Guild Wars 2: The Casual, the Hardcore and the Elitist.

No, this unfortunately isn’t continuing with them going into a bar, but I would like to talk about these terms people lately been throwing around a lot! And of course a lot of underlying issues in the game related to these and why we are possibly where we are right now with the community and player-base.

I warn you already, this whole article is going to be lengthy, and expect ramblings hard(!) so don’t expect a quick short read either 😄. These are just my thoughts on certain subjects that been thrown up a lot in the past month or so since EoD release.

Also please understand when I’m saying “you” at some parts below, I’m not literally pointing at you as the reader, but putting the perspective of certain people onto that “you”. 😵

I would like to start it off by simply saying that the meaning of “casual”, “hardcore” and “elitist” has been twisted and turned around so much by now that not many understand their meanings in gaming. However I’m going to break a couple of things to you, I’m sure not many will agree with me, that is absolutely fine, since this whole article is my own perspective on this subject.

Guild Wars 2 is not a casual game. You might think it is, but inherently it isn’t. Why? Well it’s simple to explain.

A casual game inherently has very simple gameplay, with very little mechanics to it. These mechanics usually are rooting back to very, very simple game that people usually already know of, for example simple memory games, matching two objects, card game-like, puzzle games, find the objects on screen and so on. They have very short play sessions, which are aimed at people who work, to be able to finish it easily in a break time; and it usually also has a very simple and clean UI to just show what you need.

In general most actual casual games are basically mobile games by now, other than them requiring you to tap with a single finger on the screen time to time, it requires no real skill or understanding of the game in most cases. Why do you think you can pick them up so fast and easily? Exactly that’s why. They are casual games.

The issue with Guild Wars 2 is, that it has elements that can be considered casual, because they are simple to do and are technically dumbed down to the point where one does not required of having any prior knowledge of the game or its mechanics.

It is somewhat of a mystery, to me at least, how Guild Wars 2 became known as a casual game. But I genuinely feel that the game did not become casual, but simply the term got thrown around more and more after people realized that some elements of the game needed absolutely 0 knowledge of the game or any mechanics to be done.

The core game and its story is unfortunately a good example for this and in a way I also blame it, yet not for giving most players the vibe that the game is this easy. You can get through the core story very easily, it’s not a hassle and has no difficulty, at worst case it sometimes feels… long to get through it. While the core story is just a tiny part of the problem, I blame most of this whole issue of “casual game” on the in-game systems we currently have.

These are understandably harder to fix and at this point with End of Dragons out, I feel like there is no chance that this game ever gets it “fixed”, since the more they add to the game, the harder to fix any of this. However, I will get back to this part very soon!

There are the type of players who really like to bring up and use “I’m a casual” as an excuse to their unwillingness to learn. Final Fantasy XIV and even the currently released Lost Ark on “the west” suffers quite a bit from this issue. There are people who think being a casual, especially in an MMO game, means “I am unwilling to learn anything or to change anything in game, look up or research anything and I am especially unwilling to change my gameplay in any way or form. Therefor if you tell me how to play, you are the toxic and bad person, not me.” And this is unfortunately something that actually exists and is real.

In Final Fantasy XIV you have people who join Savage raids or any higher difficulty and refuses to do the most basic things to prepare for a raid or even use a buff that requires basically nothing other than perhaps buying it. Then these type of players proceed to throw a fit and complain how “toxic” this is. It’s another fun term people love to throw around lately as well, isn’t it fun?

Lost Ark recently started to suffer from this particular issue as well, people who been playing more “casually” or so to say, have caught up with the game and have reached higher tier gameplay. Here comes the same thing, people refuse to learn, thus people who know what to do are put together (via match making) occasionally with people who seem to do not much other than standing in one spot, cast spells, never using potions to heal, then die to a simple mechanic, which could be avoided by simply right clicking a few pixels away on the ground in game and walking out of it, and then occasionally blaming the so called Bard in the group for not healing.

So what is the common in all of these games so far? Well, to me it seems to be both some of the basic systems in the game and a certain thing that I cannot put into a single word, unless I say catch-up-mechanics.

