when anet nerfs a skill. because it completely throws a pver who doesnt know any better.

so yes... the pve community does suck to a certain extent. and thats why the argument always comes in that only the people who played the game from the very beginning can be any good at it, because they were forced to learn things properly.

I really don't think it matters if people suck at the game or not. The premise of a game is to have fun, if people play the game and have fun doing so what does it matter if they aren't "PRO" doing so.

It's exactly as Katsumi says. They don't want to learn nor do they listen. They assume their builds are efficient and jeer at players running "cookie cutter" builds, citing lack of creativity. However, builds are cookie cutter for a reason; they are the most efficient for the task at hand. With this reasoning, it's no wonder that the game is heavily dominated by PvE'rs. Take a look at a couple of the threads in the Warrior subforum.

Clear example: http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...0345924&page=3

I believe there are several stages of learning involved. Some people learn faster than others.

What time you joined the series is important too. Veterans who were around since release gradually learned the aspects of the game and new ones when new classes and features were introduced. Versus someone who jumped in late, has a lot of things to learn at once.

Motivation to play can be different too. Some may look for competition and know all spells and game mechanics while others may just be around to have some casual fun.

Experience and exercise are also elements to consider. The Time a player has invested and so on. The other players/playstyles he encounters. Wiki, guru etc.

The willingness to learn and get better at the game. Which sometimes means unlearn what you have learned.

I trained and coached 3 players since release. I used a personal one on one approach (several hours a week) to explain all the game mechanics and builds and stuff. It took around a year per person before he/she could somewhat play the game on a decent level and without any further help. I saw three different personalities. Each has his/her strong and weak points.

It's not the responsibility of good players to teach other players. The only party that has responsibility is Arenanet for not designing a better method of transitioning players into PvP. There is no moral or ethical reason why players should have to go out of their way to help others, though it may be good to do so.

On the other hand, there have always been ways for a willing player to get into PvP. It's just that many don't try and make "i could be good at pvp if ranked groups let me in" or "omg pvp players are so mean" threads instead.

Extremely good point that'll allow me to make a useful parallel: the amount of knowledge and experience of vets/experienced PvPers is quite astonishing (some do know the whole game in almost all its details, as said in post #2. although I don't like the PvE bashing) and it seems impossible to a newbie to assimilate this.

It's like Mathematics with its 2000years+ of accumulated knowledge, people don't know what it is anymore and it's badly taught at school. Of course GW is a game, but at the "high end" it doesn't look like one. It's ruthless, without much empathy and sympathy for failure (although it's civil, if not polite). I'm very sad when I talk to the very nice PvP vets (we have a few here, hi Divine, Ensign, Billiard, darkNecrid, and I'm sorry for not quoting all of you guys!) and see their knowledge slowly disappearing.

I understand perfectly well that they, like we, have a life and can't just take this responsibility of "teaching" (please note the double quote), especially if it's not fun to them. I still think it's a very healthy habit to have, this makes sure the PvP community (we could say the same about elite PvE, but there are a lot of elite PvE guild and I guess they're "teaching" a lot, even if it starts with mimicing?) diverse, with new ideas and players coming regularly. Of course in this case, imbalance has removed the will of many PvPers to continue, but (again, sorry!) let's leave this argument aside.

I take my job of teaching as something very seriously (by creating this thread, I believe I'm trying to teach a bit of sociology, not that I know a lot!), because it makes sure people have the right tools to have a life in modern society. Again, GW is a game and doesn't have to have that kind of mentality, yet I see it as a possible revival and a way forward, rather than lobbying here for Anet to make more of this, that or these.

I came in after Factions was released as well, and like you, didn't know pvx or wiki or guru existed. I had friends who gave me advice and turned up if I was short a player, and that was it. I don't believe you have to have 'played from the very beginning' - just that it takes more dedication and effort now to get better. There are more skills, more classes, more crutches. To get better, you have to be willing to kick aside the crutch.
That includes overpowered builds.

And I forgot to add one point: bad players, in the strangest ways, are by far the best teachers. You learn what not to do, and you have to compensate for them. Which stretches your limits. A good player makes up for a mediocre/average player, which cuts the less good players some slack. A bad player makes you work for your objective.

Yes and no. Expectations have risen, player skill scaling just goes all over the place and people have been given more crutches.

PvE skills, consumables and skills that don't even need to be retricted from those fields go beyond the faded line - it's a mistake past its "fix" date, because people like them too much now. These crutches are so favourable that people will quit if they disappear. All of this allows carelessness and the ability for people who are even the worst of players to complete certain areas, nobody learns from it, but you're still gaining some bonus that's cheaper than it should be from all three of the above.

