Why is the trial scene so toxic?

Tsar_Gekkou

I don't know about normal trials, but with vet trials, people want to complete them. People start getting angry when they keep running into a bunch of people at CP cap who can barely understand simple mechanics and can barely fufill their role. That's why the top guilds who put scores on the top of the leaderboards tend to be somewhat toxic(at least on Xbox): They don't want to deal with trying to teach a baby how to walk when they're all setting marathon records. If you're running with people who only do Craglorn trials, it's pretty fun, but when you start running with people who complete endgame content like vMoL and above, people get more serious about mistakes others make because it's more difficult to come back from mistakes in those trials.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

You need a good trial guild if you ask me. To me, PVP is by far the most toxic. Never had an anonymous player in one of my trial guilds threaten to ***/murder my family, but in Cyrodiil, it happens on a weekly basis.

joaaocaampos

And there is still a player who wants Trial Finder...

Facefister

PlagueSD wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

The super tier dps who pull 70k on the boss but die at the first mechanic they weren't expecting is pretty toxic though, lol

Yep, I'd rather have someone that can only pull 10-15k DPS and SURVIVE over someone that pulls 70K and dies 20 seconds into the fight.

Someone who knows how to pull 70k dps knows how to play his/her class and most probably knows the fight inside out. And most probably these guys survive longer than 20 seconds, or don't even die. The "10-15k DPS" DDs are ones who chew up Soulgems by the dozens.

FloppyTouch

Facefister wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

The super tier dps who pull 70k on the boss but die at the first mechanic they weren't expecting is pretty toxic though, lol

Yep, I'd rather have someone that can only pull 10-15k DPS and SURVIVE over someone that pulls 70K and dies 20 seconds into the fight.

Someone who knows how to pull 70k dps knows how to play his/her class and most probably knows the fight inside out. And most probably these guys survive longer than 20 seconds, or don't even die. The "10-15k DPS" DDs are ones who chew up Soulgems by the dozens.

And there is ur proof how toxic trials are it's a shame really

In pvp you will never hear you die all the time ur a waste of a soul gem we all die a lot. In pvp you wont get kicked for being less then cp cap. In pvp ur gear and rotation and build wont get you laughed at. Only in pve do these things happen.

LiquidPony

AuldWolf wrote: »

Has it ever been any different in any game. I mean, look at League of Legends. Hell is other people.

The whole concept of trials seems to be meant only for extraverts with a high tolerance for sociopathic/unpleasant behaviour (and sociopaths themselves, since they love manipulating groups like that). I tried that scene for a little bit at one point and found it too stressful to bother with. As a person with Asperger's, GAD, and PTSD it's never been an enjoyable time. People are always so willing to get nasty and play the blame game. I don't know what about that is "fun." As I said, I think there's both a cut-throat instinct and tolerance thereof that one must have to enjoy these, I have neither.

I tend to prefer deep connections with a very small group of people. Usually that group isn't big enough to be doing trials, but that's okay. The content we can do is enjoyable and genuinely fun. From what I've seen from many modern MMOs, I'm in a very large minority thinking and feeling this way. Look at the response to the Wolfhunter DLC, there are a lot of unhappy voices about it being another group of trials. People are so sick of trials.

If we can be honest about this and not pull any punches? It's the curse of forced grouping, isn't it?

Like I said, it's a scene for sociopathic people and extraverts who can manage to be tolerant of that. The reason I say that is because you're locked into requiring X number of people to participate. The likelihood you'll get at least one sociopath in that group increases exponentially when the group size goes over 3. Each new person increases that risk drastically. So when a trial requires 12 people, the risk is monumental. This, conversely, is why so many people hate the Maw of Lorkhaj.

This is the very reason why I created a poll about dungeon DLC negativity. Since not a lot of people are happy with this.

The thing is? If grouping happens in an emergent way like it does in sandbox MMOs, you could actually have a group of 12 people without any sociopaths being present because the group builds up over time. You just hoover up new people as you go and boot out anyone who isn't playing nice. You can't easily do that with a trial, and that's the problem. This leads to lots of drama and stress that, by now, are the hallmark of the themepark MMO raid/trial.

