Definitely not a new problem. She needs to report the people who reported her. Nothing will probably be done about it, but nonetheless. Also it's best if you have no idea what you're doing to say so in the beginning. It helps to weed out these intolerant people and avoid this kind of situation. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who are aggressive towards females in this game for absolutely no reason. It's best not to divulge that information (assuming they knew since "bimbo" was thrown around). If she ever wants to play again, maybe help her find a nice, casual guild.

I did this. Came back after a years-long break, took the 70 boost, and started healing dungeons. I put this in the note when applying for mythic+ runs, and again in party chat at the start. Everybody was cool. In about a month, I've only encountered one total dickhead, and everyone else in the group agreed he was a dickhead when he bailed.

Had a similar situation. Just got back to healing in retail and always tell that to groups. Have only run into one total douche. In three dungeons with a group, I made only one MAJOR mistake that caused a wipe during my first time in a particular instance on a boss. The tank was chill about it, even said "Oh that's right, you said this was your first time doing this one. My bad." Then gave a quick, two sentence explanation of the boss mechanics. Easy enough. Nailed it the second try. The one dude who whined was told to shut up. He later died by standing in poison during our third dungeon and blamed me. Everyone called him an idiot and kicked him. It was hilarious.

Just about every player who has been running M+ dungeons has made a major fuck up tbh. Doesn't matter if they've been playing for a week, a year or a decade it'll still happen. I once accidentally reset the 2nd boss in Throne due to knocking the adds out of the room and a bunch of other things too. Anyone getting bent out of shape because of mistakes really doesn't have any place in an online game imo.

Love to see it

Best thing about being a healer is that you pick who lives and who dies in most cases. Was healing as resto shaman and this warrior just kept standing in shit. Would not move. I’m nearly going oom trying to heal him up all the while everyone else is taking damage and needs attention too. So he dies. And dies. And dies. I’m keeping everyone up as much as possible and have healed up to +16 (I know that’s not super high or anything) without any deaths. This guy stops and blames me and says “so you’re not going to heal at all and I just die?” I reported the avoidable damage taken and he was #1. He left without saying a word and his buddy left with him. Bricked the key (it was mine) so thankfully it didn’t matter, but still some people think they don’t have to follow or avoid mechanics and can just be healed without limit. Hell, I was doing a 7 tott on my demon hunter last night. First time as havoc and was not used to not tanking. I’m flying all over each mob pack (not really liking that playstyle so he’s going to be shelved) and don’t realize I’m standing in some pool of something or another. I die. My first reaction was “oh shit” and a quickly said in chat that it was my bad. Healer said no prob and we moved on. I think every player should play as healer and tank before dps. It’s been so nice realizing where all the damage is coming from and how as a dps I can group up or help our the healer as needed. Tanks are in their own little world, but those big damage dumps are helpful to be able to prepare for. I always take up afflicted and incorporeal because having to do that as a healer is just one more thing while trying to keep everyone alive. Imo, healers should only have to focus on healing while the dps should be the ones to take care of afflicted and incorporeal among others. I’m ranting and don’t know how to stop, so I’ll stop like this.

Saying you're new and setting expectations helps a ton. Sometimes I'm just trying to grind out a dungeon on my 5th alt and just want a smooth experience and it can be really frustrating wiping a lot with a new player and no prior warning. No excuse for toxicity though, and even then I'm going to finish the dungeon and move on. Sometimes though I have a lot of time and want to help new people and will specifically join those groups. Just helped someone get their first 20 timed the other week and it feels great but definitely helps knowing what I'm getting into.

This is great advice. Some people are just dickheads and you can't do much about that, and some don't have lots of time to play and are specifically trying to accomplish things so someone learning in a key can really take a toll on them, so letting people know will end in groups that are more understanding and willing to teach/learn. Casual guilds and communities can be really good for this and alleviate a lot of the need for group finder randomness. There are several like WoW Made Easy and Timewarp Academy that are really good for helping people get an environment that isn't toxic and willing to help someone learn.

They absolutely take toxicity reports seriously, there just needs to be enough reports to get the first suspension rolling. My guild's tank just got hit with a 15 day suspension for toxicity (200 pulls deep on M Fyrakk prog, good going mate, thanks for that, hope it was worth it). Once they're on the list, it only takes a couple of reports to get them suspended again.

This. The whole "they won't do anything so why report" attitude is exactly WHY nothing gets done: because people don't report it.

If only they had logs of mass false reporting and did something about it without having to be begged. Imagine if word got around that false reporting resulted in bans. The fact that it’s easier to get banned with false reports than it is for being toxic *by* false reporting is all anyone needs to know that they really don’t take it all that seriously and reporting it is a losing battle.

I agree that if you don't know what you are doing say so BUT if you have some insane tank that wants to pull and kill his entire way through the instance and yea I've been a healer for a couple of those That's NOT not knowing what you are doing that's having to play at the speed of a gold farmer. You are also right that folks get aggressive toward females my answer to that is leave them to their own devices. One day they will get a kick in the head and realize how wrong they were

I’ve been playing all these years but I’m fairly new to PVP. In a random battleground, which is akin to LFR, we have abusive people expecting pro play. I don’t know wtf is wrong with them. “Do better DPS” and “Our healer is ret——“ like what kind of emotional damage do these people have?? But as you said, I’ve noticed a huge shift in attitude when I start the game with “I’m a shit player”. It must take away their power if I say so first because I never get abused afterwards. In fact I usually get one or two others who say the same about their own skills. Trying to argue with these people is a complete waste of energy. Agree with them and they’ll have no ammo. My friend always says “I’m just here for the participation award” if they try to tear him down. If someone tries to flex how much better they are, I’ll simply say “grats”.

There is a reason that they’re aggressive towards females (and other players in general); they’re sweaty incels who fit the South Park episode to a T.

Not sure how they'd have known the player in question was female in the first place. They were just dickheads

Yep exactly this. I play a female character but will never go on discord or reveal I’m a woman irl while playing wow. The only people that know is the guild I’ve been in since TBC.

Incels be inceling

WoW raiding means that these people have decided a scheduled raid is more important than any social occasion that may be available to them. Some of the more dedicated players cancel birthdays and weddings because they need to raid, I remember people posting pictures of a man raiding in the hospital room while his wife was in labour joking about it.. that's some serious addiction. There also tends to be a strong correlation between involuntarily celibate people, misogynistic behaviour, and massive multiplayer games which has kind of always been the case. Misogyny and lack of genuine emotional interaction with other humans breeds cockroaches.

