Elitism or lack of skill?

[derekmmorgan94]

Elitism and toxicity definitely exist in WoW. I've experienced it plenty and have been a part of it in the past when I was younger. I recently have been accused of it multiple times for kicking players out of pug groups. I am a firm believer that your skill level should match the content you are doing unless you agree on getting carried. One group there was a rogue who pulled 3k dps on the first 2 bosses of the raid and capped at 5k on aoe trash. I had to kick a mage who died to every ground mechanic for the next 2 bosses and pulled 2k dps before dying for the 10th time. In multiple M+ pugs I have had my key ruined by well-geared players pulling less than tank damage in a +12 consistently. I'm assuming they bought M+ carry's because they have decent RIO and ILVL yet have no idea how to play the game. Don't get me wrong I will not kick a player if they are TRYING and the content is able to be completed with not holding the rest of the group back. If they are not doing crazy DPS that is fine. But there is a line. I have been messaged by so many of these players calling me an elitist and ruining the WoW community. Is this not what lower difficulties are for? If I was unskilled or under-geared I would practice in low keys and work my way up. I'd work in normal raids and work my way up. I should not be practicing in a M+15 or a mythic raid. It's getting to the point where people are feeling entitled to gear and carries or you are toxic. Gear and skill matters in an MMORPG, does it not? That's why difficulties and gear exists. Has anyone else been having to deal with this or am I somehow overlooking something and in the wrong?

[Unholyground]

It has and always will be a bit of both of anything you do, especially in games.

[potis]

Paragraphs, please...

What you are describing is lack of skill, everyone knows it, but this is mmo-champion, you are gonna be called an elitist by default if you do any content above M+0 and dont wipe at least 300 times while talking about how the lore is wrong and how awesome Tyrande's new bangs and body colors are.

Yes, lack of skill is a major problem in WoW, yes people refuse to accept its a problem and everyone thats not terrible at the game is labeled an elitist.

Look at the last famous posts "I AM A HEALER, WHY DO I HAVE TO PRESS AN ABILITY ON EVERY GCD AND DO DPS", tells you everything you need to know.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Ridiculous elitism AND lack of skill are not mutually exclusive. You have LFG listings that require people to have clear achievements barely a few days after the latest raid comes out, and you have listings that require people to have higher ilevel gear than the gear that actually drops from the raid. You also have playerbase incompetency.

Blizzard caved into the initial backlash from Wrath babies. Had they stuck to their guns and did not nerf Cata's launch dungeons, and had they kept completion of the Silver Proving Grounds a requirement to queue for LFD and LFR, the overall skill level of the playerbase would have been raised dramatically. So you're left with a playerbase that is overall drastically more competent. Also, implement more challenges that incentivize people to get good. The Mage Tower challenge in WoW dangled an extremely fancy weapon transmog as a reward for completing it, which in turn resulted in a large portion of the playerbase actually sitting down to figure out how to play their class so they could complete the Mage Tower and get it, increasing the overall competency of the playerbase. If you saw someone with the MT artifact skin, you knew right away they were good enough to invite to a raid and didn't have to be taught gameplay 101.

[Ringthane]

Could be both. Could be neither. Could be jerks being jerks.

But I'm not going to waste my time trying to parse through your wall of text to find out.

[Fastlane_hellscream]

I am a firm believer that your skill level should match the content you are doing...

With carry services being so prevalent, it's pretty tough to figure who has what skill. It's like an honor system...with no one having any honor lol. I very rarely meet people in game that actually admit they aren't very good at it when they make a key miserable for everyone else.

[Metrox]

With carry services being so prevalent, it's pretty tough to figure who has what skill. It's like an honor system...with no one having any honor lol. I very rarely meet people in game that actually admit they aren't very good at it when they make a key miserable for everyone else.

Boosts and carries are like the fake Hollywood sets. It's all illusion to hopefully create an effect. I know that I have purchased my share of cardboard towns that look great in a screenshot/selfie. LOL

[Queen of Hamsters]

I've been branded "Elitist" for being self-sufficient on professions.

And I've experienced loads of people thinking themselves "The Elite", only to barely break 50% percentile on a dummy. So my impression is that people use the term for whatever and it rarely fits.

[TheLucky1]

Pugs are only good for farm groups (fail/low dps = kick),due to the environment of pugs not really allowing to explain more complicated bosses and even worse on how to play and perform on your class even with mechanics going on.

If not stated in the title of these groups to be a learn/chill group it's not elitistic to kick poor performing and failing players to search for more competent players, it's your only way to success and the group not disbanding.

Well at least that's the last 6 years of occasional pugging to get aotc speaking out of me.

[MoanaLisa]

Framing everything as a binary "Is it A or B" is never correct.