Don't get me wrong. The last sandbox MMO I played was probably Istaria (dragons dragons dragons), I've not played one since. I prefer the lack of grind in a themepark MMO. What I do look at though is how problematic the forced grouping is in themepark MMOs and how popular an MMO would very likely be if it did away with it entirely.

The reason I say that trials should scale to the amount of people playing them is because that means that people would then be forced to play nice. You could kick someone without any negative side effects if the dungeon would continually scale down regardless of group size. That's how I think it should be, and that's the brave move that I think would fix raid content in MMOs. It's the forced aspect that creates these problems and creates groups with sociopaths you can't escape from.

There are people here who probably think that I hate the hardcore, that isn't the case. It's just that a.) I know what it's like to be a part of a minority demographic (I didn't get entitled when Scalebound was cancelled just because I love dragons, I didn't send angry letters to Microsoft demanding that they continue to fund it), and b.) I know that sociopaths can be found quite regularly in the hardcore community because they can get away with it there thanks to forced grouping.

Being the person I am, I have a zero tolerance for selfish, manipulative sociopaths who're only in things for themselves.

It's funny. Yesterday I was drunk tired on my crafting character who basically has no combat skills slotted. I have werewolf because it's fun, but that's about it. I had an Abyssal Geyser pop up on me whilst gathering in Summerset and thought it'd be a laugh to pop werewolf and see how I did. Other people turned up and I found I couldn't eat to sustain werewolf. Helpful. So when it timed out, I turned to leave. I felt guilty about it though because i didn't know how my presence had affected the scaling of the geyser what with my crafter being a CP person. So I said 'sod it,' and on a deathwishy whim I slotted a taunt and ran in there to pull some heat off of the other players. I died a few times, but if I could do some good there, then it was worth it. I just felt guilty. It was a selfless act when I was under the influence of the idiocy of sleep deprivation (I was also taking shortcuts by walking off cliffs like a lemming and resurrecting at the bottom because I thought that was a good idea).

Suffice it to say, it was a spark of how I used to feel in Ultima Online and Istaria. I never get those feelings in forced group content, since usually everyone is too busy creating drama, yelling at each other, and generally being puppets for whatever sociopath(s) are in the group (who tend to delight at that sort of thing).

So that's my thoughts on the topic, for whatever they're worth.

Wolfhunter is a dungeon DLC ...

Runefang

PlagueSD wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

The super tier dps who pull 70k on the boss but die at the first mechanic they weren't expecting is pretty toxic though, lol

Yep, I'd rather have someone that can only pull 10-15k DPS and SURVIVE over someone that pulls 70K and dies 20 seconds into the fight.

Really? 70k dps is 1.4m damage in 20 seconds. It'll take a 15k dps player close to 100 seconds to do the same. In that time the 70k dps has been rezzed and died a few more time doing another 4m plus damage.

Take your pick I guess. For me having passable dps (over 35k) is the bare minimum requirement for dps in a vet trial progression group.

Preyfar

idk wrote: »

Have never been in a trial that was toxic. Maybe it is the players you run with

I've been in a few hardcore raid guilds, and most of them dissolved due to toxicity. A little over a year ago I was running vMOL HM constantly, and things turned progressively more and more toxic. Raid leaders yelling at players, mocking them for dying, insulting people, shouting really unproductive -- these things add up.

It's easy for people to say "Why don't you just leave?" but if you're in a high end guild running the HMs it's not like you can just easily pack up and go for another guild. 12 man core teams usually work as a unit, so unless you happen to get on a core team, you're not going to be running things like the HMs very often.

But back to raid leads: when you hear "Dude, you need to stop dying!" and get called out in front of the rest of the team over vox it's demoralizing. It's not "Hey, let's pull you aside after the raid and talk about why you're dying." Calling players out can break team cohesion. Too many raid leaders don't have management skills so they think calling people out by name and making an example of them is somehow helpful. Mistakes happen, but angering your team over them doesn't fix it. Do it poorly, and all you do is anger that person, and their performance is going to suffer.

