Truth Behind the Toxic Environment in WoW.

[Kaver]

Toxicity in video games (like WoW) mainly occurs between strangers. Toxic environment most commonly involve people who don't care about each other at all.

Most of the threads in here about toxic behavior have one thing in common: They are all based on experiences from PUG'ing.

And PUG'ing is the main problem. A lot of people become very toxic when they play with strangers who they don't care about at all. Especially when it happens on the internet. You almost never see the same level of toxicity in a guild group or friend group that you see in a group of complete strangers. Sure it happens, but it's much less frequent.

A lot of people like to blame the content for the toxicity. "M+ is to blame for toxic behavior" and so on.. But the content is not to blame for people's toxic behavior. When you take 5 people who don't give a sh*t about each other and put them in a group, then the risk of toxic behavior will increase significantly.

The toxic behavior exists because you choose to spend time with people who don't give a damn about you. Instead of making friends and playing with these friends, you choose to play with strangers all the time. And many of these strangers don't care about you or your well-being. They see you as nothing more than a tool to get the loot. They see you as another NPC in the game instead of a human being. And if you make the smallest mistake then hell breaks loose. It's funny how much peoples behavior change once they use discord and actually talk with each other. I never heard anyone on discord say "Oh your f*cking noob, learn to play!". It mostly happens when people are typing behind their keyboards.

Most of the toxic environments in WoW are created by complete strangers playing together. You cant just blame the content for that. Do yourself a favor and remove yourself from these environments. Find a good guild and make some friends to play with and your own experience in the game will most likely improve.

[Azerate]

There's not much to really discuss here. Yeah, finding a guild with nice people or a group of good friends in general is the way to go for sure. It always makes the game way easier than pugging, which many people don't seem to get. Yes, you have scheduled events that you have to turn up for usually, but those events go smoothly, there is no trashtalking, and you usually don't have to deal with exuberant requirements pug leaders make. Having 1 or 2 set times when you raid or do dungeons in the week is really much better than theoretically being able to do it whenever you wish, but in reality wasting 10 times more time on it and probably still failing it.

One thing that has to be said though is that this does not excuse the toxicity some people display and Blizzard's inability to deal with it properly. As much as I agree that not pugging saves you from toxic players for the most part, you shouldn't have to find closed communities not to be constantly shat on. There's a lot that can be done to punish those people that Blizzard is not doing, for whatever reason.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

To be fair though... like half the game systems anymore circle around making playing with complete strangers you don't give a fuck about a viable option. If not an easier option. Sometimes even a more rewarding option. I mean mythic raiding, very high end PvP, and extreme keys are really all the game really kind of points you towards doing with more than a pure pug anymore and even then it is an option. So toxic behavior is pretty much baked into the game systems at this time and has been for a while. Which is a bigger part of the problem you're talking about here.

[Nevrex]

This is something I don't get honestly. I was never toxic to anyone in any game. I don't see a reason to be an ass or "show my true self" like some people once I become anonymous.

I stopped joining raid pugs quite fast because of this behavior. Seeing the raid leader write in chat "I'm kicking all the noobs after 1 wipe" or something just adds unnecessary stress to something that is supposed to be enjoyable.

In my opinion, the game is way more fun when you play with friends or a nice guild.

[Gatto]

While on the one hand I can agree that putting together players who doesn't give a **** about each other, on the other hand I think that the problem is just a result of past experiences.

I happened to take part to nice groups and bad groups, and pratically most of the time I tried my best to finish in time or simply the faster I could.

Leaving apart that some people tend to be more toxic than other people, we have to look for the real issue by proceeding step by step

1) A player managed to clear dungeons and got a better understanding of its class. He took a m+ guide to find out rotation, stats, essences and so on. He also spent some time learning mobs abilities ( what has to be interrupted, what target should be the first one to die, etc ) and afflix ( how to properly deal with blostering, explosive orbs, etc ) and now he's aiming for higher keys.

2) That player ( let's no assume that he uses raiderio, even if it's used by a large part of the community ) will try to fill his party with 4 other players "in order to push the key".

3) He will eventually find out, even if his key is between 10-15, that some players don't know what are they doing. Their dps is not good, they don't have the right talents need to achieve the maximum class efficiency, they don't also know the instance mechanics ( mobs, positioning, bosses, etc... ), and this will probably lead to a key failure.

4) Eventually, he will be in a party with a very good player, which is also tired of being put with players who don't know what to do, and because the key would not be completed in time ( or in a worst case scenario, after the first wipe ) he will left the party in order to save his time ( since he won't accomplish what he decided to queue for ).

5) The player who started the key probably will put the blame on both leaver and leachers, and will try to find a solution to team up with players who knows what to do ( he will forgive errors, but the more he'll find himself in team with leavers and leachers he'll start getting tired of this ).

