I disagree as I found T7/T8 Wrath to have the most vibrant PuG scene that’s ever existed in WoW. I made a lot of friends back then and got to experience a whole lot of content on my own time, creating an awesome balance between accessibility and socialization.
RDF isn’t solely responsible for that going away but it did play an important role in changing players’ mindsets from viewing others as part of a team versus faceless chumps you’ll never see again who only exist to get you your badges.
I remember those times. But we had bad healers/tanks before LFD as well. I am sure anyone who played on the same server as me remembers one guy in particular… Always introduced himself as “Buso, Level 80 Warrior Tank.” He played with his mouse upside down. Literally.
I have no room to talk either though, I played a resto shaman back then, and I was TERRIBLE. But some random person, from a random LFG dungeon saw me healing, and struggling, to heal simple dungeons and said “Hey, I main a resto shaman. Can I give you some pointers?” That lead to us jumping on Vent, fixing my spec, fixing my gearing choices, glyphs, etc. Made a world of difference on my healing too. Went from being mid to bottom on healing meters to top on the healing meters, and able to weave in some dps, to piss off the lower end dpsers in our raids, since they started getting beaten in dps by a healer.
So yeah, we had bad players before LFD, and we had bad players during LFD. But, with a little communication, regardless of LFD or not, we can have a great social experience, that lasts for years. My shaman has been my main ever since. Only went druid during TBC Classic, and in wrath classic I will be going back to my resto shaman. (Can’t wait to have riptide again) But I do have to say, a social interaction, that happened with a random person, in a random dungeon finder queue, completely changed my gaming experience in WoW, for the entirety of the game. For the better. So don’t tell me Random Dungeon Finder makes us anti-social, when some of my best/most impactful social interactions have happened while in random dungeon finder. Hell, half the guilds I have joined, were people I met in Random Dungeon Finder.
what kind of toxic interactions?
oh so that kind of toxic interaction.
So not understanding how to play with others, just basically not adjusting to the group.
what you have said previously has not backed up this claim much at all.
I think you’ve just got the whole thing wrong.
Pretty sure the culprit is min/max culture, and the notion of not wanting to “waste” ones own time.
the game is already anti social Not adding LFD will not magically turn everyone socials.
And ofc LFD can be used for socializing too since we have real id.
Temporary friends are still friends
Nobody socializes to do dungeons. You don’t have a full blown conversation with someone before inviting them in the first place.
Never been asked a non game related gear or spec question before joining any group EVER. If you think that asking what spec you are is socializing then I feel bad for anti-LFD players social lives.
Conversations take place or more often than not INSIDE the dungeon. Which is your choice regardless of what zones you into that dungeon a lock, stone, or LFD.
If you think that saying “need one more to help summon” is social then once again get your head looked at. LFD didn’t kill social. It just gave bonus xp and bonus badges / satchels for incentives for tanks and healers. Gave you a great way level your alts without getting camped by the opposing faction and made your experience easier.
Oh but they will! And its to protect something. I won’t belabor the point by speculating on what that something(s) is, as it may vary from person to person, but I’m happy to tell you what anti-LFD doesn’t care about: community or preserving the sanctity of WoW social connections.
Maybe ‘socialise’ is too strong a word.
But the entire point of dungeons is cooperation and communication to overcome a challenge.
The nature of RDF’s fast turnover of dungeons, and use of cross-realm players absolutely made doing dungeons more efficient, but also encouraged toxic behaviour between players. That’s what people mean by anti-social.
The questions has to be asked: Is efficiency what makes the game fun? Is it worth the trade-off for the faceless, toxic community?
I agree but I wouldn’t say it encouraged it. It just gave a platform for bad people to be bad people. Personally I had really good experiences with LFD.
People don’t seem to realize that the game will inevitably become a raid logger. Sooner or later, everyone is done with leveling, dungeons, and thus have nothing left except raids. Once zones are deserted, it’s hard to get groups for any dungeons. LFD does not cause this problem. It doesn’t fix it either. It’s just a bandage. A better route would be to connect the realms so they can pool what players they have into the same version of zones. If Blizzard doesn’t want to put LFD in, that’d be fine if our realms were connected. But they aren’t doing that either. They’re going to leave us to rot like they did throughout all of classic and crusade. This means you better get all your dungeons/heroics farmed early on if you care about them because 6 months in, they will be deserted content.
I don’t think LFD killed socialization overnight or directly, but I think LFD certainly pushed WoW in the direction that led to where we are now.
Everything that has made the game braindead and sterile over the years has gestalted to create the issue we have in retail today
tbh the feeling of playing new game and finding something to enjoy with friends is something can no longer exist in wow, because in classic nothing is new and in retail nothing actually changes despite all the changes blizzard bring to the game everything is still the same.
people doesn’t want to socialize while doing what must be done! they’re not using wow to socialize they’re only using wow to waste free time on routines Or for real money trades.
I see this happen time and time again. Then when those players get the gear they want, they show up to less and less raids. WoW in general needs cross realm/cross server gameplay. In GW2, doesnt matter what server your on, you can join a guild (or multiple guilds) and group up with others despite what server your technically assigned to.
lol. WoW being more anti-social was 100% because of the players. No one feature did this.
Incorrect. Borrowed power started in Panda land. Everyone got a Lego cloak. Then wod a Lego ring. Then legion ect….
That’s not actually borrowed power. Borrowed power was core gameplay that required long term grind to, “complete” your character.
The legendaries weren’t that.
People don’t socialize because it’s not efficient to do so. And that’s how the game is designed now. Everything you do is like a mathematical calculation. Players don’t play to have fun; they play to maximize every second out of the game. I could write a few pages on how horribly flawed WoW’s game design has become.
But this is about dungeon finder. Does it make the game less social? If this was 2008…maybe. But even then I don’t think so. I used to, but after really delving into things I’ve decided all it really did was let players who wouldn’t otherwise do certain content have access to said content. Some players just don’t feel comfortable spamming the lfg channel or asking random people to form groups. So lfd doesn’t stop them from doing so, it just makes it simpler and easier for them to access that content. If it wasn’t cross-realm it would actually be phenomenal for creating long-term friends and forging social bonds. Once players get into those little groups, it becomes a lot easier to open up and talk. It’s just a matter of helping them form those groups.
Now, let’s deal with 2022 and what the playerbase has become. Just look at TBCC. It’s a freaking disaster. Boosters, bots and gdkp dominate the lfg channel. There’s no socializing going on. There’s no community being created. This is what the devs want to preserve? It’s a cesspool. LFD will simply give players a means to access dungeons without having to endure that dumpster fire. Again, if it was just restricted to the server it would be a fantastic addition that really would help grow the community. And I hope Blizz does the simple ‘fix’ of just doing that. That’s all that’s necessary. But even with cross-realm, we’re no worse off than the terrible state of things that exist right now.
Other then sending a Tell to guy spaming for a Tank. saying my level spec and class while leveling… OR now saying My avg level of Teir gear to the leader of group I dont talk to them. Ohh my bad forgot Right after i get Vited to do bless the group with 123 cause Im a tank and I want a damn summon.
I agree. I hate when people say “LFD makes game antisocial”. Most formed dungeon groups are full of antisocial people anyways who barely speak. I have made just as many friends with randoms in LFD on discord as I did in formed groups.
This sums things up…