I did plenty of LFD on a World of Warcraft f2p account a long while ago, leveling characters to 20, mostly for the love of outfitting them, transmog and all, roleplay stuff.
LFD (Dungeon Finder) has always been a low point.
Now I got a 7 day promo gametime and decided to check how fast LFD is with full heirloom gear.
So I started at level 15 with my troll resto shaman and had nothing but fun all the way up to level 27 - which indeed went extremely fast.
But here's the thing: When you're the healer, nobody wants to heal. But when you're the tank, everybody wants to tank.
When I started LFD with my level 15 human warrior tank, the first group included three hunters. Any preconception popping up in your mind now is not one. ... They all wanted to tank. One died and asked for res, but the healer couldn't at level 16, so walk-in was required. Well, not my problem. They need to learn.
Then they kept doing their own thing, dissing my role. I decided to kill one mob guarding a chest. Did it all by myself. Had to. The group didn't care about the tank. So the chest contained a belt that I could actually use (since heirlooms don't cover the belt slot). And at least one hunter rolled need. And of course the RNG is ALWAYS in favor of this shit, as it has always been, because Blizzard is too fucking stupid to come up with a roll system that makes sense.
This experience was so much like others before that it felt like a déjà vu.
So that was strike two. I asked to get the belt traded. No response.
At this point, I really wondered: What's the point? So I let them go on and laid back. They kept saying this is easy mode, so it all doesn't matter, and that I have heirlooms anyway. Yeah, obviously I was unnecessary and unwanted in the group, because it was all way too easy to allow everybody to have fun playing their role. So easy that one of them got themselves killed.
After I let them finish the dungeon, one of the hunters managed to put the crown on that self-parody of the hunter stereotype: Said the three hunters are a premade, he was been playing with the others since they were kids, he's training them how to play.
Well, smartass, apparently you fail at that if you can't even teach the basics of group loot rolls before doing LFD. And I told him that and he and his buddies went on the ignore list.
The problem is that this attitude of "this is easy mode anyway" continues all the way up to any arbitrary point. Everything but heroic raids in some cases. It's just the asshat justification for being an asshat.
With them on ignore, I did another try, because I wanted to at least reach level 20. But with LFD, it's like when you get one bad group, don't expect probability to give you a better one afterwards.
The next group I had a warrior and at least one mage who wanted to tank. The same shit as in the last group, with behavior that can best be described as douchebags/jerks. I was good enough to give them short waiting times, but not good enough for a minimum of respect. So I left the group and decided to end my 7 day promo phase there.
I told both groups that it is unwise to piss off the role that is especially rare in LFD and that usually makes groups possible and makes waiting times be much shorter. Not allowing a tank to tank means they don't allow the most crucial player in LFD to have fun and enjoy their role - basically doing their job in the group. I don't play specifically a tank so that I can play damage dealer in a huge mess.
This is one big reason why tanks are so rare in LFD. It shows the relative depravity of the WoW gaming community when the group that's most sought after is being treated like crap.
Rationally, how this could have been not coincidence... I played the tank on Alliance side, the shaman on Horde side. Maybe that, combined with the time window I was playing in, caused these two strikingly different group qualities.
They can change whatever they want in that game. Unless they wisen up (they won't, because money), the players won't change.
THIS negative experience I totally don't resent though. It is very easy for me to cherish the positive experiences I had with my healer. The final reminder of why I quit WoW - to end my promo phase on a bad note - might have been a good thing.
I have no emotional attachment to that game anymore, and that feels very freeing.
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