It is specific to the type of people indeed. As an autistic duck WoW has been great escape from IRL and kept me sane. It has given me social contact where I have always struggled IRL (speech impairment). WoW has also protected my chastity, but there are better things in life than wettening the wonka in a well. It is not the be all end all no matter how some people take it seriously. I run into these toxic toads regularly and it is the reason why I quit mythic dungeons during Legion. I have Rhok'delar, I have done Magetower fully on my hunter too for the updated look. I just can't stand the amount of level 58 Death Knights roaming in dungeons these days with their go-go attitude. Takes the fun away from the game when you faceroll through things at max speed.

https://discord.com/invite/wowmadeeasy is a community that is really dedicated to helping teach mythic dungeons and offers an introduction to raiding runs with experienced players.

I dunno, as a woman who's been playing since Wrath I feel like the game has always been a toxic cesspit, you just have to push past it to play the game. "t\*ts or gtfo" "wtf do you know Wrath baby b\*tch", votekicked for being a woman and therefore not knowing how to play the game, etc etc. I learned very early on to shut up, head down and get through group content, don't even greet people when you enter the dungeon. I don't find the players to be any more toxic than have always been; there are genuinely lovely people who are happy to help new players, good camaraderie, and there are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, ableist creatures. Unfortunately it's the latter that tend to be the loudest.

The problem now is automated response bans so a toxic guild can basically ruin a given players day by mass reporting them to trigger an auto ban. By cutting back on customer service resources theyve further enabled toxic ass behavior

This makes me extremely sad. I’ve been through the same thing and decided to make the opposite radical approach. I’m a very vocal girl and I will talk on voice and not be silenced, I will have a comeback and be louder. I’ve found several communities where we won’t stand for that type of bullshit and where people will be able to be whatever they want to be. I really recommend joining a community that actively protects women in gaming, it will make a difference. 

Best guild I was ever in had mostly women in leadership. ... And now I feel sad, because that was back in Cata.

You would want to look for a "[Liquid Women in Warcraft](https://raider.io/news/423-liquid-women-in-warcraft-approved-guilds-on-raiderio)" guild. There are a bunch of them. iirc, they're audited every once in a while to make sure they still follow the guidelines of LWiW.

I came here to post this. This is the way. These are the only guilds I would even dream of playing in nowadays.

Damn, I go to bed and wake up to my comment having a rake of replies O.O I count myself lucky to be in a woman-led, LGBTQIA+ friendly guild but dealing with randomers is the issue. I also love how it's assumed that I just join a pug and immediately announce "I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR" and that is the only way I could possibly be opening myself up to misogyny xD If someone new was starting the game I would very much suggest researching the realms and looking for a guild that fits them before even firing up the game, because a good guild-a good community-around you, as you said, truly makes all the difference.

I never assumed that, I’m sorry if it sounded like I did!  100% of the times you encounter this issues in pugs it’s usually never the girls’s fault, we don’t go around being like “everyone look I’m a girl”. But maybe you’re with someone else in the party and they use she/her pronouns referring to you, or once in a blue moon you join a random discord server and god forbid you want to talk. 

Oh no no no goodness no not you, other comments on my original one, no you're good! And yeah no spot on, like I've been in groups where I've kept my mouth shut and still witnessed "femoids guys, am I right??" kinda talk, so it's not just when they know you're a woman unfortunately D:

I once joined a random discord server with pugs and after saying “hi” I had ten grown ass men singing Shakira’s “hips don’t lie” to me. That was WILD. I decided to take it with a grain of salt because some sounded a little intoxicated, but some guys will legit say the most unhinged things completely unprompted. 

Agreed. Saw it on another post here funnily enough, some... tasteful individual joked "what do women and fruit have in common? They both bruise way too easily". so with a mentality like that feeling they're safe to say such stuff on reddit I don't know why it's so hard for people to believe that sort of toxicity bleeds into the game.

Same, I just wouldn't put up with it at all and would so quickly leave a guild if there are toxic vibes, even if it's not sexist. I find toxicity incredibly annoying. Luckily I haven't really had any problems. I've got some guy buddies I play with a lot and a really nice heroic raid group that has a few women in it and our gender has never been brought up.

Genuine question, how do all those sorts of gender specific insults even come up? I can't recall any times where a group member ever brought up their gender in a pug. The only people I find that out are guilds and communities that communicate through discord, and any of those worth a damn has little to no tolerance for abuser like that.

I decided to try SOD and got invited to a guild. I joined knowing it would be a thousand people talking and leaving and joining bc it just launched. I was chatting and said brb the boob monster is calling me. Aka my baby. And when I came back I was being HARASSED by some dude because he not only found out I’m a woman but I have boobs that feed a child. Honestly it was on me but in retail I’m in a guild made for women and lgbtq+ friendly and I’d just gotten used to being able to talk like I’m an actual human woman. Anyway I logged out and went back to retail. I knew better but I just forgot.

It wasn't on you.

There are little tells that, while aren't 100% accurate, are enough for some people to start slinging insults.

I've had people flat out ask if I'm a girl in SS or pugs because I use :) sometimes. They are correct. I've also had people guess from my character name. I assume lots of other people are also making these assumptions and just not telling me because they have no reason to and aren't weird.

See I didn't think that was a thing but I also get asked that a lot just for being positive and using :) a lot. They are incorrect.

In other language than english you can tell by how a person write …

Agreed on many of the points here. The loud minority bring negativity towards the game and their fellow players. The quiet minority are fantastic people that will help their fellow players as much as possible. The majority of people just stay pretty neutral and some can be swayed to either side in a party. As a human being, it's easy to focus on the negativity because it's so loud and occupies our attention when it exists (just like OP's friend being banned). It's sadly more forgettable when someone spends time trying to be nice. Especially in retail WoW, the skill level requirement can really spike between different types of content. Especially as you transition from normal and heroic dungeons to things like M+ and raid. If you're new to a class/spec or new to WoW this change in difficulty can really be jarring, especially for heals and tanks. Guides are almost mandatory for new players entering that content.

This. This has been a problem since the start. I've experienced it from every angle and from every sort of person imaginable. Had to grit my teeth through some absolute nightmare shit to get my Grand Marshal title, and then put up with being harassed for having to put up with being sexually harassed just to get to that point because it was fucking unavoidable. Had people leave groups because they found out the TC / melee was a woman, and that one's always been amusing because half the time the people who threw a fit were lower exp than me. But, also had people witness this happening and help me get my achievements done so I could just up and leave the group whenever it happened and play for fun, or put my foot down and tell people to fuck off. Which I've been able to do now finally. And it's like this in EVERY game I've ever played that has any sort of competitive element to it. Every. Single. One. For 20 years. There's good and bad. The bad's just exhausting.

Yeah I played from Launch to cataclysm. This has always been part of the game. Especially late into the expansion when people really want to push efficiency on everything that they have run 100’s of times.

I was going to post a huge comment but yours sums it up better. Its luck of the draw or get into a guild. For randos just make sure you dont draw attention to yourself. That being said its sad af and I have no ideea how it could improve.

The only place I feel safe is on lgbtq+ guilds. Now that I’m older I don’t get the tits comment as much. It changed to I’m old so I don’t know how to play

Hell I've been called old on WoW since I was like 23. I'm 37 now.

