Have you ever felt the sting of rejection from a group before the first battle cry even sounds? Then you'll relate to our latest heart-to-heart at The Pig and Whistle Inn, where we tackle the fiery debate of elitism, judgment, and the trials of finding a solid team within the World of Warcraft community. We're sharing tales from the trenches on how the Looking for Group tool, intended to unite players, can sometimes deepen the divide, causing frustration and stifling progression. With the Dragonflight expansion challenging the status quo, we're dissecting the tool's shortcomings and how a lack of representation for evokers only adds to the mounting pressures.
But it's not all doom and gloom; there's a clarion call for change ringing out in the gaming world. This episode is about the psychology behind why some gamers bail at the first sign of trouble and how fostering patience could lead to legendary victories. We're advocating for a revolution in the ranking system, one that judges skill rather than just points, potentially crafting a fairer playing field for all. Join us as we champion the vital creation of a supportive, inclusive WoW community that welcomes everyone from seasoned veterans to bright-eyed newbies, ensuring the game's legacy endures. Listen in, gear up, and become part of the movement towards a kinder, more connected gaming experience.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stilwind, I go for a variety of subjects With regards to World of Warcraft. Pack on a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode where we will be continuing with the pvp forum uh page. That has been going on for a while and it still does have its relevance. With season four kicking off. Um, it's a good time to revisit it and see what people are sort of most upset about, what we need to improve as a community, what we need to improve from blizzard's end. You know multiple different things and you know it all summarized in this post, so if you haven't been following it already. We've talked about mmr achievements. You know sort of the there's no incentive to play learning. You know the accessibility of it like UI. We've gone through a lot at the moment and there is still so so much more. So this one's more community-based though. So elitism and toxicity this is a very difficult topic and, frankly, I have a very hard time putting it into words in a manner that is at least a little bit data-based, because there's very little data. You can only go off your kind of personal experiences maybe, as ultimately it only comes down to the player's experience, literally what I just said. I didn't even read that.
Speaker 1:
Let's start with elitism. People are not willing to play with other people who are seemingly below their level. This has been a large problem in the looking for group tool, as people always keep checking each other's experience, be it on pvp or pve, and rightfully so. People do not want to lose rating or any sort of progress due to somebody else's incompetence, so to speak. However, however, in PvP's case specifically, this metric is greatly skewed by the aforementioned discrepancy, both bracket-wise and inter-seasonally. To put it into perspective, currently my rating in 2v2 is 2.2, which sets me to the duelist bracket quite safely. However, given the current circumstances, I'm able to find people willing to play with me because they can see that I have 2.4, plus 6 times before and within a very close time period, with 5 of these times having been consecutive. These can be used, for example, in the Looking for Group tool when I'm searching for partners.
Speaker 1:
I write 2.6 MM. Hunter looking for heels, which constantly catches the eye of a healer looking for achievement elite in the given season, contrastly if I were to be 2.2 by some miracle at this time, with the same win rate but without prior experience. It would classify me as a duelist, with the same win rate but without prior experience. It would classify me as a duelist, not an established multi-elite player, and would in turn, deter many people Looking to climb, which would further make it harder for me To learn new strategies and play styles From more experienced players, because they would expect hindering and underwhelming performance from me.
Speaker 1:
Now, this is very much a community problem. In any sort of um case, like pvp is going to be gatekeepy. Same with pve. If you are 2k and there's someone who is 2.2k and you know you, let's say you're better than them, you're better than the 2.2k player, um, you've been higher than them in multiple seasons. You know this is the highest that they've ever been. They're going to be a bit stingy with it. So when they see you sign up as 2k, they're going to be like no, the risk is too great for me, like I can't take that risk because I'm at my peak right now.
Speaker 1:
I can't um, if people don't understand, like what websites to use as well to check, then they won't get accurate information. But even if people do check um and everyone's like, oh okay, they've only got one or two like elites in the past, like three years, like that's not good enough, but they're sat there with no elite like status almost. Then it's like, oh well, what are you looking for? Then you're looking for a multi-rank, one player who can boost you. Yeah, I'm sure they're going to sign up to your group, but the likelihood of that is ridiculously slim, like, and the thing is, people obviously have the right to choose who they want to group with. Maybe they just think that the um you know the group composition isn't good enough. Maybe they think I'm not too keen on playing with an mm hunter for this example, in this post. Um, I prefer playing with just a warrior or a rogue or maybe even a caster. You know that kind of deal, um, in which case that's fair enough. That's their personal preference and by all means they can do it.
