Why do so many players gate themselves out of progress?

[Eazy]

I was asking myself the same question when I saw people doing only LFR, but then I realized they play the game for fun.

Some people enjoy being LFR kings, some want to progress as much as possible, some are doing RP. I even know some people who are not really focusing on WoW as much as other games, though they're still playign it, it's just a game after all - it's made to be enjoyed.
Some people enjoy it because they do battle-pets, some people enjoy doing dungeon with friend and have a good laugh. That's all...

But if you're asking about whinning people - then I have no idea. I require from the game as much as I put in it. If I have coordinated group, Sim my character, prioritize Raid times etc. -> then I want to have good items, good DPS, nice mounts etc.

If I'm not really putting any effort in it then I shouldn't expect as much. But people usually want more and more at lesser cost.

[Lochton]

Social anxiety, mostly. And a crippling fear of screwing up.

Kind of a tragic irony, reall: being anxious about interacting with others when playing an MMO...

I find myself empowered when online, easier for me to talk and be with people that I don't have to see/stand next to. Part of my mental problem. I have cherished World of Warcraft since its release, it has been a good tool to find friends, and my wife.

Used to have those scared moments, but then I realized once given a chance, it wasn't so.

Thing is, a lot of random groups doesn't always offer the chance.

[rda]

If you get declined in groups, make your own, and set your expectations of others accordingly. Lower geared folks will probably appreciate you for it.

This doesn't work if you are a DPS.

In general, I am not saying that the issue is different than it was before. No, having to spend enormous amounts of time / stamina looking for groups (or finding a guild to get these groups somewhat easier... then having to find a different guild when the current one collapses / after you drop out for a month or so / etc, and so on) - was always an issue. It just gets exacerbated when the game:

(a) remains concentrated on the same few activities (so people get hardened and concentrate more on themselves than on others),
(b) keeps losing players (same, whoever gets left is less friendly to others), and
(c) gets more and more grindy (same in spades).

With what the game is and where it goes, it is logical that this place is where the cracks are. People are put in the position where they become quite unfriendly and intolerant to each other, because the incentives are structured the way they are.

[ohlins]

I can't raid due to my work schedule. I used to have the time, it's just not there anymore. So am i gating myself out of progress, or does the raid model just not suit my RL obligations? Seems to be the latter.

[SirCowdog]

It's why LFR was made. Then elitists cried about their special snowflake status and got it horribly neutered.

And now the effect is spreading into 5-man content with Mythic-only stuff, as though it's somehow mutually exclusive to having normal or heroic versions.

[Lucetia]

As many have said there could be a plethora of reasons.

I've have a lot of social issues (not that I can't be social, but...yeah long story lol). I just recently now did a Mythic this past week after being 110 since 2 weeks in from the expansion and even then I only went in with a 846 iLvL. Then I joined some "carry" runs for +2 and +4 key I had gotten. Thing is being melee hinders your dps on some fights where you need to be moving, plus I'm by far a FotM spec that does high dps. I could be healing or tanking as well, but messing up in a Mythic+? Yeah no thanks I don't need that pressure of the run falling apart because of a mistake either myself made or someone else. So I tend to stay away from less stressful activities. I use LFD a lot, occasional LFR (achievement and quests) and as the next tier gets closer then I'll try dabbing in Normal/Heroic. I know I can do the content and such, but it's the thing of being blamed for someone else's stupidity or because I'm a melee and not high dps it's easier to boot.

[De Lupe]

Social anxiety, mostly. And a crippling fear of screwing up.

Kind of a tragic irony, reall: being anxious about interacting with others when playing an MMO...

And the worst part? I used to LOVE doing Heroics.

[Levifer]

~ I struggle with being rejected in group finder.
Truth: I only just came to understand this recently. Some good smart players have social anxiety that makes queuing and being rejected really tough to deal with. These players (good people!) make up a fair percentage of the ones asking for LFD to be applied to mythics here in the forums. To these players, I cannot stress enough how much better your life might become if you find the right guild!

Even though some people here have spoken about social anxiety already I wanted to underline this part again.

I can totally relate to the above written lines.

As someone who is suffering from mental issues myself (e.g. depression, borderline, social anxiety) I can tell you: if I did not have my guild with which I am currently doing EN Mythic progression, M+ Dungeons and so on I wouldn't be doing anything.
Soloing (old) content or doing achievements, pet battles, farming at the most! Everything where I don't need to interact with other people.

The truth is that I am always playing tank roles (dps/heal just doesn't fit me) and with such an important role I think it is crucial to step up, take the lead, interact, communicate and so on... however I find it very hard to do that with randoms, even if I will never meet them again.
This is also tied to the fear of failing miserably (I am always told that I am pretty good at my role but this doesn't ease this fear at all unfortunately).


