"minmaxing the fun out of the game"

[T-34]

The wilfully bad will keep complaining about the elitist minmaxers till the sun burns out.
We have several examples of the wilfully bad in this thread. They want to play the game how they want to play it, and that is perfectly fine, but they also feel entitled that the good players, which they call "elitist minmaxers" should play with them and carry them.

The elitist minmaxers of course don't want neither to play with nor carry the wilfully bad.
And that shouldn't be a problem, because the wilfully bad could just find others like themselves and play with them, but they don't do it! And it baffles me to no end.

People like the OP and I will always find like-minded people to play with and enjoy the game, while those that label other players "elitist minmaxers" for some strange reason are unable to do that.
So I predict that we will see threads that complain about the "evil, evil gatekeeping minmaxers" daily here until MMO-Champion shuts down for good.

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The irony in this. This is the exact reason why those who 'hate min/maxing' feel the way they do, because of the meta that arises and the communities unrelenting expectation of complete and whole subjection to this meta and those who do anything out of bounds are looked down on.

It's the toxic community that these people hate more so than the actual act of min/maxing.

Can you explain to me why the min/maxers don't give a f... about how those that "play for fun" think about them?
Why can't you just make your own "community" where only those that "play for fun" are welcome and thereby avoid the "expectation" of others?

[Mysterymask]

People like the OP and I will always find like-minded people to play with and enjoy the game, while those that label other players "elitist minmaxers" for some strange reason are unable to do that.

Because they

1. Want to win.
2. In some magical dreamworld prove that they dont suck as bad as 15 years of theorycrafting says they are
3. Pretend that its 2004 they made their first paladin and was blissfully ignorant on how bad not holy is

[Veggie50]

Everyones reference is 2007. Everyone has learned a lot since then. Therefore, everybody expects to become REALLY succesfull in classic.

Since everyone has this advantage, nobody does. And that’s what stings most people.

[loras]

I never understood this argument / sentiment.

Who are you to tell other people what is and is not "fun" ? If someone enjoys playing vanilla by going hardcore balls to the wall sweat-drenched minmaxing, why is that a bad thing? I don't tell dad guilds full of ret paladins and boomkins "no you're playing the game wrong". If they want to play that way, that's their business. And despite how ridiculous this "everyone who doesn't play the way I do is doing it wrong" mentality is, it seems to be pretty common. There's constant whining about "ree minmaxers minmaxers you're SUCKING THE FUN OUT OF THE GAME REEEEE" and such.

This bizarre idea that putting in effort to improve yourself is a bad thing just boggles my mind. It's not 2005, we're not noob 12 year olds clicking abilities and keyboard turning. Is that what these people mean by "fun" ? Flailing around cluelessly and being awful at the game? I don't get it.

On top of all this, nobody is forcing you to play a certain way. If you want to just "have fun" in WoW, go and find other people with similar mindsets and start / join a guild. Problem solved.

I'm probably thinking way too hard about something that boils down to "stop liking what I don't like", aren't I?

Hi, i am loras, i am one of a great many that dare point out the obvious.

If you minmax the shit out of the game that's not much of an issue if you were playing in a solo bubble not affecting anyone, but as this is an mmo that's obviously not the case. So there's the answer as to why people complain aboit it.

But i'll explain further.
In minmaxxing you alter the balance in pvp and pve for a lot of players, as in this multiplayer game you rely on other people to cooperate with and compete against.
When competing in pvp you can (with a modicum of skill) directly deny an opponent choices that are "unviable", this is not only limited to obviously poor choices like, say, a warrior wearing cloth armor, but it also extends to choices that were obviously intended to be serious alternatives.

In pve it is even more iffy, since you'll not even be allowed to play if you do not conform to others' perceptions of what is viable. And that is purely due to perception, as most pve content barring perhaps some parts of mythic raiding and some >+2x or so keys is meant to be completable for retarded donkeys with a clownspecc.

In minmaxxing you add to the mob delusions that unduly influence others' playing of the game, or even directly frustrate them by using something comparatively "overpowered".

Now in a perfect world perfect balance could exist, but as the past decade and a half have shown we do not live in such a world, and as such the developers alone cannot be blamed for the rapidly converging "metas", which naturally leads to criticism of those who enable said rapid converging.