6) He'll find out raiderio, but soon he'll realize that because of free giveaway in terms of equipment ( weekly chest, horrific visions, heroic wf, braindead neck/back grind, titanum residuum vendor, etc... ), even unskilled players are allowed to get endgame equipment, and because so they hit +15/+18 keys in time ( 99% dps classes ) if they find good parties and get carried even if they just dps without helping with environmental stuff or mechanics ), and the more he continue pushing, the more the possible frustration.

7) Eventually, he'll quit try do deal with strangers and instead try to party with friends ( maybe he'll find a guild, or just a bunch or players, in order to challenge a content with the purpose to improve themselves, instead of playing randomly spamming keys ).

In the end, the toxicity is something which blizzard allowed back in the years by starting throwing everything to everybody.
The result of this, is that the game is a casual one and more than before people refused to learn how to play, since they can get rewards almost for free.

The real issue here is that, unfortunately, raiderio is not the perfect system to know the people you are partying with, and since there's no crystal ball to foresee if a player could be a good one or not well... frustration would ( depends player from player indeed ) around the corner.

To start fixing things, I think blizzard should "also" increase difficulty and remove giveaways.

[LedZeppelin]

Just another thing that WoW did better when it was just you and the people on your server. I played on a medium to low pop server in early WoW and if you were a massive dick to people then people would know and not invite you

[Acidbaron]

Toxic behaviour is created by expectation vs reality. They incorrectly estimate where they believe they should be, this is also seen in moba's.

MMO's also suffer from the problem of content experience. Wipes are not acceptable even a week after content has come out.
People often forget where they started out from, i have seen many people who started out social barely getting things done to ending up in higher ranked guilds. It is a matter of time and personal effort but they do need the framework. And that framework is not there in a pug environment.


Introduction through raid mechanics also only happen through raid experience, the content overlaps between single challenges and team based challenges simply doesn't exist or is minimal. This is also why i feel LFR is a wrong format to introduce people to raids.

There is a lot to break down here as to why people become toxic, some are just miserable people who have nothing but the game and so look at failures in game as something very personal. Another thing is the in game attitude reflects our real life mentality, where the speed of getting things done matter.


I do believe some things can be done to improve on a content level and so i hope the Tower of Torghast can add a layer of learning the mechanics and class can help on that but obviously a friendly environment to play in will always be beneficial because raiding after all is a team sport.

[Kaver]

This is something I don't get honestly. I was never toxic to anyone in any game. I don't see a reason to be an ass or "show my true self" like some people once I become anonymous.

Fortunately there are still people like you, but sadly a lot of people act badly if they are given the chance.

I usually run M+ with the same people and if we sometimes need a random players for the last spot in the group we often ask that person to join our discord. This is our way to ensure that toxicity is kept at a minimum because most people tend to be nicer once you actually talk with them.

[Qnubi]

Most of the threads in here about toxic behavior have one thing in common: They are all based on experiences from PUG'ing.

And PUG'ing is the main problem. A lot of people become very toxic when they play with strangers who they don't care about at all. Especially when it happens on the internet. You almost never see the same level of toxicity in a guild group or friend group that you see in a group of complete strangers. Sure it happens, but it's much less frequent.

A lot of people like to blame the content for the toxicity. "M+ is to blame for toxic behavior" and so on.. But the content is not to blame for people's toxic behavior. When you take 5 people who don't give a sh*t about each other and put them in a group, then the risk of toxic behavior will increase significantly.

The toxic behavior exists because you choose to spend time with people who don't give a damn about you. Instead of making friends and playing with these friends, you choose to play with strangers all the time. And many of these strangers don't care about you or your well-being. They see you as nothing more than a tool to get the loot. They see you as another NPC in the game instead of a human being. And if you make the smallest mistake then hell breaks loose. It's funny how much peoples behavior change once they use discord and actually talk with each other. I never heard anyone on discord say "Oh your f*cking noob, learn to play!". It mostly happens when people are typing behind their keyboards.

Most of the toxic environments in WoW are created by complete strangers playing together. You cant just blame the content for that. Do yourself a favor and remove yourself from these environments. Find a good guild and make some friends to play with and your own experience in the game will most likely improve.

True, but I will still think that unless it's a RL friend. Online friends are just a slight step higher than a random stranger for me. So if an online friend sucks I will make funny remarks about their performance but deep down I still think they are terrible/suck at the game. It's just an illusion for them, and they are still tools in my eyes. The only persons I truly care about are IRL people.

[potis]

It barely has anything to do with that, you dont wake up one day and say "Today i am gonna be toxic in my daily PUG because i dont know them".

Its the fact Blizzard mixed the player base in an attempt to fit the narratives of gaming that were being created past 2010, aka 30 minute gaming sessions tops while at the same time fixing a major problem the game had, people were wasting more time trying to create a group, than actually doing the content the group was going to do, aka quality of life fixes that were desperately needed for a game that grew to the size of WoW.

