Gear Snobs: The New Prejudice
Question: How do you pick the people you group with in MMOs? Or, perhaps more to the point, what are the qualifications for a person to be your teammate or not?
Perhaps you answer on a personal, social level — you group with folks who are your friends or guildies, people you trust from past teamups, people who are generally kind, polite and mature.
Perhaps you answer based on pragmatism — you are willing to group with anyone, regardless of age or spelling errors in their name, as long as they know their class and are competent in running the content and not screwing up.
But perhaps you are part of this new wave whose answer stems from cold, hard stats — you will only group with someone if their gear, statistics and build meet your arbitrary standard for the level of difficulty of the content.
This bothers me. A lot. I’ve seen it mentioned and discussed hither and yonder with more frequency over the past year, especially in relation to World of Warcraft post-Lich King’s release. Players attempt to join a group only to have the team leader aggressively demand to know the level of DPS or healing or gear stats that player can pump out — sometimes cross-checking the armory to verify this — which leads to frequent rejection when that player is not “imba” or “elite” or “quotable” enough. Sure, that player might be a master at their class, but if they don’t have a certain number attached to them, well… it’s kind of like being a shortie trying to get on a rollercoaster, only to be told by heartless gatekeepers that “You must be THIS tall to ride this ride”.
Sure, gear checks are an established part of MMO raiding and whatnot, but I’m talking about 5-mans and other small group content that’s seeing this enforced, and not by the game, but by fellow gamers. It leads to hurt feelings on behalf of the rejected, such as this guy:
“Twice now I have been booted from a group upon invite for being undergeared. Both times I have proceeded to find another group for the instance and tank it just fine. I haven’t attempted to get in on a Naxx pug yet, but I’m sure I’m going to catch plenty of s**t for my gear level there too… I can kind of understand this line of thinking, admittedly- you don’t know whether the guy you’re picking up is going to do 3-digit DPS and stand in fire or play flawlessly, so you try to get people who outgear the instance so if they are bad their gear compensates for it. Of course, just because there can be some logic to it doesn’t make it any less stupid.”
Now, I’m not suggesting that all gamers turn a blind eye to what gear their teammates are wearing, because there is a point where it’s suicide to have someone come along in a high-level dungeon if they’re wearing a hospital gown made of tissue paper for armor. But there’s a growing trend of a lack of patience for puggers that’s caused an extreme intolerance for anyone showing up in gear that’s less than divinely-crafted.
To me, this feels like an extension of a previous prejudice, that based on class, i.e. “The Non-Optimal Group Class Balance”. I know that some combinations of classes will always make runs more smooth, but it’s as if some gamers were downright allergic to trying it any other way with unusual combinations. Maybe this is all just an allergy of challenge, where people want to minimize it at all cost, and thus prejudices are born.
All I know is that this attitude is harmful — not beneficial — to the social nature of MMOs, and adds to some of the nastier legacies that we’re creating for this genre. How long do you think Mr. or Ms. Casual will keep playing at the end game when they continue to butt up against hardliners who care more for numbers than for the people? Or is that the point — to weed out all the weak and keep only the pimply strong?
- Posted in: General ♦ World of Warcraft
I’m a horrible snob when it comes to teaming, I’m not afraid to admit it. But not gear-wise. I’m always more of a skill > gear person. I’ve joined up to instances and raids on freshlly capped alts and done more DPS/HPS/Threat than tricked out epic wielding team-mates who don’t know their class.
Unfortunatly, you don’t know peoples Skill level before grouping if you’ve never grouped with them before.
What I’ve generally found from the last 5 years of MMOing is that if your guild name, or your name, is mis-spelled, or if it’s all Caps, or if it’s AlTeRnAtInG cApS, if you’re in a guild that’s known for it’s high population and ease of entry, if you’re name is that of a pre-existing character (or some Bimli, Legorlas or Arrywin style variant) then you’re more likely to be a hamfisted, keyboard turning ‘I gotta go in 20 mins can we do it in that time?’ tab targeting, aggro grabbing, ‘What is berserker stance?’, immature numpty.
It’s not always the case, and because of that there is the odd time I let my judgment slip if we really really need that class, but 99% of the time I regret it.
