There are 2 main complaint threads on the forums right now.
PvP balance (shamans, STV meta, BG rep is slow, mage 1 shots, rogue burst with mutilate)
Toxic raid meta excluding certain classes from the raid.
Controversial take or not, I think the first point is real, and the second one is a myth/exaggerated.
There’s dozens of guilds on forums recruiting all SOD players regardless of class, dozens of guilds in the trade/general chat on my server (Horde Wild-Growth) and even my guild, who cleared 6/6 gnomer week 1 and has been doing fairly trivial clears twice a week since, are recruiting people of any class to come clear the raid twice a week. And a lot of guilds are doing this because they’re looking forward to phase 2, where they need 20 people, so they want 2 solid teams right now so accommodate that.
If you can’t get into a raid, it’s because you’re messaging the people in trade chat with the crazy copy/paste blurbs about checking logs for a pug. The reality is, you could be in a guild that will let you raid on the whatever character you want, and getting into said guild would take you less time than writing a post complaining about it would.
Most players aren’t checking logs, and don’t care about parses, which is why the people that try to parse can generally get the 90+ percentile parse they’re after, because 90% of everyone else doesn’t care.
It seems like to me, if I had to guess, you got used to trading gold for loot transactionally in raids, and don’t actually like raiding and learning the encounters, and you’re hiding behind your class as your excuse for why you can’t do that anymore.
Also people who think you need to have a 90+ parse to do the raid, how do you think parses work?
For there to be people in the top 10% there needa to be players in the bottom 90%, and all of those are raiding.
If the bottom 1% players are getting runs that means anyone who wants to can get runs.
I’ve never had an issue tbh ik I’m a healer and in need but all the groups I’ve done outside of the few guild runs have been good, sometimes they might fail to do something one or twice but we’ve always gotten it on the 3rd unlike BFD I’ve never failed to 6/6 but it helps that BFD gear is extremely strong so makes gnomeragon easier
So your whole solution… is to join a guild? Why should people be forced into joining guilds? The toxic raid meta exists… it’s always existed and will continue to exist, which is normal.
Just like no one is forcing you to go to med school (unless you want to be a doctor)
And no one is forcing you to go to law school (unless you want to be a lawyer)
But there is a vocal minority of people who want strangers to not be discriminatory when they construct pugs - and that’s having your cake and eating it too.
So no one is forcing you to join a guild, but if you’re on the forums everyday complaining because you want the things that a guild would provide you (raid on any class you want without risking being discriminated against by strangers) - then yeah it sounds like maybe you are forcing yourself to join a guild or to reframe your own expectations.
I’m not complaining but it’s ridiculous to say the toxic raid meta doesn’t exist… your whole solution was to join a guild, stop acting like you didn’t know what I meant by forced into it… stop trying to be that guy, arguing semantics.
So you’re not making a point you’re just saying joining a guild as a suggestion is some form of oppression
and also if anyone takes the words you say to mean the things those words mean (IE ‘forced’) that they’re arguing in bad faith and purposefully not getting your point.
I can’t see why anyone going through life with that mindset would have any social difficulties. Truly a conundrum.
Guilds are not for everyone. Guilds are good for people with stable schedules who can be reliable. Its not for everyone. I did the guild thing in era It felt like a second job Having to rush home on raid days to make it on time. Pug meta is cool. I dont feel the exclusions as I mostly make my own groups. But its tough for rogues. I always try to get atleast 1 in the group and theyre always so thankful for the run.
Last night my guild did an alt raid. 2 warlock tanks, 2 shaman dps, and 1 of every other class. As we were all alts, nobody had gnomer gear, gear was literally questing greens on most of us, and our raid experience with the classes we were playing was extremely low.
We wiped once on menagerie (as tank, I underestimated the incoming damage, had to make adjustments), but we went 6/6. With gray and green parses, the raid went smooth.
Sorry, but there is no toxic raid meta. Only toxic babies in trade chat.
The assertion that 51% or more of players who are trying to do gnomer aren’t able to find groups because of the toxic raid meta - is a very ambitious claim. We don’t have enough clear data to prove or disprove that, but you’d be talking about numbers equal to every man, woman, and child in the country of Latvia spamming trade chat looking for a PUG every 3 days.
Seems more likely [to me] it’s just a very vocal minority of people who want to complain about a problem they have the tools and the agency to solve themselves.
And I don’t have sympathy for that argument. Being a non-meta dps spec and wanting to do a high coordination activity, but refusing to join a guild and yelling about toxic meta pug culture is like being an underwater basketweaving freelancer who refuses to get a job at a company and yells about toxic meta gig culture.