Raids like vet HRC, SO, and AA are pretty easy at this point, but there's still too many other people who break/freak out during mechanics, and when you have mechanics that can instantly wipe the team because of one person's mistake it DOES breed a certain level of toxicity because people decide not to include people who haven't done the progression side of it.

swirve

IronCrystal wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

The super tier dps who pull 70k on the boss but die at the first mechanic they weren't expecting is pretty toxic though, lol

Yep, I'd rather have someone that can only pull 10-15k DPS and SURVIVE over someone that pulls 70K and dies 20 seconds into the fight.

I don't know many dps who are good enough to pull high dps parses like that but aren't experienced enough to know the mechanics.

People use this comparison a lot but I find much more often that the 10-15k dps are also the ones who die 20 seconds into the fight.

Ive met players who have boasted really high numbers and been mediocre in trials... observing as the healer.

AndyMac

Getting in a good guild or just knowing good trial players is the key to fun trials for me. I'd pretty much stopped doing vet trials after Morrowind. But I was lucky enough to get invited to a trials guild by a friend I'd run many trials with previously - back to the old v12 crag days.

He was putting together a trials guild to clear the DLC trials.

They're a very knowledgeable and chilled group - we've done vAS and vMOL - they did take some work to clear- but everyone was positive about getting clears.

So that's what I'd be looking for to avoid toxicity.

I wouldn't PUG vet trials - too often its just a waste of time.

Facefister

FloppyTouch wrote: »

Facefister wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

The super tier dps who pull 70k on the boss but die at the first mechanic they weren't expecting is pretty toxic though, lol

Yep, I'd rather have someone that can only pull 10-15k DPS and SURVIVE over someone that pulls 70K and dies 20 seconds into the fight.

Someone who knows how to pull 70k dps knows how to play his/her class and most probably knows the fight inside out. And most probably these guys survive longer than 20 seconds, or don't even die. The "10-15k DPS" DDs are ones who chew up Soulgems by the dozens.

And there is ur proof how toxic trials are it's a shame really

In pvp you will never hear you die all the time ur a waste of a soul gem we all die a lot. In pvp you wont get kicked for being less then cp cap. In pvp ur gear and rotation and build wont get you laughed at. Only in pve do these things happen.

Just pointing out facts, it has nothing to do with being toxic. People who can pull off 70k dps are usualy, or mostly experts in their roles and they don't mess up as often as underperforming people want them to. And yes, "we" never hear such things from pvpers because you guys are whining and sobbing about classes and sets all the time.

LeagueTroll

DuskMarine wrote: »

LeagueTroll wrote: »

DuskMarine wrote: »

LeagueTroll wrote: »

pelle412 wrote: »

There are plenty of good guilds who will help coach you to get experience with trials. I am in one that runs vet trials at different tiers of player experience from beginner to more score pushing runs. No one will be very concerned if you make mistakes in a veteran trial training run, but friendly advice and coaching is offered.

It’s not like ppl who would not even spend 10 min follow a proper build want to get on training runs. And if a training run has no req it will get nowhere. A lot ppl just cry when they don’t get a carry. They expect get drom destoyer by spam snipe.

well the bad part about the snipe thing is its actually doable with glitches which zos knows all to much about but wont fix. but still there is no good guild that has requirements for anything but dps(which you have to have a certain dps to run some things or mechanics say hi) but anything else you dont need it.

Dummy parse is legit the best indicator of a damaged dealer’s skill ceiling. Ofc guilds ask for parse. A guy with high parse may not be good in trial. But a guy who can’t even parse 30k will def be a bad damage dealer.

ive actually added damage up irt and your easily doing 30k without thinking. but combat metrics even as flawed as it is for some reason is treated as god. but dps you can still run 25k and still do vet hm easily. but the dummies unless theres one that moves you can never take that as gospel.

Yeah keep telling yourself 25k is nuf for vmol hm.

idk

Preyfar wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Have never been in a trial that was toxic. Maybe it is the players you run with

I've been in a few hardcore raid guilds, and most of them dissolved due to toxicity. A little over a year ago I was running vMOL HM constantly, and things turned progressively more and more toxic. Raid leaders yelling at players, mocking them for dying, insulting people, shouting really unproductive -- these things add up.