So with this, let’s get back on track on these “issues” I kept mentioning.

First of all I would mention the common issue almost every MMO or MMO-like game eventually ends up suffering from, the catch-up mechanics. Via time as these games go on, they release expansions and with that most of the time some of their past content turns obsolete as newer and newer content has to keep up with new mechanics and something that offers more fun. I think World of Warcraft is a good example of this, with each expansion in the past, the previous content became more and more easy, to the point where even some open-world boss end up being one-shot by players, while in the past that same boss required 50+ players to defeat it.

This catch-up mechanic also true for leveling on most MMOs. While my play-time in Lost Ark was very little, I do admit that while leveling you can basically face-roll your keyboard and get done with any content during the leveling phase and then suddenly a colossal wall hits players when they are out of it. The difficulty suddenly spikes, but there are a lot of people who actually just completely ignores this “wall” and instead of jumping up and climbing it, they afk-walk into it at the very base, thinking that’s what they are supposed to do, because they never bothered to use or remember the jump key.

I think Final Fantasy XIV has a bit better and softer curve on difficulty spiking, but for example Guild Wars 2 also suddenly spikes in difficulty when reaching Heart of Thorns. It’s a good example again to mention that going through the personal (core game) story requires basically no effort, other than some time. So there are a lot of people who go into HoT or other expansions and suddenly struggle.

This is why I say that I blame certain systems in the game and how the game works at certain parts.

Going back to the start of what I said, this is exactly why I say that Guild Wars 2 is not a casual game, however it does have elements that can be seen and considered casual. This game actually has a lot of things that you have to understand for actual and proper gameplay, but since people title the game as “casual” almost all the time, and people love to comment how easy the game is. However the issue here is two thing with these type of comments. You either say it is easy, because you understand the game and its workings, or you say it is easy, because you never learned them.

Do you know what is casual about this game? That you can put it down and come back anytime to it and not miss out on anything. That you have content in the game that can be done under 10 minutes or so.

Here comes the funny term “elitist” and sometimes even “hardcore players” into play. So let me say one thing here quickly:

People understanding the mechanics of the game is not elitist and not a hardcore thing to do.

I’m genuinely sad that I have to say this. People taking the effort to understand the game and it’s basic systems is a normal and common thing to do not just in MMOs, but in every other game. People aren’t elitists in Guild Wars 2 for asking you to have a proper build, to have consumables buff on you for certain group content or to have a proper gear setup.

Focusing on Guild Wars 2, I understand that many confusion for “casual” players may derive from the lack of explanations in the game. Let me go a bit more in-depth with this a little bit.

Since the whole “New Player Experience” reward in the early years happened and even slightly afterward with some changes a lot of things that new players experienced at first are now either gone or because so dumbed down, it’s pointless to do with any effort. But there are also a lot of elements the game simply never explains to you or have a way to ever teach you about it.

What are some of these elements are? Your armor, weapons and trinkets, your stats on those and what your stats mean, runes and sigils, the rarity of your gear and items, the use of utility slot skills, boons, dodging, combo fields and finishers, your traits and how they can work in harmony a.k.a. understanding your own build, understanding your own profession you are playing, difference between power/strike damage and condition damage, to know what a defiance bar is and what is it as a mechanic in the game along with what is crowd control (in general in games or for example to know what is a soft “cc” or hard “cc”) and so on. Just comprehend all of this above, there are players out there who don’t know any of this and it’s the entire game, this is what your game is based on!

These are all… fundamental issues in the game, because players believe they don’t need the knowledge over these in order to do anything in the game, because a lot of content is in the open and done in groups, most often. This mysterious belief is what creates this eternal war of “casuals” versus “elitists”, but in reality this… does not exist. Not to mention “elitist” people are not really what people think are elitist.

The truth is that people grow used to this play-style, since the game itself, funnily enough, was essentially advertised as one game where you can “do and play whatever and however you want”, and in my opinion, this is among the biggest mistake to say, because people can interpret it in whatever way to claim their “right” about the game and their play-style. Therefor nowadays people simply base their view of the game on this when they are playing and suddenly encounter the Wall of “Challenging”.

