Is it fun to be bad at the game?

[Ragnarohk]

I see the argument brought up a lot that content should be based around the worst of the playerbase. Those who will never move past heroic dungeons or unrated battlegrounds and I have to ask why?

Is the game better when you do 1/10 of another players output from willfully not knowing how your rotation should work or how your choices effect it?

Is pvp better when due to a lack of understanding you find yourself facing off against "unkillable" classes like DH,Druids, and disc priests?

There seems to be a real push and even a bit of a rebuking that the game shouldn't be focused around those who push their characters to the limit to get the highest performance out of their class. Without trying to judge those players I would honestly like to know what the draw is to that kind of mindset because I can't wrap my head around it. I always assumes that no matter what it is people do they will naturally want to perform well at it.

Define fun.

Also, you're being really arrogant calling people the "worst players" just because they don't raid heroic/mythic.

It's a videogame, it's meant to be a recreational activity. Honestly I used to treat WoW as a job back in WotLK, was part of the realms 2nd best raiding guild. Looking back at that, I think I could have dnjoyed the game much more as one of the "worst players".

In my opinion, a problem arises when game content is implemented with having more " Hardcore" Players in mind only. Prople that do Heroic raiding or mythic+10/15 are a minority. More so with Mythic CE guilds.

Blizzard tried implementing something new this expansion and the minority cried so hard that Blizz caved in and now you can switch between covenants. Funny thing is, the same prople will probably complain down the line that they are "forced to" grind and re-grind their way through the covenants because of balance changes.

Chart the player base under a normal distribution. The content should cater to the players that lie in the ±2SD range. That includes, at most, heroic. CE mythic guilds are at +3SD. The game shouldn't, in my opinion, cater and be balanced around that small niche. If they have new ideas to implement that aren't CE mythic compatible then they should still go ahead with them.

[RenDefiance]

I see the argument brought up a lot that content should be based around the worst of the playerbase. Those who will never move past heroic dungeons or unrated battlegrounds and I have to ask why?

Is the game better when you do 1/10 of another players output from willfully not knowing how your rotation should work or how your choices effect it?

The 1st line is not correlated to the 2nd line. Plenty of great players don't want to play mythic/rated anymore due to many reasons (work/family balance etc)

[lakylog]

I blame Dark Souls. (I DESPISE that franchise, what it stands for, and all the community surrounding it)

While Dark Souls is a game heavily attributed to the meme of "git gud", you're not quite there. This has been a thing since at least the late 90s in certain games played competitively at LAN tournaments (mainly Quake, StarCraft and Counter-Strike to begin with) and only expanded along with the e-sports scene.

Nowadays e-sports is in every game, and everyone has full access to see how the top of the top players play the game and they think if you don't play like them, you're "bad", even if you meet the numeric requirements for the challenge and don't make mistakes. It's all about those high R.IO scores and orange parses.

[Advent]

While Dark Souls is a game heavily attributed to the meme of "git gud", you're not quite there. This has been a thing since at least the late 90s in certain games played competitively at LAN tournaments (mainly Quake, StarCraft and Counter-Strike to begin with) and only expanded along with the e-sports scene. Nowadays e-sports is in every game, and everyone has full access to see how the top of the top players play the game and they think if you don't play like them, you're "bad", even if you meet the numeric requirements for the challenge and don't make mistakes. It's all about those high R.IO scores and orange parses.

Perhaps I didn't articulate that properly. I blame Dark Souls for being the genesis of this ridiculous mentality. I blame that franchise for popularizing that term and mentality.

[kamuimac]

I see the argument brought up a lot that content should be based around the worst of the playerbase. Those who will never move past heroic dungeons or unrated battlegrounds and I have to ask why?

Is the game better when you do 1/10 of another players output from willfully not knowing how your rotation should work or how your choices effect it?

Is pvp better when due to a lack of understanding you find yourself facing off against "unkillable" classes like DH,Druids, and disc priests?

There seems to be a real push and even a bit of a rebuking that the game shouldn't be focused around those who push their characters to the limit to get the highest performance out of their class. Without trying to judge those players I would honestly like to know what the draw is to that kind of mindset because I can't wrap my head around it. I always assumes that no matter what it is people do they will naturally want to perform well at it.

ye its really fun if you dont care about stuff like numbers that you do

anywhere besides mythic raiding and high mythic + keys it doesnt matter anyway .

