Why are people bad at wow/raiding.

[Zantera]

I don't think the answer is as simple as the excuse that the more modern generation of kids playing are worse than the people who were kids in vanilla/TBC. Honestly I think it might be a reflection of how raiding used to be. Bosses were really easy mechanical wise and sometimes you would bring obviously crap people just to fill the numbers. Now there's a lot more mechanics and research behind your class. Apart from the talents and stats balancing (which has always been a part) you had the legendaries in Legion and the azerite gear in BFA adding even another layer of "whats best for me?" and simulating. I think currently you need to sim yourself if you are somewhat serious because sometimes even a 415 trinket is a downgrade to a 400 one, same with the azerite pieces.

But I think LFR has played a big part in dumbing down the community as well. I don't take part in it myself and it's very easy to ignore if you play the game seriously, but I would imagine it's still the first "raid experience" for new players and I feel bad for them honestly.

[justandulas]

the QoL, streamlining of the game, etc... has created an entire generation of wow players incapable of even tying their shoes properly.

[Casperite]

A friend of mine has been playing WoW (off and on these days) since BC, and for someone who has played 100's of hours he is hilariously terrible at the game. He's never raided past LFR, he hates PvP so hasn't ever touched rated. All that he finds entertaining is questing, lvling up alts and farming transmogs. I often compare myself to him because I've been playing only slightly longer than he has, where he has no clue of whats happening outside the game, I'm constantly checking up on mmo-champ, watching streams on twitch reading about new and current content so I always know whats going on.

I don't consider myself a hardcore player, I've never done heroic raiding but I assume there are thousands of players like my friend who just have no interest in doing the hard stuff. Today you can get higher ilvl gear just from doing daily quest crap and invasions than a 2k+ rated pvp player so what's the point in learning something like boss fights or pvp strats if gear is handed to you on a platter.

Gear being handed out easily now does not reconcile with your example. You said your friend has been playing since BC and still didn't raid or do rated pvp. So obviously "gear is easy now, her der" is not a legitimate argument in your case. For most, raiding sucks, plain and simple. For me, I dislike raiding. I find it extremely boring. I do a LFR clear to see story only and that is it. Gear has nothing to do with it, never has.

[Daevied]

Back in BC gear carried the player

Now, gear means nothing

[Kokolums]

Instructions on raid mechanics are arguably in the worst shape I've ever seen. There are more raid guides than ever, and they explain the fight worse than ever. On top of that, raid leaders are terrible at explaining fights. All of that adds up to a situation where players can wipe on an encounter 15x and still not know what is going on.

[Kaver]

People are bad because they are not in Guilds. Simple.

In Guilds you play with the same people for years, so you invest in each other and help your guildmates to improve on areas they lack. That's how you get better at the game. In PUGs people will not invest time or effort in each other because you're most likely never going to see the persons again.

[Sanguinerd]

Because being "good" isnt the only thing that matters.

[Ehrenpanzer]

i have a little chalenge

pick up random mmorpg - go level up and tell us how hard even simple things like leveling learning up proffs etc will be

then go on their forums and check how many people who play that game for 5+ years claim how "ease mode " it is and how they cant understand why players in that game simply cant "git gud"

you and many others play this game non stop (and non stop is crucial here) for nearly 15 years - how the f... it is supposed to have any resemblance of chalenge for you

i dare you to try it.

regardless of it even simplest things like "move out of shit" with timers they have in wow usually require from you pretty good muscle memory and reaction times seeing how most players dont have their rotation 100% memorised and have to divide atention between what is happeing on boss and on skills that they can/need to use. (imagine if they for example double the time for moving out of shit/boss cast times - i can bet you right now that waaaay less people would be dying to stuff - but then hardcores used to everything blizzard throws on them would bitch that "game is too slow " )

wow has become in last 5 years more of an action rpg then classic mmorpg with very strong accesnt on fast action - which is clearly way to fast thats why they slow it down in BfA

game is just too fast for regular players who dont spend could of hours each night playing it.

I would tend to agree with everything but what I bolded. "standing in shit" generally requires at least 10-15 seconds to do enough damage to kill you, if you need to be told that a literal patch of fire underneath you is bad and you need to move within 10 seconds, maybe MMO's arent for you.

