Z and Cinder’s Blog Challenge #3

PUGGING.

Ohhhh this is a good one. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t experienced a PUG these days. Whether you enjoy it or not, it has become a necessary evil. Especially if you don’t Raid…
I asked twitter what they used LFG for:

I don’t know about you guys, but my LFG experiences haven’t always been the most enjoyable. 

Let’s start at the beginning: running Deadmines as a new player with no idea what I’m doing… the experiences aren’t that great to recollect. Lots of snide comments, getting lost (I know it’s “just a path to follow”, but that’s quite daunting for a new player!!!) and rolling on the wrong loot. You would think people would be kinder to someone who is obviously a new player.

I always take sympathy on those poor tanks or healers in LFG who clearly try their hardest but fail spectacularly. Like the Tank wearing int gear, or healers in DPS spec. I’m pretty sure we have all been there at some point. It’s like the Learner Driver situation: you’re stuck behind them doing 20MPH in a 40 and you’re late. We have all been there, we should be more understanding.

However, as you go up through the levels I think generally it all gets better. 

Especially these days with all the heirlooms, you rarely see a player who is slumming it with questing gear which makes levelling through dungeons a lot easier. I tried tanking many moons ago, and although I was terrified, I was so invincible in heirlooms that my skill – or lack thereof – didn’t see to matter.

Then you get to max level and the inevitable happens… experienced players mix with causal players mix with new players and all hell breaks loose. I saw this (and many more!) comments on Facebook this week:

Isn’t this a shame? People are scared about grouping in a MMORPG because of the few idiots that make the game unenjoyable in raids. I think that’s really sad. So often, you see people who “only do solo content” for this reason. Why can’t we all be more tolerant?

Of course, often you get to these max level groupings and people want to do them QUICKLY and EFFICIENTLY and WITHOUT STOPPING. Great!!! Except when you come in late to the expansion…

I shouldn’t moan… all the groupings (I haven’t don’t that many, so don’t take this as a scientific fact) have been great so far. No problems, no drama, nice and quick. However, have I actually played and experienced the content? I’m not sure… 

Just for fun, I asked twitter what they thought. 

I think lots of people would agree with Rowett.

The variety of responses is interesting, don’t you think? I guess most people only enter if they have to, which with Legion’s current profession quests is kind of a necessity if you want those professions maxed.

This situation harks back to those PvP quests where you have to go kill x and grab y amount of z to complete the achievement for the mini holiday. All those PvPers getting irate with the casuals coming in without the right gear just for XYZ. I can see how it makes people resent it, and although I can see ee why it’s there, it’s not something I think is inherently needed. 

Anyway, I could write on and on about this subject. I love the LFG feature and I think it has its place.I love MMO’s too, but just like real life, dealing with some people is more difficult than others. I think we all need to be more patient with each other and LFG becomes manageable!

#BeKind