It's easy for people to say "Why don't you just leave?" but if you're in a high end guild running the HMs it's not like you can just easily pack up and go for another guild. 12 man core teams usually work as a unit, so unless you happen to get on a core team, you're not going to be running things like the HMs very often.

But back to raid leads: when you hear "Dude, you need to stop dying!" and get called out in front of the rest of the team over vox it's demoralizing. It's not "Hey, let's pull you aside after the raid and talk about why you're dying." Calling players out can break team cohesion. Too many raid leaders don't have management skills so they think calling people out by name and making an example of them is somehow helpful. Mistakes happen, but angering your team over them doesn't fix it. Do it poorly, and all you do is anger that person, and their performance is going to suffer.

Raids like vet HRC, SO, and AA are pretty easy at this point, but there's still too many other people who break/freak out during mechanics, and when you have mechanics that can instantly wipe the team because of one person's mistake it DOES breed a certain level of toxicity because people decide not to include people who haven't done the progression side of it.

I think you answered things yourself in that the group or guild dissolves due to the toxicity. Those responsible for the toxicity probably get little chance to raid with others so they form their own group but is short lived as a result.

Of course OP did not really make this thread about those that run trials even though his title makes you think it is. He was just merely stating what he enjoyed more.

Drummerx04

IronCrystal wrote: »

PlagueSD wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

The super tier dps who pull 70k on the boss but die at the first mechanic they weren't expecting is pretty toxic though, lol

Yep, I'd rather have someone that can only pull 10-15k DPS and SURVIVE over someone that pulls 70K and dies 20 seconds into the fight.

I don't know many dps who are good enough to pull high dps parses like that but aren't experienced enough to know the mechanics.

People use this comparison a lot but I find much more often that the 10-15k dps are also the ones who die 20 seconds into the fight.

Obviously I was being a bit hyperbolic with the original statement.

But there are definitely meta hopping people who can pull a perfect 50k+ dummy parse, yet have slow reflexes or have poor anticipation of overlapping mechanics... or don't pack any kind of self heal/defense skill and thus drop like a sack of potatoes if the healer goes down for 10 seconds in a busy fight.

These are commonly the people who then blame the healers for all of their deaths even if they are ultimately at fault for getting a heal debuff and not avoiding mechanics.

Warfire

Personally, I'd say it's impossible to say which of those scenes is "the most toxic", you can always meet good and patient people but also encounter others with less/no patience that will act in a "toxic" way. This applies to pretty much every game I played, it's more or less a matter of luck. As you can see in this thread overall, there are people who say that they had great experiences without any issues and others who claim that they only had bad experiences.

Talking about trials themselves, personally I think that in normal Trial runs that are made through zone chat tend to get the most toxic/uncontroled because the leaders are usually people that want to farm a specific set from that trial (like pretty much every member that will join the group), and usually people want to farm something very fast, without going through wipes that would be "lost time", so if that happens, they tend to become toxic over it (not to mention people who want a piece of gear and get very agressive if you don't want to give it to them because you need it as well). This is solely the reason to why PUG groups from group chats tend sometimes to become toxic, the players who join have a goal that they want to achieve with the speed of light and don't necessarily care about their groupmates in the process. As far as I know, on the EU server at least there are a few guilds that organise nTrial runs every week and they are far more relaxed because the goal of the players is different, they just want to hang around with each other, to form friendship relationships while having fun about their encounters. Also, there is a key big difference between a group that is a PUG and an organised one: the leader. A lot of people don't realise it, but the leader is the one who sets the mood of the entire group for the whole raid. If the leader is positive and patient, explains mechanics to individuals when they do mistakes and just keeps going on, the group will as well be patient until they finish. The same applies for veteran trial progression guilds. Depending on the goal of the guild, you may encounter nice or impatient people, but personally when I started and was doing vTrials, I always had a nice atmosphere where people were relaxed and the leaders would explain the mechanics over and over and keep pushing for the completion.