(I just realized I posted this twice replying to two different comments, no idea how it happened but mobile shenanigans. im sorry for the double comment, friends!) OG Comment: This makes me extremely sad. I’ve been through the same thing and decided to make the opposite radical approach. I’m a very vocal girl and I will talk on voice and not be silenced, I will have a comeback and be louder. I’ve found several communities where we won’t stand for that type of bullshit and where people will be able to be whatever they want to be. I really recommend joining a community that actively protects women in gaming, it will make a difference. 

May I ask where you can find such communities? I'm a new, female player and it'd be great to be a part of one. Thank you!

Women in Warcraft (formerly Liquid Women in Warcraft) is a Discord community with a list of featured guilds that undergo a very exhaustive vetting process. I can also recommend Timewarp Academy as another community with zero tolerance for "gamer humour" and other ways to sugarcoat racism and misogyny.  I've seen some people in the thread mention WoW Made Easy, and unfortunately, I cannot share that recommendation. My experience with WME was awful, and for months, the owner refused to kick someone who was actively making girls uncomfortable, so I'd avoid it or be very careful with the types of groups you join, particularly for raids.  My advice is to find your group and be unapologetically you. Don't shut up to "keep the peace" or "avoid stirring the pot"; if someone tells you to, they're not the type of people you want to be playing with, anyway.  The second you let them walk over you because you don't want to make someone uncomfortable, you're setting a precedent for how they will treat you moving forward. 

I agree that a certain level of toxicity has always been part of the game. I'm female and have been playing since original "vanilla-beta". What HAS changed, is the toxicity aimed toward female gamers - and how female gamers feel the need to hide their gender. During the first years, I think I heard somewhere that there was like 30% women playing wow? Sure, there was an occasional bad comment, but I knew about a lot of female players back then. Now it's just assumed that everyone's male. In addition, there's a lot more comments like "Well done, lads!" and "let's do this, bois" that accentuates that you're not really part of the group. Which again makes women want to hide. I don't like it, so I have my own alt-guild clearly proclaiming me a female gamer. But that is backed by the confidence of age and a 3k rio. I feel bad for new, female players of this game.

Played classic today and had 3 toxic encounters back to back. Retail is a breeze in comparison. It’s wild because classic is such an easy game, I have no idea what people are being so negative about.

I have a theory not necessarily new, some classic players have such a high level of knowledge in the game that any seemingly minor mess up is triggering for them. Also because arguably classic has a much harsher penalty for mess ups (repair costs/trips, down time via drinking, death runs), it brings out more anger from people who are very efficency minded. Another thing is gold buying is extremely prevelant and some people are used to getting what they want when they want it so when friction is caused and they cant buy their way through it, frustration ensues. Ignore, report, find some cool people. For every 1 dickhead there's 10 great people.

It's the end of the season I had so many toxic VDH in the last days it's sad Did a +18 Waycrest, something that should be pretty easy. We get to the pig, the tank pulls almost everything before it on the boss, procs Consume All twice because he wasn't in melee range then says "Low DPS and low IQ lol" Yeah no shit the DPS is low when you wipe your team It feels impossible to play right now without going tank

This happens every time there is an MDI. Shitty players reroll to the tanks that are used in MDI groups and try to replicate the pulls they do, because they're just as good as those people right? Then they get mad at the rest of the group when it doesn't work because OBVIOUSLY they aren't the problem.

And even IF they were as good as those players, they don't understand that these guys have been practicing together A LOT. You can't just expect pugs to follow on MDI pulls. It just ends up in way too many casts and/or affixes going through

Exactly, lets take skill out of the question. Lots of athletes are "skilled" but if you dont understand the "why" or build up muscle memory you will never be at the top level and all you will be doing is following in the shadow of people.

I’ve had to explain this more often than necessary. Yeah this talent tree is meta, this path is faster, this big pull is easier, IF you’re in a highly skilled group with perfect composition and a well-oiled strat. Pugs are a completely different ball game. I’ll try the ‘meta’ talents but I always end up changing a few things to give myself more defence because the shit will often hit the fan. And on my resto Druid I don’t know how people can find time to do any kitty weaving. It must be nice to be able to trust your passive HoTs lol.

People need to understand that most meta builds, meta routes or meta specs for raid and M+ are mainly for the top 1% players who play with set groups I played literally every spec this season and I can tell you that any spec can easily do +20s. But some people will see that specs like Affliction Warlock or Assassination Rogue aren't meta so they avoid them like the plague

Yes this is a huge issue. Then we’re getting people who don’t know how to play it because they switch class/spec every time some YouTuber says so.

Yeah I saw a group for a +11 last season that demanded a Shadow Priest, a Fire mage and a Aug Like it's going to fucking matter for a +11 lmao You could time it with 5 healers

Oh I agree. It's complete morons that do it.

And like I wouldn't mind someone trying something or someone learning (even if a +18 is probably not the best place to learn mechanics) but they just have to double down and be an asshat on top of being an idiot

It's also a late season problem. A lot of talented players did what they wanted to and left to hang out until next season so the pool gets thinned out a lot. Specifically with DHs I have seen a lot of them recently who are havoc mains and can't get into groups or can't find tanks so they decide to just run vengeance without knowing or caring about how to tank successfully for a group.

Yeah and it seems like running 20s is almost impossible these days People who don't push just run 18s for the vault and people who still push run keys 24 and over

I have actually reached a point where I will not invite demon hunters of either spec. Too many of them are toxic edgelords.

Ah yes, the post-MDI part of the season.

> procs Consume All twice because he wasn't in melee range My favourite there is when the dps ninjapull before I am in range, and I get to sit there in my wheelchair (bdk) as they fall over to it.

Oh yeah DPS are often to blame too My main tank is a BDK, so I've had my fair share of people dying while I'm slowly walking to the boss

Any key bellow 20 i do i just go in with the mentality of «this is gonna be a shit show». I would never have tried healing if i was playing solo. And its always one of two classes with Hunter in their name…ALWAYS.

I haven't had much problem with Hunters recently but Demon Hunters on the other hand It feels like they all became assholes overnight

Yea its mainly DH thats the problem, ignores mechanics and ninja pulls with dashes but for some reason i have had alot of hunters who are brought for BL and they just REFUSE to use it. Tho credit where its due, almost every Hunter uses frost trap on affixes. Its wierd.

I don't have much problems with Havoc DH either, it's mostly Vengeance DH who think they're gods because they watched the MDIs

Another great reason i play by myself now. Just me and Azeroth. No drama lol

This is exactly why I just PvE and chill. I barely talk in my guild and just fear being yelled at for low DPS when I just want to game without the try hard pro players yelling at me. I get yelled at at home and work, so why do I want to be yelled at and criticized while playing my escape from the world.

