What if your best buddy was really bad at WoW?

[Mimp]

You're an idiot.

Steve Jobs was 56 when he died.
Bill Gates is 57

Some of the best software developers are well in to their 50s, having been brought up on real software engineering, not the drag and drop ez-mode today.

friend told me i need to work on my sarcasm. At 55 you can see early signs of dementia/alzheimers if you dont take care of yourself. the last part was a joke, get over yourself.

[lawow74]

Seeing as how no one else's game experience besides mine and my best friend rates a fuck to me, I don't care if my friend isn't as good as me. We do fine in the content we want to do and enjoy talking to each other while we play. It's the only way we can really hang out anymore given we live on opposite sides of the country.

[VeganHunter]

sadly this.

OT, he doesnt need to be alive to get the drops. i refuse to believe your friend has been playing the game for 8 years and dies to stupid shit 5 times a run. also, hes 55 for christs sake, give him a fucking break. surprised you and him even know how to work a computer

Haha, well, LOL we are both engineers. I think we know how to work computers just fine. And yeah, he dies several times per run.... like when he plays a rogue, he won't go into stealth, gets seen, and dies. Or instead of running to me, he runs the other way....

[derpkitteh]

i wouldn't care, because as long as my friend is having fun, i am. cause they're my best friend, and time spent with them is what's fun.

[serenka]

i only play wow with 1 irl friend, and he sucks. well, not totally but he clicks 100% of his spells and is just really bad at pvp, and is ok at healing pve (*healbot) but constantly complains about how easy the game is now.

[VeganHunter]

i wouldn't care, because as long as my friend is having fun, i am. cause they're my best friend, and time spent with them is what's fun.

Well that is another thing on its own.... I don't think he actually is having fun. At least from my perspective, having someone run me through dungeons is just BORING..... stand still, collect loot, stand still, collect loot, stand still, collect loot. That is not to say I never get a run.... I tend to ask for runs at level 57, 67, 79.... just so I can move up the content chain faster.

[OGXanos]

I taught my friend how to play. But I still call him "Agility Mage".

[MoanaLisa]

Yeah, I'd run with him. First of all, I'd teach him how to set up a chat window for whispers so that he will mostly be seeing what you send to him and not much else.

Secondly, I'd figure out a list of what he's weak on, prioritize it and take him for duo runs through dungeons or whatever so he can practice. Work on one thing at a time and be patient. Don't overload him with a lot of stuff all at once.

Lastly, he's your buddy. Your best one if your post is to be believed. Cherish it and do whatever it takes to help him. It could be he simply suffers from a form of stage fright when in a group that stresses him out to the point where he either tries too hard or simply forgets things.

[Shelly]

LFR means never caring if someone's bad. :-)

Though if you want the smoothest runs with a really fast cue time then just gather up at least 8 folks - though you might be able to do it with less - and cue in together. You'll blaze through smooth and simple, especially if you're taking care of supplying tanks and heals. Though competent DPS is always a challenge.

[Sal the Shieldhog]

Given that me and my best friends have been close since we were 4/10/11 (I'm really close with 3 dudes), the conversations would probably go something akin to this (keep in mind we're all 18 and this is generally how we talk to each other all the time):

"Dude, you fucking suck."
"STFU bro."
"Seriously dude, you suck, go read a class guide or something."
"Fuck you dude, I know how to play." *dies* "Fuck, heal me dude!"
"You're standing in fire, I'm not gonna heal you."
"Fuck you too then."
"L2Play then bro."
"Fuck you dude."
"Here. *links*

And then answering questions and such would take place and they'd get a little better.

[Masochist]

not if they kept being bad

though its hard to tell you how to deal with that

my friend was better than me when we started playing together, but i could at least pull good dps. a lot of people dont really seem to care about their performance anymore because they are not punished for it, they dont care about making a game out of trying to avoid the fire or getting as many interrupts as they can etc. they really have no incentive to increase the level of their performance in todays game unless they wanted to perform well in the first place.

[Celista]

Prefacing this with I'm 51, and he is 55 years old.... but we are both 8 year players.

He refuses to PUG.... He says it is because he wants all the drops, but I know better. He HATES pugs. Back when he would run them all he did was complain about them. If you were to listen to him, there has never been a good PUG in all of WoW. Really, the deal is that he is so bad that people always yelled at him. So, he always asks me to give him runs with one of my 90's. And because he is my buddy, I almost always do.