Speaker 1:
But a lot of people don't communicate this in any sort of good way. If you get any sort of communication in the looking for group tool, it's probably about 90% negative. Now I myself have set up looking for group tools and declined a lot of people. I get messages and these messages are not friendly. They're like what the fuck can you know all of that stuff? And from there and I simply explain the reason I either say sorry, you're too low, or I say it's not really a composition that I'm looking for. Sometimes they understand and they're like fair enough. Um other times I just get, get slated even more and it's not fun. But I mean, it doesn't bother me, that's the same, like you can't let it bother you.
Speaker 1:
But looking for group tool is very, very outdated. It definitely needs an update. And it shows how outdated it is because Dragonflight has been out for nearly a couple years now. Dated it is because dragonflight has been out for nearly a couple years now and the evokers in pvp groups still don't have their own symbol. Yeah, they, they shut, they show as tank or a different like class. That's how outdated the looking for group tool is for pvp. It's crazy. Um, it definitely can be more streamlined.
Speaker 1:
The pvp sort of looking for group tool and the looking for group tool in general. Um, but I think that you should be allowed to group with players. If you go into a solo shuffle, you should be allowed to group with players that you feel like you can play with and want to try and play with and you can give threes a go if people are wanting to do threes, you know, maybe add that sort of system where you can interact with people that way. Um, oh no, it just needs an update. I'm not sure how to go about it. I haven't put much thought into it, to be honest, but if I have an hour or two I could probably come up with decent ways, um, to maybe fix it and to help it out.
Speaker 1:
It's good to get into groups quickly, depending on if you're a dps or healer. Um, the bit, actually speaking of the biggest problem is healers. Um, in looking for groups, because healers are obviously a lot more niche when it comes to numbers wise. So a healer that is around the same rating is going to get snapped up by a group very quickly and, in return, if one person or if you lose one game with this healer, they will leave instantly and go and find another group, which is crazy because it hinders the two people that were waiting already, and you know it's just a shitty thing to do.
Speaker 1:
I had, I was queuing with someone, so myself and another DPS player, and we got a healer. We played. I can't remember what the comp was what our comp was. I should say I think it was Boomy Mage. I think we were playing Boomy Mage and we came up against the Cupid Cleave. Now, cupid Cleave is very good. It is an actual decent composition. What Cupid Cleave is is Hunter and Paladin, because you know Hunter's Fire Arrows and Paladinins class is just pink. You know what I mean. Um, but cupid cleave is a very tough like matchup and this was on black rook hold as well.
Speaker 1:
A very small map, congested map, very tough to drag the healer out, which our composition relies on so that we can get cc on the healer. Now we were basically one setup away. I bashed the healer. I had inkarn up, my mage, had all the damage on the healer, but I got scattered and this healer lived with like 10. I got scattered. I had no trinket. Healer lived and essentially, if I didn't get scattered or cc, we would have killed him.
Speaker 1:
And then, not 15 seconds later, I, I think our mage dies and the healer starts to complain. The healer's like, yeah, this isn't going to work. We were nowhere near killing. Anything Like this felt awful. Firstly, we'd lost because of mana, because it's a druid healer. Secondly, he's not keeping an eye on his mana to look to drink when there were a couple of opportunities. And thirdly, we were very close to killing, like he's talking out of his arse and clearly isn't seeing the whole picture. So we explained to him very nicely that, okay, we were very close essentially and it is a tough composition on a tough map and essentially it counters us that composition it really kind of does. So we explained to him and we essentially get him to do another game and in that next game we kill them in the opener. We kill absolutely everything in the opener. It's overkill to the extreme. And then we just yeah, like hits.
Speaker 1:
It's crazy to think that people give up that quickly in the Looking for Group channel, because not every group just immediately clicks. It might take a few games but eventually you might get on that win streak or you know something along them lines, because that's what it takes. It takes a few games to understand people's play styles and what's happening and stuff like that, but people don't give it the time of day and that's the problem with it. Um, the problem with it is the mentality of the community rather than the actual looking for group tool itself. Um, but you need to make it more streamlined for those who mentally aren't as strong and capable. Uh, heading into that looking for group tool to utilize it in my best way to explain that.