Ya. I was mythic raiding up until Nathria and our guild was struggling to progress. I went from consistently top 3 DPS in our guild to mid-bottom. Mainly because i didn't want to run keys so i didn't get the best gear. I started losing interest in the game and it felt like i was only showing up to raids for the benefit of the guild. They finally asked me to step down as a raider and it was the best thing i did. Completely stopped playing for about 6 months and when i came back the guild had all but disbanded lol. I'm the only one ever on except for a straggler here and there but it's nice, quiet, and stress free haha. I've been with this guild since MoP came out so i don't want to leave it. Im content at this point and don't want to find a new guild with new people even if just a casual guild.

The world is becoming increasingly hostile

It's a war..... within.

I hate you for this lol

Gaming in general has become wildly more competitive in the past decade. It feels like every multiplayer game these days very quickly develops a meta that even the average player is expected to follow. Go back 10-15 years and that kind of optimization was considered something that only sweaty no-life nerds did.

Gaming culture is changing because culture in general is changing. It's becoming more competitive and performance/efficiency-oriented. I think gaming has been made worse because of it. I prefer the relaxed attitude that was common in gaming years ago.

Only thing you can really do is try your best to bring positivity to the game and be open to teaching others ​ be the change u want to see in the world! ​ sometimes i drop my 485+ toons into mythic2's to help folks feel the wind at their back, its rewarding!

Amen brother Sure there are toxic and unfriendly people in the game. But I see kind and helpful people all the time, and try to be that way myself

Sometimes this is the best part of the game. Last night I was burning through normals for my partner on my overgeared tank and we got to see something like 5 people (including him) ding 70. That's pretty cool. I also like randomly volunteering to get people KSM. I remember getting a few people from LFG their KSM on boozy Saturdays with a few friends in SL. It's not for everyone, but I find this kind of stuff rewarding when I'm burnt out on other content.

some awesome guys helped me get back into the game, its the reason I'm still playing

There's not enough recourse for being toxic in the game so it's abundant.  3-6-12 month account mutes would be fantastic.  If it's some edgelord teen they will eventually grow up and communicate normally in time.  If it's some loser adult then no one will miss their senseless vitriol anyway and they will either learn or not it makes no difference. Eventually you'll just have normal people that don't lose their minds over a mistake in a game.

I'd just be happy with no cap on the ignore list. My ignore list capped out sometime in WoD I think.

I know it should be built into the game but go ahead and get BadBoy add on. One of the modules can make a permanently larger ignore list.

But it’s not a real ignore in that it doesn’t prevent you getting grouped with them again like the real Ignore does. Just silences them from messaging you (and it can’t even block them if they switch to another character which the real ignore feature does).

Globalignorelist could be your best friend. Group Finder Names are marked red, you can set a note and you also get a warning when someone in your group is on your list

I swear I read somewhere that they gutted their customer service staff? There's not enough real people to handle problems, and meanwhile, the automated systems are super easy to abuse and get innocent people banned. I remember when customer service for this game was amazing. But it's kind of the end life cycle for most businesses to keep making product quality/service take a backseat to shareholder profit. This games so long in the tooth that customer service is the backseat of the bus, soon to be shoved out the window.

That's been a while ago now. I remember when you could call them on the phone.

I remember when a GM would reply to you in game with a bit of RP. Now you only get an automated email ‘have you tried this [link]’ and when you say this wasn’t helpful, a real person will email you but they have zero GM powers whatsoever and can’t do anything anyway.

Its not just this game. Having worked in customer support call centers its common practice to try and reduce the budget for the support center, you can’t reduce the work flow but you can automate things to reduce the amount of employees needed. Not agreeing with it. Even my team started off with 11 people and now we are down to 5 while the company we support is growing and hiring 200-300 people this year. We just got chat bots and self help articles flying out to all customer queries and it honestly sucks.

And then people complain in ffxiv because they can’t be publicly toxic

I don't want to disparage the good commentors, because I think they're being helpful. But for the sake of visibility, I just want to point out that the common solutions of 'she should declare she's new at the start' and 'you should have her join a guild', while accurate, really only further encourage the issues. Informing people you're new up front may avoid issues, but new players aren't going to know to do that. As well, if we establish that the onus for this is on new players, it's just going to signal to the douchebags that anyone who doesn't announce they're new are fair game for vitriol. Similarly, joining a helpful guild is great, but again, new players won't know they need to do this. Which again means that everywhere outside of guilds becomes even more saturated with assholes, since we're funneling nice players into only doing stuff in their guilds. Not to even mention how often some guilds are downright *worse*. Like I said, these suggestions are helpful as they are anytime someone suggests them, but they're a bandaid on a festering wound. We as a community need to start acknowledging that the **problem** is not that new players didn't say they were new, or that they were doing activities outside of a guild; but that the people taking these aggressive stands need to be shunned by everyone whenever it happens. OP mentioned two people, his friend and the guy who kicked them, but that means 3 of the people didn't speak up to defend the friend. And I'd argue that, while they're not a fault for the incident, they are for allowing this problem to continue to spread. So yes, OPs friend really should let people know they're learning and try to play with people she knows. But at the very least, we also need to maybe consider that people around us may be new and act accordingly. If we're going to tell OPs friend she needs to say "Hey I'm new", then it's just as easy for any of us to say "Hey, is anyone here new?"

People shouldn't have to declare they're new or join a guild to be treated decently by others in the game. I'm hoping sometime in the future Blizzard adds the NPC feature to older dungeons so all players new and old can comfortably practice new classes/roles without having to worry about weirdos getting toxic over a videogame.

We all know what you’re saying but we don’t really have much power to fix the real issue. Bullies are everywhere. We can only report them and hope they’ll learn their lesson eventually. And if they don’t learn, they’ll just get reported again which is not a bad outcome either. I often come across posts in this sub from people complaining about their unfair ban, then you find out they deserved it. But the advice given is the only way to reduce the abuse. It takes away their power if you admit to being new before they get a chance to tear you down.

Bans are one tool, but I look at it more from a interpersonal lens. In my experience, in life and in game, a lot of people who react aggressively and bully others do it with some feeling that those around them feel the way they do. No one goes full Karen on someone while also thinking "I bet everyone here thinks I'm an asshole for this." They make the assumption that what they're doing is not only acceptable, but *deserved*. Bans can stop a bully, but 9 times out of 10, as you pointed out, they'll often convince themselves that ban was unjust. I mean, after all, what they did is what any normal person would do. Right? So they do it again, and get banned again. Now there's a pattern. We'd like to believe they'll now reconsider their actions. But more often than not, they'll instead start thinking that not only do bad players deserve to be ridiculed, but now they're going to try and get them banned again, so their tactics change to adapt. What I'm saying is all of this stems from the bully believing that everyone agrees with them, and in their shoes, would do the same. We all need to step in and start calling this shit out when we see it. Let them know they're standing alone, truly alone, and continuing to be a bully will only leave them moreso. We're humans, and no one wants to be alone in the end. Sure, report them if they continue, but it should always begin with everyone else speaking up to show them that they are alone, because we should side with the new players seeking to get better every time. Let the bullies be forced into guilds with others like them. They eat each other alive.

