xeno's LFR frustration - should different player bases get mixed?

A very good read and a point that many can agree to, I know I can. Like most players who will read this, I am far from the play-level of a Paragon raider but if I am in a raid or dungeon, I try my best. And I hate people who slack or go AFK for a long time or just have a "I don't give a shit"-attitude towards their group members. Just because they are unknown randoms to them from some other realm.

This is the big downside of the LFD and LFR system. Before their introduction, it took very long to assemble a group by using trade chat on your own realm. And if the group failed it was very frustrating because of the time invested into creating the group and traveling there.

But you were also interacting in a much smaller group, the players of your faction on your realm. So if you would constantly perform bad or just being an ass, this information would spread and your chances of getting into a group got a lot lower. You had created a reputation for yourself which would lower your possibilites on your realm.

But these times are over and we will have to accept and live with the fact, that in exchange for fast dungeon and raid queuing times we have to deal and live with people who just don't give their best and behave badly. Unless Blizzard finds ways or methods to deal with this, it won't change.

SWTOR has a system for battlegrounds where you can name the player who should be MVP. Some sort of rating system that will give players a rating, maybe from 1-5, could help to seperate those who perform well from those who perform bad. But such a system also always has room for abuse and discrimination. And Blizzard tends to do everything to not seperate the playerbase or add mechanics that will "officially" seperate it.

i felt like reading my thoughts :)

One could argue that the separation mechanic already exists and it is called a "guild". So, if you want to play the game with people who you "know" and enjoy sharing success/failure with, you join a guild and you run specifically with them

When it comes to advising people. You advises may be excellent, but it also is very important to keep in mind that "opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one". I don't mean to offend you, but look at the situation this way: A player might be getting x pieces of advise / day - some might be good, some bad and some irrelevant. How is the "noob" supposed to know that YOUR advise is better than the one he got 10 minutes ago from a totally ignorant player?

Bottom line, if i play a shadow priest and Bob gives me an advise, i will probably ignore it. If the same advise is given by Xeno i will definitely take it into consideration. Maybe having your alts in might help to better educate people on how to best play the game..

Have fun!

LFR is truly in its own kettle if fish, sometimes I do like it because often if I go I do have to sink to their level purely to get through; this doesn't however effect my play.

Now we've also taken Madness on HC, I am setting a new goal for myself to take Koiile off of world #1 Spriest spot from LFR Madness. So far in test runs I've pushed 120k mid fight and ended at 107 as the pubbies soon due to something or other. In this sense, if you treat LFR as selfishly as others, it can become quite fun! Which begs the question, Raakel, are you up for the challenge with me? ;)

Having recently left my guild of 4 years due to inconsolable differences between me and the rest of the leadership I now find myself in a bit of a pickle... Me and a friend went horde to start our own guild and are currently building our ranks with the idea of doing some serious damage in MoP.. Am I cut out for hc progress ? Damn straight Im not.... Raiding in my old guild was a horrid thing and all you was ever told was DO MORE DPS.. Noone ever took the time to tell me HOW to do more dps and thats not constructive criticism... So its very much a two way street....

People who do bad in LFR and 5 mans often tell you to shut your mouth when you offer solutions to their bad performance and when YOU do bad youre often kicked from the group because your dps is below the magical 25k marker or something...

I love it when people actually take the time, in a respectful way, to tell me how I can improve... Naturally sometimes its way too complicated but I have to try and make it work somehow....

In my four years of playing with my former associates only ONCE was I offered solutions by a guildie in a respectful way and I started using that to great effect.....

I am not the best player in the world but I work with what I got.. Ie crappy machine and limited access to high end gear... I do the optimization shiz and all that jazz to atleast improve if not by alot then by a fraction whatever it takes to get me to improve my dps...

People are horribly rude to people who do low dps and never do they actually tell you "hey mate I noticed you arent using megadoomblaster IV so maybe try using that"... Everyone has this idea that they are infallible and the most elite mofuckah around...