The only recourse that leaves the devs is to either separate real functional choice from flavor, or to resort to stuff like covenants which bundles up a bunch of stuff and ultimately constrains free choice.

TL;DR: People that do not understand the frustration seem to be under the impression that they live in a bubble, that their freedom does not limit the freedom of another. Additionally they seem to believe that there is only right or wrong, as opposed to genuine choices.

[erifwodahs]

Gearscore, mythic.io and raider.io which only serves as a "noob filter" to exclude people from content they’re perfectly capable of doing.

So... you are wrong. It excludes people who don't have experience in the said content. Do some keys, get experience and then come back.
I don't care about adequate ilvl if you don't know how to share debuff on Broker Boss in DoS because you have not even noticed it in your +10 DoS or that you need to burst add on 2nd boss in SD.
While that is not always the case and some people are really good, you will get noobs who stand on frontals, don't dodge or fuck up boss mechanics completely. I get 140-150 sign ups on some evening. Why would I ever invite someone lower ilvl and lower score with worse class over someone with a good class I need, good score and good ilvl?

[Squigglyo]

If I want to throw a basketball around, I'm free to be as bad at it as i want. Maximum fun!

If the team was terrible, barely comprehended the rules, made stupid decisions and half the games resulted in a straight loss because people didnt show up... it would not be fun.
Likewise, it the team was good but I barely knew the rules, made bad calls, left early, etc... they would be having less fun due to me


Like it or not, WoW is essentially a team sport if you want to play content. By maximizing how good you are, your maximizing everyone elses fun by not dragging them down. And you would expect the same from them.

The higher and higher you get in the content, the more you would expect your team mates to be at a higher and higher level of skill (min/max)

[Magneto]

You don't have to respond to those who attack, belittle or insult you. If you do, make sure its really worth it.

[T-34]

When competing in pvp you can (with a modicum of skill) directly deny an opponent choices that are "unviable", this is not only limited to obviously poor choices like, say, a warrior wearing cloth armor, but it also extends to choices that were obviously intended to be serious alternatives.

Do I understand you right that you demand that people do not play and prepare their character as good as they can?

In pve it is even more iffy, since you'll not even be allowed to play if you do not conform to others' perceptions of what is viable. And that is purely due to perception, as most pve content barring perhaps some parts of mythic raiding and some >+2x or so keys is meant to be completable for retarded donkeys with a clownspecc.

I am going to ask you the same question that I ask all the others that advocate for being wilfully bad: What stops you from finding like-minded people, people that do not want to min-max, and play with them and ignore the evil min-maxers?

TL;DR: People that do not understand the frustration seem to be under the impression that they live in a bubble, that their freedom does not limit the freedom of another. Additionally they seem to believe that there is only right or wrong, as opposed to genuine choices.

Do I understand you correct that your freedom to be a bad player supersedes my freedom to be a good player?

[erifwodahs]

TL;DR: People that do not understand the frustration seem to be under the impression that they live in a bubble, that their freedom does not limit the freedom of another. Additionally they seem to believe that there is only right or wrong, as opposed to genuine choices.

But you can reverse this. People who are making terrible choices are holding back the rest of the group directly affecting performance and time consumed to do it. Their bad choices are not staying in their bubble, it affects everyone. TBF being min-maxed brings more benefit to the community as you can boost noobs through the content.
If your goal is character progression you will meta the shit out of it. You are allowed to group with anyone you want, if you group with randoms only thing you should not do is being a dick about people who don't min max and wise versa, if someone has gone out of his way to get worldbuffs or something else to parse higher - he is not a "cancer" of the game just because you can't be asked to use resources given.

[procne]

If you play solo then you can do anything you want. If you play with others then it's expected to adapt in some way to them. Some groups will give you more freedom, some less. Find the ones that give you more freedom, but also expect those groups will be less efficient at things.

You can always politely say that you can either play this way, or not play with them at all. And see how that gets you.

[BananaHandsB]

Short answer: it's becomes much easier to identify people whose performance is subpar. In the past, they could slide under the radar. But because these same ppl are unwilling or incapable of improving they create excuses like blaming "min-maxing culture" because that's easier than looking inwards and realizing they are trying to do content that wasn't designed for them and takes more effort than they are willing to put in. Nowadays you gotta help stoke the engine if you wanna ride the train to victory, and the people who were getting a free ride previously are salty and looking for anything to blame now that they've been kicked off the train.