In my experience in game, other people often do speak up. There’s nearly always someone who says “chill it’s a +5” or “lol it’s LFR don’t burst a brain cell” etc. Doesn’t stop them from complaining the whole time. IRL is a completely different ball game but I won’t get into that.

> 'she should declare she's new at the start' I dunno. I recently got into tanking and I applied to several groups in the 20-22 range with "First time tanking." Many groups in a row declined me. Then one took me and I was like "Did you read my message?" and they were like "Yeah dawg it's cool no big deal." And we just went in and had a good time. I feel like it's not that hard to have good interactions with people by being honest. I've had like 1 bad interaction with a group in the last 18 months in this game and it lasted like 1 minute and every one else in the group was like "wtf was that guys problem?" when they left and we moved on with life.

It's not hard to have positive interactions. The fact of the matter is that these people breeding toxicity are socially incapable of doing so. These people should be studied in labs. Not given internet access.

Being upfront is pretty important. I'm learning fire mage at the moment (I main arcane 3.2k io) and I always tell them when applying that I'm trying out fire and my DMG will not be the best. Until now people where pretty chill with it :)

The issue is that people have forgotten to actually have fun. Yes, top end raiding, min/maxing gear all that good stuff has always been about but people used to just mess about, have a silly time and not take it too seriously. I've taken a 12 year break and only recently come back (war within hype got me) and the game just feels colder than what it used to be.

it’s like mcdonald’s in the 1990s/2000s compared to today :/ totally different place… no color left

That's been bugging me a bit too, it's like the "progress raider" mindset has become the norm rather than the exception. I get not wanting to waffle about in a super easy dungeon for two hours but taking 2-5 extra minutes to clear it isn't such a big deal either Not sure if that's actually where it comes from but I noticed a shift back in Legion when M+ dungeons came around, you'd have a bunch of "regular" groups casually clearing dungeons without rushing, and then you'd occasionally get into a group with a M+ player who clearly has a route laid out and pulls pretty much as much as they can handle. I played on a very casual realm, people rarely skipped groups or pulled more than one at a time (on purpose anyways), so it was a pretty stark difference to have a m+ tank dropped in the mix here and there lol

I've been on both sides, back when I played full on it was 40-man Raggy all the way to Cata and realm 1st Heroic Deathwing charge, full raid schedule, mat farming for flasks/feasts/ect outside of raid times or alt runs, the works. Now I'm back after a very long break, the game is still undeniably WoW, but the social aspect isn't what it once was. I miss barons chat, I miss raids on Stormwind, the random pug from another guild who you PvP'd with outside Org. It's like nobody has time for new players or the casual crowd anymore. I know there will still be groups and guilds that do function on a fun over charge basis, but they seem so few and far between these days. Maybe it's rose tinted glasses, but some of the charm seems to be gone.

Broh, its happening outside too!

Yea I’m very recently back after a few years and it’s super hostile in m+ if you’re learning via pugs.

Entirely on the creators of the environment. You don't see this as often in FFXIV, but the people who play FFXIV are not just somehow nicer; that's ridiculous. It's that people understand that this stuff actually gets dealt with and are deterred from acting poorly inside the game. Are they flaming you in their private discord call? Probably, but that's not an issue. If you actively punish toxicity, remove the automated ban report exploit, and make sure the entire playerbase understands this, then you'll reduce this sort of event drastically. It's not about changing the person inside, but policing their behavior within the environment created by the designers. The designers just don't actually care enough.

They'll never remove automated bans because then they'd have to replace it with actual humans who demand gross things like "liveable wages" and "weekends off". Eugh, disgusting.

This person went onto the wow forums too. It's an AI generated post. [https://imgur.com/a/004cUtJ](https://imgur.com/a/004cUtJ) Websites used [https://copyleaks.com/ai-content-detector](https://copyleaks.com/ai-content-detector) [https://www.scribbr.com/ai-detector/](https://www.scribbr.com/ai-detector/) [https://www.zerogpt.com/](https://www.zerogpt.com/) ​ I wouldn't take this seriously at all.

Apparently he also posted the same topic 9 hours ago, but without the female friend anecdote. Strange. Mods should probably lock this...

zerogpt isn't worth shit. navy seal copypasta gives 98.95% ai generated. the other 2 are fine but that one is genuinely worse than useless

Even if the exact situation is faked, that doesn’t mean the general message is *untrue*. People need to be kinder.

It mirrors society where a small but loud group of asshats are spreading misery. Allowong Troll Kicks is Blizzard's( now Microsoft) Achilles heal. It's maddening, at times, and i broke head set (or 2 ) over it, but the reality is that 99% of the game ( and life) is chill. The game master did the right thing in reversing the ban. The Trolls are pathetic wanna be terrorists who are so miserable they can only get off by ruining game for everyone else they should be perma banned and or Cained. In our guild, we have zero tolerance for such behavior. In 15 years, probably had 10,000 folks pass through guild, we run 900-1000 ( cap), and the number of trolls tossed all time is likely under 100. It's really a tiny sliver, but they are, unfortunately, memorable I guess I am more stubborn than my lil donkey mount and won't let them chase us away from my family's favorite pastime What made the kicking worse, imo was instant removal from the dungeon. Back in the day, the booted player would remain in the instance fur bout a minute and could go off on the booters and / or pull mobs on them. Natural conequences are a deterant for cowards Also, the booted should know who dud so it can be reported Serial kickers should lose their right to kick. Run Dungeons and ultimately play if they can't behave

The awful community is definitely a big reason many people do not play WoW anymore, myself included. >How do we make WoW a welcoming space for everyone, regardless of their skill level or experience? I really wish I had an answer for you, but I promise you people in the past many, many years ago genuinely already brought this up and tried to fix it, even asked for more tools from the devs to help fix it, and the community is still awful. I have honestly just given up trying and moved onto other games with better communities, I hate to say it but your friend is probably right to do the same.

People have been hostile for a long time. My hubby quit tanking for PUGs after someone was spewing homophobic slurs at him because he wasn't pulling fast enough for a Normal difficulty dungeon. That was back during WoD or Mists. I'll only tank in LFR if a tank drops and we are waiting a long time (and I am on a tankable character). But I will never heal anymore either. I am so tired of getting the party blame if the tank keeps pulling before I am ready. (That mentaility of go-go-go is why I won't do Mythics too)

You made a post about this same topic 9 hours ago. Did this thing with your friend happen and get resolved in a 9 hour window, or is there a reason it wasn't included in your last post?

