How do you get highskilled players and lowskilled players to work together?

[Granyala]

If the only reliable way to assess a player to to play the game with them (or observe) then I'd argue that 'raid achievements' and item level are therefore damaging components to the social aspect of the game.

They are not damaging as such.
Thy are the straw a helpless community clings to in order to get SOME form of insurance that the player they randomly invite isn't a total dud.

That being said: 99% of all players shy away from any kind of effort when it comes to repeatable chore content. Wiping and slowly progressing is fine if content is new and shiny. Once the "ugh just get this done" mentality sets in because the content in itself is no longer fun/entertaining is the point at which absurd requirement crop up just to get it done ASAP.

The (academic) solution there would be to NOT let content get this old and keep players in a perpetual state of "ooh new shiny, lets see what it can do".

[Teebone]

If you think there's any hope to salvage a wow community (LOL! BC destroyed the community... back flagging and guild poaching was the worst) then I could also convince you to stop the Titanic from sinking. It's too late for this game. You want a community? Create one. Invite people to it. But I fear your true answer will be revealed to you: it's not just the game, but the fact that humanity is a fucking cesspool.

[cFortyfive]

New players are perfectly capable of this difficulty

Do you live in some alternate universe were the average player is not a bronze/silver/1.5kmmr/lfrtoohard participant ?

[Golden]

Performance. How well one does compared to others and how well they utilize the tools they have at their disposal.
Desire to get better. How one reacts to their own performance.
Dedication. How one responds to difficulty and how well they adapt to hardship.

High Skilled:

High level of performance. High numbers compared to others in the same IL bracket, low damage taken, ability to perform mechanics flawlessly while achieving both. Good attention to detail.

Competitive in nature. Has an ingrained need to compete, get better, and outperform others. Primarily others in the same difficulty bracket. As such, they will pour over logs and parses to see what they are doing wrong, what they could do better, and what those doing better than them are doing differently.

Dedicated to getting the job done. Has the ability to work with a group under pressure, push through reasonable failure to progress, thinks primarily of the group's progress over their own IL, and enjoys the challenge of difficult content more than the instant rewards of easier fare.

Low Skilled:

Low level of performance. Low numbers compared to others in the same IL bracket, lack of attention to detail and mechanics, needs fights explained to them. General lack of awareness.

No desire to get better. "It's just a game bro" attitude where there is a lethargic reaction to their own failures and lots of excuses made. ("Lag", "cat on fire", "can't raid cuz I got a life", etc.) Little to no attention paid to parses, optimization, or logs and no understanding of where, when, and why to do certain things which optimize performance. Typically falls into the categories of: 'Guy who AFKs during boss fights' and 'Guy who tunnels bosses because if he looks like he's doing the most dps, then people might be fooled into thinking he was doing things right'.

A short attention span. More suited to mobile games and casual experiences than actual tests of skill. Becomes frustrated and stressed when under pressure, takes criticism either with offense or a "yolo" attitude, thinks primarily of their own IL over the progress of the group, (pugging and LFR appeal much more to them partly because of this) and enjoys the instant ego stroking of easier content over the hard-won victories of more challenging fare.

It's interesting to me that highly skilled players always view the game as a competition.

Many players view WoW as an RPG and are more interested in story-line and how their character looks, etc. They don't care about competition and don't necessarily want to get a PhD in WoW in order to enjoy the game.

[Orangetai420]

Do you live in some alternate universe were the average player is not a bronze/silver/1.5kmmr/lfrtoohard participant ?

Just because players are lazy and unmotivated does not mean they lack the capability to raid. Do you live in some alternate universe where stacking, spreading, and moving out of fire is hard?

[spurx]

Well it is simple really. But the solution would be not very welcome.
"Remove all difficulty modes" - go back to the TBC style of raids.

Back then low and highskilled worked more together. But also in that setting highly skilled players will revolt against the low skilled players. Either by leaving and creating their own guild or by having the lower skilled player removed from the group. I am not even talking about "toxic-behavior" here. Low and highskilled players just mingle very badly in the long run.

So while the TBC style will help somewhat (concerning burnout etc as you said) low and high will ultimately "get divorced".

Is it a problem btw? Personally I don't like talking/being around people in real life that have (to name an indication of someone's intelligence) a low IQ. You know.. hooligan type of people. Trailor trash. Apart from their behavior (in general) they have nothing to say to me that interests me. So I will avoid them. Possibly they will avoid me aswell. Only time I will ever say anything to them is perhaps in an elevator or in a bus or something if the situation calls for it.