Obviously something will be challenging when you simply either refused and/or never really had to learn the basics of the game. But it doesn’t mean the game is wrong, no, in most cases it is actually… you who is wrong. I would say in about 95% of the cases, it’s not the game, not the enemy, not over-tuned stats and not the mechanics faults, but your own that you cannot do a certain content when you suddenly bump into it. Which is, mind you, totally fine. We all learn, when you suddenly run against a giant wall of difficulty and you stumble a little bit, it’s fine that it seems hard to do or in some cases near-impossible, you are there to learn! What is not fine however, is when you refuse to learn and simply take that blame onto other things like the game, the mechanics or in some rare cases… other players.

So to put it simply again, people who understand the very basics of the game are not elitists or “hardcore gamers”.

Back on some of the fundamental issues I mentioned above. At this point I firmly believe that teaching these basics of the game in Guild Wars 2 should be implemented in a proper way. It honestly could be done both so easily and so well with a little effort. But it could be also done even better with way more effort to it, which is highly unlikely to happen ever, so it’s pointless to even think about it.

What gives us the biggest headache in this case is, are starting zones and the tutorial zone. The way the “tutorial” is absolutely outdated by now and as it is right now, completely pointless and teaches nothing at all other than “hey, spam your auto-attack to kill” which is somewhat okay as the first encounter, but it’s still rather pointless.

Since post-HoT in every expansion defiance bar is also a very often used mechanic along with many other, the entire tutorial zone should be re-worked and exist till level 10. Obviously it would be fast to get through, but at least once one is out they can already start their personal story, not to mention each character ever created is essentially forced to go through this without exception. This is the only zone you technically can’t skip right away.

Since it is also instanced, it could be way easier to work with. New players could be given temporary skills and weapons, items etc to work with and explain things. There could be NPCs that now we only really see in End of Dragons at the training arena. Not to mention that they now can make it so you can’t simply spam a single task to complete that renown heart, but are technically forced to do multiple tasks to proceed, which in my opinion is very good actually.

If the tutorial zones could be reworked to something better than people cannot skip until this zone is finished, that would be among the best solutions possible. Give similar area and NPCs like in End of Dragons training area, give newbies a default custom weapon they can pick up to use, so it wouldn’t confuse them that it is not their actual weapon, but just a temporary item they picked up, and then give them abilities that teach them! I don’t expect it to teach them literally everything possible, but give them the idea of what they might have to look for.

Give them two type of weapon, let’s say a sword that explains power damage, one sword that explains condition damage! Give them a weapon that gives you crowd control abilities and have an NPC explain first what is crowd control and how does it affect a defiance bar and also explain what is a defiance bar, then allow them to use multiple (not just one) weapon skills to break the defiance bar in order to proceed to other tasks.

Create a zone for a dodge tutorial, explain to them perhaps that this zone is only accessible if you dodge through a large AoE zone (much like the current dodge tutorial we seem to have) in order to get in there, then there have an NPC explains that in some cases one can dodge over an AoE to avoid its damage and/or perhaps CC effects to not get pushes back or knocked down. Then proceed with a golem or such where it does telegraphed attacks that you have to dodge.

If you are creative, even more could be added to be done, if you go far enough, this tutorial zone could even offer temporary gear to new players and have a voice acted NPC (better to hear than read sometimes) to explain what power stat does and what the others do. Or simply have an area for custom boons or even conditions what effects they have on you as the player. Show them how their damage increases via stacking might, how aegis can block a single attack, how fury works, how stability works against certain hard CC, how alacrity and quickness works and why it is important in group content.

The reason I say to do custom items and weapons is, because unfortunately not every profession can provide the same boons, skills or combo fields. But providing clearly custom and temporarily given items, skills and weapons these could be taught easily. Teach them that any Area of Effect ability in general, let it provide boon or condi, do damage or heal, have all proximity based priority from the very center of the AoE. Some people don’t even know this, while it’s extremely basic and is in front of you, in a way. This tutorial wouldn’t be an issue for veteran players when one makes an alt, if they know it already they can easily run through this and take barely 5 minutes for them to exit this tutorial, while a complete newbie may spend half an hour here, they would learn much more than just slapping them in front of a random, but cool boss enemy and just give a cut-scene for auto-attacking it down.