I feel your pain but its not likely its going to stop anytime soon unfortunately :(

Hey Xeno and fellow readers,

(before you start reading my response, I've quitted since November 2011, I do not know what the situation is right now, I used to play on Lightning's Blade since BC)

anyway, I wonder how you respond to players, I have (in my experience from 7/8 years) experienced the same players as you have, but I rarely get upset about them nowadays, I used to call them names or w/e to show my anger on how they play this game.

However, since WLK the situation of Pugs only worsened, and I decided that I should respond to the players that are worthy in a kindlier way, so I find myself whispering the person with a joke or a funny remark or anything that puts me on their good side, After that I whisper them that they could up their dps by with a nice tone and which often leads to good whispers back or even some that change their bad bits right away.

Of course you got some rotten apples which you just have to ignore, even if it's hard. I've rage quitted some groups as well. but hey, that's everywhere in the online world.

after the read I came up with 2 small solutions immediately, their might be more but I'd have to think for a bit then.
- Starting off with a funny remark or joke to get on their good side
- Finding 2-3PUGS in trade or general, you will find them way better than LFG pugs
- Just talking in the shitty pug groups makes time go faster ;) often there is at least 1 person whom you can have a nice chat with.

regards,

Legarambor, a very talkactive guy, even with shitty pugs ;)

(and wow.. just logged in for a quick response which I normally never give, but it appears to be a wall of text, sorry!)

Unfortunately, the ease of access to a computer that is connected to the whole world nowadays is an excuse for people to be arrogant, unpolite and ignorant. Of course not everyone is like that and there's always hope for a brighter (in both meanings) future.

Sometimes when I'm trying to learn a new spec I tend to use the LFD and most recently LFR to simulate my performance in a possible future raid, and sadly, I'm confronted with many of said situations where people can be jerks and get away with it. Presently I tend to ignore those who are talking out of their asses or even, if I'm on the mood, just troll them a bit, and I think sometimes the only way to not get sick of this community is to not taking them serious at all.

Segregating players by their skill would be, for the hardcore/semi-hardcore share of WoW players an excelent idea but the game has been flowing in a direction where player are homogenized and not the other way around.

Nice read!

Completely spot on.

I honestly wouldn't consider it 'elitist' at all. I don't really feel you are asking for a separation based on skill or DPS/HPS, like you said the new 85 in greens pulling 6k is forgivable if he's actually trying to contribute. There is however, a very definite disconnect between the effort players put into the game. For me its a matter of respecting other peoples time. Much like you said, when I join a group, the goal is to do my best to make the run as smooth and fast as possible so I can then do something else, with the expectation that they are aiming for the same. The fact that there are people who don't care about pulling their weight and contributing is highly frustrating, and a system to be able to avoid playing with those types of players would be very welcome indeed.

If I feel like I can help someone (im an alt-whore and hate not knowing how to play my classes/specs, which is pretty much all of them) I simply whisper them and ask if they would be willing to accept some advice. Of course there are some total idiots who i end up banishing to a different chat tab - im way to unmotivated to actually ignore someone, especially if they are in a position where they need to communicate eg. tanks, healers in lfr. However by simply asking the question the vast majority of time the person responds with a sure, or lets hear it; at worst I see no thank you, or simply no thanks.

I find however that when i simply give people advice they tend to get very pissy and angry as it must come across as me saying they arent a good player. By simply asking if they would like a tip or two, and giving them the opportunity to choose the vast majority respoond politely, either positively or negatively. I can honestly say i have several people on my real id that are simply there so that they can ask for advice or tips on an encounter or simply to see if i know anything about alternate playstyles for the spec(this is the whole hate not being the best thing - I advise people on how to heal heroic DS, yet have never healed normal myself, and apparently im actually usefull cause they keep asking me for info).

