Indefensible Toxicity and Unfriendliness to new players

Community General Discussion
1

This is more of a PSA than a question or anything like that

I have recently returned to the game and started gearing my main back up, and I’ve seen the usual levels of impatience and toxicity trying to do stuff in pugs at max level, thankfully I’ve found a guild that runs mythics non stop and does alt runs that I might be able to get in on, but that’s not that this is about.

I also joined back because my friend has always wanted to get into the game and after hearing about the double XP buff he decided there would be no better time than now

In his first ever dungeon, the tank vote-kicks him for not doing enough damage

Please bear in mind that he is the only one not wearing heirlooms and is literally only hours from having picked up the game for the first time

Luckily everyone else in there happened to have at least half a brain and didn’t vote to kick him, but I proceeded to call him out and I’m fully expecting him to report me for what I said but I don’t really care, because this is the kind of toxicity that is preventing new players from wanting to play this game and it is one of the biggest things keeping the game from being as popular as it once was

I understand wanting to level fast, but if YOU THINK you are SO GOOD at this game that you deserve to kick a CLEARLY NEW player from the a freaking ragefire chasm run, you better be 12/12 mythic because that is so unbelievably bad for the game and so toxic that words can’t describe.

This really annoyed me, because suppose that was a completely new player that didn’t have someone of 10+years experience in voice comms with them, they walk into a dungeon where they are the only one not wearing this really powerful gear that they likely don’t understand they can’t possibly get, and some idiot tries to kick them just for doing slightly less damage, probably making the dungeon slower by less than a minute at this level

He then proceeded to try and defend his actions by saying he was “not there to boost your friend”, which any normal player of this game knows is one of the most ignorant and STUPID statements you can ever make. I asked him how he expected new players to ever get into the game or get good when they come across people with attitudes like his and he had no answer.

Well, I’ll finish off my rant by saying if you happen to agree with the actions of this guy, you do not deserve to complain about this game, because your toxic attitude is objectively making it worse, and if you can’t drop that even in a level 15 dungeon then you don’t deserve to trash this game at all because you are actively contributing to its decline.

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Well unfortunately for him he technically is. The same way every other player in the instance is boosting HIM.

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Even this don’t give right to kick someone in unethical way.

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Nothing can be done.

On the positive side if a new player gets this experience and keeps playing, than he knows from now on, what to expect, because the road will get steeper not easier.

Back in vanilla, a lot of players refused to play outside of the Guild because they couldn’t trust anyone outside of the guild.

Unfortunately even though I would had preferred that this kind of players wouldn’t exist, there’s nothing the developers can do regarding this. If they are a rude person in RL chances are they will also be in game. :frowning_face:

Cheers.

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That is main reason.

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The MMO community has changed a lot since the inception of the genre.

With the launch of WoW a lot of new people started playing with a totally different mindset to the original MMO players.
Rather than welcoming new people in a helpful and co operative way they looked at the game from a totally selfish viewpoint, moaning about not being able to solo stuff, whining about having to rely on others to complete an objective and being generally anti social.

One thing that’s guaranteed today is that there are going to be these faux elitists that think they’re entitled to be toxic towards anyone else they deem to be a ‘noob’ or ‘scrub’ in any online game.

The true elite players are the ones that take the time to explain fight mechanics, will understand and take into consideration that not everyone is as well geared or as knowledgeable about the game as they are. These are the people that will organize guild events for no other reason but to help others get quests done or gear up with dungeon runs.

Those players are still here, it’s just a question of finding them.

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Toxic players exist in literally any online game, hardly shocking nor unique to WoW.

They existed in Ultima Online, they existed in Mu Online, they existed even in Online Chess.

It doesn’t represent the whole community, as you’ve found out being part of a guild. For every toxic person there’s probably a hundred nice folk. Don’t let the few ruin it for the rest including yourself and your friend.

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They are 100% the minority. I’m just really glad I was there when this happened to him, so I could explain that it’s unreasonable for someone to react that way. I just think the game can only get so much better while there are people like this at it’s absolute most basic level of entry, literally the first dungeon most people ever do in the game (though not as true anymore with the scaling)

i just keep thinking about if this was a new player with nobody there to explain to them how stupid this is. If this is your first ever exposure to the community, are you likely to keep playing? If you do, you’re not likely to try a dungeon again for a long time. Blizzard needs to put something in the game that really tries to encourage players to join a guild because I’ve played since wrath and personally i’ve never seen so much unwillingness to help people and such a toxic pug world as I do in bfa

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Get them into a guild give them some gold or i can depending on server to buy looms .
Looms btw are only good for XP boost there power has been nerfed .
With people in dungeons there is no point arguing just ignore report and move on .
The word toxic btw is over used the general player base is still good in my view.

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If only Blizzard had an in-game feature to denote a player as being new, such as in FF14 where there’s a Bud [plant] icon next to their name… with certain features attributed to helping them.