In the end I would like to mention that this is not a comparison to show that "organised groups through a guild act more civil than zone chat ones and you should never go with them", it is to point out to why usually the organised raids tend to not have any of the issues that you presented. Of course, nothing is perfect and you can meet grumpy/frustrated people in any of the scenarios above, but as a person who played in every type of raid environment in ESO, I would suggest something very simple to everyone that wants to play Trials, but is afraid to do it: don't hesitate to look out for progressive raiding guilds, they will teach you from scratch and it doesn't matter whether you have 160 CP (for max lv gear) or 750CP, just reach out and there is content in the game that is doable even if you don't have BIS gear, the best race and so on. Obviously, DLC content tends to be harder and people will ask for DPS as requirements from damage dealers (yes yes, I know that people consider DPS to be a "stupid" thing to evaluate a DD, truth to be told is that the mechanics themselves in certain scenarios require the group to kill the boss before a time frame or otherwise everyone will die either by an instant death or by being overwhelmed with mobs so you have to consider it, it's the game's design), but usually that requirement is not hard at all to achieve if you are a person who strives to complete those specific trials. There are multiple options when it comes to raiding, whether you want to do nTrials or vTrials, completions or push something a little more competitive, there is something out for everyone - you just need to search for it.

Inarre

As a member of a beginners trial group, I can say that watching the same person mess up a boss fight for 11 other people by making the same mistake over and over for 2-3 hours, week after week, no matter how many times the guild tries to help them makes me feel toxic.

Of course, the better players don't act on these emotions. But I don't know if the trial "scene" is toxic, or after a certain point, humans in general get tired of wasting their time.

In similar circumstances any "scene" can get toxic. Look at dungeon PUG groups on the forums complaining about fake tanks. Try and join any PVP raid guild and repeatedly get your entire raid killed by not following orders. Join a dark elf only RP guild as an argonian and attend the RP meetings.

Toxicity isn't about one single "scene" or activity or even beginner players. It's about people feeling that their experience and their time isn't being valued by the people around them. As @Liofa said above, a lot of that can be mitigated by people being honest. Saying "Sorry guys, I messed up" can go a long way to starting a productive conversation and solving the issue, rather than have it degenerate into rage because of miscommunication or misunderstanding.

bg22

mb10 wrote: »

Think I'm the only person who genuinely thinks trials are boring.

Just a button mashing rotation fest, move out the red circles, stand on that side, bash this guy etc

Repetitive, boring.

You just described the entire game.

Bigevilpeter

Trials are toxic mainly with Pugs, cause so many bad players with very low dps and no knowledge of the mechanics just join teams and ruin the run for others just because they want to farm a specific item. Seen nightmare groups while farming vHRC for AY

f047ys3v3n

I have often found the culture in trials teams toxic and I have been a part of a variety of guilds that broke up due to this though it is not the most common reason for a guild breaking up. That is plainly leader burnout.

Some of the toxicity in trails guilds and culture has nothing to do with ZOS and is common in all MMO's. Hardcore stuff often attracts folks with striving personalities who have not had success IRL and get easily frustrated when success is not had in game either. They have a lot riding on it emotionally and failure can trigger some pretty toxic stuff. There is really not much that can be done about this.

A lot of the toxicity is effected by ZOS decisions though and they have continued down a path that increases difficulty, adds frustration, and ratchets up the rewards for that highest difficultly at the expense of all others for quite a while now. This seems to have greatly upped the level of conflict, toxicity, and guild collapse. My specifics are:

1) Trials, especially hard modes, MoL and on are just much harder than they previously were. The higher bar makes for more failure and more conflict.

2) In the past trials had a set number of deaths, not particularly high, maximum. This was a blessing and made for an obvious quitting time. Now groups just wallow for 4+ hours slowly getting more toxic and angry with failure until somebody is willing to be the guy who rage quits. This is a big factory. I remember doing training runs back in the day. It was like an hour thing. You go, wipe a few times for the new guys to get some practice, and then do a core group complete with maybe just the 1 new player who shined in the training run after. They were not painful multi-hour ordeals as they are now. Now they often devolve into replacing players 1 by 1 to get some player you will never see again his complete that he has no business having.