LFR is a whole different beast, i usually just turn to my guild chat only tab, and do what i can to carry people (its really scary when a 372 hunter beats 390 rogues in dmg on ultraxion). If we wipe and i feel like the group is at least semi competent ill stick around for a while - if its an epic fail, im out asap. I don't consider myself a extremely skilled player, but I am still willing to work on things i already know i can improve, and I find more often then not i end up talking with people with the same mindset, simply because i am polite no matter how grumpy they come across initially.

My first thought on your article was "Hell, yea, playing with bad people sucks" and many thoughts around this one... but you know, I just remembered that for me, it doesn't suck.

You said it yourself: it's the attitude that counts.

Often, it's not only in World of Warcraft, it's in real life, in college team exercises, at your work, or even when playing in a competitive sport. You'll always encounter people that aren't as much "competitive minded" as you are.

Some many times at my work I've talked to myself about how slow people can be, why don't they try to be the best? Why aren't they prepared like me? It's all in the attitude.

To be honest, the proper attitude to have in this case is: don't mind all the bads; because you'll rage every single time you'll join a LFR or a random heroic. Basically, just go in there, do your best and don't expect anything else.

It's realist to expect that everyone plays at their top lvl in your guild run (obviously) and getting mad at under-prepared people is just normal, because they shouldn't be. But in LFR.... heh, the rule is "do the least you can, get all the loot".

Finally, I don't think Blizzard can or will add the kind of button you're talking about, mainly because even if they do, the level of "competitive mind" is still different. People will do over 35k, probably everyone, but to those who don't? But still try "their" best? Tanks will try to pull more, healers may struggle, people will call names, etc etc. A "bad" isn't defined in the World of Warcraft, simply because it depends on the person calling him. The dude that tops the DPS meters in a casual guild might be their best asset, but he may be called a baddie in a top-tier guild.

So yeah... sorry for the long post. What I'm trying to say is expect the best from everybody is often asking for too much. You'll be disappointed. You won't have fun. Especially in LFR. Expect nothing. Do your best. :/

this is so true, feels like you are reading peoples´ minds. I had to stop doing random heroics and eventualy stopped myself from LFR as well on all of my alts and my main because i just couldnt hold the burden on my shoulders all the time. I guess this is as far as good players get. i even stopped playing wow during day because there were just nothing to do and everything i tried to do was just causing me pain with bad players... every time i do something, it ends bad, blizzard doesnt care as long as everyone pays their subs, they all can play without restrictions.. If there were a button that separated players from those who care and those who dont, i would love to play again during day and enjoy my fun... but that will never happen :( unfortunetly T_T

I love you for writing this Xeno. I totally agree. Its one of the things that constantly angered me since i started playing in Blizzard. I hope as many as possible read this, recognize themselves and make the appropriate actions to change as best as possible. It's one of the reasons i stopped playing a year ago. I've always wanted to share this opinion writing it somewhere but after all firstly who am i for one to get me seriously (i'd get nothing more but "shut up noob" you've got in the dungeon most likely and get flamed) and secondly tbh writing about it was really the last thing i'd do after similar frustration.
It's a lost cause this. It's too complicated to make a system for separating the 'good' from the 'bad' ones.
Here's an idea - there are many guildless but capable players and back then i've thought about moving to a realm with good players (yours too) and making a guild in which only this type of guys can join and stay - its like second title after the name - if you're in that guild than you're from the "good" ones. No raid schedules, everyone can do whatever he wants but if someone's up for LFR - make a group with people of the guild and then fill the spots with others - and like that until there are 25 "good"s initially.