As it happens, this is an issue I’ve been covering in my blog for some time now due to the fact that I have the same issue as the guy you quoted there: just dinged 80 for the first time, in inadequate gear to run even the normal 80s instances and really shy in looking for group. Now that I have a bit better gear (cracking the tank minimums for starter raids), I’m still ‘undergeared’ in terms of the PUGs forming in the world: the only way for me to run instances now is to run with guildies in the 5-man daily heroics and hope for the best in PUG’s.
Tanks are the most scrutinized in a group, followed right by healers. A dps performing poorly is usually covered up by two other dps’, creating an illusion that dps works fine.
The further the general population progresses in the content, the higher the ‘starter’ level – gear-wise – will be, and the more intimidated the new players ‘coming to age’ aka hitting level cap will feel because the best available starter gear won’t just cut it.
And as the levelling game has been power levelled, the learning curve of certain mechanics (strife tanking, movement, disrupting etc) will be completely new to them due to the fact that they have never grouped.
The top heavy games will die slowly as the newcomers are shunned away from the content and the old, über-ones quit… save for system reset (kind of Cataclysm…).
C out
The same can be said about achievements. You can have done all of them on your main, but once you are on your alt you have no way to “prove” that you have beaten the encounter.
It’s good for the group in that they get knowledgeable people, but less good in that new players will be rejected from most of their groups.
You can always choose to start groups yourself.
Of course that can lead to different headaches but I got rather tired in WoW of the large numbers of passive players who wanted content but wouldn’t take the initiative.
Most of the people complaining about these arbitrary standards are people who never start groups themselves.
It’s not like the rest of us get paid to entertain them.
This is one reason I play LOTRO more than other MMO’s. It’s very forgiving in class makeup and gear for the majority of the end game instances. Yes, LOTRO does have the artificial “radiance” check, but it’s straight forward for people to really understand, plus there is so much more content out there you only miss out on two raid encounters.
This isn’t a new thing. I remember getting kicked from an Upper Blackrock Spire run because I was under geared. Maybe it’s more common now(I don’t play WoW anymore), but it has been around for a while.
I’ve seen this a LOT during the day, especially mid-morning, on the Hydraxis server Trade chat.
“LF1M DPS for H xxx, will be gear checking”
It’s infuriating to read, but at least they’re being honest…
Some people do take it to far. The real problem is that you can’t detect those other things very well when forming a group of strangers, especially under all the stress of putting together a 25-man group. I have a lot of experience with this. If they have reasonably good grammar and politeness, then the only thing you can check about them beforehand (without risking lies) is their gear and achievements. They are the only cold, hard evidence you have of their ability level. You have no way of knowing how good a player they are. There’s no stat on the armory about how many fires they’ve dodged successfully.
Yes, some people take it to far and don’t take anyone who isn’t massively overgeared. Those people are idiots. But the practice is very reasonable if you use it like I did: don’t invite people in ungemmed and unenchanted gear, or in half blues, to an instance that requires a certain average base gear level.
It’s also related to pulling your weight. Sure, if I do 6000 dps, then bringing someone who does 1800 when we the boss requires a 4k average to beat the enrage will result in victory. But was it fair? No, the 1800 guy got carried on the back of all the previous work the 6k guy did to get to that point.
And that’s another big issue: previous work and preparation put in. If I spent weeks gearing out to a high standard, that makes me geared enough to do X instance. Other people should NOT get to piggyback on my work gearing up and SKIP the gearing up step and go straight to the epics. Do your time in heroics first, or low-level raids, and once you’ve cleared them a few times, maybe you deserve a spot in the higher-end stuff. But it’s obnoxious, selfish, rude, and outright THIEVERY to DEMAND that someone else carry you through a higher-end instance on the back of their effort that you couldn’t bother to put in. It’s immoral.
Again, many people take this too far. There are degrees with this. I object to giving people free rides on my hard work, but I don’t object to bringing someone who has put in the effort to gear up, but isn’t 100% complete. I’m certainly not advocating for the jerks who only want to fill the raid with vastly overgeared people so they can get a free ride themselves.