[MoanaLisa]

I know this has a high chance of degenerating into a troll thread, but it's a question I genuinely ask myself while pugging.

1 read up your spec on icy veins
2 DL a boss mod, if you're a healer maybe DL some raid frames
3 go to wago and DL the highest rated WA package for your class, maybe a raid WA package like those from Reloe (both optional)
4 during encounter look at the output of your boss mod every 15-20 seconds

Congrats! You're a good heroic raider now and you can probably join and compete in a triple digit mythic guild.

No you're not a good heroic raider if you've done all those things and lack situational awareness. I think that's a huge part of why people are worse than they might be otherwise. Raids sometimes come at you with a lot of things to sort out all at once. If you're aren't looking at the instance and have your head buried in your UI I don't know how you can be good at raids.

Based on my own experience. As I've gotten older my ability to concentrate on the visual aspects of a raid, keep an eye on my UI and addons, move when I need to and generally stay focused while trying to optimize damage with a priority system has degraded some. It doesn't need to degrade much before people think you're "bad". And that may be justified. WoW community has gotten to be very efficient at punishing those who play above their heads. It's hard to improve other than by really pushing yourself but learning can be a problem for others and they'll let you know.

- - - Updated - - -

People are bad because they are not in Guilds. Simple.

In Guilds you play with the same people for years, so you invest in each other and help your guildmates to improve on areas they lack. That's how you get better at the game. In PUGs people will not invest time or effort in each other because you're most likely never going to see the persons again.

I wish this were more true. Most raiding guilds I see want people who are ready to go. They don't want to invest anything in anyone. It used to be more like you could find a guild and they would give you a hand up but that's really hard to find today.

[Kaver]

I wish this were more true. Most raiding guilds I see want people who are ready to go. They don't want to invest anything in anyone. It used to be more like you could find a guild and they would give you a hand up but that's really hard to find today.

I can only talk from my own experience and from what people I talk to have told me.

From my experience it is definitely possible to find guilds that value a good attitude over current skill level. It will of course also depend on the general level of the guild. That brings us to the other side of this problem, which is people that want to join Guilds that are out of their league. If you have never been in a Mythic raiding guild before, you shouldn't expect to join a top 500 guild right away. Start with a more casual guild that raids 2-3 nights a week and maybe gets CE.

[Samuraijake]

the QoL, streamlining of the game, etc... has created an entire generation of wow players incapable of even tying their shoes properly.

this^

i keep running into ppl that just dont think outside of dps/hps. Demons hunters not knowing they have darkness, no rallying cries etc... they just dont think anymore...players cant even research how they died

[MoanaLisa]

From my experience it is definitely possible to find guilds that value a good attitude over current skill level. It will of course also depend on the general level of the guild. That brings us to the other side of this problem, which is people that want to join Guilds that are out of their league. If you have never been in a Mythic raiding guild before, you shouldn't expect to join a top 500 guild right away. Start with a more casual guild that raids 2-3 nights a week and maybe gets CE.

Finding the right level is the thing. And it's really hard. I'm not necessarily interested in joining a guild to bring people up although I'm willing to help with that if it seems useful. So you don't want to jump in either over your head or where the skill level is around your knees (to use a water metaphor). Finding that situation can take a while and it won't find you. You have to look for it. And then people leave. The various strata levels for guilds in raiding right now are very frustrating. I raided mostly during Wrath in a guild where we welcomed most everyone and put them on A/B/C teams and then helped bring people up so they would be fine on the main raid team. I miss that greatly and is one of a lot of reasons--others posted above what you quoted--why I now play mostly with friends.

But granted: If you can find that right situation with a guild, it's pretty magical.

[Zafire]

Classic WoW is coming for those kind of players anyway it's the epitome of time spend trumps personal skill in all endgame content the perfect game for the casual gamer.

Look no further than to the M+ complain thread on this board that boils down to am i capable of doing competitive content in WoW ? if yes - content GOOD, if no - content BAD, same was true for Arena since TBC until they got rid of the rating requirement for the armor because apparently getting to 2k was too hard for people to get their shoulders.