Expectations rising and the scaling of player skill and areas of the game go hand in hand, lesser skilled players will resort to crutches after failing a few times because they're inexperienced or use them straight off, and experienced players would do it anyway because of the speed - inexperienced players will care, but experienced will shrug it off, as demonstrated within several skill balance threads and in-game chat. It's probbly got something to do with the fast easy-hard switch too. Expectations rising mostly comes from those who are experienced, but with all of the above you'd see people just shake their head and give up, but I guess I don't blame them, considering I'm one of them unless I see someone who isn't in the 13-year-old mentality of screaming "pwnd" at everything.

Personally, I didn't touch Wiki, PvX (I mainly got my shit from other players) and Guru. I got sugar coated advice that wasn't very par, and that's it. I never even had D-Shot on my Rangers' bar until about 2 years into my gametime. Guess it's partly because of the teaching, because I never really leared any "higher" shit until 2 years 6 months into my gametime.

Possibly that, possibly attitude of people they want to teach.

pvx didn't, at that point

It makes you with that GW wiki and PvX didn't exist. Maybe that's part of the solution...

I disagree, you can still learn properly, unless you mean "alone"? I don't believe it's manageable unless you have tons of time on your hands, and there are a lot of "tricks" very difficult to find by yourself.

I never said there was an ethical reason, also I'm trying to show that there's actually one: healthy community, with constant flow of new players. "Teaching" (again, with double quotes) is part of the feedback loop that ensures liveliness in real-life, and virtual worlds are not so different with that regard. It's one thing to say "PvP is dying" (or PvE for that matter), but another to find ways to change this other than "Anet: do your job" or "people: become good at it".

Or maybe I'm wrong in thinking that and people should simply left alone and my thread close?

With PVXWIKi the mentally is, if i go to pvxwiki, download some #5 rated build, il pwn. You can give them a build, but you cant teach them to understand it, how eachh skill compliments another. So then they get through easy PVE, rejected from elite PVE, thus turn to pvp, where they get annhilated, and then immencly insulted with statements like "Go back to pve noob!" So the pvp newbie gets up, dusts himself off, and then turns back to pvx, enter the palm strike assassin build, all of a sudden every game seems to be fludded with people with the exact same build, and they kill one foe and all of a sudden they believe theyre leet, and now theyre the people saying "Go back to pve noob!" they can read the skills, they can see what they do, but they dont understand the skills, and thus they cannot advance and make their own build, so now people are comming up with counters to PVX builds quite easily, palm strike being barely effective now, specially if they take the exact builld of pvx with no healing...So now theyre getting destroyed again, so they go back to pvx, and get the new flavour of the month, with no taste of their own success.

People who still use palm strike don't bother flaming because im not interested, also i congratulate you if your one of the guys who downloaded the pvx build and actually put a healing skill in, i still love to be ganked by a sin and then he discovers he cant kill me or heal himself so he just sprints the hell away.

Guru is also like that: whenever someone comes with a new idea, he's automatically put into a box (pve, noob, etc.) and there's very little progress made, unless the post can "teach you something" (build, farmspot, how to get in beetle top100, etc.), but this is very limited teaching.

To be more provocative: people are lazy, yes, but lazy at teaching the game. Thus we have an unhealthy community that will undoubtedly die, due to the lack of new blood and the impossiblity to continue the long chain of knowledge started since GW1 Prophecies and culminating in the very bad wiki tools.

P.S.: teaching is not fun?

I'm afraid people just aren't that altruistic. Teaching anything in GW to a random person is not fun. You might do it for a friend, or a friend of a friend. However, trying to pull up the standards/playing ability of one bad player can be frustrating. They may not listen, or worse, they may perceive you as someone to leech off whenever they need help.

The prevalence of PvX and wiki also means that people feel less inclined to teach, because there are already solutions out there.

Your hypothesis assumes that there's some untapped source of PvP players in the current playerbase, but there isn't. The reason there aren't new PvP players is because GW's PvP isn't good enough to keep existing players, let alone draw in new ones.

You bring up some nice points. The key to this thread can be summed up with one word though "Competitiveness". Players who possess it are usually the ones willing to learn. For anyone who wants to strive to be better than the next guy, will learn, through any means given to them. You just don't pick up Counter Strike or Street Fighter and pwn any long time player.