The best thing you can do is gem and enchant all of your gear. That’s a big indicator that the person in question takes responsibility for themselves and isn’t expecting a free ride. Beyond that, try to at least be geared in nearly-full gear from the previous instance’s level before trying a new one (for instance, don’t think you deserve a spot in an Uld 25 group if you’re in half blues and half ilevel 200 epics from heroics/naxx 10). Once you overcome those two hurdles, then I’m on your side being righteously indignant if someone refuses you a group invite because of gear.
My point is we can’t condemn gear “snobbery” outright. We need more details about the specific situation. And no, saying he “tanked the instance just fine” doesn’t cut it, because we have no idea how much extra stress he put on the healers (were they overgeared, carrying his lower survivability?) or what his gear level was, or what instance he was running. I’d be against it if he was appropriately geared, gemmed, and enchanted for the instance and got rejected because the raid leader was a jerk who expected an overgeared group.
By the way, I did notice that the friend you quoted was only talking about 5-mans, but the same ideas still apply: if he was in mostly level 80 blues with gems and enchants, then his group was being jerks. If he was in level 75 blues and greens with empty gem slots and missing enchants, then he should go buy some crafted tanking pieces and gem/enchant up. Either way, I wish him luck, and hope he doesn’t encounter jerks.
Not much to add. I think your concerns are shared by most human beings.
What makes it worse is that this has been accepted against the will of many players, just so they can play the game. The grind out gear and play the game in a jarring and abrupt fashion so they can attend these instances.
If everyone told them exactly where to go (I have a few colourful suggestions…) then all the stat nazis could hang out and compare decimal places (an extension of respective genitalia as they might have us believe) for hours at instance entrances whilst dozens of “fun time” PUGs wearing standard gear exit saying, “wow, that was excellent! I’ve got another hour on the clock let’s go do the next!”
I’ve never really based a five man on gear in my entire MMO career unless it was so extreme that everyone knew it. I’m not talking “I expect x dps or yhps.” I’m more talking about, “Why are you still in level 35 gear when you’re level 80?” I think that is reasonable.
I’ve always gave someone the benefit of the doubt and tried them out. If they were great they went on the friends list. If they were ok then good. If they were awfully I put them on the black list. Great didn’t always mean gear or skill. If you’re a genuinely nice person and played ok you could be great. If you were hilarious and positive, you could be great. If you had the best gear that was handed down to you by God himself but were a total prick you made the black list.
Sadly this seems to be even more prevalent since they upgraded the badges that drop out of 5-mans. Now it’s not enough for a new 80 to want to run heroics to gear up for raids… no, now in order to PUG you have to be overgeared so that the group can do 10-15 minute speed runs for badges.
That’s why I only run with my guild these days… I have all the gear I need out of heroics/Naxx, but I don’t want to help the random PUG speed-run people get their badges. I’d rather help the new 80′s get gear.
Having lead plenty of raids myself, I can absolutely understand being a gear nazi.
If a person has good gear, it means that there’s some other group of people who manage to do fairly well who let this guy into their raids. It’s sort of an implicit voucher that person isn’t a total shithead. It also says he has run this before, so you don’t have to explain the fight.
Now, a total stranger in pre-Naxx gear shows up wanting in. No one vouches for him. This implies that he is unfamiliar with the content. His competence is questionable. His gear is subpar.
Running a pug is all about getting enough raw power mixed with just enough competence to get through. Taking on charity cases is a great way to have a shitty raid, which pisses everyone off and wastes their time. As a raid leader, I can absolutely understand having strict gear standards. Sure, it screws over competent yet undergeared folks. But it helps ensure some measure of success.
“And that’s another big issue: previous work and preparation put in. If I spent weeks gearing out to a high standard, that makes me geared enough to do X instance. Other people should NOT get to piggyback on my work gearing up and SKIP the gearing up step and go straight to the epics. Do your time in heroics first, or low-level raids, and once you’ve cleared them a few times, maybe you deserve a spot in the higher-end stuff. But it’s obnoxious, selfish, rude, and outright THIEVERY to DEMAND that someone else carry you through a higher-end instance on the back of their effort that you couldn’t bother to put in. It’s immoral.
Again, many people take this too far.”
Wow. Just… Wow.