But he is just a bad player.... When I run him, I always run him with a healer because I know that he will be dying like 5x per run because he does stupid things.... He also can't focus. I frequently have to type in all caps to get his attention. He doesn't usually read the chat lines. It makes a simple run not so fun. It makes a run take 50% longer.

If he was your best buddy, would you still run him? Or would you run him but tell him that he needs to step up his game if he wants to keep getting runs? Or would you just say "No"?

What are you running him through? Raid content, I'm assuming? Just tell him straight up what he needs to work on if he wants a raid spot. Be nice about it, considering that he's your bud.

He might be content to run through older content, you might be able to run through that with him. Or scenarios/dungeons, or PvP. PvP is an effective way to create good raiders imo--it teaches people situational awareness.

[endersblade]

Ran into a similar situation, though we were considerably younger :-P

I got a friend of mine into WoW. Unfortunately, he was one of those 'bads' who ran around in BGs yelling, "You fucking noobs need to learn how to play! You all suck!" etc, and would do absolutely nothing useful himself. He got kicked out of two raids because he couldn't bother to move out of the fire. I'd bring him along in 5-man instances, him on his mage (this was during Wrath, btw) and, as a healer, I would consistently heal HIM more than the rest of the freaking party combined, because he'd always pull ahead of the tank. He'd do bottom-level DPS (but in 5-mans, who really cares) but complain in chat or vocally, as we lived together at the time, that the rest of the party was terrible. I seriously facepalmed so much with this kid that I had marks on my face.

One day, I just finally snapped. I screamed and I yelled and I bitched and I moaned about how fucking terrible he was. I told him if he wished to learn how to play properly, as I had always advertised to him, that I had no problems teaching him. He finally agreed. I logged into his character to make sure his hotbar was set up properly...oh gods in heaven that was painful. He had Fireball on his hotbar FOUR TIMES. He said that pressing them like that got them off faster ><; I stripped his bar, set it up roughly how my mage's was, hopped on my mage, and walked him through rotation. When we were done a few days later, I took him to an instance again, told him how to properly play in a group, and off we went. He ended up doing LESS DPS overall, but at least I didn't have to heal him as much...but he said, "man, this is great! I must be doing like 3-4 times the DPS I used to do!" Again, I facepalmed hard.

A few weeks later he got into another guild (he got kicked out of mine for being shitty lol), and after his very first raid with them, he got the boot and ignored by several players including the GM. I asked the GM why, and he told me exactly what I expected: Low DPS, stood in fire, screamed in vent at the rest of the raid when they'd wipe, saying it was their fault and not his. My friend finally just up and quit WoW because, and I quote, "I just can't find people who know how to play this game as good as me." T'was my final facepalm. I just let it drop and never got him back into it.

I guess the moral is, if your friend WANTS to get better, then help him. But if he's like my friend, thinking he's the gods' gift to MMOs, there is no hope for him. Either you take him how he is, or you move on.

[mmokri]

I suggest to not play WoW together, because its frustrating and can disband your friendship.
Except your friendship is like teacher/pupil relations.

[OzoAndIndi]

Well, in the hope that she doesn't show up here because I intend no offense to her in any way, but I've got some version of that as well with a close online friend of 9 1/2 years. We started the game together in 2010 but it's become pretty clear to me that her interest in really trying to understand the how of some of the more basic stuff is just...zero. Likewise interest in some of the other aspects of the game. Or it's just over her head.

At times in the past I've felt a bit annoyed when out questing together because often it has seemed, and once admitted, that she mostly just uses auto attack. And a Pally not pulling any moves that are particularly noticeable, I'm inclined to believe it's true.

Irks me the most the times that she's yelling at me to save her and then "thanks" when she dies. That's right, the Paladin with plate armor and heals and other saving graces is yelling at the Rogue, who relies on only what she can to survive, to save her. (And note, this is a can't-be-named-here WotLK server, my Rogues don't have any kind of self heal at all.)

Someone was really nice and made her gems. She didn't know how to use them. I tried to explain. Didn't get it. After we logged off later I made a diagram with screen shots to show HOW to add them. Honestly I'm not sure if that was ever used or if I wasted my time trying to help. I should probably check sometime to see if she's got gems on or not.