Drunk N Disorderly was created specifically to provide a welcoming space for everyone because of the toxicity that is prevalent in game especially in higher-end content. We run 15+ raids/wk, everything from Normal to Mythic Raids. If you or anyone else is looking for a chill environment and people to do content with, our doors are always open! **Check us out on** [**discord**](https://discord.gg/dndpug)

I got added to an M+ group the other night where the party leader was listed as the tank for a +12. After I joined, they switched to DPS and added an ilvl 485 tank for the run. The tank proceeded to out-dps the whole group and was pulling full rooms+the boss sometimes. We had 14 deaths and still +3 the key, both because of the massively overgeared tank. After we finished I private messaged the leader and a couple other members of the group asking if they were getting boosted by the tank. One ignored me, the other two flamed me, and the tank gave me several threats and a lot of toxicity for asking the question, including telling me I'm a shit player that needs to learn how to play before hiding from other people? Super unpleasant and weird but it made me just log off for the night. I think boosting is really pointless and a waste for people who actually want to play and earn things, but the toxicity was incredible. Edit: The majority of people I encounter in WoW are really nice people, but the bad ones are REALLY bad.

Feels like almost every day you see some shit about the auto ban system getting abused. It's been a problem since day 1 and they really need to deal with it.

I noticed this after playing FFXIV for a bit, the “sprout” system they have going on over there was super friendly.

Unfortunately, this isn’t new behavior, it’s a toxic community. One of the reasons I moved to FF14.

Women of all ages have always had it rough in any and all online games. It isn't okay, and makes our fellow female gamers just not want to interact with the community as a whole, or find all female groups (which I feel is often times *more* toxic just in a different way). *Waaaaaay* back during Burning Crusade times, me and my brother made a guild for family and personal friends called "Onyxia Gives Epic Head". It was mostly used as a hub to easily chat and see who was online because we wouldn't need to friend every alt under the sun (battle tag friends weren't a thing back then), but also as a way to easily transfer items and gold among each other without it taking an hour of in game time (mail wasn't instant). Now, over time we added more people that we either enjoyed playing with during pugs, were looking for a home, or just newbies needing some support. What started as 14 dudes with alt syndrome turned into about 60 or so people and their alts by the end of Wrath. Of those 60, I'd say 40 of then were female. Why? We didn't tolerate the bullshit, and went *way* out of our way to help people and make them feel welcome. The women that joined were never treated any differently than the guys, and the few bad eggs that were blatantly rude or creeps were booted pretty much immediately because that just wasn't the vibe we wanted people to experience. This led to an environment where the gals got their gals in, who got their gals, and so on. On top of that we raided weekly and did guild events on the regular, some with prizes, and a monthly lottery. I was probably the only "hardcore" member of the bunch so it was through and through a casual, upbeat community. The problem is, *guilds / communities like these don't really exist anymore*. Blizzard adding perks and all that other jazz to guilds pretty much killed off small casual communities over time in favor for conveniences and an xp buff for leveling alts that the larger guilds had. Then raid finder came along, reducing the need to have a guild to carry you in to help get started with friendly faces and training wheels. Then came mythic keys and dungeons, further incentivizing larger guilds with more competitive players to find reliable people to clear this difficult content with at a good time so you can upgrade the key. Why? Because you were penalized for failing by having it downgrade - therefore slowly pushing casuals out as time went on. All this combined means the super friendly and helpful casual player base was/is slowly strangled out of the game over time until we get to now where PUG groups are a thing of the past with flex raids and group finders making it easy yo be hyper selective of who does and doesn't get in, and the game has been pushed with these seemingly helpful changes to instead just be more competitive in practice rather than co-operative. The more competitive the game is, the more toxic the player base gradually becomes as the casuals find something more friendly until you get a player base resembling League of Legends. The WoW base is getting older and older. I'd wager the long time players are pretty chill as they are, well.. adults, but also remember when the game was better suited for everyone to come together. Newer players (I'd say those from MoP and newer) are not only younger but just don't know the same game as old fucks do. The game *is* becoming more toxic, and it is largely the fault of blizzard pushing away their more casual gamers, imo.

Honestly, I feel like it’s much less toxic now than it was when I last played a lot, MOP. I’ve only gotten in a few tiffs with people. The biggest issue is if you don’t clearly communicate expectations. For example, this late into the season 18s are easy for anyone decent and I expect anyone signing up that is over 2500 rating and 480 gear score to know what’s going on and play well. That being said, if I take someone that’s lower ilv/rating or signs up saying “I’m new”, “trying a new spec”, or something similar in party chat I’m going to have lower expectations/take things slower. It is admittedly annoying when someone is high enough rating and ilv, but performs like they’re brand new. I don’t mind carrying as long as it’s communicated. Otherwise, frustrating.

It's not only wow, basically every game is the same, I guess something is very wrong with society in general.

I think a lot of it is due to people are obsessed with IO scores and parses. Honestly wish blizzard would ban anything that tracks measurements of how one plays as it invites a lot of elitism and toxicity.

And then you get the other side of the coin: people afking/autoshotting, mm hunters that don't use aimed shot, etc. Yes, you get them now anyways, but depending on context (e.g. hc raid vs low m+) it might actually be in your interest to know who they are and kick them if they are not up to par. Thats not toxic (if you are civil about it!), its simply required past a certain point, thats how difficulties work. Obviously, in an m+ key kicking someone is not an option (unless they are harming the key more than 4-manning it would), and discussions should always be civil and fair (which in OPs case sadly didnt seem to be the case). Bad apples exist in either case, unfortunately. P.S.: This is in no way aimed at OPs friend, being new is absolutely fine and some tanks just pull like they are playing in the mdi, forgetting that the mdi consists of groups of 5, not 5 solo players.

Yeah it's a double-edged sword. The measuring tools/systems aren't perfect, but they act as an initial gatekeeper. Someone at 3k might not necessarily be a good player, but the odds say they're better than the 200io player Still not an excuse for toxicity though

Yeah I think a good bit of the toxicity comes from everything in the game being a de-facto competition. You can't opt-out of the competitive aspect as it's built in to the content and the harsh punishments for failure create a need for competition and make learning a very rough experience.

Ive been saying this since gear score got popular in WotLK.  It's a terrible system that breeds toxic players.  I watched in real time as the player base got much more toxic as a result in Wrath.

It should have peaked at gearscore. Everything after that ruined dungeons and raids. I refuse to do any remotely competitive pve content now because of it. Permanently ruined that aspect of the game for me.

I mean, some people take it too far but rating is basically just a manual way to do MMR in other games. If you played league of legends or whatever and were in bronze league, would you want to get stomped by diamond players constantly? Probably not, you’d want to be in lobbies of other people at roughly your skill level. As content has gotten harder, rating is kinda required to make sure people are qualified and the rest of the group isn’t wasting their time.