People take it too far? But you don’t? What, exactly, is farther than calling people obnoxious, selfish, rude, thieving and immoral because they’re attempting content (which the group can apparently be successful at) without meeting your personal standards of investment first?
And Syp wonders why MMO players have such a negative reputation?
Agreeing with Toxic and moxie…
Tthere should be two different types of groups: groups for learning and groups for farming. When I’ve done something 10+ times before I don’t want to have to explain it to someone again, I just want to do it and get it done. And nobody wants to have to run back from a wipe because the new guy didn’t completely understand how the encounter works. So I check your gear achievements to see if you are familiar with the fight.
We’re not saying “you have bad gear you’re bad at the game.” We’re saying, “I’m not interested in teaching anyone how to do this raid when I can find plenty of people who already know. Go and learn on your own time, not mine.”
Overgearing heroics: Same thing, are you there for item drops or are you there for valor tokens? An item drop group is going to take 2-3 times as long as a valor group. So you have to know what kind of group you should be looking for and not get upset if someone thinks you’ll slow them down.
It’s dangerous to assign motives to people, but I suspect this type of behavior is an extension of high school BMOC attitudes. WoW status is clearly defined by gear level, achievements, and to a lesser extent, guild membership. In my own WoW experiences, about half of guilded people took that stuff a little more seriously than was warranted (and that was in a guild for working adults).
This is because WoW, and lots of MMOs, still do a poor job at measuring the power level of a character. For the first part of the game you have Levels as a measuring stick (Which isn’t perfect but usually works well enough) and then when you hit
max level it becomes all about the gear. The power levels between a freshly level capped character and a seasoned veteran is huge. They don’t give you a good way to tell power level at that point but the designers make encounters assuming you will be in Tier X armor or be able to maintain XXXX dps and so on. So you end up with these instances where you think you’re good enough for the group (the right level) but you get kicked because your stats/gear doesn’t cut it.
That being said, don’t be a dick about it. It’s a game. People should be having fun.
I won’t lie. I do mock people rolling around in entirely sub-optimal gear. There’s no reason to be decked out in greens and 78 quest reward blues if you’ve been 80 for more than a few days. Honor is so easy to grind, and heroics are too easy to PuG to not be at least marginally geared.
But then again, that person might be the funniest person I’ve ever met. I knew a guy who, for the last 4 years, refused to give up the inventory space and would never equip a quiver on his hunter. Sigh. He was funny at times, though we had a falling out IRL and don’t speak anymore.
I never refuse to group with someone because of gear; at least, I can’t remember ever having done so. But I won’t say that I don’t boggle at how they’re walking around in such obvious trash.
Though one of my favorite things to do is level a new PvP character, and hit an AV weekend in level 70 or 80 BoE greens and link them to my buddies and then link the new shiny epics I replace them with. Something about that makes me giggle like an 8 year old girl in a pet shop.
You aren’t hardcore, imba, or what have you until you beat every dungeon using just priests.
PFFF, all druid party: feral tank, feral dps, tree , boomkin, boomkin. LOL
I think this is what is driving a lot of the design to solo play. I know I started soloing because of it. A lot of times it simply is work and drudgery to meet others expectations in order to do things in MMO’s. I started choosing solo classes because of it, because I was tired of feeling the need to get specific things not because I wanted them, but because I had to get them to get invites.
FFXI beastmasters were cool that way. With a beastmaster, all you need is a decent charm set, some knowledge, and a few other beastmasters, and you were good. You could even wear full AF if you wanted to otherwise, and most BSTS were relaxed about it, except for the usual forumers who wanted to prove BST was as good as the rest of the jobs in party DD mode. Your pets don’t care much what armor you wear.
@Buhallin
I’m totally in agreement with Hatch here, and I dislike gear nazis as well, however his point is totally valid. This game has a progression to it. It has a degree of work and effort required. Not as much now as it was before, but it’s still there. It’s where the feeling of satisfaction comes from when we finally do achieve something.
Those people who clamor for everything to be handed to them on a plate don’t realize that once they get it they still won’t be happy, since it’s not actually the rewards that give you the fun and good feelings, but the knowledge that you overcame a challenge, whether that challenge was a test of skill or simply to see if you had the wherewithal to stick with the program till you got what you wanted.