I must agree with you, and i too get really frustrated with "STFU" attitude people,
I also don't like kicking players for having bad gear/bad dps, but still trying.I hate that attitude in a dungeon where a kick vote passes for bad dps, or for a single wipe caused by tank who is really trying.
Once I even saw my own brother "STFU"ing people and spreading bat athmosphere, so I changed his password.
At least there was one "STFU" person in WOW less that week. (I gave him his acc back when he promised having have a nice aditue and being helpful)

I'd usually start this off with something like "I can't even begin to imagine the thought process someone has to type up something like this.", but I won't. I used to feel the same about most of the things mentioned, but then one day I realized that I'm playing a game, and to me a game is a leisure activity, much like chess, basketball, or jogging. Think about that for a moment, and let it sink in before you discard it as a half-ass defense attempt for people that don't min/max. It is stupid to assume that everyone should be skilled at playing a game, and on that topic, it's also completely foolish to assume that everyone will research a game using outside sources, or even assume that everyone should know they exist. Do you tell the overweight guy that he shouldn't be jogging on your streets because he's not as good at it as you are? Do you tell the kid at the park to stop playing basketball because he misses most of his layups? No. Don't treat people like underlings when they're not.

You have to keep in mind that when you willingly queue up into a system that groups you with other completely random players, that you're not in a group of your choice, nor are you in a group of 24 clones of you or your guild mates, at their level of skill or shared mentalities on raiding. It's completely asinine to expect everyone to be good at a game. If they're playing it to have fun, who are you to tell them they're "doing it wrong"? What are you basing the assumption that a 0/41/0 enhancement spec is either "incorrect" or "bad"? Are you basing that assumption on the content you're doing or are you clouding it with things you expect out of content that's actually tuned for optimal play and builds? The simple fact is the content and players you're complaining about have absolutely no way to influence your enjoyment without your consent. If you can't handle seeing people enjoy themselves while not being as good as you are at something, the underlying issue is you.

Quoting you here... "I expect that everyone else that joins thinks the same way: go in, play good, get your reward (reputation, gear, conquest points etc) and get out."

I see a lot of people complaining about LFD and LFR being similar to loot machines or xbox live. Queue up, be rude or antisocial, get your reward and get out. Say that all you want, but what do you think that quoted mentality is doing?

Overall, I acknowledge that you have your opinion, and you can stand by it. Not everyone will agree with it, but obviously some will and clearly do. However, I have mine, and to me, expecting top notch performance at little league, and then belittling people that fall short of your expectations, is just delusional. I play WoW for the social aspect of it. Make all the assumptions about me that you want. I've played since Vanilla and I've taken part in almost all of the content WoW has to offer over the years, from high rated PvP to "hardcore" raid content. In the end, I don't care what others think, and before you go offering advice to every random player playing optimally, they probably don't care what you think either.

Nice to see such a robust discussion!

I think the LFR/LFG/PUG process is one of our riskiest group play experiences (because of the higher chance of failure) and most seem to dislike it. You have little of the social reciprocity that you have with a guild run and can often be impaired by inexperience or the Dunning-Krueger effect (as Hermanni noted above). I think, as well, when one becomes accustomed to being in a particular type of guild (and this does not just apply to guys in the top guilds), the shock to the system of the LFR experience, particularly an LFR gone bad, can make the game and the players feel like nothing you're accustomed to. I suppose, if anything, they show us the widest range of player types and abilities. Generally we tend to belong to guilds that share a similar mindset and outlook, so that variation can be quite a shock to the system, even when we know what we're getting ourselves into.

I have to wonder if the very nature of temporality that defines the LFR/random grouping experience is what amplifies these negative traits. And it's not just the temporary nature of an LFR itself, it's possible that due to the inexperience of some new raiders or casual players failure just seems inevitable in the temporary set ups. So it looks something like this:

Temporality of encounter + inexperience of raiders + infrequence of play/raiding + immaturity of players + drastic variation in play style/expectation (due to the aforementioned factors) = sigh

Also, I think the process of giving feedback has never been a smooth one. I might be less upset if someone I know and trust is telling me how I failed and how I can avoid doing it in the future, but the ego just can't always cope (especially if the advice is coming from someone in a top guild) with being told that by someone you don't know. I don't care how dismissive or relaxed people can sound, all of those nasty comments just sound like a defensive reaction to me.