Same can be said for low skilled players. I don't mind playing a dungeon with a low skilled player. I do mind being with a low skilled player in a guild (for progress).

Think about it... you are asking in guildchat for a 5 man X. You see 8 people react. Do you pick the players that in your opinion suck? And if you don't and you pick in order of reaction... do you feel sorta bad that you couldn't take that other player that is more skilled?
Ofcourse you do.

And that is the single change that would improve the quality of this game by a factor of 100

[Raugnaut]

When you have high-skilled and low-skilled players "work" together, its called a carry. Mainly, the high-skilled players carrying the low-skilled players to success.

[Sixnalia]

I'd have to say I love helping newer players, and my BNet is pretty populated with people that asked to be friends so they could ask questions about their class. I'm a former teacher and while I don't teach anymore, I still love to see people who want to learn, improve, and do better.

I have, however, run into some players that have less than stellar behavior when encountering high skilled/geared players. Most notably, a friend of a friend. Rather than looking to how awesome he'll do later with some gear and practice with his class, he complains about feeling inferior all the time and how he'll never catch-up. We ran mythic 5 mans recently, both friends were 680. I told them the mechanics actually hit hard, and knowing them would be a boon. One friend looked the fights up before entering, the other expected to be told what to do because he didn't feel like looking them up. He even went on to criticize another member we recruited through the LFG Tool(the 3 of us were on Axon, the pugs were not). The criticism was that they weren't interrupting the Fel Blasts from Imps in Auchindoun. I checked Details to find the pug and I were the only ones to interrupt. It just feels like this type of player is unnaturally toxic.

There's two types of "low skill" in my opinion. Those that show an eagerness to improve and are generally very pleasant to be around. Then there's the type who doesn't want to put forth any effort and believes any and all of their shortfalls are due to gear alone and not skill.

[cFortyfive]

Just because players are lazy and unmotivated does not mean they lack the capability to raid. Do you live in some alternate universe where stacking, spreading, and moving out of fire is hard?

Yes in my universe players are bad in every game that's why they are in "elo hell". Aiming for a head isn't "hard" and yet they are silvers.
Lasthitting and not feeding like a retard isn't hard either and still they are bronze and so on.

[Unholyground]

You need a way to train low skilled players without severe penalization and some type of reward worth doing it for. Incentive my friends.

So maybe a type of decently hard dungeon that has 1 boss, maybe a mechanical bot that will shift its focus and go through a series of random mechanics similar to what you would see in mythic dungeons or raids but not quite as ridiculous, make it all scale based on item level, this dungeon will force one role to have to perform harder based on pulls and end boss abilities (which would be randomized) and pop cool-downs, you could even have a machine or something that auto battle rezes once or twice per dungeon. Someone could just build off of that idea and find ways to reward players who can do this place quickly, so it helps motivate players to some kind of reward that is worth it.

[Orangetai420]

Yes in my universe players are bad in every game that's why they are in "elo hell". Aiming for a head isn't "hard" and yet they are silvers.
Lasthitting and not feeding like a retard isn't hard either and still they are bronze and so on.

All those things you stated (except bronze/silver) require pretty good motor control and precise mouse aiming. WoW raiding does not. I'm not saying players aren't bad - I'm saying they have the innate ability to be heroic raiders. Raiding isn't challenging - only the logistics are. The problem is that Blizz does a shit job teaching new players because 90% of the game is easy enough to play with a SNES controller.

[Astynax]

You need a way to train low skilled players without severe penalization and some type of reward worth doing it for. Incentive my friends.

So maybe a type of decently hard dungeon that has 1 boss, maybe a mechanical bot that will shift its focus and go through a series of random mechanics similar to what you would see in mythic dungeons or raids but not quite as ridiculous, make it all scale based on item level, this dungeon will force one role to have to perform harder based on pulls and end boss abilities (which would be randomized) and pop cool-downs, you could even have a machine or something that auto battle rezes once or twice per dungeon. Someone could just build off of that idea and find ways to reward players who can do this place quickly, so it helps motivate players to some kind of reward that is worth it.

You're assuming that low skilled players want to be trained and learn, when in fact most don't claiming some sort of bullshit I have a life, not in the game to work excuse.