I think it's pretty safe to say that any long time semi successful PvP'er wasn't solely taught how to play. It was through much trial and error,(actually playing the game) playing in different Guilds, taking in and processing feedback from Guild members, throughout matches in all manners possible. Being able to sit down with a few guys in obs mode after a match you have just played and start to analzye things should be a learning experience for everyone involved.

If we go with bad players being unccoperative/unwilling to learn/selfish/not caring etc ... then community can't be blamed because teaching those players to play would be basically parenting them to be better humans. People who just lack knowledge can be fixed by any passerby, and if they played for 3+ years they already were enlightened.

It we go with players being bad because they play weak build X instead of most effective Y, well, they are not really bad per se, they just play game differently, and since game does not require perfection (not by far), it shouldn't bother other players. It does (It is very uncomfortable feeling to play if you know that weakest link of your party could be much much better off with as little as single skill swap.).

And then there is issue with game being playable with several strategies, and there is knowledge lag. If newbie can taught by someone who believes tank-n-spank is good strategy, is he bad player? Is someone is lagging behind "current best build" and uses yesterdays best build, is he bad player?

This.

Last time I checked, GW was a game. Lots of players simply don't care about improving and learning. For them, this game is just a pastime and they play with no goal in mind other than pure fun.

So, players are bad? No. Getting better takes time and commitment. A lots of players are just not passionate enough about this game to invest time improving their skills to acquire the superb ability some seasoned players now have. Occasional fun is what they're after. As long as they get it, that's enough for them.

To me, there's nothing wrong with that. People are free to make what they like out of this game. Newcomers who really want to learn something from veterans now can count on so many players still around, if they want. I just wonder if there's enough patient and dedicated teachers among them, tough.

I never said that, or even implied it, but I believe that there is enough resources to undertake such a feature. It actually doesn't require much active work from a lot of players, if most of the players put themselves in the right mindset. "Teaching" was between quotes so that people can see beyond the scholarly and academic artefact, it's not about sitting somewhere and listening. It's about the whole approach and beyond the "here are 2 great resources for you: GW wiki and PvX" (this thread is NOT about PvP, it's about the whole community, since I don't believe that there's a fundamental divide, only players putting themselves into boxes/categories).

I perfectly understand why the PvP community is mad, and supported their complaints when they expressed it in a civil manner (you also have to agree that there's too much bad language from a lot of PvPer, such that to decode what they say you have to try to understand their personal situations and go past the vulgarities, but that's another discussion!). As I said above, Anet clearly has a responsibility in this state of affairs. I can't understand Izzy is the onle one looking at PvP balance, and in his "free time".

But I'm looking at the problem (or the more general problem, since PvE is plagued by other problems than imbalance, which could be solved by the same "approach") from a different angle: what can WE do? If we can do something of course, because if everyone agrees that we're here for fun and that shouldn't go beyond that from a personal viewpoint, thus saying that teaching is out of the question in MMOs (do it if you want, not my problem), then we go back to my provocative statement: we're doomed, the community won't survive because knowledge can't be passed on.

PvX doesn't pass on knowledge, only information on builds ("Usage" provides guidelines).

i believe alot of players are terrible because of their ego

lose a bit of your ego and suck up to the better players, ask for help and listen to what they say.

i'm not good but at least i know im moving in the right direction

What I've seen is that heroes made it so that most experienced/skilled players simply don't group with anything that has a pulse. 99% of the time anyway.

Once we had heroes good players no longer had to find groups, and inexperienced/unskilled players could no longer group with vets and learn from them.

Personally, I learned a TON about how to play this game effectively back in the day when there was only Prophecies. I got to watch skilled players draw, spike, pick targets, know when to flee, use certain combos, and many other things. After I was grouped with people doing these things I began doing them myself and then eventually being the veteran player who leads groups and teaches the newer folks.

Ever since the introduction of heroes, the only people LFG are inexperienced/bad players. So they end up grouping only with each other, learning nothing, and often getting worse as they pick up on each others' bad habits.

I think I'm going to have to disagree with that. Heroes were introduced because no one wanted to PuG, because PuGs are terrible.

Of course, it's the classic "Which came first, the chicken or the egg." Imo, the bad PuG came first.

whut?? I do DoA alot, just curious what you are talking about.

it obviously took all of your mental capacity to come up with that incorrect paraphrase.

One could say the entire framing of this thread is tied to a specific viewpoint. There are different types of players out there. What kind are you?

http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bart...mer-psychology

And whatever happened to "fun"?