Blade & Soul: Anti-social community

[Tupac Shakur]

It's no secret. In a populated place like Mushin's Tower, you could stand around 50+ other players and non of them will say a word, as they stand there doing their cycled idling poses, almost as if their characters are all looking away from each other, quietly existing in the pixellated void. 

 

I did a social experiment for a week. Every few hours a day. I'd go around populated areas in-game, like Mushin's Tower, and randomly whisper players with a simple "Hi" or "Your outfit is awesome!" and I have to say, over 90% of them wouldn't reply and those who did reply, said a simple "hi" back and that was it. Those who replied to the compliment would say "ty" and that was it.   

 

So my next one was saying random things in /say, like.. "What's up people?!" just to see who reacted, and this was near the vault in Mushin's Tower around 20+ players and not one of them responded, in fact, most of them ran away xD 

 

Other than players being so busy in cross-server, where whispers are forbidden (how pathetic) or they're AFK, or just simply anti-social for whatever reason, whatever - everyone has their reasons but;

I don't care if they're talking in clan chat.

I don't care if they're AFK.

I don't care if they're taking in faction chat.

 

Out of every big online game that I've played over the decade, non has been more anti-social than this.

 

That is all.

 

[Dad]

Tbh it's like that in every version, B&S is not much of a talking game, more combat like Street Fighter and MKX, play say GG and walk away to the next fight.

[Shadovvv]

Everyone is a bot, enough said.

[Tupac Shakur]

1 minute ago, Dad said:

Tbh it's like that in every version, B&S is not much of a talking game, more combat like Street Fighter and MKX, play say GG and walk away to the next fight.

Yeah I figured that out the hard way and it was pretty saddening because I spent over a decade on WoW, where everyone pretty much communicated with each other in various ways and the community was pretty much always alive and active; still is on certain realms like Argent Dawn. Even in the Elder Scrolls Online, it'd be easy to communicate with other players and they'd engage in conversations too, about pretty much anything but mostly game-related. 

 

Runescape was a big one for socializing too.  There's a huge list but you're right, this game doesn't seem to be in that category... especially after adding over 60 different players from my time in this game (around 3 months) only 2-4 of them talk to me every now and then. Ah well, nothing can be done, I'm just sharing my thoughts... 

[Arcayne]

I've accepted that no one communicates in MMORPG's nowadays. Seeing as I've been playing them since EQ it's odd, but whatevs, I can adapt. No what bothers me, is the sheer amount of douchebaggery that's to be found in MMO's, especially this one.

 

For example, you're methodically clearing your way to an objective, be it mob or collectible. It's obvious what your intentions are. Just as you near your target, after clearing the way some asshat comes along and steals it from under you. Then laughs. That's a common occurrence.

 

Players walk right passed other players in dire straits, obviously near death. Players just ignore them. 

 

Instead of offering obvious newbies welcome advice, they're treated like pariahs and outcasts. To be laughed at and scorned.

 

These types of things, started with WoW, and has resulted in MMORPG communities essentially resembling RL. Every man for him/herself, and f#$@ the rest of you. 

 

At least in NA.

[Tupac Shakur]

Just now, Arcayne said:

I've accepted that no one communicates in MMORPG's nowadays. Seeing as I've been playing them since EQ it's odd, but whatevs, I can adapt. No what bothers me, is the sheer amount of douchebaggery that's to be found in MMO's, especially this one.

 

For example, you're methodically clearing your way to an objective, be it mob or collectible. It's obvious what your intentions are. Just as you near your target, after clearing the way some asshat comes along and steals it from under you. Then laughs. That's a common occurrence.

 

Players walk right passed other players in dire straits, obviously near death. Players just ignore them. 

 

Instead of offering obvious newbies welcome advice, they're treated like pariahs and outcasts. To be laughed at and scorned.

 

These types of things, started with WoW, and has resulted in MMORPG communities essentially resembling RL. Every man for him/herself, and f#$@ the rest of you. 

 

At least in NA.

Oh definitely that too, how could I miss out the toxicity of the community... 

 

Even in any competitive scene like PvP/Arena, you'll see them throwing insults at each other but it'll always be the same words, like "Autism" "Retard" "Cancer" "Kill yourself" etc etc. 

 

I remember when I first started and I got to lvl 20, joined a cross-server dungeon for Blackram Narrows and because I never understood the bidding system, I put a bid on a soulshield then carried on walking through the instance portal, not knowing it trashed the item since I was the highest bidder, and got called a "c**t" and everything, even though I explained that I'm new and didn't know any better. lol

[Yetan]

If you see me standing idle, I'm mostly AFK or browsing storage, market or store. With the amount of gold spammers and system messages that constantly popping up, I'd very likely miss all the /s messages. Private whisper is different, depending on how long it takes me to notice the message if I'm not showing the chat UI at all, so don't expect me replying right away. I do talk in /faction after I actively block all the gold spammers and am able to see the real chats. Party/dungeon chat is also flooded with system messages that are hard to pick through when you are constantly moving.