[procne]

How does it become much easier to identify such people?

[kranur]

Min maxing is fine and even fun, as long as it's kept in enclosed likeminded groups.
It's fine to require it within your guild for example, and frankly fun to compete with your guild members and try to squeeze the most, but when pugging or joining pugs, should be kept in mind that not everyone is a min maxer or has the time to collect all possible buffs for even the most trivial of things.

Otherwise you end up with the shit show that is retail. You are basically required to outgear the content, know the ins and outs of the entire dungeon/raid, and have cleared it multiple times and not make a single mistske.

Thankfully my experience with classic has been mostly positive in this regard and we mostly encouraged everyone that it's fine to not have done it before and speak up if they lack knowledge or needee advice.

[Tart]

It's what has stopped me playing classic and delving into TBC.

[Lurker1]

I have never followed min and maxing and i still got all my legion tower skins i wanted also im doing the same in shadowlands not going to ever change anytime soon here.

[Echocho]

This is why I spend most of my time in FFXIV these days. WoW is filled with too many people trying to dictate how you play and gatekeeping you out of content you're more than capable of completing successfully and it's starting to occur at lower and lower levels of play. I wouldn't be surprised if people were being vote kicked out of LFR for playing non meta specs/builds.

[anon5123]

What is this supposed to be a rebuttal to exactly? This is a thread about you whining about a problem, not me. I am not the one in need of advise here mind you I only pointed out the strange and tone deaf irony in your ''complaint'' on how others are trying to supposedly dictate that you shouldn't min max? Because that's never happened anywhere I'm pretty sure, but alas you seem keen on arguing so I guess I will wait for your goalposts to shift to the next part of this fiasco.

What is it with people on this forum that, disagreeing with them strikes a nerve and they start whining that you are "arguing just to argue" ? It's pretty fascinating.

[T-34]

What is with these asinine responses I am collecting in this thread? People do make their own communities where those that ''play for fun'' are welcome what is your point exactly? And what does anything in this response have to do with what I initially said anyhow?

You wrote:

The irony in this. This is the exact reason why those who 'hate min/maxing' feel the way they do, because of the meta that arises and the communities unrelenting expectation of complete and whole subjection to this meta and those who do anything out of bounds are looked down on.

It's the toxic community that these people hate more so than the actual act of min/maxing.

If I wrongly put you in the same "pot" as those that for some strange reason think that min/maxing makes it impossible for them to play the game then I am truly sorry. You seem like a rational person with your rational answer about making your own group where you play with like-minded people.
A truly simple solution to a non-existent problem.

[SirBeef]

If minmaxing and superduper optimizing was isolated to certain closed environements of the game then I would agree with you.

But as it seems in both retail and classic its impossible for me to play the game how I want without having to succumb to optimizing.

For example I am raiding in a heroic guild on retail and this would be the same for raiding in classic. And people do all the gimmicky minmaxing stuff which arent even necessary. So people are customizing their characters in a way they not always enjoy.

The community, even in guilds they measure your performance not by being a teammember or your ability to consistently execute mechanics, but how you perform producing certain numbers.

This is why I think the introduction of logs and damage meters ruined the game long time ago.

The only way you can enjoy the game you want is to stay away from pug environments and find a guild or community with the same mindset. Yet even there people just google what is best for their characters because again, the numbers. In stead of using their brains.

That's what we did at the start of Cata and haven't looked back. Found a bunch of other hardcore raiders that just wanted to raid without the BS. Been having fun ever since. Well up until COVID hit. We lost 4 of our core group to COVID. Doubt we'll recruit to replace. The will to raid without them just hasn't been there. Most of us are over 50, I wasn't sure if it was going to continue forever. It was good while it lasted. I have no interest in spending time to find others like us, nor trying to find another group we'd fit in with. It's been a fun almost 17 years from when I started Beta. Doubt I'll finish this one out if we don't start raiding again.

[arkanon]

In pve it is even more iffy, since you'll not even be allowed to play if you do not conform to others' perceptions of what is viable.

No, this is wrong. You might not be "allowed" to play with THOSE players, and thats perfectly acceptable. What you need to do is find a group of like minded individuals to play with, just like the "elitists" do.