I for one am pretty much exactly the same online (personality wise) as I am in game, so I forget sometimes that others are not. They do hide behind that veil of anonymity. I've never understood that particularly well myself, but it's often led me to feel the same as xeno at times--I'd rather do anything than do a random group ever again. Luckily for me, I have the luxury of being selective because I'm not a serious raider myself. I'm not in a guild like Paragon where I have to face the hassle of the LFR in order to make sure that I've optimised every opportunity for gear for all characters so I'm ready for the next tier.

It´s sad but this behaviour in LFR/LFD shows the way our civilisation is working today.
No respect no responsibility for what your doing.
You behave like an elephant in a glashouse...who cares..I wont see that ppl again.
The ppl use something and kick it in the trashcan...no thoughts about the effect on others.
I WANT TO HAVE FUN...I dont care what you want...

With best regards
Fireflint Arygos

Hey,

I was wondering if it would be better if LFR,Normal and HC all shared the same lockout. Since normal mode raiders (and maybe HC raiders at the first weeks of a patch) are kinda Forced to run LFR if they want the best gear to start raiding. What bothers me with LFR is that you see all the content the raid has to offer in like 1 hour and for me it's less motivating to rerun the raid on normal or heroic since i kinda feel like i've seen it all already.

Why haven't they done this from the start anyway? the reason 25 and 10 have the same lockouts now is because you shouldnt be forced to run the raid mutiple times per week if you want the best gear. Now we are forced to carry bad players through LFR and we're supposed to accept that they just need on everything they can.

IMO LFG for dungeons while leveling is great, but it shouldn't be available for Heroics. If you had to pug Heroics with people from your own realm you'd automatically preform better, unless you want a bad rep and players will just not group with again.
What are your thoughts on this?

Well, Blizzard came up with the whole lfd and lfr idea to make the content accessible to every player, regardless of how good or bad he/she is. On the good side (lfd), leveling is faster and thus more effective. On the bad side (lfr), however, you can get teamed up with the kind of player you described.

Now there are two ways of dealing with the situation: Either way you keep on giving them useful tipps on how to improve(risking to get rude and disrespectful answers in return) or you simply ignore them.

I mean, do these players really bother you? If I were you, I wouldn't care about them at all. Because they don't care about you. This is how the community works nowadays. It's sad, but true.

Just try to consider lfd and lfr a necessary evil. That's how I do it. As long as the bosses go down things are fine. I simply adapt to the system instead of wasting my time and nerves raging about bad players who think they're awesome. I don't have to carry them through MY raid. See what I mean?

The anonymity created by lfd and lfr is now influencing people's behaviour. "I don't know you and I'll probably never gonna see you again, so I don't give a damn."- this is how they think. Accept it, ignore them and keep on doing your thing or get mad and stress yourself because of your good intentions. Even if it will cost you a couple of wipes, even if it means you have to carry them through a heroic dungeon or the lfr.

On antoher note, I think WoW is more or less forcing good players to be a little elitist just because all the bad ones are behaving like retards. But where do you actually draw the line? Is it even possible to do that?

To get back to your question on whether these player bases should be mixed or not: I don't think they will ever be separated like in BC for example. At least not from Blizzard's side. They're going to stick with their plan of casualizing the game, because a majority of the players is average in skill and performance. People raiding in high-end guilds represent only a comparatively small proportion.

According to that, the only option you have is to stick around with the people you know and like and to avoid the random group tools. And if you really have to use them for whatever reasons, just try to relax and stay calm.

Atjesha

I could have sworn blizzard at some point stated that when queuing for randoms, they had sorted it out so that you were put in groups with similarly geared and skilled people to your character. Did I dream that? If they merely put in a selection option for "experienced" all the inexperienced people would click it just to get a fast ride. Blizzard would have to actually calculate skill based on gear/achievements/gemming/enchanting.

Personally, bad or casual players don't annoy me. Some players are just "not good at computer games" or "not good at wow". Some people are new to the game, some do not know about their class because they have never been given guidance, or do not know where to research their class, or simply do not care about min/maxing, and do not take computer games seriously but still enjoy the game, and only play the game to quest and occasionally do LFR or 5 mans. If they don’t wipe the group and waste my time, I am fine with it.

