PvE players and toxicity

Community General Discussion
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Something that I have noticed over the years is that many players that don’t do high endgame content have this idea that higher endgame content is filled with toxic and cruel players, when the truth of the matter is is that the more difficult PvE content the less toxic the players are. The forum, LFR, regular mythics and low mythic keys have some of the worst attitude players you can encounter. Once you step higher than those you can find plenty decent, nice, helpful, and awesome attitude players.

Sorry, PvP-bro’s, but you guys see it all the way from the bottom on up.

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Thats because of selection bias. Higher keys and higher end content tend to have players that have a higher baseline of game competency, which in turn leads to less confrontation about some real brain dead playing.

Higher end content also selects for more driven and competitive players though, so its not all roses.

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There’s toxic people in every aspect of this game, coming from multiple angles, and it happens at every skill level.

Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in this game were R1 players, and some of the most toxic people I got roped into running with were M+ players doing Hero range keys.

:dracthyr_shrug:

It’s the internet.
People are jerks over battle pets even.

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Just for that, I’m going to tryhard my way into a World First core team just to scream at them like old Asmongold.

I’m sure I’ll be able to average things out. :dracthyr_hehe:

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Untrue I aotc legion and have not raided since. I remember a warrior that every time we meet would complain about me because i was not as good as him never spoke to the person but constantly had something bad to say about my play style to the raid leader. He was a mythic raider with another guild we only did heroic raids.

The higher up you go the more no life i will scream at you if you make me do this fight one more time

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Not true at all, trying doing +17 as healer and the toxics will come out of the crawling hole because “healers should do damage and not heal”

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I think that depends on what actions you would consider toxic.

I would agree that the higher achieving PVE players are less likely to yell at you or insult you, although it does still happen.

But…higher end players also tend to be more picky about performance in high end content and will sit people in raids and will often abandon keys if they are not going to time them which some people consider toxic behavoir.

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Telling the truth isn’t toxic.

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Ok I’ll just spam cast smite and not cast a single heal, let u deal with any incoming dmg since u care about my 5% dps so much.

Like how does that make sense?

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You know, people have already discussed the broader issue ad nauseam.

Toxicity breeds engagement, and business is about engagement, not enjoyment.

As long as you are paying and playing, it doesnt matter if you are loving or hating.

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Almost every leveling dungeon I’ve run I’ve had to report someone. The best was someone kicking the tank with the reason “Tank doesn’t know what to do and Brazilian.” Of course while I was spending time with a close friend from Peru who happens to be a new player. Just freaking fantastic.

This game is rampant with toxicity in PvE and PvP content. It’s honestly starting to p me off something fierce. Some of y’all need to grow the fudge up and learn to be helpful.

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A large portion of modern WoW players are a blight. How much more enjoyable would the game be if these no life clowns just vanished right now? quite a bit I would say.

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I think there’s just enough of those toxic players in any aspect of the game where you’re competing that it could be seen as 100% toxic. It wouldn’t take many really. This is just how competitive video games work for some reason. It distills the toxic into some players and they want to share it.

Heck, I bet there’s even people who are competitive about where more toxic players are.

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Couldn’t agree more. What little flaming I have seen at all playing far more than I probably should since BFA has all been in low keys or pug normal raiding.

In SL it was pretty known that 8-12 range keys were hard cursed for this kind of behavior.

15’s and above though were almost always pretty chill.

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Just point out that DPS should avoid avoidable damage so that the healer doesn’t have to waste time healing bad plays and can dps.

Sit back and watch the hornets fly.

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There are unpleasant people everywhere and they cannot be entirely avoided

All we can do is make friends and keep those awesome folks close

But yes, there is a lack of accountability for personal mistakes in the lower end of content which breeds toxicity

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every aspect of every game out there will have crappy people. Just like your job/class/whatever.

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The most insufferable players are wannabes. It doesn’t matter the content.

This quote from Mark Twain kinda covers it if you squint one eye.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

(I just wanted to use the quote because it’s great) :stuck_out_tongue:

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For sure, this is true.

OP, I think that the reason you find the nicest people in that broad middle range has several contributing factors, but keep in mind that there are jerks (and very nice people) at every stage/type/difficulty in WoW.

1.) The Disaffected Solo Player
(Not to be confused with “all solo players”)
People who spend a lot of time in M0’s, LFR, and queued world content are far more likely to be solo players. Most of WoW’s solo players are wonderful people who play alone because they don’t have time to commit to a guild or raid schedule, because the people they were guilded with in previous expansions no longer play, because they prefer solo grinding old achievements and this has always been their endgame, etc…BUT: The players who can’t get along with other people well enough to be in a guild/grouped content on a regular basis are also solo players.

These are the people who can’t get others to put up with them for very long, and these are the players who can give you a long list of sob stories about how awful everyone else is, how skilled they are, how “nice” they are to everyone, and it’s always everybody else’s fault. They will blame people, rant, toss insults, and leave groups only to harass and harangue whoever made them rage quit with abusive tells until blocked.

They have never been wrong. No one has ever suffered as they suffer. No one has ever recognized their genius, and they could outplay any Arena or MDI all-star if someone would just give them a chance and they didn’t have to put up with all of us noobs.

The reality is that this player simply cannot consider the feelings and needs of others, and he/she is totally blind to his/her own faults, gameplay mistakes, and attitude problems. For all of these reasons, such players tend to stay down in the low-end content and have difficulty accessing groups and guilds that would include them in anything else.

2.) The Retired Elite Raider
(not to be confused with “all mythic raiders”)
These are the people who used to play bleeding edge content, but have gotten older, moved to a new stage of life, or dipped because they no longer wanted the stress and commitment of high-end PvP or raiding…but they still operate within their new guilds as though they were playing at that level.

The truth is that hard modes and top content has gotten increasingly difficult as the expansions pass, and what constituted the cutting edge 10 years ago has been surpassed, but these are the players who either don’t understand they’re not as good as they once were (reflexes dull and lack of use will rust the gears) or they don’t accept that today’s endgame is not like yesterday’s endgame.

This is the guy who will excoriate people for small mistakes, pontificate ad nauseum about the sovereign importance of min/maxing in classic or heroic level retail raids, and throw around insults at anyone who enjoys mid-level difficulty and has no aspiration to cutting edge achieves or going beyond KSM.

3.) The Contented Middle
(not to be confused with “everyone who doesn’t mythic raid or LFR”)
The people who operate in the middle have no pressure on them to perform at peak, but they also get to experience all the content they aspire to participate in, and they typically run with a group of friends or an established guild. These is the population most likely to be chill, empathetic, and forgiving when mistakes or even disasters happen.

Again, there are jerks and absolute gems in EVERY level of play in WoW. I have met CE raiders who are willing to teach, have an excellent sense of humor, and demonstrate loads of patience with “bad” players. I have met solo players who are an absolute delight in group content and on comms but have their own reasons for not wanting to guild. I am guilded with a lot of people who used to play top end content but no longer do and still manage to treat everyone they encounter in the game with kindness and patience.

But in answer to your question about why people in the lowest PvE content tend to be more overtly toxic? I think my observation is at least partially true part of the time. There are lonely and discontented folks who don’t know how to get along with other people and cannot be bothered to try, and most of those types get relegated to the lowest difficulty content.

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the only ones that aren’t are usually in the high end mythic plus guilds - the wannabe mythic raiders who struggle in content are very often toxic