The toxicity starting to happen.

[Melichoir]

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Edit: Oh, and before someone tries the "well not everyone is like that" shtick: If all you hear is the vocal minority of your group, then they are your voice. They are your views. They represent you. And I gotta say, that voice comes out as ignorant and toxic to a lot of people, in game and out. Might wanna get to changing that.

No. This is "If you dont decry them, then your guilty with them" argument. It's stupid on its face when given any level of thought or consideration. For example, if you dont even visit the forums and are a raider, if some jerk comes on the forum and claims to speak for all raiders and says something to the effect of "If you dont raid, youre trash", youre suggesting they speak for you when youre not even aware of what theyre saying or that there is even a discussion happening that youre not present?

No one speaks on my behalf, vocal or not, unless I explicitly say so. Much like no one speaks on your behalf unless you say they do. Unless you express your opinion explicitly, then the thing to assume is either you are unaware of the conversation or have no input to give and do not lean any which way.

And how is it toxicity to not want to watch a video or read a guide? Read the normal guide for the game, yeah. But to have to go through diagrams, others play styles, and videos just to have fun and play a game? That's not your call to make. That's not anyone's call to make. An MMO is not locked to only one playstyle that has to be super effecient or the people playing aren't 'doing it right'. It's an MMORPG "RPG" Role Playing Game. Taking on a role. Playing that role how you see fit.

You dont need a guide to read your tooltips, think about skills, or ask questions from fellow players. If youre standing there spamming an AoE on a single target when it is clear by your own tooltips that what you are doing is incredibly damage inefficient, thats on you. And most end game mechanics, like those in seat of sacrifice, youve seen at some point in time in ShB dungeons OR are fairly self explainatory that if you took a hot second to think about the skill and what it does, youd deduce how to resolve it without getting destroyed. And even if you cant, the likely hood that youre doing dungeons in a complete vacuum where there are no veteran players is low. Asking others "Hey what does that symbol mean" and actually taking what they say to heart is still on you.

BTW, most guides arent convoluted messes. Go to Youtube. MTQ or MrHappy go out of their way to explain every fight mechanic they encounter and how to resolve it in some capacity. In Savage, theres more going on so it gets complicated but the guides arent War and Peace in ancient Latin. Theyre pretty straight forward.

It's not about min maxing or hte most efficient rotation. It's about doing your job in a half competent manner. You cant post the RPG argument if youre a SCH and you dont use any healing abilities cause "Well Im role playing a DPS Scholar who just lets their fairy heal". Youre diong your role wrong, and you know it, and its causing issues to your fellow players. Much like if you just press 1 button and never try to do a rotation, and the fight drags on and people die or wipe cause you couldnt be bothered to do even a basic rotation cause "It's not fun! You dont pay my sub!" This is kind of the thinking that generates a lot of friction - that its ok to just not care about playign the game in some capacity cause "Its an RPG, Bro". This is like going to the park to play basketball and a random stranger who asked to join begins running and holding the ball, tackling people, playing the game like football, and saying "Well its just a game man! Im playing basketball the way I want!"

And lets be clear here. Something that has been driving me up the wall about the "I play how I want" argument is that it is incredibly reliant on more competent players to get you through content. Im not saying that you need to know your rotation to a T for max DPS, but if the entire party had the same mindset that they dont need to do even decent rotations, or resolve mechanics properly, then the likely hood of said people even reaching lvl 80 is slim as they wouldnt be able to progress. It is incredibly contingent for some of these fights for a good portion of the group to do the fight properly and resolve mechanics correctly to progress. And yet, some people argue that "they dont have to worry about doing things right" or learn fight mechanics, simply because it at times seems they are being carried through content so what do they care. Let someone else worry about doing it right.

Is that the vast majority of players? No. Of course not. Its a minority of a minority, but it is an argument that is put forward by people who say that' casual content' doesnt require you to know even the basics. And that mindset is only possible when you have people who at least have a basic understanding of the game and mechanics to do it right so you can progress.