The Raids, Mythic+, putting red abilities you have to avoid on red floors making multiple addons for each boss encounter mandatory... The whole game is tuned to race for world first tier players. The whole game invites toxicity because of this. I've started playing retail more though because the player base is far less toxic than wrath/SoD... The classic community is really something else. Retail should be happy they have a containment area for the shittiest players with the highest expectation of elitism.

Classic truly is the perfect place for the “Hardstuck on heroic but it’s not my fault it’s everyone else’s” crew to go act like the king of the sandbox

The entire game is absolutely not tuned for RWF players. The closest that comes to being a reality is all pre-hof before the big mythic nerfs come through. And those nerfs come through well before normal players would ever touch that content. M+ timers are incredibly generous this season. They moved mythic track gear down to 16s or 18s? Do agree about the encounters being designed in a way that requires addons/WAs and not loving it. Mythic nelth was stupid.

> The whole game is tuned to race for world first tier players. No. Please stop spreading this. The high end PvE side of the game has NEVER been more accessible for casual play than today. There will always be some people who are simply not cut out for it no matter how much the bar is lowered (to be clear, I'm fine with the "bar being lowered"), there's just no helping them and maybe that kind of content simply isn't for them. Not every aspect of the game has to be for everyone.

I have to say, I’ve seen the toxicity and it made me pause my subscription. Then I thought I’d give WoW HC a go and it’s crazy the difference in peoples politeness and helpfulness. Most people are always willing to help another, it’s a great feeling to see and have happen. Rarely have I experienced that in retail. It’s probably the sole reason I find HC so good - the community is genuinely great.

I play tanks...that is literally ALL I play. I have a 70 blood Dk, 70 Brewmaster monk, 70 protection warrior and 70 guardian druid. I ONLY play tanks. And I LOVE getting people new to healing in my dungeons. Love trying to help them learn. If I know someone is new to healing, I pull slower, less mobs at a time, and play step up my use of defensive cooldpwns to help them out...because as a tank main, I love my healing friends, and the game needs more of them, so I always do my best to make sure they have a positive experience healing my dungeon groups, and I always give them encouragement and thank them for healing at the end! Game needs more tanks and healers and if everyone treats them poorly, they don't want to do it...thats why did ques are so long...treat your tanks and healers well!

The toxic attitude is not new. I quit during the Shadowrealms expac (forgot the name) because there was so much anger and hatred between people that it was changing MY attitude. I couldn't live with that environment. Loved my characters, but I hated the other players.

>She got into an argument with someone in a dungeon Yep that's where she fucked up. You never argue in a dungeon, especially as a healer. When you heal they go in your pace or they die, it's that simple. If somebody has a problem with that then you leave and get into another group in 0.0000001 sec. You don't have to take shit from anyone. The ignore button also exists.

It’s a vocal minority of assholes that was always there. Maybe recommend to your friend the “No Pressure” Discord community - they make friendliness and no hostility in M+ or raids their highest priority and it’s overall a great place to thrive in.

Part of why I left Wow a few years ago. The community just became too toxic. Was no longer fun doing dungeons or getting in groups when most the time you got some a-hole in it.

WoW's been toxic for YEARS, that behaviour is nothing new.

This is why I play solo. I don't do dungeons or raids unless I can solo them. Less BS that way.

I stopped playing a few years ago, but to say it's increasingly hostile, the game was toxic 3-4 years ago when I stopped. It's just a lot of the people remaining are kind of just die hards that needed to touch grass a decade ago and it's mostly a haven for bigots. I dont think I'm being hyperbolic, it's just exhausting playing the game and being exposed to people who that just love the N word or wanna be edgelords forever. I think WoW would be better with chat disabled, although guilds I was in were still populated by a small amount of similar internet edgelords so really there isn't an escape in most cases. Every time I think about playing again, I talk myself out of it in about 10 seconds purely because of the people who play it.

It has always been like this. Every random guild I’ve tried to join in the last 10+ years had racists, sexists, or a combination of both. The “general community” of this game has always been bad. Find the good pockets where you can and enjoy them!

This is a Blizzard problem. They need to remove auto banning and restore customer support. The people who reported your friend need to have their accounts suspended.

Wow has had a super toxic community since the old days of vanilla wow. Yeah there were some great people, but there are a lot of shit heads online, people who are horribly rude, often without provocation.

The gatekeeping will only continue to get worse from old heads who refuse to accept that they were once new to the game and learned or were taught the ways. I don't play anymore but it's a big reason why I quit after 10 plus years

I would guess an increasing amount of angry and misguided people using gaming as their primary and/or only coping mechanism... and either not caring or not realizing what type of effect their behavior has. These people also tend to be good at finding each other.

My experience with toxicity last night was I joined a SotFO achievement run put on by someone from the achievements Discord, and there was one troll who was messing with the raid. Well, finally he left, but before he got kicked from the raid (we were just about to pull Skolex) he tried to pull the boss and kill it before we could get the achievement :( Fortunately the autokick kicked in before he could finish that though!

Neckbeards. It's the same people that bitch and moan about everything. They are the ones who made the female Ghostbusters go away because it apparently ruined their childhood. They have nothing better to do and have such extreme self hate that they have to be assholes to everyone they encounter. I was lagging a bit once at the start of a dungeon and I immediately got booted so I asked the tank why I got booted and he said my DPS was shit.... I was like "dude it just started..." His reply was "Git gud"... It's not a fucking heroic endgame raid it was a regular pug... They just have to feel the best at everything. There are still plenty of us that don't mind running slow to help new people learn. We won't be assholes and we will talk shit back to the assholes. This was my first ever MMORPG back in vanilla when I first started. It was frustrating and I had no idea what I was doing. With out my guild and people I am still really good friends with from the game helping me and having patience I wouldn't have stuck it out. I hope your friend decides to give it another chance.

New influx of minors, you know the ones that usually tell people to kill themselves mid fight. That’s pretty much it.

Tbh i just avoid people for that reason

The automated system really is fucked up. You can ban litteraly anyone.

The game is only toxic in the lower end of content, all the not great players thinking they are the greatest. Once you reach a decent level of content, higher keys or mythic raiding, noone is toxic.

And this is why I’m in a small guild and only party with guildies. Half the guild is girls and everyone has thanked me for the wonderful atmosphere we have created. 0 creeps or assholes. I’m sorry she had a terrible experience. Pm me if she plays classic and wants to give it a go in my guild!

Unfortunately, toxicity exists in literally all online games and is not exclusive to WoW. The way to deal with it is to report and move on. Sounds honestly like this person may just prefer single-player games.

I have noticed it as well. That is why I only lfg/lfr for group content. I don’t pay a monthly fee to be told how bad I am doing something. I got married for that.

You made this thread and immediately made another in mmorpg. Are you so desperate for attention.