With your idea "find ways to reward players who can do this place quickly" there will always be a weak link if theres a huge skill range. That weak link wouldn't give a shit since it's going at their pace, while the others are getting punished for having them come along and go at a slower rate than they could if everyone was at the same skill

When there's a mix of high and low skilled, the higher skilled is punished from having to drag a baddie through a run where the baddie benefits from having someone good in there. The only time this doesn't interact is when each does their thing separately then meet at the end, such as w professions or the AH. I don't care if some guy is at 500 ilvl and hasn't even cleared a single boss in LFR, but if they have something in the AH at the best price I'll buy it and that's my interaction w them.

[Sansnom]

When it comes to performance in PvE: yes.
There is one proper way and no such thing as: "I'll play the game my way because I like it better".

And yet people are asking for a return to the old skill tree so people can select the skills they like, but if they do, and they are not using the ideal cookie cutter build, they are considered a scrub or doing it wrong.

This is a fault of the game design. It gives the illusion of choice when there is none. People complaining about more prunning yet there has never been any real choices. If people wants to perform to an acceptable level, they cannot choose the build. The build has been decided already.

But this is another topic for another discussion.

[cFortyfive]

All those things you stated require pretty good motor control and precise mouse aiming

Thanks for the laugh. Precise mouse aiming to get out of silver and bronze.

[Osmeric]

You give the high skill players who would like to play with their low skill friends no incentive to leave them. To do this you must remove all difficult group content.

Failing that, the carry economy could be formalized. Somehow reward the high skill players for carrying the lower skill ones.

[Orangetai420]

Thanks for the laugh. Precise mouse aiming to get out of silver and bronze.

Sorry I should have said most, I didn't mean ANYTHING related to WoW - meant the headshots, last hitting, etc.

I got proven healer in MoP, it was a joke.

Are you talking about bronze and silver ranking in some other game? Because now we aren't even on the same page. Those leagues have nothing to do with being good/bad, its the same deal as raiding in wow - you just need to learn how to play.

I was saying that FPS and MOBA games are different because they do require precise controls. WoW pve doesn't at all - its all about a simple rotation and awareness.

[cFortyfive]

I got proven healer in MoP, it was a joke.

Of course it is. So is getting out of silver, not landing in bronze, not dying in heroic, deal 75% of the damage your character should be capable off and yet the average players fails miserably.

[Osmeric]

I suppose it used to be this way, but like I said, the game has been around for so long and players are so jaded and worn out that a lot of the experienced players can't be bothered to teach and just assume the worst (the low skilled/new players don't give a crap that they suck and won't listen to me anyway, so why bother helping them?) and the new players also assume the worst (elitist crap-bag over there is some jerk who wants to remove LFR and keeps telling me I suck and to L2P noob!!!).

Why should the better players be expected to teach other players? What do they get out of it? Communism doesn't work; it's not reasonable to expect people to work for the common good rather than doing things that are beneficial to them individually on the margin.

- - - Updated - - -

Just because players are lazy and unmotivated does not mean they lack the capability to raid.

Of course it does. You cannot just ignore part of a player's personality because it conflicts with your narrative.

What you may be trying to say is that if the players are lazy/unmotivated, instead of being physically incapable, it is "their fault" and this absolves a game designer of any need to care. Which I hope you aren't trying to say, because it would be completely wrong.

[Granyala]

Just because players are lazy and unmotivated does not mean they lack the capability to raid.

That's precisely what it means.
Raid is MAYBE 30% player skill and 70% patience/putting up with all kinds of shit.

Mileage of superhardcore mythic raiders may vary but up until casually playing mythic this is true.

Raiding is not hard in a traditional "twitch reflex; excellent hand eye coordination" sene, however you have to be willing to stick with the group through hundreds of wipes.

This is a fault of the game design. It gives the illusion of choice when there is none.

It is good to see that some people are getting this fact.
I always facepalm when people clobber for the "Talent freedom" of old, because I remember the game VERY differently.

[Dequanacus]

They do not need to work together. You can have friends in the game of varying skill and plenty of content exists that can incorporate them. When it comes to content that they find challenging, it is not an issue that either the higher or lower skill level aren't forced to alter their playstyle. Mythic raiding requires a different mindset than most other content in the game. Obviously, certain mindsets won't mesh well with it. That is not a problem. If you wish to play with people that do not have that mindset, play with them when you're not raiding. It should not be a requirement that people accept everyone into certain content when the purpose of content is to push players beyond what they are normally doing. The expectation is that you'll only bring people that are prepared for that content. That is fine.