- - - Updated - - -

Perhaps I didn't articulate that properly. I blame Dark Souls for being the genesis of this ridiculous mentality. I blame that franchise for popularizing that term and mentality.

nah the problem is that devs did nothing to get rid of that toxic mentality from game

they should have years ago told people in game "you are better at this game that is needed and its not out fault you complete stuff in 2 weeks" and after that remove mythic raiding from game.

game would be much healthier then

look at classic - raids are ultra easy yet people still play it massively

this is best proof that overtuning wow was a mistake.

[Twdft]

I couldn't give less of a damn how good I am at the game anymore. I don't get any sort of sense of accomplishment or satisfaction from being better at a video game than someone else. Sometimes I wonder where that came from, when people started taking games so seriously that the only fun acceptable to attain from them was "getting good", and that anyone not trying was some sort of subhuman degenerate. I blame Dark Souls. (I DESPISE that franchise, what it stands for, and all the community surrounding it)

It started when Pong counted goals. Probably even before that.

[lakylog]

Perhaps I didn't articulate that properly. I blame Dark Souls for being the genesis of this ridiculous mentality. I blame that franchise for popularizing that term and mentality.

My point is that e-sports popularized it, not Dark Souls. It was a thing long before Dark Souls released, and most people participating likely haven't even played it, as the people who play like this tend to stick to competition focused PvP games like League of Legends, DotA, Counter-Strike, etc. and nowadays to some extent, WoW's M+, raiding, and arena community.

Widespread toxicity in WoW (git gud, you're trash, etc) has been around since the introduction of Gearscore and potentially popularized further by its addition.

[MoanaLisa]

I see the argument brought up a lot that content should be based around the worst of the playerbase.

No one says this. No one. It's never brought up.

Content shouldn't be based around the 1% either.

Is it fun to be bad at the game? I dunno. The game should be about having fun though, however you play it.

[Kilpi]

I am curious of the mindset. It isn't something that I think will change I just am looking to get a firmer grasp on something I struggle to comprehend.

I once tried to understand why someone wants to super hardcore a game or "play AH" in an MMO for virtual currency (especially at a time when it didn't have ANY actual monetary value). But it's a lot easier to live your life when you don't try to understand everyones reasoning on things that really don't matter or affect anyone else.

[Sughs]

I clear LFR once every tier on my main and sometimes on alts and I have seen people taking it very seriously and at the same time being happy about clearing it. Same in low M+ keys, like +5, when I help a friend.

You can, obviously, take the game less seriously and focus on battle pets, transmog runs, etc and about dungeons/raids, there's 4 difficulties for a reason.

I, for example, usually clear HC and go up to M+15. M raiding and M+20+++ (pushing keys), for me, it's just doing the same thing but after dealing with finding a good group you sync with to deal with slightly harder mechanics.

"LFR/Normal" level players probably feel the same way about HC players.

[javierdsv]

I have completed Mythic 0 for dungeons that are not available in LFR once because I wanted to see them, but that's it.

The problem is not wanting to have fun at more difficult levels, it's just that I have not enough time to go through all the implications of forming groups, set run days, commit to guildies and stuff like that. I mean, I know there's people like me playing the game just to kill some time, chill and relax, while not getting it to interfere with real life.

[VinceVega]

1. Bad is realative to the content you want to do.

2. Fun doesn't depend on being good. I love playing tennis, but i am the WORST! and never will be good. I don't play it to be good. Just to have fun.
I played DIablo for the story and never went into a higher difficulty because that was not why i played the game.
Maybe people don't have fun in putting in the time to get better. Maybe they can't get better. It does not matter in any way shape or form. It is a game. Having fun is the only reason any of us play it becuase you don't get anything out of it. (unless you are a streamer who makes a living)

[Celarent]

TL;DR is that most people are low-to-moderately skilled but it's fun to play with people you like even if they're not that great at the game.

The bell curve is at work here. There's one for the general population; per discussion, one for raiding and one for PVP. The latter two mostly include players in higher percentiles of the former due to the need for experience and specialized skills.