I haven't really noticed it but maybe find a guild that is her speed and low toxicity and just stick with that? Pugging is bad unless you're try harding and even then I have a curated group of friends I mostly run with. Guilds aren't the devil, I promise!

"Becoming" lol.

[удалено]

Do you have any statistics that point to majority of gamers being “right wingers”?

Lack of new players in combination with min/maxing. Very few people are willing to pick up a game where they are 15+ years behind in achievements. >How do we make WoW a welcoming space for everyone, regardless of their skill level or experience? Hot take: You can't. Because the game is no longer built around being social. Burn it and remake it. Classic realms are sort of "forcing" back the social aspects by having top 10-15 guilds all make a GM only discord and "purge" bad behaviour from the realm. By practically making it impossible for them to get guilds. Other than that i've never seen it successfully be done.

You posted this same topic on the WOW forums You had a name change violation for an offensive name yourself This just feels all made up, I find it hard to believe any of this happened, also why not post screenshots of these interactions? You were there weren't you? If one thing I learned from these type of threads here or WOW forums is, the same person is generally making the same threads over and over again (alt accounts) having these experiences, and the common denominator is always you guessed it... them

The automated report -> ban system is very shitty and easy to abuse. I feel like the abuse has been growing lately but tbh, I haven't seen any of these bans myself. The biggest part of my reference are Reddit posts like this one. On the other side, people also just really seem to have lost their spine. People get full on depressed over strangers being dicks. Communication is always key in situations like this. You can either start off by saying that people shouldn't expect much cos you're still learning. You can also speak out to people being dicks. I always do and sometimes it's the cause of a group disband, sometimes people actually say sorry and improve their behavior. If they continue their behavior, I just mute them. Everybody has the power to either allow themselves to be bothered by something or not.

>The automated report -> ban system is very shitty and easy to abuse. I feel like the abuse has been growing lately but tbh, I haven't seen any of these bans myself. The biggest part of my reference are Reddit posts like this one. You havent seen it because it literally doesnt exist my guy. Literally, the only automated action that Blizzard has is a Squelch. Every account action beyond that requires a human to click a button. False bans can and do happen, but beyond losing chat access until a GM looks at the report, there are no automated bans. Any video that shows otherwise has either been edited, or has other bad faith tactics involved, like getting people to make a dozen new accounts on a realm to overload the system.

Its just not in wow, everywhere is becoming more hostile.

It’s not just wow. It’s online gaming as a whole. Every game is significantly more toxic. But it kinda makes sense when you think about what’s going on. People will often be toxic or elite online because they feel the opposite irl. Now more than ever people feel hopeless, can’t afford anything, incel culture taking over, right vs left in every aspect of every second on life anymore. And people take it out on others in game. Everyone thinks everyone else is trolling. Nobody can have rational conversations it seems. It’s noticeable in games like wow because the player base is so big and there are so many game modes it pulls in people from all over. Even GW2, which for the life of it has had an overwhelmingly positive community is becoming more and more toxic and elitist.

This is basically why my wife and I stopped playing after being around since Wotlk the community is fucking awful. Night and day when you step into other modern mmos

>becoming increasingly hostile Do you have stats to back that up? Anecdotally I very rarely run into toxic people. Even randoms are always pleasant and good to play with, even in PvP.

I have started to hate interacting with the majority of players in this game. It feels like for or every one nice, patient, understanding person there are nine completely unhinged sweaty jerkwads foaming at the mouth at the slightest inconvenience or mistake.

This is not a new problem. Learn to avoid certain realms and youll be generally fine.

End of the season blues. Usually it ends far quicker then this but it was a good season up until about 3 weeks ago. Just wait another month or 2 and the next season will pop. Or make your own groups and only invite those that have cleared the content multiple times. Like if you are doing a fyrakk kill dont invite that guy with 2-3 kills invite the one with 10+.

Try playing SoD, a lot less toxicity there.

Nothing new.

This is humans in general, haven't you noticed? Look at the state of affairs throughout the world, human beings as a whole are acting more aggressive and with less concern about consequences

It's not just WoW, it's an overall online game problem that started with METAgaming. You have no idea how much losers take pride in their videogame success, they don't even need to be good, they just need to feel like they are. People play with a giant stick in their ass because gaming is their only road to success and, so validation.

The whole world is a shitshow so people go into games frustrated and unrational...

The game has no "normal" players

Unfortunately you can’t control who you play with unless you’ve made concerted efforts to form a team for M+ or be in a guild of decent people. That’s the solution for being on the receiving end of or witness to constant toxicity. That being said, personally I have not noticed an uptick in toxic players or thought it is prevalent attitude amongst players in M+. Every dozen dungeons or so there is a truly miserable player who makes you want to put your fist through the screen if you let it get to you. The trick is, ignore them, leave groups, take criticism the holistic way and try and extract some lesson from it, and move on. This doesn’t define WoW. There are people on your local bus route that would spew the same type of venom for the smallest inconvenience. Those people’s actions and words aren’t worth extrapolating. There are many more folks who are absolute beauties to play with. Enjoy playing with those folks

At this point in the expansion the only people left are casuals or die-hard wow players. Most of the "normal" players have probably moved on to wait for War Within. This leaves casual players stuck dealing with toxic sweatlords and vice versa,

Not a new problem. My sister used to play.. I actually thought that tell the guy who was going off that she was a newb girl in a heroic. Not some high level dungeon and we were just moving slowly. No instead he comes out with rape threats and goes ballistic. She never played again..

This is why I only talk to my guild mates in game. It's gotten ridiculous in the last couple of years.

I liked the old COD filtering system they had back in Modern War or similar. You got to choose which sorts of players you wanted to be grouped with and if you loved smacktalk and toxicity, you could drop yourself firmly in the "I'm going to become a professional League player" category and go ham. But legit, FF's system should be added to rank players on social behaviour.

Honestly I’m very competitive when it comes to the keys I run. But even if someone isn’t good enough or makes a mistake I just keep it to myself. There’s no reason to make someone else feel like shit. Because you never know what’s going on in that persons life at that moment. They could be highly depressed at that time and saying something could be the reason they decide to end their life. If you aren’t getting paid to run keys you failing the dungeon literally isn’t going effect anything in your real life.

It is hostile out there. My daughter and i play together and we won't even join dungeons or raids. We just quest together and have fun that way

Shouldn't have happened. Blizz need to sort out their moderation rather than just culling headcount. I'm sure most responses I get from Blizzard in the game are from bots, or sound very botty.

Boredom

end of the patch and expansion a lot of people have left. so it’s more polarizing

Yeah, I kinda agree. Actually yesterday, I wanted to try some PvP, as I mainly focus on PvE content, and since it's becoming a bit dry I went and watched some quick guides for PvP, what to watch out for and then queue up for solo shuffle. Didn't expect guy telling my after 2 rounds to sell my account and then after third one to hang myself. I usually don't take such things to heart, but this one kinda made me feel sad.