I know, I know. It’s Sunday and it’s another Classic versus Retail thread, but I’ve been itching to get some discussion going about these kinds of game styles when it comes to WoW.
My impression is that Classic is better than Retail when it comes to creating a community that would be more engaging towards helping each other and having a lower chance of housing toxicity. Reputation matters; and while something like leveling takes a long time and has some difficulty attached to it, it influences players in helping each other out and developing a certain character to their character, if you will.
That’s just one reasoning, of course. I’m sure other people can come up with more.
Here’s what I see in Retail that turns me off when it comes gaming as a whole (community):
Queue-based systems and the ability to speed-through, as well the simplicity of, solo content gives people no reason to care about the support of others(as well as their own social input). Allow me to elaborate…
When you’re able to get through content that you don’t need help with, and then resort to a queue that has no real “bias” attached, you can get what you want without any real consequence/penalty for being toxic. A 30 minute or so debuff isn’t much of a big deal, since you can simply queue again and be placed with plenty of people who have no idea who you are. You’re free to be toxic because there’s no harm that would come to you if you were.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to all types of players; some players play with friends/guildies/etc. but I think the majority would go by the styles I described.
The problem with queueable content is that it has to be easy enough for a random group of strangers to get through. The easier content is one expansion, the easier it has to be the next. The floor keeps getting lower and lower, so these queueable groups have to be placed into easier and easier content. People are conditioned to be able to AFK through everything and when they can’t, it’s an uproar (See: Mage tower, for example)
When the content becomes so easy that no communication is required, you may as well be playing with bots and there is no longer the multiplayer aspect that there is when you have to actually play together.
Some will say that is good, but those are the people that sign up for a multiplayer game expecting solo play to be catered towards. Personally, I don’t care for those people. There are much better single player games out there than WoW and I wish they would stop trying to turn an MMORPG into a solo RPG. Blizzard appeasing that audience has only hurt sub numbers over the last half-decade.
Instant, thoughtless, auto-win content is too shallow to captivate a solid playerbase. Instead we get people who only care about having the best gear for doing the least amount of content, only so they can proceed to massively outgear the content they do within days because the easy has to become easier. This game needs more thought provoking content than just mythic raiding if it wants to recapture a solid community in an MMORPG. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to end up with garbage like Islands and Warfronts.
You know OP, my original character when I first came into wow a long time ago was a Tauren male. However, I was so noob then, I never even got to Thunderbluff, and didn’t know how to play. So I just finally did Mulgore this evening on a Tauren male, as that was my very first toon I made on wow. This was because I liked Cairne Bloodhoof from the original warcraft 3 games, I thought he was cool.
But the reality is, the reason I didn’t even get through Mulgore when I first played the game, was because some of the quests were very difficult if not impossible to get through without asking for help from other people.
Probably because I have years of experience on wow now, I was able to get through all of Classic Mulgore on my own with the exception of the Venture Co mines, that’s when I had to have someone help, the problem is rarely the difficulty of one add, its more respawn rates and mobs attacking in packs that’s the issue.
The point is, that I can only speak for myself but if you don’t have good friends, guildies or people willing to team up with you, you are often out of luck. I do feel that Classic is getting some of that community spirit back of people teaming up with each other again, but I don’t think I would be willing to sacrifice the convenience of life features we have today, I am just enjoying Classic for the different game it is really.
I think the devs think this, but I don’t think it’s correct. It’s not about easy but it does have to be clear what to do. The queueable content in FFXIV is more difficult than LFR but it’s more obvious what you are supposed to do.
Very little raid content actually requires communication during the actual fight if everyone know what they are supposed to do.
Personally I think that as an MMO community ages they become less and less likely to help out or group with strangers. When an MMO is brand new people group up with people they don’t know, but once they find a stable group they become less likely to do that. As it became harder to find groups WoW devs introduced the queue system-- I don’t think it was actually the cause of a community that isn’t friendly.
There is still plenty of content in wow that runs smoother or that requires a group. Going back to an older MMO model like FFXI or Everquest where you absolutely must have a group to progress would cause a mass exodus of players. The ones that remain might have stronger community ties but they probably would be the ones that do anyway.
A ‘reputation’ limiting toxic behavior only works in a really small community. I don’t think it really worked like people said even in vanilla. WoW should once again borrow from other MMOs and implement things that reward you for being helpful and mentoring new players.
Exactly. And what will happen on Classic (for example) if someone decides to tool around 3-4 months from now and the majority are doing lvl 60 content? They’re quite likely up the creek because the server doesn’t have a population that can support him as he levels.
Has the queue system done damage? I think people can agree it has, but at the same time, it is kind of required due to the idea that server populations are all over the place in terms of density.
We can disagree on a topic while staying polite about it. You’re getting a bit snarky which won’t help your message. If someone you disagree with is trying to goad you into being snappy, ignore their jabs and focus on the content in their messages that are worth discussing. And if they are contributing nothing of value, simply ignore them.
And you decided the way to do that was to post, as you say, another Classic versus Retail thread, on a Sunday.
Lots of toxicity in Classic, particularly around and above level 40 when single-tagging leads to even more people intentionally standing by and not helping other players or groups in trouble, hoping that they can swipe the tag after the people they’re not helping die.
Or as I’m seeing much more of in the last few days - intentionally trying to get other people/groups killed.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I do not like BFA, at all, but I’m not going to pretend Classic’s “community” isn’t heavily driven by necessity, and that such a community (as it did in vanilla) begins to fall away into cliques as the game progresses.
Not if you’ve got a guild or a group of friends you play with. Then the only reputation that really matters is the one you’ve got with them.
Queue-based systems aren’t the problem with community. Cross-realm and sharding are the primary problem with community in retail.
Most people using queue-based systems aren’t toxic people trying to skirt penalties for their behavior. They’re people who don’t have the time, achievements, or rating to get into other groups; people with social anxiety issues; and people who lack the confidence and/or ability to create their own groups. They’re just people trying to find ways to play more of the game.
I think we’ve discussed this about a million times at this point already, and it never changes the biases of people like you.
Queues were introduced at WoW’s peak sub count and it steadily declined afterwards. I don’t think queues are that bad for some things, but there’s nothing to really substantiate your point
I think with questing open world content, I think it’s fine with how it goes now, where most of the quests you can manage on your own, with the odd unnecessary group quest, to me the Classic level of difficulty of open world content while it does encourage you to team up with people, it certainly has its disadvantages.
I think premade group finder was a decent compromise, where the leader of the group gets the final say what goes on, that was the main problem with queable content back in cata/MOP really, that there wasn’t a single leader who could be in control. This wasn’t practical for that level of difficulty.
I understand a community-based queue but what if you work off hours? what if you’re on a realm that has a very lopsided faction population? do you just quit the game?
The lack of community that comes with a queueable system could be easily rectified by blizzard they just choose not to. there’s no, commendation system there’s no option to group with other people if they prove themselves to be good should they queue in the future.
There are groups for such people; we’re one example. We start raiding at 9:30 pacific, and on non-raid nights generally people start to log on around 9 PST (which is midnight east coast, and we have a fair number of east coast players on the team).
We’re not the only ones raiding around that time, either.
I’m actually coming back to Retail on this warlock, and atm I’m trying to find a decent later night guild on this server Horde-side. What you describe would actually be perfect for me. Any chance I could join?