Been awhile since I've played but in the raiding segment, Mythic spans maybe 90th percentile upward. You probably need 95th+ to get beyond dabbling in the "doable" bosses. Established guilds will be 98th-99th, and anything above that is 99.xxxxth. So, tiny, tiny numbers. Heroic can be done by a mix of skills but will probably need to average 80th-85th to clear shortly before a new patch. Normal and LFR include everything below with distribution as you'd expect.

It's important that performance does not always determine knowledge or effort. I play a ranked game that for a period of time had crossover of WoW players. One was my original guild leader. Really enthusiastic; not a theorycrafter but he read up and kept up with optimization. His percentile rank in the other game? Average of 35th-40th, so, not good at all, which squares with his WoW record, and reputation as a good guy who aimed for more than he could achieve -- but always inspired people along the way.

He's an object lesson in why better players would stay in his guild for years: enjoyable to be with. Open secret is that at higher levels of play, it's a bit of a hunt to groups that aren't rife with unpleasant people who are surrounded by the only ones willing to stay: more unpleasant people. So, many make the tradeoff and stick with the predominant population of people who aren't good but love the game, try their best and are fun to be around.

[Heladys]

I see the argument brought up a lot that content should be based around the worst of the playerbase. Those who will never move past heroic dungeons or unrated battlegrounds and I have to ask why?

Is the game better when you do 1/10 of another players output from willfully not knowing how your rotation should work or how your choices effect it?

Is pvp better when due to a lack of understanding you find yourself facing off against "unkillable" classes like DH,Druids, and disc priests?

There seems to be a real push and even a bit of a rebuking that the game shouldn't be focused around those who push their characters to the limit to get the highest performance out of their class. Without trying to judge those players I would honestly like to know what the draw is to that kind of mindset because I can't wrap my head around it. I always assumes that no matter what it is people do they will naturally want to perform well at it.

Your strawman is horseshit, but assuming for a second it wasn't: Who do you think is paying the bills and keeping the lights on? It's not the 1% and it's not even those of us interested enough to waste our time on forums. It's the unwashed masses, and those are the people Blizzard ultimately needs to appeal to. If they throw you a bone here and there because they like games and they have some sentimental attachment to harder gameplay, take your gift and enjoy it. The "bad" players paid for it for you.

[Jinpachi]

In your mind is there only the best and the worst?

If so is there a reason for content to exist between leveling and mythic?

If you're going to compete, you play to win. There is only the Best and the worst when you're talking about this context. You yourself implied it in your thread name. The reason for everything between is for those who don't want to put the same effort in to be able to enjoy the game as well.

[therealbowser]

It doesn't really matter if you are good or bad at this game unless you do Mythic+, and even then it just matters if your score is high, which requires you to be good to get (i.e., if you are good and have a bad score, you being good doesn't matter--you won't even get invites into +2 or +3 without a score, even if you dramatically outgear them, which is dumb IMHO).

Getting into pick up groups for raids and the like depends on how much you overgear the content, not how 'good' you are. That said if the group is wiping because of you--for instance if you are tanking and are incredibly bad at your job--it does matter somewhat. But for the most part, my experience in this game is that it doesn't matter how good you are, it matters how well-geared you are, because virtually no one ever judges you based off of your skill as a player.

You can argue that guilds are different and you'd be right, but when it comes to guilds they will take you because they like you, not because you are "the best", unless you are doing cutting edge content (mythic raiding). And in that case, yes, skill matters quite a lot, obviously.

So your question, is it "fun" to be bad at this game? I don't know, because I can't really tell if I am good or bad at this game. I can complete any type of content I am allowed to get into given enough practice, but I can't get into pick up groups for cutting edge content and the guilds I have joined don't ever seem to do that kind of content, so I am not sure what the measuring stick is. I don't really have fun whether I am good or bad, lately, though.

I'm going to take a wild guess and just assume that being good or bad at this game has no impact on how "fun" it is, and that people who fret the least about this nonsense are more likely to have more fun.

[Baneto]

Judging by the responses OP did a good job upsetting the people he is questioning in this thread.

