Every week, or really everyday, a new thread pops up for Raider IO and there is always a good bit of misinformation spread about the tool. Not that the information is intended to always be malicious, but it’s problematic in how the tool works and what it means for the game and people who use it.
First, all of the information the addon and website uses are available from Blizzard’s own API or can be scraped from the Mythic+ Leaderboard on Wow’s website. Some of that information can even be scraped from a player’s armory. A lot of people seem to think it requires logging or some other input from the player’s. It doesn’t.
This is a pretty important piece of the discussion as many disgruntled players seem to want to place blame on the addon and the information it provides. If you disagree with the addon, that’s fine, but your concerns should be directed to Blizzard and what information they supply. Generally speaking though, the data provided by the API are essential to a lot of players and outside contributors to continue to make addons and websites that supplement the games design. So if you don’t like the addon, the core of what you really don’t like is the leaderboard and the progress/achievements displayed in the armory.
A lot of people seem to feel like removing this tool will alleviate issues of getting invites to groups. To that, people think an underlying elitist culture has been built up around it. All valid arguments, but for players like myself, the tool is invaluable at quickly making decision when forming groups. I predominantly pug and ease of access to information is a massive time saver.
Before raider io… I was using wow progress. Before that, armory. Before that I was inspecting players individually.
This can take a great deal of time and actually makes creating groups much harder. I spend more time looking up people then actually enjoying the content. As is, it still can take 30 minutes or more to put some groups together. I try to be respectful of player’s time, but players also want to complete the key as well. It’s always a trade off. So any tool that makes this process more efficient, the better.
The elitist culture… exists in every part of the game. Be it raiding, pvp, etc. No form of content is immune to it. There are good, friendly players in all those forms of content as well. For as much pugging as I do, generally speaking, the experience is positive. I still have my issues with people dropping keys or being arrogant or entitled, but that’s just the nature of any content that has some level of competition to it.
As far as the score goes, it’s mostly arbitrary and IS NOT the end all be all. Typically, seeing the score relative to the players experience in the specific dungeon and ilvl is what I’ll be looking for. It’s a culmination of everything. For harder keys, I might even look at logs if it’s applicable. As I don’t raid, I don’t hold this against players, but every bit helps.
To those player’s frustrated that the addon and website exclude them from doing content, this is honestly confusing to me. Do you have the same feeling towards mythic raiding guilds or high rated pvp? Do you also feel excluded from that content? M+, like any content, can require a bit of effort in knowing routes, strats, etc. The strat for a +10 might be different for a +15 or a +20. What wasn’t killing you in a +15 is one shotting you in a +18.
While there is a lot more to be said, the constant threads about the addon or about M+ in general are… bewildering. M+ has been the most enjoyable form of content for me and a lot of other players. I’d love to see that content improved and the issues of many players alleviated, but in the end, many of these issues are unfounded and simply understanding how it works would go a long ways.
TLDR: The addon works with data provided by Blizzard. The addon also simplifies practices already set in place. Without it, other tools would be used.