Guess my experience is vastly different than the OP.
I very rarely see anyone talking in the general chat, parties, LFG, etc. It’s kinda hard for me to say anyone is being “toxic”.
I’ve explained it like three times. People want upgrades, but upgrades are for the skilled only. They want to play, so they sneak in. They underperform, and that causes difficulty for the skilled players who could overcome the content. Abuse and namecalling ensues.
That’s nice for the people who can. The people who can’t can either sneak into groups they will underperform in, or sit there sad in Orgrimmar and stare at the sky.
It’s based on player reports.
They don’t proactively scan the game to see if people are being toxic jerks, they only know about specific behavior that is directly brought to their attention. If people are popping off, laying into others, insulting and swearing at them (which is, despite what people might have you believe, literally never going to make the person on the receiving end a better player), and people aren’t reporting them either because “it won’t matter nothing will happen to them” or “I wasn’t being targeted so it’s okay” then they’re also contributing to the toxicity problem.
WoW’s “toxicity” comes from it’s high degree of competitiveness, a lot of people treat the most casual of settings as extremely serious, measuring/calling out DPS in LFR, gear/coordinated premades in Epic BGs, treating normal dungeons liked timed runs, list goes on and on. A lot of WoW’s top content is built exclusively for e-Sports, e.g. Arena, Mythic+, Mythic Raiding, and that trickles down into almost all lower tiers.
Compare that with a game like FFXIV, whose hard mode content is done by fewer people and doesn’t push e-Sports, the atmosphere is very relaxed in almost all casual content.
And that’s why I’m not in a guild. I have my own guild I store mats in, and that’s what I’m sticking to.
If someday, someone makes something where low-skill people deliberately play together, I’ll join it. But I’m not joining a guild just to help them and not play myself because that should somehow make me happy.
And if they decide to replace the very last thing (button-pressing skill, and reaction time) with an addon, then I’ll be good at the game, same as everyone else. Because I actually research fights.
Yes I guess that is controversial for some people.
I think we will have to disagree on this.
In many ways I think that’s not something right to do if that’s your goal as you’re already seeing yourself as part of the problem. I think it’s fine to recognize one limit and there is more to do in the game than simply get gear to get gear.
People are toxic because they choose to be toxic. Access to gear is a excuse. It all comes down to personal choice… you either are a decent person or you choose to not be a decent person.
1 Like
But then why play? I’m sorry but doing at least some content is important. Running old raids, collecting transmogs, farming mounts can be fun, but it’s not wrong to want to do content, too.
I saw how fun it was upgrading in Remix, getting gear, farming threads, seeing my damage go up. I shouldn’t be pegged as selfish because I like doing that.
Many people play to collect tmog, pet, mounts. They play to go through the story and see the content. They play with friends and might raid normal or heroic weekly for a couple weeks into a new patch. Pushing content through all the difficulties is actually only something a niche do.
Remix was meant as a fun event, not as a real season so it has more liberty on how it worked. It wouldn’t really last as long or interest people that want to push through content if that’s what they decided to put as the main game.
Get with a good group of people that you gel well with. If you have fun wiping with them you’ll have even more fun winning with them.
2 Likes
I wish they existed. But I have reason to think they don’t. If your main aspiration is LFR, why would you form a guild? You’d just que in and get people of average skill, rather than gimp yourself and play with all low-skill, which would make the run take longer.
I don’t think I agree with most of the statement, but what I do want to say is:
Back in the day the rotation was slower, now you’ve got a much faster rotation on all classes, plus more you have to pay attention to despite less spells. I do wish we had the slower rotations once again.
1 Like
^ 100% this. No clue where people are seeing all of this toxicity. Sounds more like people like the OP get kicked from pug raids because they don’t pull their weight or not picked in m+ because they don’t put in any effort and expect to get carried.
Overall, WoW is not that toxic at all. I see people ask questions in chat and people answer them. I have grouped a lot this past expansion and once in a blue moon people have gotten toxic but not more than people in FFXIV or any other mmo I have played.
They do. I’ve ran into and ran with many a cool group that I’d have no problems with running with again.
Because people like to talk to people with shared interests and enjoyment of each other’s company. Maybe you should watch some Salt Raiders videos.
For me a long run is a run where we don’t laugh, we don’t have fun… we just go in and treat the game like a full time job. I play to have fun and make people laugh.
1 Like
Actually I know I don’t belong in mythics. You can see I have no completions. So you’re going to have to decide between “lol you just need to try” and “stop making people carry you, don’t go in there, you’re not pulling your weight”.
Nah. M+ is why.
This logic makes zero sense. Yes, there will be a new worst set of players, but being the worst olympic competitor still makes you have the skills to not suck.
1 Like
If there is a guild like this, I will join it, but be aware that the second they ask for gold or mats I am out.
Umm… well I would have agreed with you but then there was Raygun. Granted her Trex Thriller Creep Walk move during the Breakdancing Competition was genius.
Idk about toxic, it’s either about the same or less toxic now, but WoW was super approchable back then.
You could see endgame pretty easily in a PuG, on the hardest difficulties. I did.
Now, I’m not even sure that happens anymore.
Seems that the PuG scene has largely evaporated, probably alongside WoW’s popularity over the years.
M+ replaced it as well, as the premiere PuG activity for gear.