Well considering only 8%~ of players could get to 2k, yes. Also, once you did get to 2k, you had an advantage in not only skill but also gear. It was bad design.

[Kaver]

Finding the right level is the thing. And it's really hard. I'm not necessarily interested in joining a guild to bring people up although I'm willing to help with that if it seems useful. So you don't want to jump in either over your head or where the skill level is around your knees (to use a water metaphor). Finding that situation can take a while and it won't find you. You have to look for it. And then people leave. The various strata levels for guilds in raiding right now are very frustrating. I raided mostly during Wrath in a guild where we welcomed most everyone and put them on A/B/C teams and then helped bring people up so they would be fine on the main raid team. I miss that greatly and is one of a lot of reasons--others posted above what you quoted--why I now play mostly with friends.

But granted: If you can find that right situation with a guild, it's pretty magical.

A good tip for life in general is to not be too picky and compensate

[gd8]

the QoL, streamlining of the game, etc... has created an entire generation of wow players incapable of even tying their shoes properly.

that's funny cuz mechanically both raiding and pvp nowadays takes infinitely more skill than it did in classic or even tbc

[Dismayxz]

i have a little chalenge

pick up random mmorpg - go level up and tell us how hard even simple things like leveling learning up proffs etc will be

then go on their forums and check how many people who play that game for 5+ years claim how "ease mode " it is and how they cant understand why players in that game simply cant "git gud"

you and many others play this game non stop (and non stop is crucial here) for nearly 15 years - how the f... it is supposed to have any resemblance of chalenge for you

i dare you to try it.

regardless of it even simplest things like "move out of shit" with timers they have in wow usually require from you pretty good muscle memory and reaction times seeing how most players dont have their rotation 100% memorised and have to divide atention between what is happeing on boss and on skills that they can/need to use. (imagine if they for example double the time for moving out of shit/boss cast times - i can bet you right now that waaaay less people would be dying to stuff - but then hardcores used to everything blizzard throws on them would bitch that "game is too slow " )

wow has become in last 5 years more of an action rpg then classic mmorpg with very strong accesnt on fast action - which is clearly way to fast thats why they slow it down in BfA

game is just too fast for regular players who dont spend could of hours each night playing it.

I know you dared the other guy to try it, but coincidentally I did exactly that. I picked up a new MMO about 3 weeks ago. ESO. Your point of 'picking up something new' simply doesn't really hold, if he already does all the extra work to be a good player, simply put. Doesn't matter if he learned it on WoW, there's a good chance he'll do just as fine on other MMO's. Now, sure there may be MMO's out there that are completely different from WoW these days, but ESO is already somewhat different. Yes, they have a log/progress site as well, literally the same as WoW's, ESOlogs. But the combat is entirely different, your resources, sustain of said resources and how you use them are entirely different. The gearing system is entirely different in the sense that you have a bunch of sets - and I mean it, a whole lot of them, that you -can- utilize in all kinds of scenarios.

It took me about 3 days to get to level 50 (max base level) and another to get to CP160 (which is the game's paragon level, gear stops scaling at 160). For raids, most people tell you to get to CP810, because of the added passive power in the CP tree. 3 Weeks later now. Halfway through week 2, I had my rotation down (I have been previously playing Fury warrior, so there wasn't a real rotation for the longest while, as we (and many other classes) have been working off a priority list, which is far less streamlined as a simple rotation and a lot more flexible than a rotation, where changing situations mid-fight are concerned. On top of that, in ESO you don't have auto-attacks, you have light and heavy attacks as in most Elder Scrolls Games. And you mostly weave those into your rotation, preferably on every ability, using it just a half second before you press the ability button, so you animation cancel the light attack, but still get the damage rolling in with the ability. This requires very good and consistent timing. Missed a light attack? Well, you just lost DPS, my dude! And most abilities have differing animation times, so abilities that cannot properly cancel a light attack, can instead be sped up in animation time, by a light attack previously. Others you can't light-weave period, so you put them at the end of either your front or back bar rotation and cancel them with a weapon swap. Also, at the same point in time, I was done with Dungeon Gearing. By done, I mean, I had all the set pieces I needed for a powerful pre-trial(raid) setup for my build and with the right secondary traits (Divines). The remainder of the week, I spent looking for and running pugs for Veteran Trials. Apparently you need a high CP to do trials efficiently. Not with this one veteran (heroic) trial that I needed to spam for my gear, so I got it, golded it (highest upgrade level through crafting) out with the money I made from selling some of the rarest drops in there to players who offered before I could say the letter "A". And did pretty fine numerically. Now, beginning my 4th week on the game, I have beaten the Maelstrom Arena (Mage Tower with 9 Stages * 3-4 Waves with a boss at each stage's end. Tuned somewhat like Veteran (heroic) Dungeon Bosses and Trash, except you can only go in solo) about 10 times, farming for my BiS Bow, which can only drop in this Dark Souls difficulty style arena. And with a decent score of 440k max as well, despite my early stages of experience and gear, still, compared to most speedclearing players.

