It damages the community in a hidden way. Although the community is already pretty ruined in the sense I am about to bring up it is just as much apart of the degradation of the community as Cross realm zones, LFR, Random Dungeon Finder, and Battlegrounds.
How you ask? It’s simple the tool reduces the players to a simple number and this means there is no real need to socialize with other players or give an unknown a chance. It removes a portion of the social aspect from the game and directly harms the growth of guilds and expanding friend groups.
Do I think Raiderio should be dismantled? Nah, atleast not in the games current iteration however if Blizzard ever decided they wanted to bring community back it is on the list of things they would have to turn their attention to but it should be the last one to go.
Raider rating doesn’t do a thing. What you really mean to say is that people’s natural inclination to want to “win” causes them to seek out means by which they can increase their chances of “winning”. In this case, seek out players with a demonstrated completion of content, and requisite ilvl. And hopefully an actual understanding of the mechanics.
This may be news to you, but your argument is the identical argument many players have been making since the earliest days of the game. You think raider is the first measuring stick players have been using to select group members? It isn’t. Nor will it be the last.
The community would have go this way even if those weren’t implemented. Gamers evolved and all the Call of Duty babies took over the internet. If WoW hadn’t put those systems in, the game would have died long ago(well not completely, but probably down to <500k worldwide).
If you’re looking at it as just a simple number, then you’re looking at it wrong. You can easily check a profile on the site to see what kinds of runs they have been in, whether or not they were carried by high IO players, how many runs, etc etc. If you see a player at 700 IO with dozens and dozens of runs where they didn’t make time, it’s a VERY strong indicator that the player is probably not good.
Nothing is stopping you from making runs with friends and guild mates. That’s your choice. I have plenty of bad friends that I carry through keys, I just make sure to get my high level runs in for the week before I run with them.
Raider io is not a problem if you are good at M+…
It separates bad or new M+ players from experienced M+ players.
“Oh, but I am ilvl 440 and can’t even find a +8”
If this is the case, then you probably got your gear from anything that is not a M+… Like raids/pvp/etc.
But why people don’t want a high ilvl person in their party? Because M+ mechanics/strategies are different than other contents.
Having a good score in Raider io means that you have completed at least a good amount of M+'s, so you are very likely to know the mechanics/strategies.
But how do I go around it?
It is simple. Play lower M+ keys. Instead of trying to join a +8, join +6. Complete all dungeons in a +6 key, and with enough ilvl people will certainly invite you to a +8. Completed all dungeons in a +8/9? Good! Now you will be considered able to complete +10.
I have a friend that thought raiderio was bullsh*t, but he realized that he was causing some wipes even in +6. He learned about the dgs in some +3/4 and then realized his mistakes.
Edit.: Also, people may complain that they have a good raiderio score in their main, but can’t find groups for their alts/secondary characters. This happens because the score is unique for each character.
“Oh but I know how to play M+, why don’t they merge the score to be just one for your account?”
Mostly because you are good at M+ with that specific class/spec/role. Even if the role is the same, skills are different and you will not be as good as you are with your main.
But if you know the dgs, it will not be an issue to get a high score with a new character
Exactly… Everyone thinks they can just jump right into 10-15s without having worked their way up. If you have a group of friends who will boost your IO, then that isn’t a problem. Otherwise, you’re usually going to have to work your way up before you can get into higher keys. Do all 6s one week, then 8s the next week, then 10s and so on. Most people only update their addon every week or so, so even if you went from 300 to 1200 in a week, people aren’t going to see that immediately.
Also, don’t confuse socialize with goal achievement.
I run marathons and I socialize with other marathon runners. While I can talk to somebody who doesn’t run marathons about the topic, it is a bit pointless. If one of those non-runners wanted to run with me because they said they can run…only to fall out after mile 8… What a waste of time.
The point of RIO is simple. It takes some of the guesswork out of forming a party to achieve a goal.
NOW having said that…Using RIO for anything below a 10 (maybe 12) is pointless as folks should be able to breeze through those by now.
Metrics will always exist. Honestly LFG did far more to damage social interaction than any of these systems ever could. Just click a button and your in. No talking whatsoever. RIO doesn’t negate the fact that the group still has to coordinate and interact during the dungeon.