 

With the amount of gold spammers in chats, I haven't found an easy way to organize chat windows yet. Basically, it is not that I don't want to be social. I didn't even know that you were talking to me.

[spongemike]

I mostly only use guild chats now. Also as someone mention there are too many spammers in genera/looking for party, faction, looking for guild chat is impossible to see who actually message you.

[ARC-1276]

Thus far I've only played 2 MMORPGs, one of them being the critically panned Scarlet Blade, and then this game. By far this game has an EVEN WORSE community than Scarlet Blade, which is just laughable!

 

Hackers here are even more rampant, there's bots everywhere, unfair game mechanics, and gold sellers everywhere! Then there are elitists.....need I say more?

 

In game people actually comment about me being some of the nicest people they've met! Which is kind of sad, cause that means that there aren't that many people out there who are nice. If being polite becomes a defining characteristic of someone, imagine what that means about everyone else? 

[Mistia]

Well I also think many of the game features are lacking to promote interaction between players.

 

i.e. Chat system. 1) no time stamp. What are we, in the Lineage I era? This game came out in the early/late 2010 period, there is no excuse here. Can't remember how many times clannies want to join pt, after like 10 mins... 2) chat wipe. When you enter/exit x-server, your chat gets wiped. There maybe a few other places, can't remeber now.

 

I received frd request from someone one day, asked Clan they knew this person, they just outright explain its a bot/spammer, block it. As @Yetanmentioned, in BnS, when a random says "hi" to you, you don't think this maybe a real person. You think a bot is befriending you.

 

PS. @Tupac Shakur When someone "hi" back to you, why don't you con't the conversation? Just that, is not ppl being anti-social.

 

Overall I would say this game really is the most anti-social MMORPG I've ever played, but overall for all regions of BnS, perhaps NA/EU are not the worse.

[Laosduude]

Most people have their own little circle. Doesn't really matter what game you're playing tbh. I've always seen it as if people want to talk to eachother in an mmo, they have to do some kind of activity together because that's what you want to do in video games with people.

[ander01se]

Well... not sure you can call Marvel Heroes 2016 an MMO, but that's the previous online game I played, and the community there was awesome compared to BnS or pretty much any other online game.

 

 

Players doing giveaways almost every / every other week... what is this blasphemy!? O_o;

 

[Yuuki]

This makes me miss fiesta online and other MMOs (when they were popular) because everyone would talk and if you needed help, you would get it almost immediately... You definitely need a guild to enjoy this game because people usually don't use chat, they use TS3 or Discord.

 

But as Arcayne was saying, there have been so many times I was killing the mobs in frostscale basin around the sacrifices you have to save, and people will just wait for you to kill them and snatch them while you have to aggro. 

 

I can't even run dungeons (except blues) with pugs anymore, because if you die or mess up, you instantly get sarcastic or rude comments, which just make the game unenjoyable in the long run.   

 

 

[Zuf]

Trust me, it's better when they don't talk.

[Drakor]

I think the main problem is all the grinding that one needs too do in this game, everyone is so busy at doing the dailies for gold and farming the instances they just don't have the time to be social which is sad.

[Sithaer]

1 hour ago, Mistia said:

 

 @Tupac Shakur When someone "hi" back to you, why don't you con't the conversation? Just that, is not ppl being anti-social.

This,if someone just totally randomly says Hi to me I kinda expect that they did that for a reason and wants something,if I say Hi back and the conversation ends there I'm not gonna ask further what you want,after all its you who started it.

 

But yea I'm also one of those ppls who doesn't talk much ingame,if any.

I'm generally a quiet/silent person both ingame and irl and I really don't feel the need to have small talk with random ppls.

I don't mind discussing game related mechanics or answering a general question @faction chat,etc but I'm not here to chit chat just randomly.

 

Also tend to alt tab out of the game often so even if someone talks to me theres a high chance that I won't notice.

 

 

 

[Shadzar]

It is probably a lot more social and friendly when you have the voice chat that was removed in NA/EU version of the game. Might have only been something that worked for a party, but it probably made dungeons and stuff a lot easier.

[Mistia]

4 minutes ago, Sithaer said:

This,if someone just totally randomly says Hi to me I kinda expect that they did that for a reason and wants something,if I say Hi back and the conversation ends there I'm not gonna ask further what you want,after all its you who started it.

 

But yea I'm also one of those ppls who doesn't talk much ingame,if any.

I'm generally a quiet/silent person both ingame and irl and I really don't feel the need to have small talk with random ppls.

I don't mind discussuing game related mechanics or,etc but I'm not here to chit chat just randomly.

 

Also tend to alt tab out of the game often so even if someone talks to me theres a high chance that I won't notice.

Same here. I usually thought why are ppl so rude when you hi back at them and nothing. So you are just so bored and seeking attention from someone giving you a "hi" back? But as any MMORPG, you encounter all kinds of ppl.

