grouping

Wouldn’t it be nice if this blog was just about one character, and I could discuss the issues facing, say, mages in WoW, I ask myself? I answer myself ‘No, it wouldn’t, necessarily’. There are plenty of fascinating blogs there dealing with a single class in a single game, and written by much more competent players than I. Meanwhile, I don’t see many blogs written by people’s incompetent altaholic, game-tarting parents.

I have three priest characters, so I’m not obsessed. My highest level is in the 70s. She leveled as shadow, then dual specced to holy at 40. I thought I could use shadow for soloing, and holy for dungeon healing. It worked OK, but not as well as I’d hoped. I’m mostly out on my own soloing. The minute I hit a dungeon I have to get used to a new setup. If I wanted to level as a healer, I would have done better to stick to holy and queue for the dungeon finder, over and over.

A day or two ago, I decided to experiment with discipline on one of my other priests. I had tried it for soloing before and it seemed terribly slow. Now it seems much improved. As a shadow priest, I always felt it wasn’t right that healing was sidelined. I’m a priest, you know? My low level discipline priest seems much more of a healer-killer.

I thought I would queue for dungeon finder and give it a try. I explained to the group that I was new to this, and that they’d have to bear with me, giving the opportunity to kick if they didn’t want an inexperienced player. Everything went fine until right at the end. The tank ran ahead and engaged the boss in a different room while I and one of the others were catching up. By the time I’d got round the corner, he was at half health. I healed like mad, but sadly, it wasn’t quite enough to keep him alive. Never mind. I healed the rest of the team and we finished, then I ressed the tank, who blasted me for being a ‘noob’. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘I explained that at the beginning’.

Now, who’s to say who was in the wrong? He would probably argue that I was in the wrong for not keeping up with the tank. I could argue that he was in the wrong for not waiting for the healer. But in the world of Somebody’s Mum, ultimately, he was in the wrong … for being rude. I honestly don’t care whether people I group with play well or not. (And actually, with everybody except me using heirlooms, it’s difficult to fail even if the players aren’t that great). I do care about them being polite. I had explained at the beginning that I wasn’t competent. Perhaps, given that, he could have spent a few seconds waiting for me to catch up at the end, or even doing a ready check (whatever happened to those?). Or he could have acted exactly the same and just said nothing at the end. I wouldn’t have minded. But I did mind him being rude.

Does World of Warcraft bring out the worst in people? I don’t encounter rudeness in real life nearly so often as I encounter it in game. Is that because the fact that it’s online rather than real life encourages rudeness – it’s not like being rude to “real” people, to their face? Is it just that I’m lucky enough to work, live and socialise with fairly polite people, and I have too rosy a view and too high expectations? Still, although the rudeness seems a lot more common than in real life, it’s nowhere near across the board. Out of that group of five running that dungeon, only one was rude, so 20%. Nobody was rude in my next dungeon run, which brings the figure down to 10% rudeness. And so on. Perhaps only 1% of people in WoW are rude, but of course, it’s the rudeness that makes an impact, and not the quiet co-operativeness of the rest of the group.

The trouble is that I have heard people cite the attitude of other players – the rudeness – as a reason for leaving WoW. I don’t blame them. I can remember rude incidents from literally years ago, that have made me lose interest in the game for a while. It’s not a case of stomping off in a huff because people aren’t playing nice. It’s a case of not having the motivation to log in to be insulted – while paying for it.

I’m still here, off and on, paying for the occasional month and happily being rather antisocial. I think that’s because the rudeness ratio actually is quite low – nearer 1% than 50%. I would rather not have an ‘incident’ every few months, but I can maybe cope with that frequency. I can leave the party, use ‘ignore’, go and get a cup of tea, and maybe, now I have this blog, write about it here. And be grateful for the 99% of players who are polite, helpful or just silent :).

Meanwhile, I carried on and did another couple of dungeons. Nobody died, even though we had a hunter with a death wish (who was eventually kicked from the group for incompetency and lack of English. I didn’t vote. As I said, I don’t mind how people play as long as they’re polite. And it added a little extra level of challenge and practice, having to keep the hunter up). So I did OK, although I definitely need more practice to get to grips with discipline. I don’t have any add-ons at the moment and don’t intend to get any, so I’m using the default interface, and haven’t yet worked out if I prefer to use the function keys for targetting and the number keys to cast, or to use the mouse for one or the other or both.