The problem comes from not just the part of not teaching players these basics and inner workings of the game, but later on expecting them to know it. In my opinion this is among the biggest combined issue.

Look at End of Dragon’s Jade Sea Meta even fiasco or just call it drama, or in general any other past meta events or bosses that needs hard coordination and timing and communication in order to succeed. Triple Trouble is a good example to this as well, but so is the Jade Sea meta event and the boss fight, mostly the boss fight part.

It is another good example where some people think the whole meta and the boss is extremely challenging, while in reality, it isn’t. The mechanics itself are not hard. Yes, there are random mechanics involved which can come out weirdly on a timed fight. The fight generally comes down to observing the fight and listening to cues given as well during the fight. This is the same on almost any boss, let it be raid or open world. It is fine not understanding every attack and mechanic on the very first fight you do, but still dying and not expecting the hand shock-wave after the start of the fight and dying to it after the 6th DE meta run… can be a bit heartbreaking. But either way, this isn’t solely about the DE meta anyway.

However the sad reality is, that it seems hard for some simply because a lot of times you meet people there who have no clue of the basics of the game, they have no proper gear, no runes, no sigils, some people run around with no trinkets/accessory items, because for some reason they think it is not required in the game, because in the core game they had no issue playing without it. There are people in masterwork quality gear with absolutely random stats, some people run around with no selected stats on the armor pieces, so apart from the actual armor value of the item, it’s like wearing absolutely nothing.

Mentioning armor stats, again, the game by default as of now only tells you to select a stat on it if you have it empty, but never explains why or what you would need to pick to be useful.

See? The whole issue comes down to a simple problem, the game simply allows you to play like this at the beginning with no punishment. The game essentially says “play whatever the eff you want, I don’t care” at the very start, then you suddenly end up in contents where the game extremely swiftly turns into a “Sorry, you cannot play whatever you want and I care about it” and thus you as a newbie, lost person, you almost feel threatened by this sudden shift in gameplay, because it punishes what you do and want to do. It’s like you are speeding on the road, and the police stops you and while you are fully aware of your mistake it is still interestingly you who is angry, but not at yourself, but at the police for stopping you. It’s almost the exact same scenario in my view.

However we are playing an MMO, you are playing with other people, and suddenly here you are… being told you are not contributing anything to harder content, because you refuse to learn and to adapt to the sudden shift in the game. Suddenly players refuse to acknowledge the fact that a proper rune set may increase your dps by 10-20%, that your traits mean extremely a lot in order to do way, way more dps or to provide boons and buffs. That pressing only your auto-attack is not enough. It just threatens some people’s comfort they been pampered into. And for that “pampering” I do blame the game actually, and not the players. But I do also blame the player for being unwilling to adapt and learn and just call other people “toxic” and “elitist” for not willing to learn and understanding the basics of the game.

When you go into group content or perhaps meta events that require coordination and more effort than AFK’ing on the boss while autoattacking, and to be honest, other players know you are doing nothing at all, since you don’t even take the effort to use a Waypoint to revive and get back into the fight, you just lazily lay there, scaling up the events and such and do absolutely nothing, in fact you are just hindering your own allies.

Some people yell around in the game, calling other people toxic and whatnot, for them trying to explain to them how much a build, gear, boons etc matters in the game, but you ignore it and instead tell them, that they are the ones ruining your precious gameplay and comfort bubble. The harsh reality is, that it might be you, who is ruining their experience with the game and content they are doing and you may not even really think about this.

Yes, you can play however you want, but you are playing a social MMO, a game designed to be played with multiple people at once to overcome challenges and defeat certain content in the game. Yet some of these players can only think about themselves only, how they should not change anything at all, because they are allowed to play how they want. Well, everyone else is allowed to play however they want, but some people choose to play properly, the way it is intended in the game.