Yes, it’s a game, but people who walk into MMOs and want to shortcut their way to the top piss me off for a number of reasons. A soccer player isn’t allowed to pick up the ball and run with it or use his hands on the ball. That’s just the way the game works. Deal with it, or don’t come and play with me, I don’t care how many reasons you have for why you should be allowed to use your hands.
It’s not about snobishness, it’s about attitude. Grouping is about teamwork. The enjoyment of working as a team to accomplish something with every player bringing a part of the whole and doing their job well. People who want to be carried cut the enjoyment from that atmosphere.
Personly I don’t do gear checks and never will. Within reason. If somebody pitches up wearing grey items at a L60 instance or higher… don’t even argue with me about why I’m not taking him along. Hell, I once had a healer pitch up naked to heal saying he disenchanted all his gear.. but it’s ok, he could still do it… Should I take a guy like that along?
I have only two requirements:
1) You’ve done a bit of research, you know what is expected of you OR you have the patience and intelligence to learn.
2) You’re not a douchebag. Don’t brag about your leet DPS, don’t run other players down, don’t swear like a 13 year old who’s mom is out of the room and don’t be inconsiderate by going AFK without warning or for long periods of time without good reason. The usual.
Bonus points if you’re fun to chat with and make the group laugh once in a while.
If you have the above requirements I’m generally willing to bear with you even if you’re a ham-fisted keyboard turner.
Sad that MMOs have stopped being a game for so many people.
Your soccer analogy is completely off. Nobody’s trying to change the rules by showing up in what you consider insufficient gear. You aren’t keeping people from grabbing the ball – you’re refusing to play with anyone who didn’t start playing soccer in a private league when they were 12, because they haven’t put in the time and effort and cost that you have.
Let’s cut to what this is really about: You think you’re better than other players because of your uber gear. YOU put the time into it, and THEY didn’t, and how DARE THEY think they have the right to run the same content you do without paying their dues?
That’s sad enough on its own, but the REALLY pathetic part is how meaningless it is. You can’t tell the difference between someone who knows the game but tends to solo or PUG most of the time, so lacks the gear, and an incompetent who’s been shepherded through content by his helpful guild. You’ll turn away the phenom in the dusty shorts and shoes for the sake of the kid whose mom bought him a shiny Adidas-logo’ed uniform and new ball.
But hey, play the game how you want – but don’t get all huffy the next time someone writes an article about how horrible MMO players are, because you’re the poster child for those stories.
@Buhallin
Did you even read my post or did you just go off on a rant after the first few sentences?
I clearly stated “Personaly I don’t do gear checks and never will.”
I play the game to have fun. I expect other players to have fun, AND I am concerned with the fact that I should make the game fun for others by bringing a team spirit to grouping.
I simply ask that others bring the same team spirit.
How exactly is this making me a horrible MMO player?
The gear check was never the point. However you choose to enforce (or even just promote) the attitude, it’s still “I’m better than you because you haven’t put in the time that I have.” You can’t even conceive of someone showing up undergeared without them being there to mooch off you, ruining your wonderful team attitude.
The last half of your post completely contradicts the first half. You express disgust for anyone who would try and “shortcut their way to the top” and then go on to list your qualifications, which are completely contradictory. If someone shows up trying to get some epics without going through whatever previous dungeons they should have, but are there to have fun, face a challenge (which most players aren’t – they just want their farm), and have team spirit, what then?
But I think we’re done here. If you had enough introspection to acknowledge yourself as the playground bully with the soccer ball, it would have happened long before now. Like I said, just remember it the next time you decide to get huffy over some article about how nasty MMO players are, and maybe that time will be the one.
Damn… and we wonder why our society is a mess of clamoring entitled children who want everything handed to them on a plate without the slightest effort on their part.
I’m done with you, you’re not discussing, you’ve simply made up your mind that I’m the devil incarnate out to ruin everyone else’s fun. Logic has left the building.
For anyone else interested, this blog post very much sums up my attitude towards grouping and in fact life in general.
Go Vonya: http://egotisticalpriest.com/2007/08/entitlement/