3) Many mechanics in the past were boss health dependent so the slower you went the easier it actually got until you reached low enough dps that an enrage dps mechanic killed you. This both emphasized mechanics, which you always had to do, and made the trial harder the better the group wanted to score in a smooth and well managed way. Now, there are enough timed mechanics that can be dps broken to make things exponentially easier with dps. vSC is the perfect example of this as good dps groups skip the harder 3 of the 5 principle mechanics making it a cake walk compared to a moderate dps group doing all 5 or a low dps group doing all 5 several times each cycle.

4) Deaths are now intended without mistakes and this is disruptive. For whatever reason ZOS was very angry at the fact that, with no major mistakes, people were not dying in trials. The corrected this by creating overlapping random add CC's and mechanics that could, and do, coincide to create no fault deaths. This has created a lot of arguments about who's fault things are when they are basically ZOS fault.

5) The interaction of different mechanics are often a mess leading to frustration. This can be random such as in the vSC twins fight having the dps that needs to interrupt ice frozen for that mechanic at the time the sceaver summoning happens. Or this can result from a mechanic on say a 1:30 timing coinciding with one on a 2:00 timing because the timer on the first delays restarting until you finish killing something. In any of these cases the double mechanics are not intended. Just bad programming which may or may not be even avoidable the the players by using timers. Basically all the new hard modes have just been lazy dropping of all the bosses into the fight at the same time leading mostly to chaos.

6) Fights are hard enough on their own and favor certain build attributes enough that almost all class / resource combinations are excluded. Make a fight with big unavoidable AOE's, a lot of target switching, a lot of things to kill you right by the boss, and the requirement for very fast movement and you basically have to play a magica NB for the shields, major expedition, ranged dps, and lack of the pets required for the best sorc and warden builds. That causes some conflict when players try to bring other toons that they want to play.

7) Rewards are very top heavy. vCR is the best example of this. Do you want the best gear, most gear, highest prestige marker, best leaderboard score, and, astoundingly, even the only good quest conclusion. Hard mode only for all that. The rewards of a bunch of nerfed gear are not a big incentive for most people to run the modes that they can do.

8) Many trials now have kill the whole group mechanics. vMoL has at least 3 of these I can think of off hand. These cause conflict though I am not, in principle, against them, and vMoL has probably the best mechanics of any trial, worlds better than the newer garbage mini trials, though it would be nice if some of it's bugs were fixed.

9) Cheat engine is greatly efficacious in trials, has become more so with changes such as the mega morrowind resource nerf, is almost unaddressed, used by many of the top players, and sort of adds a seedy undercurrent to everything as well as a great thing to start fights about.

So, ZOS has had a lot to do with the demise of most of the trials community. They have made a lot of choices that have been disruptive to that community.

Bhaal5

You have the one that want to build and put in the hard yards getting groups of people to complete content
You have the ones that guild hop until they find something they can fill in and will only help themselves and no one else (maybe a select few)
The ones if your not at their level they will troll and abuse others not at their "level", only helping those they see fit.

Normally these three groups dont play well together and why its such a toxic scene, also mention the lack of actual group content and bad servers.

FatelessLava

For the most part, from what I have seen, it is the PUGs that cause the most toxicity. In organized groups, guilds that the guildmasters don't berate their members and those that are willing to help members out reach their set target dps quite often are the good ones.
Those who don't put up crap from other members.

The only time I have seen really toxic people in trials were in two cases.
One, a PuG where I was healing, (I had set the group up) and had to go AFK for one second, and had told the group that in chat. Tank pulls the overcharges in nSO and by the time I got back half the group was dead and other healer was dead. Everyone pretty much died and couldn't res due to the bug there.


The second is there was this one person in a guild that we joined together and when things got sour between us.... they made my life miserable in the trial guild until they left because we weren't good enough for them (that's what they said but in truth they got booted, and yes I did talk to the GM about this person's harassment but since it was indirect it was a more of a he said she said thing until I brought it again and GM, the person, an officer and I agreed to talk it out. Which they 'left' right before that.)