It is rudeness that bothers me, and that can come from a high end raider or a new player. I have never encountered it myself in LFR, but frequently encounter it in 5 mans. I am VERY grateful for the vote kick facility, that allows the removal of rude players. That has allowed me to purge an offensive player from a 5 man on a number of occasions, and sometimes I have been so relieved to get rid of them I have thanked the rest of the group for helping vote them out.

I feel for Xeno if she is giving a complete stranger tips out of the goodness of her heart and gets a hostile response. That has probably happened to all of us and it is never nice. I do find, however, that I get a positive reception as often as a negative reception, however, which kind of makes up for it.

I do not know if Blizzard has the inclination or the capacity to more seriously punish offensive players. Sometimes you see really offensive things such as strong racist or sexist derogatory terms, in dungeons or in Trade. I have reported some of them and been contacted by a GM to say thanks and they are “taking the appropriate action” but I do not know what the punishment is. If, as Deva says above, it is only a 3 day ban, that is not enough to deter some people.

If only this problem was restricted to WoW, I'd be less depressed.

Believe it or not, I've actually had someone at Business School tell me "stfu, we're not here to learn". Needless to say, I didn't really know how to respond to that...

hi xeno :)
there should be a different queue that you could join only if you have everything properly gemmed and enchanted, I'm sure this would filter out some of these people who dont even bother trying.

I think you're making a mistake with this perspective. We can't view casual players as being a drag on the system. The casual players are what make the company the majority of its money, not so much us hardcore players. LFR was distinctly created for casual players. That is literally its purpose. If we try to differentiate hardcores from casuals on a choosing basis for something that was created for casual players, then we're just going to have casuals and hardcores both queue for hardcore (because the raids will be faster).

Logically, the concept can never come to fruition. Outside of this, you need to look at the way MOST people enjoy games. Like it or not, us hardcore players simply are the minority. Sure, we may be more vocal (because we spend a lot more of our time on the game) than casual players, but we are in no way a majority of the system. So if you look at it that way, it's really only Blizzard's responsibility to just cater to the casual player base.

When it comes to attitude, try to think of a time when you've played a video game that you didn't REALLY care about. I doubt you've truly tried your hardest in every game you've played. There are simply games that might be a little fun, but in the end really aren't worth the effort you put into them. This is the point of view many random pug players have on the game. There is no end result they're gunning for.

Instead of viewing this as a "struggle" with random players, try to view the game as if it is your responsibility to carry these players. When you take that stance, it lets you participate in facets of the game that maybe you won't really ever have to do in a hardcore raid environment when you can consistently trust your teammates. Being with bad players sometimes can increase the skill cap for a player, especially for healers IMO. With a bad group, I will have to bust out all of my abilities and unique kiting strategies or CC strategies that I just NEVER have to use in a solid group. Instead of viewing this as you being a disgruntled person who carries the other players, you can view it as making such a powerful individual impression that they will be more inclined to ask you questions, rather than get angry at you when you speak to them.

Instead of you giving them a reason you think they suck, give them a reason to WANT to talk to you. The moment they speak to you first = the moment when you can truly give all of your suggestions to them without any fear of them being upset with you. Because think about it... if I was in your group and started trying to give you tips on shadow priest, HONESTLY tell me the FIRST thing that would pass through your mind? "Heh, this guy doesn't know who I am does he? I should probably tell him why he's wrong."

I know we can all act like we have an open mind, but you need to check your own personal feelings on issues like this, and then turn them around to look at them from the other perspective. Turn these experiences into a positive situation, and I bet you'll find more enjoyment out of these things than you think. Progression, at whatever level, can always give some enjoyment, because whether you're playing with "baddies" or "gods," you can play your heart out and have a massive impact on the group doing well..... you just need to think of a better angle is all. Try to understand why players react the way they do, and use that type of attitude to your advantage. Do not be so close-minded.