Raiding and me .. and you.

[Deleted]

Really, raiding was really fun for me those days. Those days when i started to play World of Warcraft in 2005.

Thats how all nostalgia-threads start, but this is not one of them. I dont think that the first years of World of Warcraft were any better than it is today. I dont believe, that the game gone worse, it is just me that changed over the years and probably my idea of what is fun in a game.

I loved raiding in vanilla. I went to MC, BWL, AQ, Naxx in classic. And as i went into the burning crusade, my wish to play the raiding game slowly began to diminish. It changed from investing a lot of time into the raiding game to investing a lot of time into anything else but raiding. I played a lots of alts, started to do arena and pvp on a way more engaged pace, and slowly lost my interest in playing in the group i was used to for the first years. The only raids i played were Karazhan and Zul Aman. Anything beyond that did not appeal me at all anymore.

In WotLK, i abandonded raiding completely. Just to come back to it in Cataclysm, from start to end. I loved the engaging 5 mans at the start of the expac, i loved Firelands, but even if i loved that special raid, i felt that i never would feel the same wish to play in organized groups again as i did in classic.

At the end of cataclysm, i saw the chance to abandon raiding completely. And to move to a casual approach of endgame. As LFR was introduced.

During MoP LFR was my only raiding content, and i did not really miss anything about organized raiding.

Nowadays i dislike the raiding game consequently. Deliberately. For me, the raiding game destroyed most of the gaming community. For me, any kind of elitism, arrogance and greed are sourced in this game component. It is always the raiders that ask for exclusivity, be it either gear or even content, be it development effort or development focus. For me, raiding is the most toxic game component ever implemented, it destroyed guilds (based on missing "progress"), it turned the attitude from playing a game for fun into playing a game for a unhealthy kind of competition. It created addiction, which blizzard cynicially calls "Loyality".

Its organized version only adresses a vocal minority, whichs attitude is based on social darwinism. That, and only that, is what drives the raiding game.

For me, the worst part of it is that blizzard focused on this toxic part of the gameplay. Most of the endgame development effort is being put into raiding. Organized raiding is the kind of gameplay the devs favor. Raiding kills innovation, as the devs dont see any need for innovative small or large group content. Endgame is based on and ends in raiding. The best gear only comes from raiding. While we talk about a component that asks their players to dance a choreography, which is choregraphed by a self proclaimed raid leader, as central entity of any raid.

I myself play LFR only because of the reason that it shows the final plot. And that i may complete the legendary quest. I think any other component would be better than LFR as endgame for the masses. I dislike the fact LFR is being derived from the toxic organized raiding game, and would like to see the development of another game component. I think matchmaking is far superior to organization, as it does not force its players to commit to guilds or groups, and even if blizzard fears the loss of "loyality", i think they should support matchmaking as much as possible, to allow as much players access to even higher content difficulties.

Do you think that the raiding game in WoW is fine? Would you like another component to see the final plot? Do you think that organization should be the only approach?

Tell me your point of view.

[SlippyCheeze]

Tell me your point of view.

There is no productive outcome to this sort of thread.

[Schwert]

"I only run LFR"
"All raiders are elitist"
"I don't like this core feature of the genre and choose not to do it."

I'm missing a bunch of keypoints here but...really?

[Deleted]

i think they should support matchmaking as much as possible, to allow as much players access to even higher content difficulties.

And that is exactly what they're doing. You can do Normal and Heroic difficulties through the Looking for Raid system right now. There are all kinds of groups, some of them with high (sometimes exagerated ) requirements, others more reasonable. Theres a group for everyone, and, ofcourse, you can always make your own.

I no longer have a raid guild and have done all my raiding through the Raid Finder. I am 10/10 HC BRF since yesterday. Ironically, I think I spent more time raiding these last few months with PuGs than I ever did as part of a raid guild.

I also did only LFR in MoP after being a pretty hardcore raider up to that point ever since Vanilla. I didn't keep up with what PuGing was like in MoP since I never considered it. I was surprised that it works so well, I never thought I'd be doing Heroic with PuGs.

If what you want is access to higher difficulties, it is there for you, free of guild organized schedules, if you want to put some effort in. If, however, you're looking for non-traditional PvE content, then its true that WoW doesn't have much of that right now, and who knows if it ever will. Have you tried Guild Wars 2 ?

[Deleted]

And that is exactly what they're doing. You can do Normal and Heroic difficulties through the Looking for Raid system right now. There are all kinds of groups, some of them with high (sometimes exagerated ) requirements, others more reasonable. Theres a group for everyone, and, ofcourse, you can always make your own.

But not matchmade. Only using a premade group finder.

[JemiS]

IMO, elitism stems largely from the matchmaking type systems, and these systems largely ruin the community.

Raiding guilds, on the other hand, especially those not pushing world firsts, tend to be much more inclusive, and much less elitist. Many are also likely to have B team/offnight/alt raiding, where they help train and teach people.

The vast majority of the elitism I encounter in game comes when I run alts through LFR, not when I play with mythic/heroic/normal raiding guilds.

When you want to play "easily", you play with a group that doesn't know you, and has no incentive to care for you/teach you. Similarly, the person randomly joining a group has no real incentive to improve their play, learn, or be a team player, because they'll likely never see those people again.