Everyone is capable of doing well with any profession, you don’t need these crappy excuses of “b-but I refuse to learn this 50 button rotation crap! I just wanna play however I want!” Well, let me break it to you again, you can play however you want, but also properly, you aren’t forced to piano over the keyboard to do 30k dps even if you are an Elementalist. If you just decide to keep rotating 2-3 extra abilities besides your auto-attack, you can still end up doing somewhere between 10 to 25k dps depending are you on your own or in a big group of people in the open or in raids etc.

Even with that dps you end up doing nearly 10 times more damage than the absolute average player who runs around in full toughness, vitality and healing power gear with no runes. It’s really not that hard to understand that an okay gear, but with proper stats or closest to what you need, having ‘trinkets’, with a proper rune set on your armor and sigils in your weapon, with the proper traits to pick which costs you nothing, it will end up giving you so much more damage and make your gameplay actually much more enjoyable!

There are players who think these are way too big expectations and requirements to do. But why? These are the most basic things in the whole game to do and to understand. This is like launching up Dark Souls or Elden ring and refusing to use dodge and use any armor because “I don’t want to what the game tells me” then repeatedly die to the first mob you encounter and proceed to whine about the game and how other people are toxic for trying to tell you to have a proper gear.

These contents aren’t “dogshit” and “bad design”, “hard/impossible” or “needs to be nerfed” to be done. If you can’t count or do mathematics, it’s not math that sucks, it’s unfortunately you who suck at it. Obviously I’m not pointing at the reader with these, I doubt anyone who this is pointed at ever reads this anyway, I had my fair share of these type of people who think “casual = I don’t give a fuck about others, so I play how I want.” Which is the worst mentality and attitude about it. But fair enough, they want to find excuses, so there it is for them.

Yes, the game should absolutely teach essential systems and basics in the game, it’s simply ridiculous how many don’t know any of these basics in the game and are in this grand delusion of “wow I do so well in this game!” which is sadly only because you end up doing group content in the public, all these people tends to run to the official forums and legit write an essay why that single boss they can’t defeat in a story sucks and over-tuned and should be nerfed.

Arenanet did a good job on the Jade Sea meta event and the boss-fight and they continue to improve it, although occasionally also seemingly nerfing it in the disguise of “bug fixes” occasionally. I hope they keep continuing to add similarly challenging events and meta events/world bosses that aren’t just tank and spank from 100% to 0% boss health. The RNG parts in the fight are for a different topic though.

So where do we end it?

Well, “casuals” are a myth, they don’t really exist in the game, in a way they do, but not how people think they are. Elitists aren’t the people most think they are, and knowing the basics of the game isn’t something “hardcore”. Also the game isn’t a casual game.

If I may add it to the end of this, I’m actually genuinely sad, when the community does this blow up and becomes so toxic toward itself. I know people love to point fingers a lot, and that is unfortunately also a true for the GW2 community, but perhaps try not to point fingers right away and instead just ask yourselves “am I the wrong here?” the answer may sometimes surprise people.

I understand some people hate the DPS meters, and call the ones using it “elitists”, but I believe it simply comes down the thing that when these people’s comfort bubble is burst open via presenting hard facts of their “non-contribution” to anything, a.k.a. pretty much saying they are useless in the content they do or in the game in general, they cannot handle it most of the time, therefor they try to stand their ground by insulting others for being elitist. I feel like this is in our nature, so I don’t think this will ever change. And that’s why people should be put onto a higher standard but also teaching them better about the game’s systems and mechanics.

I don’t really hold much hopes to any solutions Arenanet could or would do, realistically going so far back to the core of the game would yield them very likely no profit for such effort and resources put into, just to fix this “issue” in the game, however trying to slap band aids all around also hurts more than help. It’s not 3 expansions in the game where the game should try to teach you, with cool but somewhat useless renown hearts, what your traits, gear stats, skills and such are, but right at the start that nobody can or could skip.

The game should not suffer from being nerfed every single time when people face a challenge, just simply because some people refuse to learn the basics of the game and then go run to the official forums and whine all day on it, refusing to see they are in the wrong.

I understand and see both sides, you can’t blame it all on the game, but you can neither blame it all on the players.

Thank you for reading my ramble!

Also feel free to add your thoughts to it in the comments!