I only play WoW intermittently, so I’m still new to the Dungeon Finder tool. (In fact, maybe everybody’s new to it? I don’t know when it was released). On the surface, it’s a great idea, and it does seem to be working well for me. In this little burst of WoW time, I decided to play with my gnome warrior, giving her a shield, putting her talents in protection, and having her as a tank. There’s no point in being a tank without a group to tank for, and that’s where the dungeon finder comes in. I’m an extremely casual (I play for a month or two every few months, and rarely after 10 o’clock at night), inexperienced (I’m an altaholic, and so I never really get fully to grips with the different classes, and the regular changes), mainly solo player. I have never done any end game content, ever (back in vanilla WoW, my guild raided too late at night for me). I don’t want to jump in and sign up for random dungeons with a level 80 character who has more skills than I can fit on my toolbars. I would be like somebody who has bought a character – coming in new with no idea of what buttons to press and when. Except with really crap gear.

So, I thought, although I had a higher level warrior, and a paladin and a couple of death knights, I’d start a tank from the beginning, and learn to play it properly. I might have gone dwarf, but I already had a gnome warrior who had just finished the starter area and had been sitting in Westfall for months (or possibly over a year. Time flies). I thought, I’ll get my skills one by one and learn each carefully. It will be like the old days, when we edged our way carefully through the dungeons, planning our strategy, and trying to work out how to play our class. I’ll do the Deadmines over and over, until I know exactly what to do and when.

It didn’t work out like that. I have been getting groups. Very easily, in fact. It seems that tanks are in short supply. I’m not sure why. I can understand that people don’t want to level as a tank, if they are soloing, but now, with the dungeon finder, it’s possible to do quite a bit of levelling in the dungeons. Solo questing as a protection specced warrior with a shield is not quite the slow grind I thought it might be – it’s actually rather fun. And there are three possible tanking classes at the lower levels, warrior, paladin and druid (in bear form), as well as the death knight later on. Maybe people just find it more fun to play DPS, even if their class is capable of tanking. Whatever the reason, one of the most satisfying things about the dungeon finder has been that it gets me a group quickly, sometimes instantly. It’s great for people who only have a short time to play.

So what’s wrong with it?

My first complaint isn’t really about the tool itself. It works. It does what it’s supposed to do. But it doesn’t really do what I wanted it to do. There has been no careful strategising. No talking about who’s going to do what. Not even any sharing of healthstones or food and water. There’s no time. I am guessing that instead of playing with a group of new players, I’m almost always playing with a group of alts using the dungeons to level up. There is none of this one pull at a time business, or mana breaks. It’s push, push all the way through, and I’ve come to realise that my job as the tank is to keep it going as quickly as possible. I don’t feel I’m learning much. If I’m grouped with higher level people I’m finding it difficult to keep aggro, but I’m not sure what to do about that. I spend a lot of time chasing after mobs, but possibly for no good reason as people seem able to survive better anyway. Is it worth trying to get aggro off people’s pets and voidwalkers? Is it part of the strategy that they take some of the damage off the tank? Or have their owners just left their taunt skill active by mistake? There’s never really time to discuss. And Somebody’s Mum needs to stop what she’s doing altogether to type, so no chance of chatting as we go along.

I’m not even learning about specific dungeons, as I’d hoped, as levelling seems to be so quick now, and by the next day, the dungeon I’ve just done will have dropped off the bottom of my random list. I’m not getting the slow, careful progression through grouping that I’d hoped for. I can see myself arriving at 80 and still being almost as clueless and inexperienced as I’m now. Except with a lot more buttons to try to fit on my toolbar.

Apart from the drawbacks, it’s a great idea. It’s definitely much easier to get a group for dungeons as a casual player now, and the dungeons go quickly and are almost always successful (if not, it’s easy to queue again), even with lower level players. Once a day there is a reward for a doing a random dungeon (although unfortunately these seem to fit the same slot days in a row, so yet again I have a new set of shoulders. And they’re tailored to the armor class but not the class – I’ve been getting spellpower and intellect rewards). Just be aware that you might be grouping with somebody’s mum rather than an experienced player.

Somebody's Mum

Somebody's mum's adventures in the gaming world

Discipline … and the rudeness ratio

Dungeon finder and the new tank