If you are feeling the same way... it is a hard way, but TRY to find a guild with people you can connect with. I was very shy in the beginning, was barely talking to anyone but it has gotten better and nowadays I am talking and joking with my people in TS almost every day.
It just makes the game more fun and progressing the current content also feels good and rewarding.

[assman]

There are a lot of mythic guilds who only raid 8 hours a week. I think a lot of people think they need to play 20 hours a week or something like that to raid mythics, but that's not really the case.

[Pull My Finger]

Some good smart players have social anxiety that makes queuing and being rejected really tough to deal with. These players (good people!) make up a fair percentage of the ones asking for LFD to be applied to mythics here in the forums. To these players, I cannot stress enough how much better your life might become if you find the right guild!

Isn't that kind of an counterintuitive advice to somebody who has social anxiety? To go and bind themselves to an even stricter and more intense social structure?

I'm not an expert on the matter, it just seems contradictory to me.

[Hutmacher]

I just.. want to quit playing when I want to quit. A mindset which prevents big raiding, even dungeons from time to time lol can only speak for myself.
"Okay we have 2/5 bosses, lets go to number 3.. although..ugh, fuck everything. *instantly quits the game*"

[Djuntas]

Id also like say the people who only seem to play WoW for gear-treadmill....WTF >.> This is not an RPG where you gear up as main goal, there is so much else.

[Pull My Finger]

And now the effect is spreading into 5-man content with Mythic-only stuff, as though it's somehow mutually exclusive to having normal or heroic versions.

After doing my first mythic-only dungeons, I came to the realization that there's absolutely NO real senseful reason for not having this content available as normal or heroic versions. It's silly and nonsensical and is probably just there for Blizzard to half-heartedly crawl up the asses of whining elitists an inch. I don't know.

To be honest, I even think that there's no reason why mythic dungeons shouldn't be queue-able. As long as you're not going for this +, keystone, whatever stuff, the difficulty increase compared to heroic is rather insignificant.

[Sliske]

A mix of knowing it will be stressful and social anxiety.

An example of something I really want is another vicious saddle mount, but fuck me if i'll put myself through 100 3v3 wins again. getting elite gear in 2v2 is boring enough, 3v3 is even worse.

An example of the ridiculousness of social anxiety is the following (i have it too btw) - My GF has major social anxiety, totally crippling. Ask her to come heal a raid, she'll struggle to muster the courage to do it. Ask her to join a guild, she'll worry for DAYS about her performance. The annoying part? She has multiple rank 1 healing parses on multiple classes on almost every tier mythic (heroic in old expacs). Shes completed every tier before the next patch on mythic, has never been declined from a guild, has grand marshal RBG as a healer, multiple elite pvp sets and such, yet she STILL fears she will be worse than the average joe healer in a world 800 guild.

Its maddening but thats social anxiety. Its totally irrational. She knows it too. The only time i've ever seen her get under 85th percentile healing parses is in the cancer that was 5.4 siege of orgrimmar disc priests. These guys just deleted any need for healing. And we're not talking about world 50 guilds here folks, we typically raid in world 600-800 guilds for the chill environment. Guilds that don't say a word to people consistently getting 15th percentile parses.

That said theres more than just the above reasons to not progress higher difficulty content. I personally feel as someone who attained 95-100th percentiles on every boss in SoO as a fury warrior, that I've 'beaten' the parsing game. I don't think warriors will ever be harder than they were in 5.4. Likewise, I don't think bosses will ever be harder than Lei Shen 25 HC or Archimonde Mythic. I feel like i've peaked in my pve performance.

That said I don't know how people get rejected in group finder. I make probably 30 groups a week to various mythics and have maybe a 20/80 rate of good:bad players. YOU DONT KNOW whether that 870 ilvl player is going to be good. YOU DON'T KNOW whether that 840 player is going to be good. I generally go for class rather than item level, and i see 870 fire mages doing 180k single target dps almost daily. Do I kick them? No, theres no need to be doing 99th percentile dps in a mythic +2.

My point is this: You're not being declined because you're bad, or because of your ilvl, you're being declined because you're a dps.

When I make a group, I hit 'list', me as tank, gf as healer and we have around 80 dps sign up within 30 seconds. We can cherry pick out 3 hunters if we wish, or 3 WW monks, or what not. You're SO easy to replace as a dps.

Like it or not, pugging as a DPS you're gonna have to suck it up. I can say that I've NEVER been kicked from a raid, guild, dungeon, challenge mode or mythic due to performance but i've been declined DOZENS of times due to being a dps. Go watch a streamer, even Serenity players get declined almost 50/50 if they try to queue as a dps.

[Deleted]

And a crippling fear of screwing up.

That's one of the reasons why I didn't step into any Mythic+ for a whole while, not even with a friend. Because I was SO terrified of not doing well enough and maybe even embarassing her (for inviting me).