Long story short: I read up on shit, which took me about 2 hours per week and then did it. Simply did it. It was fun learning. And it went quick. Because I learned what it meant to be a 'good' player, while learning in WoW. Once you've done the process of learning how to 'git gud' once, you always will be 'gud'. A) Find information. B) Process information C) Learning by doing. On a game, that while in nature (not really, the community is a lot less bitchy and whiny) is very similar WoW, at least in terms of end game goals, but is very very different in the practical sense of how things work, it took me A total of ~6-7 hours spread out over three weeks, to get pretty good for a beginner player. Pretty damn good, actually. Experience -can- carry over, in the sense, that once you know how to make yourself learn and how to find information, which information to look for, it's easy. And if it wasn't for me being a stupid, lazy fucking child for half of my time in WoW, it likely would've been just as easy in WoW. In fact, if I accumulate my hours played in total and how much of that I actually spent actively seeking out information to learn, it would still be nothing in relation to the entire accumulated game time. I am CP320ish now. Faar from the requirements most experienced players set and already moving into a Veteran Raid Team.

So no. Your example doesn't really work at all. It's simply lazy. Which, granted these are video games, is perfectly fine. What is not fine, is being a lazy fuck, while the effort required is very small, if you have half a brain, and expecting to get rewarded for it. Which is WoW's entire problem. By nature of it's game systems so far, I can tell that ESO is pretty casual friendly as well and there are lots of them. But the reality is, they don't nearly bitch as much as WoW's Community does over the change in direction on Ion Hazzikostas' post-burrito farts. There's a clear difference inbetween a casual player, a lazy leech and a good player. Two of these playstyles are perfectly fine and reasonable. Being a lazy, screeching leech isn't. Period.

[Jastall]

Same reason most players of any game are bad or mediocre at it; they see it as a game, a leisure activity not to take too seriously. Hence them not investing the time, effort, and attention to git gud. On top of that some people just don't have the mechanical skill, situational awareness or patience for min-maxing and number-crunching of others.

That's been true for every game out there and WoW has never been an exception.

[Zantera]

I think there's definitely some credit to the "if you've played WoW long enough nothing will be challenging" part. I mean sure raiding at a high level will always provide obstacles, though more so with the quality of your overall team than just your own performance. High m+ kinda same though fewer players. But yeah I mean whenever I've tried a different MMORPG, sure there are some things that are different but you pick it up really fast. It doesn't take long to see patterns and similarities and it was different back in the day because a lot of it was new to everyone.

[thebdc]

This has nothing to do with WoW. People are "bad" in real life, too. I can see that every day when using public transport.

[Grimbold21]

Because the content is accessible enough that you can disregard both its mechanics and your own.

I'm speaking mostly about 5 men content as that is what I do. This is a tired old thing, but I can't tell you how it annoys me to no end to see people in content ranging from normal 5 mens - while leveling - to low level mythic, just ignore everything and expect to stay alive.

The one that gets me the most is interrupts. I know it's easy, but how hard is it to press that button? We know you have it on your action bars, use it. Or, for example, in Shrine of the Storm people just standing in Tempest and possibly getting upset when they die.