So I encountered something this week. I joined a Fresh normal PuG. Listed as Clearing All Tier Bosses. We cleared up to Anduin, with zero wipes, only 1 or 2 deaths. All of the DPS was solid, heals and tanks were solid. Then as we are standing in front of Anduin the RL says “Bringing in Guildies for Tier Bosses” then kicks the entire raid but himself and his guildmate and I. Shortly after the raid begins to fill up with his guildmates, most of which were geared as well as the pugs, maybe slightly less. The RL says that they are trying to get alts tier. He then asks me for a closet to begin summoning them.
I hearthed out. It didnt seem right.
I have also heard of this happening in heroic pugs and what not. In addition to lockout stealing for Tier Bosses. Is this something that is going to be a problem that needs to be addressed? Or will it fizzle out?
I will preface with that yes, I already know the solution is to “make my own groups”, or “dont join PuGs”. The problem is that PuGs are unfortunately how a lot of people have to raid. Simply because their work schedule varies week to week, and they cant have set raid nights. Its just a fact.
I think this type of behavior is bad for the game, and like a lot of the inevitable carry sales/arena sales, IO Score, iLvL hawks just end up hurting the game they like to play. Two sides to the coin though. Scores and Rating are a way to play with people of similar skill and power. But they are also a way to exclude people from trying to play up to that level.
I dont know the answer, but a lot of the WoW broad spectrum players are just toxic to random players. More so than most MMO’s I have experienced. It almost feels as bad as CS Go.
not only to do it but to have the wordicantsayhere to keep you around to summon their guildies after which point they probably would have kicked you too.
at the end of their day, they didn’t break any rules, but it certainly is a crappy thing to do.
That sort of behavior is exactly why WoW is considered to be one of the more toxic games out there. Personally, I hate that tier is making people do this because I’m sure Blizzard will use that as an excuse to get rid of tier entirely. That’s something they would do, because they aim to fix the wrong root cause of every problem.
That was horrible behavior. Raid lockouts with pugs have been an issue since TBC, unfortunately. They’ve made it marginally better by only loot-locking on Normal/Heroic, but who wants to reclear seven bosses? Personally I only PUG raids on my main on Monday YOLO night, and only if I’m not holding a lockout for the guild.
The REAL problem is that Blizzard refuses to address toxic player behavior. With a raid full of people reporting that player, and chat logs to support, Blizzard should have a policy to suspend the player’s account for an escalating period of time. They don’t.
while I agree that what they did was a jerk move
while I know I would never do something like that
no player is obligated to keep other players in their group. for any reason.
look the guy could have just said “welp we’re gonna call it here” and in that case, everyone would have gone on their way and no one would have been upset. What they did was low-class and rude, but it wasn’t a violation of the rules.
I feel like I’m not understanding a few elements here.
How is this lockout kicking the pugs? They now have a lockout of their own that starts at Anduin and they can just make a new raid to start right where they left off.
Suppose I am a RL and I want to do this to save my players time or something. Doesn’t it make more sense for me to just leave the group and start a new raid with my guildies, rather than kicking people out? As far as the guild is concerned they’d be starting from the same point at Anduin anyway.
I feel like the only bad move here is the disassembling of the raid, since it puts the onus on the pugs to reform, rather than just leaving them with a mostly-functional group they could take over leadership of to finish themselves.
It’s worth noting here, for anyone who might say, “Deal with it, start your own group, life isn’t fair, etc.” … players already know that. Players who encounter unfair or unethical or just downright mean behavior already know how to work around it. Leave the group and try again. Start your own group. Only run with friends/guildies. All of those suggestions are valid, but they’re also not relevant to what the OP is actually saying.
The OP isn’t saying, “This is happening and there’s nothing I can do about it! I can’t raid now!” OP left they group when they decided that what was happening wasn’t cool, and I’m sure they moved on and cleared another raid.
OP is saying, “This is happening and, while there are ways to work around it, this is not only unethical but bad for the game.”
Situations where players with more privilege/power misuse other players with less privilege/power are based not on individual player behavior but on design decisions. Uncool situations don’t arise because uncool players do uncool things. Uncool situations arise because developers created a game in which those things are allowed.
This is literally a situation where it isn’t the players who are being criticized but the game.
So yeah, you can work around unethical behavior. You can still clear raids or get gear or meet your other objectives despite the uncool behavior of uncool players.
But better game design decisions can create a game in which the uncool player is never able to do the uncool thing, which makes the game … cooler.
You’re acting – in bad faith, I think – as if WoW’s game design was handed down, eternal and immutable, by distant gods who care nothing for the affairs of mortals.
“but it wasn’t violation of the rules.”
Who made those rules? Are those rules unchangeable? Are different rules possible?
WoW has changed a lot over the years, and in my opinion, many of those changes have been great, especially for players like myself who do most of their play solo.
But WoW’s group content isn’t accidentally friendly to griefers and trolls. It allows those awful behaviors by design.
sure it can, but I don’t think a game in which we are obligated to keep players in our group is a game people really want to play.
look at the constant calls to change the way mythic lockouts work, as an example.
Like I said, I absolutely 100 and 5 percent agree with you that the people who did this acted in bad faith, that it was rude, and I understand why people would be upset. I would never do it - I don’t even like kicking someone from a group before a key starts if a guildie logs in and wants to go. but I maintain that I also don’t want to play a game in which I don’t have agency over my groups.