Granted I am biased because I have had good experiences for the most part and have some amazing guilds I run with.

heng14rwb17_ESO

NO 50K DEEPS NO TALK

Hydra9268

Whenever a lot of anonymous strangers are forced together for some purpose, there's bond to be shenanigans. It's just human nature.

DanteYoda

Because by nature Humans are aholes.. And its become socially accepted to not destroy our waste..

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

Smasherx74 wrote: »

Don't do anything ever at any point in time with N'wahs

There. I fixed it for you.

MTijhuis

Because a lot of players forget what this game is about having fun. Instead of running around with people they actually like. They pretend to like the group, as long if they get the content done. Until pretending breaks them up, that's when the toxic enviorment starts.

Unfortunately humans are selfish and lazy creatures. So instead of building a team out of people you really like, which takes a lot of work. People take the easy way, they play with people they don't genuine like. So it's basically waiting till the bomb goes off.

That's why I personally left the whole end-game scène. I only pvp and do trials with people I like. I help newer players progress content. Yes it may not be the most efficient way, we won't get high scores. But I am having fun and in the end that's what the game is about.

ResTandRespeC

BaneOfBattler wrote: »

Elitists, leaderboard tryhards, fotm supporters, less performing class excluding people... you name it. Better to do it with a trustworthy guild instead of elitist garbage.

I dont think thats necessarily fair. There's nothing wrong with liking to push leaderboard scores and to do that you usually have to do the things you listed. That being said the "run with guildies statement".
Just because a core group does things like use a specific fotm build or specific group composition for there core group runs if thats what the intention of the group is. No one i know would head into a craglorn/zone chat pug and expect that to be the case though. Even my guild does the weekly leaderboards on most of our characters which usually arent the best class, or in the best builds.

I really dislike the terms elitist and toxic though, and think the terms themselves are extremely subjective and just contribute to the problem they are trying to describe. To one person it's elitist to care about getting high dps, to another it's treating people who are new like they aren't good enough etc etc. Same goes for toxic. To one person its someone who is trying to explain to them how to be a better player because its telling them how to play. While the player trying to explain how to be a better player thinks the other players toxic for wasting their time in whatever content and is unwilling to take constructive criticism. Really both terms, to me are just common name calling and baiting.

AuldWolf

It's weird seeing the sort of people I called out turning up here to defend themselves with -- what else -- spin and manipulation.

This may also help illustrate the difference between friendly and kind that I spoke of elsewhere.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with liking to push leaderboard scores [...]

Unless it devalues a person. Which is usually the case with manipulative over-achievers. People are just stepping stones to getting what they want.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

I really dislike the terms elitist and toxic though, and think the terms themselves are extremely subjective and just contribute to the problem they are trying to describe.

Not really, they have very objective definitions.

Elitist: One whose attitudes and beliefs are biased in favour of a socially elite class of people.
Toxic: Extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful.

it's all about self-perceived supremacy, and people who have supremacist views. Which essentially means wanting to be above everyone else, even if you have to create the hierarchy to achieve that goal.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

To one person it's elitist to care about getting high dps, to another it's treating people who are new like they aren't good enough [...]

Ah, now you're pretending as though those things are mutually exclusive to try and trick the person reading your post. They're not. An elitist treats others like trash because they believe the others aren't good enough (in the case of the latter, they believe the person in question isn't doing high enough DPS or whatever other arbitrary factor). The one happens because of the other.

It's clear that these aren't mutually exclusive but rather consecutive. If you believe you're superior, if you believe you're better than everyone else, and you believe that other people should do an exemplary job for you then you're going to treat them like trash if they don't live up to your expectations.

That's exactly the definition of elitism.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

Same goes for toxic. To one person its someone who is trying to explain to them how to be a better player because its telling them how to play. While the player trying to explain how to be a better player thinks the other players toxic for wasting their time in whatever content and is unwilling to take constructive criticism.

It's like mansplaining.

Did the player ask for your grandiose, haughty, on-high criticisms, or were they just looking to have fun? If you push negativity on a person who's trying to have fun in a video game, which is meant for entertainment, then that's exactly the definition of toxic as well!

