Why is it so acceptable to be bad now?

[Mclotsodots]

I saw this thread and I really wasn't going to say anything (though I agree) until it happened yet again yesterday this time we had a feral kitty in our group for Heroic CoS who was wearing a level 74 neck with defense and parry and a pair of level 70 Heavy Clefthoof Leg guards with 2 defense gems in them. I said "Hey bud you know even if your tanking as a druid defense and parry are useless to a druid right" he replies "I don't have any parry stuff" I link his neck and say yes you do he says so what lets just do this. I said man honestly do you not even care to try to be good at your class. He then asks how do you know I'm not good, Thats when the healer and one dps said LOL and left I followed. I am not sure if it has been mentioned but I think another thing that is causing this rise in bad players in BG XP, players level to 80 in AV and never learn anything about there class. I am so fed up with it.

I miss the attunement processes. If you think back the attunement for Kara every instance you had to go into for that had a boss that did something similar to what you had to deal with from a Kara boss that process taught you how to play, it taught you how to raid, if you didn't know already which with the way heroics were then was unlikely. I go into heroics now as a tank and round up whole rooms and we AOE them down, if i had tried that at 70 it would have been a wipe. I do not understand blizzards logic here it really does get old.

[DSRilk]

What do you mean by acceptable? If you are trying hard, but suck and will take advice, I have no issue. If you have poor gear and just hit 80, no problem. If you're well geared, but just too lazy? Not acceptable. It IS just a game. However, it's a TEAM game. If you're soloing, be as lazy as you want, but when you enter a dungeon you're part of a team. You don't see people on a soccer field saying, "it's just a game and I'm tired, so I'm just going to stand here." It is just a game, so have fun, but keep in mind that it's a social game and your choices impact others.

I don't like the rythm of the heroics at this point. People charge through as fast as they can. Either it's a boring or worse annoying AoE sprint fest or it's a wipe. The newer heroics actually go MUCH more smoothly with decent CC (unless you're over geared), but people don't bother (and break any CC I use). Personally, I'd like to see hard mode 5 mans that really required CC, planning, and that had better rewards. Heroics could be that way, but aren't quite there. I say up the HP and damage of the mobs, offer cooler looking gear (with the same stats even) and rename it from heroic to "You can't AoE your way through this, bub."

[Lianora]

If you think I'm bad then don't play with me.

Okay, sounds good. When I'm tanking a run with my healer friend and someone who is bad joins up we'll vote kick you so we don't have to play with you. And if it doesn't pass we'll both leave, get another instance in about a second and leave you to spend another 20mins finding a new tank/healer. People who don't want to take helpful advice about spec/rotation/gear or whatever it is they need to work on to become "less bad" are not worth my time in a run. I don't mind the inexperienced, I don't mind people who make mistakes, I'm always willing to take some time and help people to learn... But if you'd rather get insulted that someone tried to suggest a better way for you to do something and then pull out the old "It's a game, some of us have a life" or whatever excuse for your laziness you can think of then have fun waiting for a new group.

[Shokker]

I think that a lot of these people in heroics performing terribly for their level of gear are not bad in their ability to play the game, but are ignorant of the correct strategies to employ.

I believe this stems from WoW's huge popularity, as I would imagine that the people (I include myself) who attempt to play to game to the best level they can make up a small percentage of WoW's player-base, and thus the majority of players will not ever look up how to spec/gem or what rotation to use because (to repeat a point previous posts have made) they play just like they would a button-spamming hack-n-slash game, to just gain enjoyment out of mindlessly killing monsters.

This situation may be partially due to raids becoming much easier (to clarify: I'm not speaking against these easier raids, I am content with hard-mode content) and PuGable. In contrast to tbc, where before I joined a raiding guild (this was a small 10man guild only running Kara) I made sure to research my class and basic raiding rules, a simple example of which is to always stay behind the tank, because I knew I needed to know this to get a raid spot. Now, I would say there is less pressure to join a raiding guild (PuGable content) and thus the type of players making up the majority never feel the need to improve to play, and consequently never experience the joy that comes from playing well, and not just playing mindlessly for loot or just to clear instances. This can also be applied to the much easier heroics we have in WotLK.

