Getting Kicked for Everything: The Harsh Reality of WoW Classic Cataclysm Dungeons

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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World of Warcraft Classic: Cataclysm is in full swing, and while players are diving into dungeons for loot and nostalgia, there’s a growing issue—players are being kicked for almost anything. Whether it’s for doing less DPS than expected, not knowing a boss’s strategy by heart, or simply because someone in the group didn’t like them, the vote-kick system has become a tool of exclusion rather than cooperation.

Seven Kicks in One Day

Today alone, I ran 20 dungeons—a solid number for a dedicated player trying to gear up. Out of those, I was kicked 7 times, and each time, I was hit with the 30-minute deserter penalty.

The most common reason? I queued into dungeons with overgeared players while wearing 365 ilvl gear. Apparently, the moment you step into a dungeon with players rocking high-end raid gear, you become an inconvenience. Even though I was pulling my weight, following mechanics, and contributing as much as possible, I was still treated as a burden simply for not having gear from Heroic Firelands or Dragon Soul.

The Most Ridiculous Kick Yet

The worst case happened in a dungeon where I was doing everything right.

  • I followed the tactics and focused the mana slime.
  • I helped clear adds that were chasing players.
  • I wasn’t AFK, I wasn’t trolling, I was actively contributing.

Yet, someone in the group casually wrote that I was “griefing,” and I was instantly kicked. No discussion, no second chances—just an immediate removal from the group and another 30-minute penalty.

Afterward, I whispered another player from that group, who admitted that the reason was completely stupid, but by then, it didn’t matter. The dungeon had already found a new DPS instantly, while I was forced to sit out for 30 minutes.

The Vote-Kick System Is Abused, and There Are No Consequences

Currently, the vote-kick system only punishes the person being removed. There are no consequences for the players who abuse the system to kick someone for petty reasons. It’s a one-sided mechanic that allows overgeared groups to cycle through random players until they get someone who fits their idea of a “perfect group.” This makes dungeons a miserable experience for anyone trying to gear up.

A Simple Fix: Penalize the Group for Kicking Too

If Blizzard truly wants to curb toxicity, the vote-kick system needs to penalize not just the kicked player, but the group abusing the system. Here’s a possible fix:

  • If a healer or tank is kicked, the dungeon group cannot fill that role for at least 5 minutes.
  • If a DPS is kicked, the group has to wait 10 minutes before they can find a replacement.

This would force players to think twice before kicking someone. Right now, the decision is too easy—kick someone and get a new player instantly. But if kicking a DPS means waiting 10 minutes for a new one, groups would actually consider working with new players instead of just removing them.

Would it slow down dungeon runs? Yes, but that’s the point. If players had to weigh the choice between teaching someone and waiting 10 minutes, they might be less inclined to kick for trivial reasons.

Conclusion: WoW’s Community Needs to Change

Right now, WoW Classic: Cataclysm dungeons favor toxic players who only want to speed-run content with overgeared players. Anyone who doesn’t fit that mold is quickly removed and left with an unfair penalty.

If Blizzard doesn’t change the vote-kick system, then gearing up in dungeons will remain a miserable experience for anyone who isn’t already in raid-level gear. The system should discourage unnecessary kicks, not reward them. Otherwise, WoW will continue to drive away players who just want to enjoy the game.

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And that gives power to real trolls to hold group hostage. The better solution would be:

  • after the finishing the instance every group member who voted for kicking player out would have a 30 minutes deserter like debuff as well.

Most highly geared players want to spam new heroic+ dungeons as much as possible, and if system only gives them the best DPS after some votekicks they feel it like a part of their speed running meta. Being unable to requeue would make solo and 2…4 guild groups think twice before abusing votekicking for no real reason.

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would be nice to have some options somewhere with all available realms and check/uncheck with what realms to pair with when doing random dungeons. would probably remove gehennas by default lol. not instigating that they’re all bad but the worst situations i had were with players from there (even before the twilight protocol) and would rather not take any chances with 'em

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Mostly the kicked players are either half afk or not contributing the minimum they are supposed to. I was running 10+ new protocols yesterday and there was not a single kick for me. People were kicked in my group though, but I found that reasonable, because they didn’t even try to kill adds after multiple wipes.
If what you says is true and you did all you could and still got treated that badly then you must have been really unlucky person that day .