Half of everyone will be below average. Given what appears to be the 'average' here it would be more like 80%. Get a guild. Play with players you know and trust. One or the other. It's the only way to avoid this.

Enlarge your friend's list. Check out the available communities around. There might be some devoted solely to high-key M+.

[Soon-TM]

Both. There are mouth breathers who won't move out of blood pools in low M+ even if their RL lives depended on it, and you also have toxic jerkasses who will look down on anyone who hasn't completed a M22 or so. I'm confident about both types being statistical outliers, with the sole difference being how louder and more vocal is the second group.

[OrangeJuice]

Elitism and toxicity definitely exist in WoW. I've experienced it plenty and have been a part of it in the past when I was younger. I recently have been accused of it multiple times for kicking players out of pug groups. I am a firm believer that your skill level should match the content you are doing unless you agree on getting carried. One group there was a rogue who pulled 3k dps on the first 2 bosses of the raid and capped at 5k on aoe trash. I had to kick a mage who died to every ground mechanic for the next 2 bosses and pulled 2k dps before dying for the 10th time. In multiple M+ pugs I have had my key ruined by well-geared players pulling less than tank damage in a +12 consistently. I'm assuming they bought M+ carry's because they have decent RIO and ILVL yet have no idea how to play the game. Don't get me wrong I will not kick a player if they are TRYING and the content is able to be completed with not holding the rest of the group back. If they are not doing crazy DPS that is fine. But there is a line. I have been messaged by so many of these players calling me an elitist and ruining the WoW community. Is this not what lower difficulties are for? If I was unskilled or under-geared I would practice in low keys and work my way up. I'd work in normal raids and work my way up. I should not be practicing in a M+15 or a mythic raid. It's getting to the point where people are feeling entitled to gear and carries or you are toxic. Gear and skill matters in an MMORPG, does it not? That's why difficulties and gear exists. Has anyone else been having to deal with this or am I somehow overlooking something and in the wrong?

I'm in the belief that if you're that bad then you need a guild to work with you and help you learn. I don't have patience to deal with people who consistently die to avoidable mechanics, and I feel no obligation to try and teach them anything. When I lead pug raids, I'll kick people who die mid fight or have low dps, and this helps out so much to clear the content faster. If people just get invited and clear stuff without any contribution (dying immediately/low dps) theres no incentive for them to get better. If more people kicked bad players instead of just trying to muscle through it, then overall people would become better in time.

I don't see it as elitism, because I don't consider myself an amazing player. I just understand the basic fundamentals of the game and take time to learn mechanics as I die to them.

[crakerjack]

I don’t mind playing with bad players as long as they’re working on being better and are open to tips and criticism. The players I have no desire to interact with are those who are bad and have no interest to improve. Those are the most selfish and entitled players in the game by far. No spec in this game is hard to play if you follow a guide and practice your rotation. I’ve played almost every spec in the game since legion and have managed to pull 90%+ parses in mythic raids. I don’t do anything fancy at all. I find the wowhead guide for my spec and follow it exactly until I’m playing optimally. I just do t get why some people can’t be bothered to do the same.

[munkeyinorbit]

Ridiculous elitism AND lack of skill are not mutually exclusive. You have LFG listings that require people to have clear achievements barely a few days after the latest raid comes out, and you have listings that require people to have higher ilevel gear than the gear that actually drops from the raid. You also have playerbase incompetency.

Blizzard caved into the initial backlash from Wrath babies. Had they stuck to their guns and did not nerf Cata's launch dungeons, and had they kept completion of the Silver Proving Grounds a requirement to queue for LFD and LFR, the overall skill level of the playerbase would have been raised dramatically. So you're left with a playerbase that is overall drastically more competent. Also, implement more challenges that incentivize people to get good. The Mage Tower challenge in WoW dangled an extremely fancy weapon transmog as a reward for completing it, which in turn resulted in a large portion of the playerbase actually sitting down to figure out how to play their class so they could complete the Mage Tower and get it, increasing the overall competency of the playerbase. If you saw someone with the MT artifact skin, you knew right away they were good enough to invite to a raid and didn't have to be taught gameplay 101.

This is just plain false. It has been shown time and time again that players don't get better. They quit. The reality is that most players have a self inflated view on how good they actually are. They've played the game for 10 plus years and have actually gotten worse (your average player was 26 years old in wrath and in your 30s your reflexes start to go). They don't learn and they don't want to learn.

The Mage Tower was a red herring. Legendaries and gear 45 ilvls higher than was intended was why most people were able to do any of them at all.

The proving grounds was good on paper but it actually showed how bad a lot of people actually were. By this time my guild were clearing the 2nd highest difficulty easily and going through most of the hardest (never a full clear). We could drag players through the content but we couldn't get a couple through proving grounds.

Your random player is terrible at the game and you should never feel bad about booting them for bad play.