I hit my goals for the patch. KSM on a couple toons, AoTC on one or two. And then just playing and gearing alts. But, the community on retail just feels insufferable currently.
Keys in the +2-7 range are super toxic in the PuG world. It is so unwelcoming and negative. One wipe on a last boss, when there is plenty of time left in a +3? Someone says, “What a bunch of _(*& players. Not here to teach idiots.” Drops group. Effectively ending the key and wasting everyones time. Normal/Heroic PuG raids are just people being very rude to others and arbitrarily kicking people.
Not to mention the hyper focus on whats “meta” in retail, even considering that if you arent pushing in the +10/Mythic Raid realm, you will be fine with just players playing what they like and are good at.
Then there are the chat trolls. Not going to get into it there, but OOOFF its bad.
Im not going to rant about all the recent experiences, but it just feels a lot worse than it has for a long time. And I have been playing since the game launched. The retail PuG community and community in general, just feels worse than it ever has.
So i logged into Hardcore, just to relax and play the game. The community there is helpful, friendly and fun. Even though the gameplay is simpler. The mechanics are simpler, and for all intents and purposes, it is worse gameplay. The simple experience and the risk vs reward, plus the community is such a better experience.
I dont have a silver bullet idea on how to fix any of it. I have read several complaints on how bad the retail community is in the PuG world, and I took them with a grain of salt. But, now that I am out there PuG’ing with alts, I cant deny it. The Retail PuG world is a genuinely off-putting experience.
This makes no sense. As I primarily play retail. The parallel would be retail is my home, and classic hardcore would be my summer home. And commenting that my summer home is much more comfortable and relaxing than my primary home.
And again. The gameplay in retail is significantly better in retail. Its the community that is hurting the experience.
I noticed you’re on A-52. I don’t like to make generalizations but as long as I’ve played WoW I have never heard good things about the community on that server.
Find a community that suits you and stop pugging, you will feel a lot better about things that way.
I pretty much stopped doing any pug group content except normal dungeons after Mythic+ was introduced, and completely stopped as soon as follower dungeons were a thing, with ‘normal’ difficulty dungeons being run as if they were a Mythic+ even before they were
I cannot express how utterly happy I was when they confirmed follower dungeons were going to be an evergreen thing going forward, and also for Delves giving solo or with a friend or two progression without touching the hugely toxic pug community.
That said, I do feel bad for any truly new players that try to join the game, because they will not last long with the pug community in WoW, unless they are a soloer or just find a guild and only play with them.
Any progression I make is made through pugs. My guild is casual but we are starting to do more stuff which is awesome. PuGs can be a little mean when things are hard to complete or failed. I found the majority are not mean however. Yes, I mess up sometimes and it upsets people. Yes, others mess up or arguments can break out between others. But typically it’s not that way.
I wish it was not ever that way. It can harm somebody’s confidence to keep trying to do more content.
I guess the only real thing I have done to overcome it is to try to take whatever experience I gain from a run or a boss pull and try again. Try to pick out what you can gain from it and keep pushing.
And in turn it helps to support those who are learning or having trouble, to make the game better for others.
Maybe it’s not anybody’s job to teach or guide somebody in a group but it doesn’t hurt to stay positive to make it feel less stressful either.
I feel many people who are pugging are like this ^ and they are inspiring to me. Over the meanies. Lol
This is all that matters. You did AOTC for the 30th time, which is more than I am going to do. The formula is old and I will be out if the expansion is made the same way using this same M+ and R+ structure. It is a boring loop that needs to end.
Sincerely, based. I’ve been playing this game since grade school and this stuff has always been around, but so have the positive elements, and in the last couple of years, the preponderance of good vibes seem especially noticeable to me.
And Z is right too. Toxic people are everywhere. Just do your best to seek out the good ones < 3
People that quits a game because some social interaction in the game made em feel bad is funny honestly.
Like you want the game makers to police something that governments won’t touch with a ten foot stick since the invention of society?
Pugging is a last resort. You’re jumping into the last resort and complaining it’s horrible. It is. It’s literally the bottom wet soggy crumbs of the barrel.