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TBH I hope these people only take their issues out on fellow wow players don’t have an important job where they care for others etc

Worrying to imagine these people working in say a hospital and going to work butt hurt about losing a roll to a fellow dps they couldn’t kick and neglecting their work due to being a big man child.

Simply limiting the amount of votes a player can initiate would cut alot of this down, although many just click yes like sheeple these players most likely dont initiate them as much

Those starting the votes are most likely using them in huge numbers, far more than any well adjusted human being would need.

Limit 3 vote kicks per day, more than any adult would need.

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The thing is in the past players used to hold the dungeon group hostage. This would incentivise them more to hold them hostage. “Don’t want to wait for a new DPS for 10 minutes? Better pay me 10k gold bucko”

Besides, Blizzard wants people to advance the dungeon. This would slow down an active dungeon run which works contra-productive.

Now this is an interesting option. Let’s say you kick significantly more then average you would get a stacking debuff AFTER the dungeon run is done. It can start at like 5 minutes and just like PVP penalties go up to several hours for example.

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I think if players really wanted to hold others hostage with such a requirement, they could just form a group of three and do it all day, demanding gold not to kick the other person. But I don’t recall anyone trying to make money this way.

Moreover, the 30-minute penalty for the kicked player remains, so they wouldn’t be able to abuse it too often. A 10-minute penalty isn’t that big of a deal— for example, if a player is truly griefing and you notice it on the way to the boss, you can vote to kick them and clear the trash, which would take about 5-10 minutes anyway.

So I think this kind of punishment is quite fair.

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Random groups aren’t for everyone and shouldn’t be seen as the “main content” - rather, they are an additional option to enhance the experience. Paying your subscription doesn’t automatically guarantee acceptance by random players.

If you find that you’re frequently being kicked from random groups, it might indicate that your playstyle doesn’t align with the meta.
I’m sorry, but if you’ve been kicked from nearly 50% of your random groups… there are significant issues with your approach and it may be better to reconsider your behavior to avoid disrupting others.

A much better solution would be to seek out friends or join premade groups for random dungeons, which can offer a more enjoyable and reliable experience.

If there were a penalty for kicking players from your party, some individuals might resort to tactics like simply stopping their participation, flaming, or directly going AFK until you leave on your own. This could be an indirect way of forcing someone out, rather than directly kicking them and will change nothing.
Sweatlords who kick you won’t hesitate to finish the dungeon with just 4 players. In some cases, an underperforming player can actually do more harm than running the dungeon with fewer people, especially if they disrupt the flow or strategy of the group.

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Yeah …but no :roll_eyes:

It would be nice if it made sense like this, someone play “not good” =kick but it doesn’t quite work that way.

People admit to just clicking votes because they can

Its not due to other players abilities /actions…they are simply there and someone doesn’t want them to be.

I play healer and never the one getting kicked, its always players trying to kick others to get more loot /just to be a little cretin

This is the wow cata community, don’t try to over think it, too many over grown disgruntled middle aged man children who have to take their personal issues out in azeroth.

There’s people that have played every incantation of WoW and never left since it was created decades ago

That’s bound to feck anyone’s brain up.

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While it may appear as uh-oh, I’d point out that I had no issues in Classic (1.x) with dungeon groups, and if you do drop a player, then it’s usually continuing as 4 or inviting someone who arrives in 15-30 minutes.

I’m totally in favor of the dungeon finder quickly assembling parties and even yanking us to the entrance, but kicks have always been a problem.

And I have to painfully admit (being a hater of repeated, long travels) that the sheer requirement of those 15-30 minutes to get to a dungeon sort of filters out the trolls.

Yes, there is the odd exception when someone has to leave, but OP addresses it.

One thing, though. About a year ago I started a new little paladin to experience those little dungeons, with LFD. Obviously, WLK spec problems right away, but. I was put in a dungeon as a lowbie. The group was standing still and doing nothing, saying:

  • please leave
  • why?
  • because you’re high level and we get no xp
  • can’t we just proceed, it’s fast anyway?
  • no

You can totally bully players without the vote kick. I don’t want to give further ideas, and I suppose I’m not the most creative even.
(Do I have to make it clear that they were kicking the second tank before the first boss? I wouldn’t care as they were losing time, but I got my Deserter, too. Nonsense.)