I’d actually go so far as to say RIO has been healthy for the community as it puts likeminded people together instead of lumping together randos with different priorities and skill sets . I would imagine someone doing a +18 wouldn’t be thrilled getting me, a guy who usually does 11-12s. And I would want to be grouped with them either
Anything that removes the players from needing to interact with each other in order to find out if you are a good fit is harmful to the social aspect of the game. I agree there is bigger offenders and that is why these sorts of addons would need to be the last to go. As it stands with all the others in place the measuring stick made by the community is needed. However if they ever address fixing the community after everything else is fixed, the addons like raiderio would need to take a hike as well. I have experienced games without these metric before and the social aspect in them is much improved.
Gearscore wasn’t a means of measuring skill. It was like measuring item level…
RaiderIO, while not perfect, is a good way to measure potential. Yeah, people can do paid carries and such, but you can quickly figure out if they got carried or not. If you look at their profile on the site, you will see they got 15s for some dungeons, then every other run for those dungeon will be crap. You’ll see a ton of recently missed timers on 10s and then one +2 timer on a 15.
Oh it’s not unmentioned. There’s dozens of threads on the subject, some thousands of posts long. It’s come up.
The first thing people always bring up when people whine about not being able to get into keys or get their score up is exactly this - join a guild, make a group. Raider IO is for two things - evaluating potential pugs, and a form of progression for high key pushers. Performance and progression in M+ is greatly aided through forming a core group or having a solid guild to draw upon. If you don’t take advantage of those things, that’s your fault, not a freaking leaderboard’s.
I don’t agree because I don’t think RIO does anything. The community was rotten before and it will be rotten after it goes and a new system rolls in
The community dictates everything. Not some system. RIO is nothing more than a scapegoat
Also I hope WoW never removes these systems and follows other lesser MMOs. I’ve played several and they’re boring. I enjoy having measurable metrics on which to evaluate and improve myself
I think you misunderstood what I am saying. It’s not damaging to me as a individual. But it is damaging to the game because it breaks one of the pillars of what is an MMo. The social aspect. By degrading everyone down to a simple number or some metric it removes the person from the equation. Reducing the need of socializing. Makes people easier and more efficiently replaced. It’s just simply all together unhealthy. While it surely is a great QOL feature it comes at a cost.
I can respect that, it just comes down to a simple disagreement in opinions due to perspective. Honestly not surprised I seen you around a bit our personas are vastly different and I think we disagree on most things.
Quite the opposite, it enables a good deal of socializing. Without Raider IO, people would simply run exclusively with their guilds, set groups, and people that they know. If I didn’t have Raider IO to verify people’s experience and qualifications to run a key, I’d just refuse to run with anyone that couldn’t be vouched for by somebody I knew and respected. But thanks to Raider IO, strangers can play and interact together, contact lists grow, and you don’t have people stuck on the outside just because they can’t get into a run with someone from the ‘in crowd’.
The thing is… the community was separated and lumped into numbers the instant the first DPS add-on was made available.
I remember being asked what was my DPS in Wrath before LFG was a thing.
I remember being asked for my gear score.
I remember being asked for my item level.
I remember being asked for AoTC.
Now it’s Raider IO.
I’ll wager that in the days before my time and before DPS add-ons, people were asked how many blues/purples they had, or whether or not they had weapons that were known to be high damage dealing weapons.
When people are seeking to accomplish a specific task, and to do so as quickly as possible they will naturally remove as many obstacles from that task as possible. This is not a bad thing, it’s part of what makes us such excellent problem solvers in the world.
Was more about your resist numbers depending on the raid in question. There was always a metric but it wasn’t as severe. Its just something that got worse as expansions stacked on and new addons and sources of information became available.
It was still used as a yardstick for skill. You could look to see if they had their gear properly gemmed and enchanted, stuff like that. But you’re right that Raider.io is much better at actually measuring skill.
From what I hear, it is simply a tool that elitists use to create a catch-22. Elitists have a nasty habit of this sort of gate-keeping to limit competition. I ran into this sort of nasty thing a few times myself, which is why I won’t even mess with that part of the community.