Where are you having difficulty understanding these words, exactly? It seems like you are elitist and toxic, yet you dislike being called on both qualities. How very dark triad of you. I mean, you're just being criticised for being unnecessarily critical of how people enjoy themselves. If you're so much of a proponent of criticism, shouldn't you be able to take it as well? But no, toxic people can't handle criticism aimed at them.

Toxic people are all about dumping their negativity on others.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

Really both terms, to me are just common name calling and baiting.

Which, as an elitist, toxic person, you'd love to propagandise people into believing. However, it simply isn't true. The words elitist and toxic both have definitive meanings, and they both apply.

This is why only a tiny handful of the community does trials. Most people can't stand being forced to group with sociopaths.

Runefang

AuldWolf wrote: »

It's weird seeing the sort of people I called out turning up here to defend themselves with -- what else -- spin and manipulation.

This may also help illustrate the difference between friendly and kind that I spoke of elsewhere.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with liking to push leaderboard scores [...]

Unless it devalues a person. Which is usually the case with manipulative over-achievers. People are just stepping stones to getting what they want.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

I really dislike the terms elitist and toxic though, and think the terms themselves are extremely subjective and just contribute to the problem they are trying to describe.

Not really, they have very objective definitions.

Elitist: One whose attitudes and beliefs are biased in favour of a socially elite class of people.
Toxic: Extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful.

it's all about self-perceived supremacy, and people who have supremacist views. Which essentially means wanting to be above everyone else, even if you have to create the hierarchy to achieve that goal.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

To one person it's elitist to care about getting high dps, to another it's treating people who are new like they aren't good enough [...]

Ah, now you're pretending as though those things are mutually exclusive to try and trick the person reading your post. They're not. An elitist treats others like trash because they believe the others aren't good enough (in the case of the latter, they believe the person in question isn't doing high enough DPS or whatever other arbitrary factor). The one happens because of the other.

It's clear that these aren't mutually exclusive but rather consecutive. If you believe you're superior, if you believe you're better than everyone else, and you believe that other people should do an exemplary job for you then you're going to treat them like trash if they don't live up to your expectations.

That's exactly the definition of elitism.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

Same goes for toxic. To one person its someone who is trying to explain to them how to be a better player because its telling them how to play. While the player trying to explain how to be a better player thinks the other players toxic for wasting their time in whatever content and is unwilling to take constructive criticism.

It's like mansplaining.

Did the player ask for your grandiose, haughty, on-high criticisms, or were they just looking to have fun? If you push negativity on a person who's trying to have fun in a video game, which is meant for entertainment, then that's exactly the definition of toxic as well!

Where are you having difficulty understanding these words, exactly? It seems like you are elitist and toxic, yet you dislike being called on both qualities. How very dark triad of you. I mean, you're just being criticised for being unnecessarily critical of how people enjoy themselves. If you're so much of a proponent of criticism, shouldn't you be able to take it as well? But no, toxic people can't handle criticism aimed at them.

Toxic people are all about dumping their negativity on others.

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

Really both terms, to me are just common name calling and baiting.

Which, as an elitist, toxic person, you'd love to propagandise people into believing. However, it simply isn't true. The words elitist and toxic both have definitive meanings, and they both apply.

This is why only a tiny handful of the community does trials. Most people can't stand being forced to group with sociopaths.

*sigh*

Yeah but that guy who didn't rotate when they were meant to be colour swapping on the MoL Twins for the *tenth* time in a row, which causes a wipe *needs* to be told how to play. The person, who is just 'trying to have fun' is cause all other 11 players having a terrible time.

That person may well think the rest of the trial is 'toxic' because they got called out, but to the other 11 there is only one 'toxic' player. It's the one who hasn't got the grace to say 'well maybe I need to drop and come back another day'.

But hey, maybe I'm just a sociopath.

TheGr8David

PUGing for trials can be a nightmare. Patience is apparently not a virtue, and there is always that one scum-bro who decides to dip out of the group after finally getting 12 people to sign on, and never before everyone ports in. Oh no no no. They'll wait until everyone has ported into the Trial starting room and then suddenly their laundry is on fire or they forgot to take their food out of the dryer.