[Deleted]

My problem is social problems, im really awkward sometimes.

I can easily handle Mythic level raiding since i have done it many times in the past but nowadays i go for casual guilds because they tend to be so accepting in every way and filled with compassionate women who are protective and very nice.

To think i only raid mainly normal mode now but had top 50 world kills and realm firsts back in wotlk haha what happened to me.

[Deleted]

~ I don't have time to commit to a guild raid schedule.
Truth: Fair enough. Being part of an organized raid team is a commitment, and not one to be taken lightly. But large guilds, even most medium-size ones, have lots of members who aren't on the raid team(s). Guild tanks and healers are still more likely to look for guild mates when they're queuing for M+ because time spent coaching a guild mate is much better invested than time spent coaching someone you'll never run with again.

I do have tons of time to commit to a raiding schedule, but i have no desire to commit time and effort to an activity where that commitment and effort has a high probability of being useless, because it is simply not possible to change other people minds and attitudes.
This was already a problem in 10-man raiding, it is even worse in 20-man raiding or 20 to 40 man raiding, so that is the real issue i would dare say most people have with commiting to a raiding shedule.
Also it is easy to make a Mythic+ group with like minded players, even friends, but almost impossible in a content that demands so many people.
That is the main issue, nothing to do with the quality of the raiding activity per se.

[Sliske]

I didn't quite believe this until recently. The conversation came up in guild and the amount of people with "I get anxiety I can't lead a group" was startling.

This is due to the sheer number of asshats that will happily berate you for getting it wrong, but when you throw the crown onto them and ask them to lead, they shut the fuck up within seconds.

The most recent example I have of this is those bastards at the start of the expansion, shitting on people for messing up the light on Cordana in Vault of the Wardens. Throw that shit to them and watch them shut up instantly.

Perhaps the biggest example of all is how an average person reacts to a missed goal on a football match on TV. Everyone in the room pipes up how "even I could've scored that".

Everyones a genius until they're asked to explain it to the rest, or lead by example.

[Deadite]

After a few days of trying to get into mythic dungeons i just gave up. Yeah i know i am a quitter but the problem will only get worse and the demands get higher. Not worth the hassle really.

As to guilds the reason is two fold. I jumped into wow at release with a buch of people from UO. Some were RL friends but most were just people i rp'ed with in UO. We came to wow and made a guild. No where near cutting edge but we were doing ok but then things turned sour. Long story short was we became what was known as a feeder guild. We weren't good enough to be top end but good enough that those guild would nick our best players. Me and my brother like mugs told those guys to sod off but soon enough people wanted to move up the food chain. So we ended up stuck in a guild that would gear people up only to have then fuck off. Few months of that and i just gave up on guilds.

The second reason is that i visit forums. Most of the raiders on these forums are horrible people. They are arrogant and condescending. They look at you like a piece if shit because you do LFR. You think those people will be welcoming to people and help them out and be friendly if you joined their guilds? No chance. They can be as mean as they like on a forum. No one cares what they say or do but being stuck in a guild with them? Not worth the hassle imho.

[Deleted]

It's a thing about entitlement, and expectations and effort - in Legion now more than ever before, and I agree @OP in most of his points especially on the last one.

Nevertheless, I want to add some personal comments and opinions to one specific point.
I got declined from a group. No one wants my class/spec/I-lvl
... but I want to run that content so badly
Exactly this is the main problem going on right now. So man think they are entitled to see and run everything. If the leader of a group doesn't want you in, you don't get in. Everyone has his own preferences and experiences. I, for instance, decline every single hunter I don't personally know in my groups, as I had very bad experiences with barrage pulls within the last few weeks. Is this shitty, prejudiced behaviour? Maybe, but I won't risk a failed M+ because of that anymore.

Declination is pretty much normal, and depends solely on group leader. Even a 880+ healer may get rejected from mythics because, well, maybe because the leader doesn't want others to think of him as one who wants to be carried and prefers to play with people around his iLvl.
What I want to say - nobody is obligated to take you with them. Even if you are the only one in the queue.

Everybody can solve this problem on his own.
You want to run a specific level of M+, but are declined every time?
Then run a few lower ones and gather some more gear, maybe you are invited then.
Or form a group by yourself, and bring your own keystone.
Or gather some RL/Online friends to run with them.
Or find a guild.
Or reroll another class/spec. Maybe you play a class which can heal or tank, than be healer or tank.

I know, not every of these options is viable for everyone. But, honestly, If none of these fits you, you may reconsider your goals within the game. You simply can't demand beeing carried by everyone just because you can't or won't put in a little bit of effort.

Finding a (nice) guild really helps, especially in M+. In many cases guilds which actively raid already outgeared the lower mythic levels will take any guildmate in a support run, even if his gear not even closely meets the requirements.