When someone accidentally ninja pulls in a PuG/LFR, people bitch, whine, and complain. When it happens in my guild, we see who won the pool for "how many times will the mage ninja pull tonight", and have a laugh. Guilds, and on-server PuG raiding/raiding alliances/raiding groups play together in a form of community, and have social incentive to help people.

IMO, LFR and cross-realm group finder, while very convenient, have done more to foster elitism and lack of community than anything else.

[TheMediator]

LFR is an obsolete concept with the improved Group Finder. You can literally PUG all of the content up to Mythic using the Group Finder unless you're just really bad at the game. Time complaints are no longer really valid.

[Doombringer]

As with any part of the game, there are rotten apples that reflect on the rest of the bunch. There are PVPers who are toxic toward anyone but another PVPer (and sometimes even to their "kin" as well). There are raiders who can be nice, super nice... and others who can be acerbic, elitist. There are RPers who are jerks, and auction-house tycoons that turn out to be the kindest people alive... it's all subjective.

[Solarnova]

I was once the elitist raider you speak of in the prime of raiding, Classic, TBC, and Wrath, but alas, it was time to move on and make time for other priorities in real life. I will admit it felt very good to be up on that pedestal.

[Deleted]

But not matchmade. Only using a premade group finder.

Fights with any serious difficulty and matchmade groups do not mix. I would NEVER use it, it would be pointless and painful and nothing would get done.

The premade group finder is a tool and its there for you to pretty reliably do content of relevant difficulty with random people while allowing you to weed out those who aren't working out. Is that elitist ? No. Not at all. When some people in my group put in a certain amount of effort, I expect the others to match up to that, if they don't care, if they're not trying, they're wasting everyone else's time and its disrespectful, which makes me well within my rights to remove them from my group.

You can't have content be difficult -and- have a "everyone wins" mentality at the same time. The truth is, some people aren't cut out for it, others just haven't learnt enough about the game yet and others simply don't care (but for some reason sign up anyway), and if 9 people in a group are trying their best and the 10th repeatedly underperforms, then for the good of the group, he'll be going out.

Honestly, I'm not sure what you want. If you want to raid but for it to actually have any difficulty (ie not LFR, where you're basically attacking a target dummy), then, as I've repeatedly said, you can do that, without a guild.

If you want a different kind of PvE experience entirely, then yes, the game does not have that. This is a flaw of the classic MMO formula and I would be pretty surprised to see a meaningful solution in a 10 year old game, but who knows.

[Deleted]

tl:dr, only read the first few lines to which i can only say that you're naive if you think that you're the one who changed.. You may have changed, while wow is almost unreckognisable compared to it's former self.

I agree that times change, and so WoW had to get with the times, but that doesn't justify the integration of twitter for gamepromotion, at the cost of actual game content.

[Miley]

I didn't do much guild raiding in TBC or MoP but it has hardly changed. There is easier difficulties available now but the current heroic/mythic levels feel the same as the old normal/heroic. It's not a fault of the game. Either you enjoy raiding or you do not.

[Plutarch78]

IMO, elitism stems largely from the matchmaking type systems, and these systems largely ruin the community.

Raiding guilds, on the other hand, especially those not pushing world firsts, tend to be much more inclusive, and much less elitist. Many are also likely to have B team/offnight/alt raiding, where they help train and teach people.

The vast majority of the elitism I encounter in game comes when I run alts through LFR, not when I play with mythic/heroic/normal raiding guilds.

When you want to play "easily", you play with a group that doesn't know you, and has no incentive to care for you/teach you. Similarly, the person randomly joining a group has no real incentive to improve their play, learn, or be a team player, because they'll likely never see those people again.

When someone accidentally ninja pulls in a PuG/LFR, people bitch, whine, and complain. When it happens in my guild, we see who won the pool for "how many times will the mage ninja pull tonight", and have a laugh. Guilds, and on-server PuG raiding/raiding alliances/raiding groups play together in a form of community, and have social incentive to help people.

IMO, LFR and cross-realm group finder, while very convenient, have done more to foster elitism and lack of community than anything else.

In my experience it was the opposite. On my server the elitist pricks and trolls were the only ones that could be relied on to get into a raiding guild or Arena teams. So people had to put up with their toxic behavior.

- - - Updated - - -

LFR is an obsolete concept with the improved Group Finder. You can literally PUG all of the content up to Mythic using the Group Finder unless you're just really bad at the game. Time complaints are no longer really valid.

Link AOTC and ilevel or no invite. Yep, sure has.

[Spotnick]

There would be no point of playing this game without raiding. WoW is a very boring solo game.

Playing with friends in a guild is the only reason I got hooked to this game.

I think you are mixing raiding and PUG raiding.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Raiding is great. It doesn't create pure elitist people. It creates friendships as well. Along with enemies. All in all the basics of human relationships. Also competition is a very healthy thing. It is fun to compete with others. Some people handle it poorly and that is just life. Most just take it with a gain of salt. Over all raiding is one of the best things I have taken part in on the internet and continue to do it far into the future.

[Airlick]

TL;DR - traumatized LFR hero thinks all raiders are elitists.