In todays WoW standards, a Mythic raider, has no reason to ever group up with a LFR player if he doesnt have to, the systems Blizzard introduced with LFG at first and kept them for awhile afterwards did exactly that, forcing daily/weekly farming caps and mixing the community, and it was too late after, people were spoiled.

"Why get a guild when i can press this button and someone doing their daily will carry me?".

The same mentality carried over at LFR also.

If you play multiple levels of content at times you can see the changes over the years and how toxicity is being created inside each part of the game over time.

MoP/WoD/Legion LFR is a quick example.

You had patch day, or any Wednesday, first weeks, everyone still trying to get their set bonuses, a huge amount of Mythic/Heroic raiders doing LFR for that reason the first month or so, and LFR wasnt releasing in waves at the start, so a lot of people and their alts.

I do not remember anyone ever complaining in Wednesday morning LFRs, things would just get destroyed and cleaved down, LFRs taking 20-30mins.

And then you have Friday-->Sunday LFR, where people actually wiped to trash like the worms before Ji-kun and the spam was INSANE, name calling and everything, which is half-logical..How do you wipe there, LFR taking 2 hours and all that shizzle.

BFA has 0 reasons for a geared player to enter LFR ever, apart from boredom, every time i leveled an alt this past expansion and used LFR for some gearing when no one was online, there would barely be 1-2 actually overgeared people inside the raid, probably helping a friend.

But at the same time, i see much less QQ but i have also seen a very big % of disbanding groups and leaving tanks.

And you see this especially on N'zoth the last few months, there is barely any QQ apart from the basic things "Why is there no tank downstairs", but barely any actual toxicity compared to before, because the better players arent forced to go in there and get annoyed.

TLDR: Majority of the toxic environment, is created by mixing the player base that isnt meant to be mixed by using things like weekly currency caps, i havent experienced any actual toxic environment on my alts in BFA compared to the past 3 LFR expansions, cause there is no reason for the better players (and usually the complainers) to do the irrelevant content.

[Acidbaron]

Just another thing that WoW did better when it was just you and the people on your server. I played on a medium to low pop server in early WoW and if you were a massive dick to people then people would know and not invite you

That was common among all mmo's but that also came with a big negative of being highly reliant on others to do about anything in game. It simply does not work for the majority of people who have to balance a social life, work and a gaming hobby.

[Kaver]

True, but I will still think that unless it's a RL friend. Online friends are just a slight step higher than a random stranger for me. So if an online friend sucks I will make funny remarks about their performance but deep down I still think they are terrible/suck at the game. It's just an illusion for them, and they are still tools in my eyes. The only persons I truly care about are IRL people.

I don't have any real-life friends in WoW. The people I play with are from my guild or people I have made "in-game"-relations with. I never experience any toxicity from them. We also use discord to talk all the time, so I guess that helps a lot.

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It barely has anything to do with that, you dont wake up one day and say "Today i am gonna be toxic in my daily PUG because i dont know them".

You can say that. But it still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the toxicity in the game happen in PUGs.

You almost never see a guild raid where someone suddenly goes on a rampage and yells "Your f*cking noobs! Learn to play!"... this mostly happen when complete strangers play together.

Most of the things people write in in-game chat they would never say over discord.

[Steelcryo]

This has been a known fact for years. It's why people were so excited about Classic and no cross realm functionality. People back in Vanilla were much friendlier because if they weren't, they were basically black listed by the community on that server and couldn't do a lot of content. I remember a handful of people raging in trade chat at everyone because no-one would invite them or let them join a guild because of how toxic they were.

When the people you play with can remember you and you will be forced to see them again, you're much more likely to be civil with them. When you aren't likely to see them again, you don't really give a shit about your behaviour.

[potis]

You can say that. But it still doesn't change the fact that the majority of the toxicity in the game happen in PUGs.

You almost never see a guild raid where someone suddenly goes on a rampage and yells "Your f*cking noobs! Learn to play!"... this mostly happen when complete strangers play together.

Most of the things people write in in-game chat they would never say over discord.

As a raid leader i say that every single raid if i have to if people start fucking up, i dont even know what you are talking about, even so the same people have been there for 5 years.

There is a massive difference between saying it and actually being correct or backing it up, and just saying it, things dont work in some magical unicorn land, there are facts, and situations.

But when it happens, they know they fucked up, cause i will rarely if ever raise my voice, and say something like that unless its jokingly, cause that happens 24/7 in our guild.

As i have said at my wall of text above, if you play or have played at multiple levels of content over the years, you can see the toxic environment starts happening when people of different skillsets are mixed together.