Speaker 1:
Anyways, back to the post. Um, quickly, before we do actually I did, we did make up uh, and we did end up making that healer apologize for saying that we couldn't kill anything, because the next three games after the first one, we kind of just destroyed the next teams like it wasn't even a contest, which was quite satisfying. I think that's the first time someone's apologized for, uh, you know, essentially being wrong at the start of it. Um, which is quite funny. Um, okay, but back to the post and considering the extent of the game and the amount of years it has been working, there is always something to learn. However, the biggest instant difference in performance is a. Performance will be noticeable where the common folk are and people were the and being the median of the normal distribution curve. However, as started, as stated before, the median is very volatile in a seasonally and does not put skill into perspective consistently, unless the player has been performing a certain way over a large period of time.
Speaker 1:
Elitism on its own makes sense. What does not make sense is that it rewards a is that the rewards provided for certain degrees of performances are not consistent with the achievements, and this could be fixed, for example, by aforementioned reintroduced of percentage-based achievements. Ultimately, the rewards should be obtained. That's what they are there for. What is the purpose of having a full set unlocked continually as your ranking or rating increases, if reaching 1.8 cr, which is required for the currently, uh, previous, has been reachable by a percentage of the players and has since decreased tenfold rhythmically? Uh, this could be compared to replacing the. Oh my god, here's so many abbreviations and big words like dude, just, it's a good post, just make it simple.
Speaker 1:
A mythic level phi in nexi, okay, so essentially, he. Essentially, the point is it should be percent based stuff, which I kind of agree with, because if you have 100 players and you're fifth out of them 100 players, you're top 5%, aren't you? If you have 5,000 players and you're let's see, no, if you have 1,000 players and you're top 50, you're top 5%. Yeah, 10,000 players and you're top 500, top 5%. So the way that it should work is percent-based, because if these 10 players, you have a 1,000 player, a 1,100 player, 1,200, going up to 3,000, and you end up at 2,300. You're in the top 7% of the game but you don't get that elite title, which is ridiculous because you're in the top percentile of the game. You are really good at the the game still, and that's a bit of a kick in the balls because I think season three of dragonflight ended with very few people getting the gladiator mount and I think very, very few people, if any, getting over 2900 in threes. No 3k, sorry, like there was barely anyone. So it was super deflated for no real reason. And I don't quite understand why they don't just go back to or go to a simple system where it's zero to five thousand. It allows you to play throughout the entire season. Stuff like that it just makes no sense.
Speaker 1:
As for toxicity in the game, a lot of people do get toxic. Whether you lose or win or whatever, you might be doing something wrong. You make a small mistake. You die when you've got an immunity or something, and the thing is you don't die because you don't press the immunity, you die because you got hit from 40% to 0% in one global, because they hit you with two massive like attacks at the same time. That's one of them things where it's like okay, gg, go next, like just forget about it and we move on. But the person in you're looking for group might be like why didn't you bubble there? What the fuck are you doing? You're trash like get good. You know you can't control that and that's the shit part, because it deters people from looking for group. If this is a new player jumping into pvp, it deters them from doing more pvp because it's like why just get slated anyway? So what's the point? You know it's really shit on their part and it shouldn't be a thing.
Speaker 1:
I think that we as a community need to do better, and I think that's the biggest part of getting people introduced into the game firstly, and then introduced into PvP or PvE or any sort of endgame content. We need to do better as a playing community, and that's just not even World of Warcraft, that's a lot of the gaming community as a whole. Now, in my honest opinion, it's a shit show for pretty much every single gaming community out there. Um, I would have thought for, or at least a vast majority of the games out there. Um, we need to do better as a community and I'm hoping that you know we do. When a new expansion comes out, we do learn that it is just a game.
Speaker 1:
At the end of the day, you can still be competitive, but don't deter people from the game, because it's ridiculous. Like you want the game to be alive and thriving. But when you deter people and shout at people and get pissed off at people and call them slurs and all of that, it's going to turn them away. And then you like comment oh my god, dead game, what the fuck blizzard? And it's not blizzard's fault that it's going to turn them away. And then you like comment oh my god, dead game, what the fuck blizzard? And it's not blizzard's fault that it's a dead game, it's the community's fault because we actively drive them away as well. Like the game can be shit and drive people away. Yeah, sure, people grow out of games, all of that, but we as a community aren't very welcoming sometimes and that needs to change. It really, really does.
Speaker 1:
But I will end it there for this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below. Constant stuff is happening over there. Thank you all very much once again and go, avala friend, goodbye all. Thank you.