So far I havent seen any response to the original question other than "why do you care" which is absurd, since this is a discussionforum.

[Eurhetemec]

Judging by the responses OP did a good job upsetting the people he is questioning in this thread.

So far I havent seen any response to the original question other than "why do you care" which is absurd, since this is a discussionforum.

The OP didn't really have any kind of rational point, though. His question would have made sense, but then the rest of his post was nonsense which proved he didn't understand the issue, and suggested he wasn't very interested in genuine answers, but rather just insulting players.

You seem to like you might be about to go the same way - it looks like you're suggesting people in this thread are "bad at the game". If you believe that, you have no idea what you're talking about, and need to seriously re-evaluate your opinions. Pretty much no-one who posts here, certainly no regular posters here, are remotely "bad at the game" in the way the OP describes. I get that you're apparently new, but that is utterly ridiculous.

Thinking about that, kind of curious that he got banned, and here's a new poster with 57 posts pushing the same agenda, isn't it? I'm not saying anything, but you've just come out of nowhere with the same tack as him, claiming he was right for the same irrational reasons, and that looks really sus to me.

To answer the question, personally I know some super-casual players who barely understand basic mechanics in WoW (friends, relatives), but they enjoy WoW just fine. Do they enjoy it "more" than people who know mechanics in detail? I don't think so. Do they enjoy it less, though, than people who know mechanics in detail? No, looks like it's about the same. That's pretty interesting to me, because it suggests WoW is managing to appeal to people at very different levels of engagement with the game mechanics.

WoW isn't very good at teaching or explaining mechanics in-game, either. To learn detailed stuff, you pretty much have to fail at it a lot in-game, or go to a website and have it explained to you, which for most players, is a whole lot of effort. There is a real problem in that the difficulty/complexity of gameplay from the open-world to even NON-heroic dungeons is a massive leap (rather than barely a leap at all as it was in some of the earlier expansions), let alone heroic or M+, so super-casual players coming to that (something the game encourages them to do) will be confused/upset and cause problems for their group. Likewise in PvP, new and inexperienced PvPers are thrown in with ultra-veterans, so they're a liability. Back in, say, Vanilla, this gap was much smaller - not because Vanilla was better at teaching or anything really, but because even good players weren't THAT good. Now, though, the gap between some super-expert 16-year vet, and some nooblet who has played maybe a lot total of a few days over three years or whatever is utterly gigantic. And there's no place for those people to learn in-game, really. They have to either go watch videos and hope they understand, or go read guides and hope they understand. The sort of guilds which used to teach/nurture new players are largely gone, too, now. The only guilds remaining tend to be l337 raiderz who are obsessed with Mythic raiding and might condescend to do some M+, or invite-everyone guilds that don't actually DO anything.

[Powerogue]

Is the game better when you do 1/10 of another players output from willfully not knowing how your rotation should work or how your choices effect it?

Yes, actually. I blew out my wrists from raiding. Doing scheduled raiding on top of college was physically and mentally strenuous. The newer queuing system where I can hop into existing raid groups was one of the best updates this game has ever added.

I also really hate the awful M+ addon that scores people, which, despite me not magically getting any worse at M+ since turning casual, writes me off and never lets me join groups.

[Dazmalak]

Honestly, I got sick and tired of keeping up with everything required to be at the top of my game and don't bother with it anymore. Setting up shit for hours for add-ons, researching strategies, watching fights, comparing logs, going through and redoing keybinds everytime they make an update, practicing rotations, etc...none of that is fun to me anymore. I can only assume it's not fun to a lot of people, so they don't do it. "Fun" is subjective, so I guess it just depends on what your definition on fun is. I do okay enough without putting all my time and energy into the game like I used to and I still have fun with it.

One of the things my opinion has changed on over the years is add-ons. WoW requires you to use them to perform at a top level. They streamline things, improve UI, track buffs/debuffs, tell you to get out of fire, etc. Hell, some of them even tell you what button to push next. It's an extra layer of "work" on top of everything else I already stated above. With additional things like raiderio and performance tracking add-ons make an uneven playing field even worse. It does boil down to players not wanting to put in the effort to get good; but quite frankly I don't think the game should require all that extra effort to set up in the first place.