Every time someone tries to bring up what a problem there is with toxicity in the WoW community, especially in PUG groups, people always respond with something like “I always run with my guild and I don’t see any problem with the WoW community”. Well no duh.
If you went to PUG a raid or M+ right now, ask yourself, how likely is it that you would run into someone who is a jerk to you or someone else in your group? It’s not like it’s a rarity or an outlier, and that’s why it’s a problem, it has become the norm.
This game has become endlessly trying to find a friendly guild, putting up with jerks in PUGs, or playing solo. Even if you’re going to respond with “well the game has always been like this”, ask yourself, do you really think it’s impossible for the WoW community to ever be better than that? At the very least could negative experiences in PUGs not be the norm and instead be like, I don’t know, a bit more rare than they are now? You can’t fully eliminate all jerks, sure, but is it at least possible to maybe like, improve it just a little bit from the cesspit it is now? At all?
I at least hope that if you go to PUG content you go into not expecting people to be jerks because that’s just the norm of PUG content in WoW. I don’t think that’s asking for much.
This is because Cross realm grouping was the best and worst thing for the game ever. Because cross realm turned everyone into a number not a person. But it also opened up so much more players to one another, so you also see the worst of people more often.
Pro tip for real though, if you wanna avoid that trolls and just overall get a better experience, get in discords with people. Like you will be so suprised how quickly the macho keyboard warrior cools their jets when they are in voice chat. Great example of this are raids. Doing a pug raid, i have yet to meet a single toxic person, when i was in voice chat with the rest of the group. Because when you can actually put a voice behind a character, they stop being a number and become a person and people genreally act nicer to them.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T PUG DON’T REALIZE HOW BAD THE COMMUNITY IS NOW
I could probably agree with this statement.
but I do think that many who dont PUG still know how obnoxious the player base is in this game.
The wife and I are just running WQs today and the ill mannered behavior of players is obvious enough without even grouping with them.
They’ll literally pull a dozen trash for no reason, then hand deliver it to you while youre busy fighting half a dozen already, leaving you to either run or die.
Pretty childish and unnecessary, but they do it…both sides.
Which is exactly the same reason why this isn’t as much of a problem in guilds, either. Because people are interacting in voice and such in guilds, as well.
I just wish and hope the WoW community could eventually just… not be jerks to each other in random groups most of the time. Every once in a while, sure. But at the very least I just hope people could just be… neutral, not overly nice, just not a jerk, neutral.
Definitely, but the people I usually see denying how bad the community is now are people who only do content with their guilds and pretend like everything is fine because of it.
Cross realm grouping makes it easier to find groups. That’s it. Being in more groups makes it more likely to run into a bad experience eventually.
I’ve not experienced more toxicity in this expansion than any other. Voice chat doesn’t save you from toxic groups. I joined someone’s discord that was just filled with really racist memes. So I simply left that group. I’ve also been in voice chat with someone who just wouldn’t stop arguing with the raid lead, so I left that group too.
I do think Blizzard should give us more tools to deal with it and avoid toxic groups. Until that time you can always just leave toxic groups. Don’t put up with it and maybe eventually those people will have to reflect on why everyone leaves their groups.
I realize that, but I also think it’s not impossible to improve the community even just a small, marginal amount. I think the WoW community used to be slightly friendlier in the past, so I think it’s possible that eventually people might go into PUG content expecting to not see someone being a jerk and that’s not the norm, but rather the outlier.
Do you really think it’s impossible for the WoW community to ever be at a point where if you go to PUG content in WoW, it’s not the norm that you’re going to run into someone being a jerk to you or others? I think it’s 100% possible.
Only as bad as any other ever, and only as bad as you allow it to be
You can take mitigation as to how bad an experience you have. ie, having at least one buddy can be an awesome help.
Having lions share of the group helps.
Guild group helps.
Sulking you are the low hanging fruit in such a situation… not so much.
I and my fellow officers work our asses off for our guild to help there.
Dont need to PuG if its all in house~
I’ve had both extremely toxic and extremely positive experiences in pugs. Some pug keys I’ve done lately were more successful and well coordinated than many guild runs I’ve done even. This is broadly how most things in life go. I completely understand having a string of bad experiences and having that shape your bias though.