Little billy complaining to little george in a pug is irrelevant, they are both shit at the game, they just dont know it cause they have never played past the swamp of shitness at the game.

[Raven]

Nah still the people that is the main problem, even if you pug something you have 2 options, be toxic or not and the people pick the be toxic option.

People isnt forced to be toxic they choose to be.

[Eosia]

No. PUG'ing is not the problem. The problem is entitled people who seem to think they the $15/20 they give Blizzard per month makes them somehow more special than the rest of us. They seem to think they can dictate the terms and such. It is all about them. I had this happen last week in an LFR. 28 people wanted to Vexiona for loot, completion of the raid, encrypted texts, etc. One tank and a healer tried to hold the group hostage because they did not want to do that boss and Blizzard made a mistake in not gating Hive/Ra'den behind Vexiona. The group just sat there until an Unholy DK went Blood and, on the fly, tanked it with the second one after the two jerks left.

When you PUG, you have 4-29 other people you are working WITH. People forget that. Blizzard did not take the the "multiplayer" out of MMO, players did.

The real "Truth Behind the Toxic Environment in WoW" can be boiled down to one word.... SELFISHNESS.

[Granyala]

This is something I don't get honestly. I was never toxic to anyone in any game. I don't see a reason to be an ass or "show my true self" like some people once I become anonymous.

Pretty much. The stranger of today, may be the friend list buddy of tomorrow, so I behave appropriately.
That being said: I am very direct. I will tell you if make mistakes and offer ways of improvement. To many, criticizing their "god given" gaming gift, no matter how constructive and and neutral in formulation, they will see it as "toxic".

Also, if people have done the content 99 times, they are extremely impatient the 100. time. That impatiens is the root cause of most toxic behavior and it is indeed facilitated by the games design and emphasis on repetition till you can't stand the content anymore: a.k.a.: grind.

Bottom line: both are to blame: content creators and players alike.

[Kaver]

As a raid leader i say that every single raid if i have to if people start fucking up, i dont even know what you are talking about, even so the same people have been there for 5 years.

There is a massive difference between saying it and actually being correct or backing it up, and just saying it, things dont work in some magical unicorn land, there are facts, and situations.

But when it happens, they know they fucked up, cause i will rarely if ever raise my voice, and say something like that unless its jokingly, cause that happens 24/7 in our guild.

As i have said at my wall of text above, if you play or have played at multiple levels of content over the years, you can see the toxic environment starts happening when people of different skillsets are mixed together.

Little billy complaining to little george in a pug is irrelevant, they are both shit at the game, they just dont know it cause they have never played past the swamp of shitness at the game.

But then it's not really toxic is it? If you say something to people you know as a joke then it's not the same as insulting strangers. I can also call most of my real-life friends c*nt with no issue because they know I'm joking.

If you read through the threads in here complaining about toxicity in M+ etc. you will see that most of the experiences they are referring to are from PUGs.

[Nobleshield]

Besides selfishness a big problem is people have zero care about anyone else. They don't care what someone else may want or need, it's about them. And it's made worse by the fact nearly everything is cross-server. there's no reason to treat someone on a different realm as anything other than a glorified NPC there for whatever you want. At least when there wasn't cross realm, sure you had assholes but you at least cared a little bit more about people you saw frequently than a complete stranger.

But yeah the biggest issue is everyone is selfish and only cares about themselves, and then you have content which encourages selectiveness, elitism and "gotta go fast" mentality on top of all that so is it any wonder that people become assholes when they are told that you need to do X to get "better" (e.g. beat the timer to get a higher key and increase your RIO score) so they only want people who will help them accomplish that, which breeds elitism and selfishness.

[Kaver]

No. PUG'ing is not the problem. The problem is entitled people who seem to think they the $15/20 they give Blizzard per month makes them somehow more special than the rest of us. They seem to think they can dictate the terms and such. It is all about them. I had this happen last week in an LFR. 28 people wanted to Vexiona for loot, completion of the raid, encrypted texts, etc. One tank and a healer tried to hold the group hostage because they did not want to do that boss and Blizzard made a mistake in not gating Hive/Ra'den behind Vexiona. The group just sat there until an Unholy DK went Blood and, on the fly, tanked it with the second one after the two jerks left.

When you PUG, you have 4-29 other people you are working WITH. People forget that. Blizzard did not take the the "multiplayer" out of MMO, players did.

The real "Truth Behind the Toxic Environment in WoW" can be boiled down to one word.... SELFISHNESS.

I agree. But the simple fact is that if you play with your friends or with a good guild then you can avoid the people you describe. Makes life much easier.

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Pretty much. The stranger of today, may be the friend list buddy of tomorrow, so I behave appropriately.

And this is why you should befriend the strangers that are nice. So you don't have to always run with strangers. Because the chance of running into a nasty person is much greater if you always are PUG'ing.