 

I can't really type (or voice chat) while playing at the same time. I don't ever chat w/ pugs I run, unless there is a need and that's the same as to every game I play. Sometimes i'll greet but that as far as I'll go. The odd thing is that usually there be ppl bantering even as pugs, but BnS just constant silence. Like everybody turn on their mute switch when they play this game.

[Sithaer]

11 minutes ago, Shadzar said:

It is probably a lot more social and friendly when you have the voice chat that was removed in NA/EU version of the game. Might have only been something that worked for a party, but it probably made dungeons and stuff a lot easier.

I doubt.I came from an MMO that has this option for years now.I ended up turning it off after a few days cause either no one uses it or its only morons playing music trough it or screaming into it. 'I can only imagine what this community would do with such option,lol...'

+Not everyone can speak English,at least not in EU.I can write but I would never try to speak it out loud cause its terrible and I know it.

[Zekken]

In my opinion, the lack of social environment is a direct result of the game design. The game in no way requires or provides incentive for anyone to group together while leveling. I was pretty much able to solo through the game until endgame dungeons. Then when you finally need a group to progress, you have to compete with party members for drops that you need in high quantities which kind of spoils the social interaction (at least in my opinion).

 

I don't think I've played a MMORPG with a real social environment since FFXI, which pretty much required a party to do anything. I think that being able to build relationships for a longer period of time through group play from the very beginning helped promote a more social environment. Also, I think the fact that most people only had to make one character  (no real reason to have alts aside from using them as mules) in FFXI had a factor in a developing a healthy social environment. 

[Nilkemios]

The game gives little to no incentive to party or interact with others.

 

In my experience, the only times where partying up is a benefit in this game is :

 

- During kill quests, quests that involve getting an item from killing something, or gather quests, as those items count for the whole party then, and depending on the area/targets, there may not be enough for each person normally. As such, the benefit is getting it done faster and avoiding the kill stealing part of the game's credit system.

 

- Certain dungeon instances whose main reward is from the dynamic quest/daily quest. As such, the bidding system is of little to no effect here, and thus will not discourage players from grouping. This is mainly the case for places like the Darkglimpse, Sentinel Ruins, Altar of Champions, and a few others.

 

- When you have no other choice. Obviously, this can depend on class, but it starts at either Bokgon Hideout or Tomb of Exiles for most, where the bosses (and eventually even trash enemies) become too overpowered for players to face alone, even if their gear is upgraded as high as it could be before entering that dungeon at the same level. Some classes like Assassin can be exceptions, but they have to usually know the dungeon in and out first, which means having to read a guide to boss patterns and attacks, as the game itself doesn't explain this well to them.

 

The bid system is a major deterrent to partying up as well. It amazes me that GW2 is still the only MMO I've played where the developers had enough sense to get rid of any rolling/bidding for loot, and just give everyone their own loot instead. If that was the same case here in Blade and Soul, I'd feel less inclined to solo all the time to avoid the horrid bidding system getting in the way of things I need.

 

The key is to encourage partying without forcing it, something that GW2 seemed to make the best attempt at (until HoT anyways, where they kinda forgot about it).

[Shadzar]

Zekken, BnS doesnt really have a social environment, because the only places safe to socialize are also the places everyone else needs to be to do gaming business like vault, crafting, etc. those are the only mob-free areas other than like the tunnels between say Bamboo Village and Everdusk.

[Bhindu]

I give people stuff on my server all the time without even having to be asked just cause I either have some excess or I feel like being nice. It's not my fault people blurt out they don't have X item.

 

Still apparently one of the biggest jerks on the server...

[Tracmar]

I guess the number of jerks are more prevalent in the servers Mushin/Poharan lol 

 

Every single person I have run with from these servers on cross serve dungeons fall into the below categories : 

 

1. Rush into the fight, gets fire up, kills group, and blames everyone else 

2. Talks about knowing everything , dies to mechanics every single time , blames the group

3. Tells everyone they suck , rush in , die miserably , complain , rinse repeat 

4 . Latest one : asks for 600ap for Vipercap, rushes in starts dpsing boss , people tells them to stop , calls them all autistic !#!#$! and leaves lol 

 

Feel free to add on 

[Arcayne]

4 minutes ago, Tracmar said:

4 . Latest one : asks for 600ap for Vipercap, rushes in starts dpsing boss , people tells them to stop , calls them all autistic !#!#$! and leaves lol

Oh I like that one, can't wait till I run into this kind of tool. 

 

Had something somewhat similar. I've made it my business to let everyone know, (just for today anyways), that you don't need to dps the last boss. Just kill mini mushrooms ,pick up items, toss at boss.

 

Anyways so one run after I typed that, had one individual just "lol" and "noob" me. He then proceeded to dps the boss. Stayed on it all fight.

 

We came within 5-6 seconds or 5% of getting all three chests. Instead lost one. He then got pissed at us for being "bad". Then left.

 

Well, there ya go. BnS in a nut shell.