A lot of posts on the forums state how WotLK has sent WoW into decline, and that in vanilla and tbc people new how to play, as back then you couldn't slack and although I don't have first-hand experience of vanilla, I can see a few examples of how this may be true. The advertising Blizzard have put into circulation is one example, these TV adverts are structured in a way that I believe appeals to perhaps younger viewers. Now I know younger players can do just fine at this game (being 15 myself), but I think that a lot of people who are perhaps enticed by these adverts and who are under 16 fall into the category of not wishing to look up rotations/spec/gems as this seems like work to them and consequently WoW gained an influx of players who perform badly, while older players who perform well will inevitably quit through boredom, or finding a new game or any number of other reasons.

To counter people who may say that people who will perform well will also be joining WoW, I can accept that, but I think that out of the people joining, the vast majority may never learn to play their class well and these are the people we will all see more regularly in heroics or PuG raids.

[harrygoboom]

It's a common misconception. Casuals and bads are not the same thing. Casuals are players that have less time than others, but plays all the same.

Bads are people who no matter what you tell them, they will shrug you off or throw a juvenile insult at you just because you offered some criticism. If that person would ever improve, it would probably take a year.

I couldn't have stressed this any more. I myself barely play any more, took a 2 and a half month break, etc etc, and I came back in ~4.4k GS, pulling 4-5k dps. in random heroics, a fury warrior with 5.2k+ iirc, i thought, ok, he'll obliterate me. his name was something dumb too, like holycrusader, or something of that matter. he did 2.6k dps. it wasnt just auto-attack though, like some people are saying 'they're being lazy'. He was just.. terrible.

I try and raid, but with my low-ish gearscore (5250 or so, still not bad), I'm rejected for even 25ToC. I did this before I quit, easily.. my friend in the run told me of a hunter with a higher gearscore under 3k dps, yet when he told the raid leader, he said 'he has a good gearscore' etc. anyways, the old skill>gear came out. fights aren't hard, you dont need 6k dps for them.. yeah.

TL;DR= qq, people are bad

[Pepitobenito]

Dealing with terribles seems to be something that's more taken in stride, rather than outright accepted. Why? There's just so many of them. To put it bluntly, WotLK has spoiled WoW players, removing even the most modest of skill requirements from the lower echelons of content, and keeping such only for the truly hardcore (heroic raids and hard modes), where these bad players will never set foot into. So what we are left with then is an endgame with 90% mind-numblingly easy content, that even the most casual of players can complete with relative ease, and 10% rather challenging content, that is far beyond the reach of non raiders and most casual guilds.

People also need to be aware of the differences between casual and bad. True, many are both, but casuals can be good, whereas bads are just bad, and I don't really care how much they play. It doesn't take playing 40 hours a week to be decent at your class, and there are plenty of competent casuals out there to prove this. I have 4 80s now, and all 4 have easily been able to do very good DPS for their gear and capabilities, even within days of hitting the 80 mark. I recently got my Druid to 80, after leveling entirely as Feral, switched to Balance with no real understanding of the rotation or mechanics (and almost no caster experience whatsoever), and still managed to start hitting the 5k dps mark within a few days. I just can't see what's difficult about managing a few buttons, especially with simpler classes like Rogues and Mages, both of which I consistently see doing sub 1k DPS in pug heroics.

I make a point of not supporting this wave of indifference people have towards terribles being carried everywhere and all the time. If a bad is in my heroics, doing utterly abysmal DPS, they're going to receive a kick vote on my part. And that's just that. As the original poster remarked, there is indeed a difference between mediocrity and badness. I usually just skim over the former, but I'm not letting the latter get carried on the efforts of myself and others (often guild members) so they continue to receive gear they didn't earn. Am I being a jerk? No; I don't expect people to take my badly geared alts through content while I don't contribute sufficiently, and I wouldn't expect them to carry me if I was not performing adequately.

[Xiience]

Theoretically everybody posting in this thread must be a good player for the simple fact that they have an account on a website that gives you tips on how to play your class.

My take on this problem is that, yes its just a game but dont you wanna be good at it? Is it really hard to take 30-40 minutes to either look up or ask somebody what rotation is how to gem etc...

[Slurpygoo]

There have always been lots of terrible WoW players. The number of players grows daily so its only natural that the amount of bad players increases too.

[Mullokad]

Read the Op and made me think back to Heroic magisters terrance. Ahhhhhhh memories
Mage:so im keeping the rogue sheeped?
Me: No sheep the warrior the basterd always goes for me.
Healer:dw mullo you wont die in my hands
Me:kk.
Princess something: Anniallate them!
Mullokad has died.
Me: FUCKING WARRIOR