Blizzard doesn’t really do much in that area beyond “Recruit a Friend”.

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that would certainly make things a lot better

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Hmmm…could also make them a target?

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Unfortunately this is the path the game took over 15 years.

When I started most people were in the guild for their own interests, first.
I remember, back in vanilla, one of our officer’s complaining he had eight whispers asking his help, but when it was his time to ask help none replied even though there was more than ten players online on that night.
That got in my mind till today.

I hoped things would improve in time but they didn’t.

Game goes in the direction the community wants and it went on the direction of single player challenge as opposed to a more group based content.

This are the concequences:

Today there’s no reason for helping others.
Before, there was because you needed players in your guild. Today most of the content can be soloed outside Mithic+ and Raids.

Just look at the amount of check lists you need to complete first before being allowed to raid: from Legendary cape to heart of Azeroth with BiS essences, right corruptions, ILV etc.

Cheers.

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I just offered to buy there friend looms or donate gold just to get them started and i want nothing in return .
There is still good people out there .

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And I do not even mention it (in that other thread) to troll etc. I genuinely belive that bully behaviour does come from not from confidence, but lack of it. Confident people tend to lead instead of belittling. A confident player would do their thing and show off without needing to use words. They need to feel at times that attention and pat on the back too like anyone else, but it is actions that speak loudest for them.

And we get the little attention seeking brats that try to compensate something, and then we enter to the realm of lack of self esteem. Since WOW is so popular game you have whole spectrum represented here - the shy apologist, the loud-mouth bully and everything in-between.

Bully behaviour in general is something that has been researched over the many years. There’s some key reasons.

Cultural reasons - “I.e. lul u play vulpera!” - there’s this trend of singling out some players. Its just wow thing. Gnomes, vulpera etc. It is not common for wow, happens also in other games.

Institutional reasons - “lol my guild killed nzoth mythic, ur guild sucks” - in such case means that it is kind of ok by guild for you to act ape as standards are low or simply guild does not care.

Social reasons - "look at me, … no you are not looking at me… ok - lets kick this new guy here they suck! Are you looking at me, now that guy least read my name, hahahaa. "

Family reasons - they are likely lacking something in their life and their missing something is projected into in-game behaviour and would just likely project on the previous point or like in behaviour like using guild master or raid leaders powers. The attention and game related powers match to something they lack in real world.

Personal history caused reasons - They have been bullied themselves and they feel that this is normal behaviour.

Power - Power is tempting force to be used, even when no need. I.e. kicks from group, guild etc.

Provocation - people, who act annoyingly, and provoke some way and person bullying just snaps and crosses the threshold. Like someone, who normally does not pay attention may participate on that vote for kick, or kick annoying guild member, when pushed to the point. Why it is bullying ? Because in many cases it still includes use of power, or use of verbal insults etc.

(making this list I did use external help from bullying related websites to be more detailed)

But we can sum up all this with - why people bully ? Mainly due to insecurity, feeling powerless and the need to control. And often because this behaviour feels rewarding. In context of game - a lot of streamers and youtubers for example behave like bullies because it generates clicks and makes them look like though guys front of viewers.

It is 5 am, and I haven’t drank my 1st coffee…

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16

Agree.
Not enough I’m afraid.
A handful of bad experiences can ruin several good ones. :frowning_face:

I think I tracked back like three times, players that had already left the LFD dungeon, to pass them loot I didn’t needed.

Whenever I see someone struggling in a Dungeon I try to help him.
Like a healer that wasn’t able to keep up with our tank in Legion leveling instance, wanted to leave but I offered to help by speccing holy spec in my paladin.
We went as one tank, two healers and two DPS.

Not much, but certainly better than “vote kick”.

Cheers.

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Aye, guy was a toxic and all but imo you’re just the same as him.

Shows from your post how you treat anyone with a different mindset to you as an subhuman.

I don’t blame the guy for not wanting to boost, but then again I blame blizzard for force mixing players of vastly different skillsets.

I also doubt you’re giving us the whole story, as I doubt anyone sane enough would say I don’t boost in freaking RFC.

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I don’t boost in RFC.

I kill everything, and they stay dead, or I make 'em deader!

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The main issue is that quick and easy pugging is a double-edged sword: on one side it’s very convenient, on the other side, it makes other players much more disposable.

The other issue is that for many content has exclusively become a mean to get a reward, be it gaining xp, ap, gear or whatever. The road to achieve that reward is then to be travelled as fast as possible, scenery be damned.

Anything or anyone slowing down the travel becomes then a problem instead of a potentially interesting experience.

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Today meet one enhancement shaman new player in 20s dungeon.
In all grey gear - with 2 handed weapon. Just playing range and shooting lighting bolt alone.
Nobody cared or noticed - we finished run.
Hopefully he will have nice journey ahead in wow until he meet some kind of people.

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