I feel for the people who we play around, because often she's going to be one of those who's largely carried, but those who know us tend to understand that. It's not an overly competitive place, nor it is highly populated or rude, so most tend to enjoy the company in whatever form it comes in unless a person themselves is just entirely unpleasant. And if they want me in their group and she's logged on, well they know that probably is going to mean she comes to. But I cringe when newer people or older returned players see the Pally and want her to tank. Works best with good heals and others who can keep their own threat level down. It's not that she doesn't try sometimes, but it just comes across that she's usually not trying enough. Or simply doesn't get it. Or doesn't care to.

We have had and do have a lot of fun on it together, at least in a very casual/social sense. I wouldn't want to discourage someone from playing simply because they aren't that great at it. If it's a friend that enjoys it then I find you sometimes just have to be forgiving and take it for what it is. The game is a lot of things and it's possible to still enjoy it for the company they are and something fun to do together. Even if your more serious game play or progression happens when they're not there.

If he was your best buddy, would you still run him? Or would you run him but tell him that he needs to step up his game if he wants to keep getting runs? Or would you just say "No"?

If not an easy one, I might try to find someone else who could help make it go faster at all. We run it, if he/she dies then it may well be their own doing. Get alive and move on. If they keep failing, it's their own doing, oh well. Though I don't see the harm in sometimes just not being in the mood to run it and saying so.

[VeganHunter]

What are you running him through? Raid content, I'm assuming? Just tell him straight up what he needs to work on if he wants a raid spot. Be nice about it, considering that he's your bud.

He might be content to run through older content, you might be able to run through that with him. Or scenarios/dungeons, or PvP. PvP is an effective way to create good raiders imo--it teaches people situational awareness.

Raid content? LOL, no.... things like Ramparts, Utgarde, Violet Hold, UBRS, LBRS....... he will never raid unless he can solo because I don't have the time to do even low level raids.

Thanks for the replies, all.

[GrieverXIII]

I've yet to meet someone IRL that plays this game and is half decent at it.

[Tziva]

I wouldn't raid with such a person, but I'd have no problem playing with them in five man heroics, scenarios, leveling alts together, etc. You didn't say which you were doing, but there are plenty of ways to spend time with your friend without making it in a high stress environment where his performance matters. Do easier stuff and try to relax a little about how bad he is; just remind yourself it doesn't really matter if he dies a bunch in a dungeon you could be three manning anyway.

Not all my friends are great, either, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the game with them at all. It's just about limiting the circumstances to places where skill level becomes mostly irrelevant.

[melodramocracy]

Prefacing this with I'm 51, and he is 55 years old.... but we are both 8 year players.

He refuses to PUG.... He says it is because he wants all the drops, but I know better. He HATES pugs. Back when he would run them all he did was complain about them. If you were to listen to him, there has never been a good PUG in all of WoW. Really, the deal is that he is so bad that people always yelled at him. So, he always asks me to give him runs with one of my 90's. And because he is my buddy, I almost always do.

But he is just a bad player.... When I run him, I always run him with a healer because I know that he will be dying like 5x per run because he does stupid things.... He also can't focus. I frequently have to type in all caps to get his attention. He doesn't usually read the chat lines. It makes a simple run not so fun. It makes a run take 50% longer.

If he was your best buddy, would you still run him? Or would you run him but tell him that he needs to step up his game if he wants to keep getting runs? Or would you just say "No"?

When I got into the game, it was exactly like this (though I was bad as well, for different reasons). One of the friends I was playing with didn't really want to play with strangers ever, so we spent most of the time trying to 3 man through 5 man dungeons (generally under-level and drastically undergeared... you can imagine the outcomes). He had to be told, for example, that tanking as ret doesn't really work, and his argument was that he didn't like using shields.

Anyhow... I dunno, I had a lot more laughs failing miserably in these attempts than I ever have in smooth runs with folks I didn't know personally. I'd opt for the laughs, and maybe play a bit while he isn't around to get your own progression in.

[Wildtree]

sadly this.

OT, he doesnt need to be alive to get the drops. i refuse to believe your friend has been playing the game for 8 years and dies to stupid shit 5 times a run. also, hes 55 for christs sake, give him a fucking break. surprised you and him even know how to work a computer

Sorry to say this that way, but kid, you need to learn something here.... The first generation of gamers is nowadays in it's 50s... We've ( I am one of them ) played video games and computer games while your kind was still swimming in our testicles :P
Without our generation and the development of computers you wouldn't even know what they are..

/exaggeration off

OP.... you should know better, and I believe in your heart you do, hence you give him runs and a break too..
RL friendship trumps everything, even not so good game play..