Originally Posted by
Sometus
So what I am talking about is the current gearing system as well as the mindset of the people going into mythic+ and the experience of new players reaching the endgame. Without talking too long about it, pugging, from levelling to endgame, is currently an incredibly hostile, tense and unwelcoming place that can make wow so much worse of an experience than it has to be. It's no place for learning or to experience the content. Instead it is dominated by the GOGOGOGO attitude and hypercompetitive mindset that is encouraged by the community, no matter if it is normal, heroic, mythic 0, mythic+ (through which this mindset came to be).
So the big question is: Why not just join a guild? Now, here is where the problem goes a bit deeper. I tried joining guilds at many points in the past two expansions since the one I was raiding with before quit mid WoD. However, to join a guild now, you need to provide them with some sort of immediate use, mainly in terms of having high ilvl to begin with to justify them taking you in. And after that, unless you make a significant effort, you won't be in a clique in said guild that you can run dungeons with to gear up. So for the first time you will be alone and if you should get the short end of the stick and not be able to keep up with the gear the rest of your guild has you might be in trouble. Worst case you will fail your trial. I'd still try speaking with a officer in the guild or some other well connected person about it but sadly in a lot of guilds this attitude seems normal now.
In a way WoW really has become a place of survival and people being left behind if they don't commit themselves to the treadmill early enough in a patch, especially with essences and corruptions now. People who didn't grind in 8.2 now have major drawbacks since they are missing some essences or chances to get higher ranks.
To get higher gear you need to either pug or join a guild, but both of those possibilities require you to have high ilvl to begin with. For guilds its the reason that they want some immediate use out of you and not gear up a stranger if they don't know if you will stick with them. And for m+ since there is such a mass of people you need to overgear it to be accepted. And then the problem becomes that even if people have high ilvl, it doesn't mean they will play their class well. It's just a safety measure of "if he has higher ilvl it means he can put out more damage before he dies, so that we maybe get it done" (especially in +10s and higher where you have a harder time overgearing things because mechanics become punishing).
This is just my two cents but I really think there needs to be something done to incentivize to socialize or just have basic human empathy with others and encourage them to learn rather than the "just get ilvl somehow I don't care if you can play your class well" mentality. It is especially hostile to new players, which two friends who tried to get into wow endgame can attest to. Since the introduction of m+ in legion and the new quick way to access competitive pugable content this has really broken through and bfa has exaggerated it. Combine that with the overabundance of treadmills and the lack of emphasis of skill and you have a horrible experience for people who have not been in a strong tightly knit guild since before legion.
Thanks for reading!