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I would add that I think that decision to vote must be collective. I never voted “yes” and I saw multiple times people getting kicked for no reason regardless. Once that guy even asked me why did they kick him and I told him that I don’t know why and I didn’t vote for it, and he didn’t believe me. That actually hurt me a bit. I don’t want to be a part of this system but I can’t.

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Well. I think the votekick system is too weak. Like two premades in a group can troll and not get kicked. This is what i experienced while doing dungeons. Other that that it´s fine. Only one kick, which was just.

It´s hard to imagine that you´d be kicked that often while doing everything right. once or twice maybe because ppl dont wanna share loot or something.

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There’s a very long kick cooldown if you use it too often and also you cannot kick more then 2 players, per group. The previous quoted post was a suggestion by another player that suggests a 10 minute debuff, on the group after kicking someone else.

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back in day - exactly in original cata - blizzard put in kick protection .

it was quite common to meet people who couldnt be kicked for 4 hours due to protection .

somewhere it got dropped from game - most likely in mop when dungeons became a joke .

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Methinks it was dropped way before that, and got switched with the debuffs afterwards. It was one of the iterations tho.

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was it ? i specificaly rememeebr situations in like zandalari dungeons back in cata when we couldnt kick underperformers and they openly refused to leave - effectively forcing eveyrone else to leave.

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To be honest, what I would do in place of blizzard, remove the protocol twilight, xyz or whatever is current hc protocol dungeons and any other protocols, and maybe even plain heroics from lfd system, make it instead premade groups as it was back in wrath. Then it would be much less pain, misery and other crap about elitist players weeding any not high enough by their standards folks from random queuable dungeon.
Make it like m+ on retail, or like dungeons were before lfd introduced, to be honest, looking in retrsopect, this lfd system did more bad than good to the game and community in classic.

Before lfd existing there was no even such venue like “griefing” in dungeons, at least it was not that common, since people actually were choosing with whom to group and run dungeon, and not being at mercy of randoms from the queue.

Speaking of current situation, what should be done the first: don’t allow premade group of anything smaller than full join lfd queue, otherwise there are still chances you get into group with elitist premade and then they just kick you because of reasons.

And to everyone who thinks that it is so cool to run dungeons and having very high standards in RANDOM DUNGEON FINDER: you can form your own group of likeminded people than rely on random pug being 399 ilvl, overly decent and such from a random queue. Be more realistic, cmon, and don’t pollute rdf system with your elitism.

This was already beaten like a dead horse but seriously, “elitist” people looking for very high gs and utter skill and pump are the ones which bring more problems these days tbh. Even if there are few griefers here and there, they are not that painful compared to getting in a pug with elitist comp kicking you at the entrance for low gs or something and then forcing to wait 30 minutes. That’s why we should just remove at least protocols from lfd system, and let it only be premade formed, it is like if we let in retail m+ be queuable content, it is just too bad for an rdf type of content, it should be outside of it.

BTW about deserter debuff suggestions, I have already made similar thread in retail forums about that. My take was: introduce third option - kick without punishment and make the punishing kick having at least minute cooldown until available to encourage communication, so groups will more likely punish actual griefers and not some random Tom who did not manage to get 390ilvl yet to run protocol twilight but still tries his best at mechanics and such

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I returned to classic to have some fun i had no issues with inferno dungs but i just bought the new pack a boosted a mage and wanted to gear it i have just a slight below average dps but sometimes i fail the rotation and or mess up and i am getting kicked and need to wait 30 mins is a joke. People retail is toxic like hell nah this last 3 weeks was more toxic for me than the whole TWW s1.

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there is no misery in the fantasy land, they have lfd, but sadly the pvp is not as good, so the problem is not in the lfd

blizzard encourages griefing via their policy, their literal policy is “kick for whatever reason”, on the other hand, fantasy land has a very specific rule about unfair kicking, and they will drop the hammer when the rules are broken, here you need 30 minutes to find a CS link contact form that works

so me and my friend will be forced to find 3 others? too many will just cba

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to be fair in retail you can jump out of lfd fairly quickly after reaching m0/lfr level, and then starting doing more m+ or raid. Alternatively, just go into delves, and it seems in retail people less care about dps and such, so usually it is just blast, nothing happens

then enjoy your deserter after being booted by 3 ppl premade because you did not met their gear requirements. The solution might be not perfect, but that is either that or the current reality, or if someone suggests different solution then that