Breakfast Topic: How do you get past bad nights?
by Josh Rose 
Nov 19th 2010 at 8:00AM
No matter what aspect of WoW you prefer, we all have bad nights. Your guild has an off night, wiping endlessly on farm content. You get in a drama-filled PUG and get saved to a raid that doesn't really accomplish much. Your arena team loses most of its matches. You keep getting into BGs with half the other members AFK. We rage, QQ, maybe have an alcoholic beverage, and eventually log off frustrated and unfulfilled. However, with as many subscribers as WoW has, it is clear most of us manage to put that behind us and try again.
I'm not much of a PvPer anymore; mostly, I raid now. Lately, our guild has been struggling a bit. Lots of players are taking time off until Cataclysm. Some of the replacements just aren't as good as the people they are replacing, or they are having trouble adjusting to the way our guild does fights. A couple of weeks ago, we had the worst raid night I have had since Wrath launched, wiping for about two hours on heroic Lady Deathwhisper -- a fight we usually one-shot -- and as the raid wound down, we actually set the encounter to normal just to get past it so we could clear at least through Saurfang before we called it a night. There was finger-pointing, complaining, grumbling, and general poor morale as the night wore on, and I am ashamed to admit I joined in on some of it. As the night ended and I logged off, I was just glad it was over.
So as I logged on for the next raid, I was already dreading what would become of the continuation of the previous night's antics. However, as a guild, we decided to have fun the rest of the week, bust out some achievements for those who'd missed them, and not worry about slamming our heads against heroics -- just clear the raid and make it a short week. It brought morale back up and turned things into a rewarding and relaxing raid week, and we got back on track. So how do you and your guild or friends recover from bad nights?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
MusedMoose Nov 19th 2010 8:04AM
I log out of WoW, put on loud music, and dance around in my living room.
....what?
Elwoods Nov 19th 2010 9:24AM
I cant put on the loud music anymore due to having a 6 month old little girl.
So I just wait till the morning when she wakes up and give me a MASSIVE smile - after that who cares :)
Rakah Nov 19th 2010 9:29AM
By reminding myself of when we've pulled success out of our ass from a long succession of wipes. sometimes wiping just makes me more determined to get the boss down and the perfect example would be LK Hc (i consider halion easier imo).
We wiped the entire night with very little progress, then bam, everything went perfect.
P.S. One of our early LK Hc kills we downed him with no tanks left on the last 2% (12-10 ofc).
Wulfkin Nov 19th 2010 8:05AM
We have a similar approach with our guild. If we've been banging our heads against a wall for a while and there's no improvement, we just chalk it up to bad night and go do something else. Maybe a different boss/raid, or just go have some fun somewhere in Azeroth or just mess around on Mumble.
Then the next raid slot we come back, determined to kill stuff in the face. Rawr!
razion Nov 19th 2010 8:08AM
When all's said and done, I can count on a good night's sleep to get the job done most of the time, however I find Vent is my biggest stress dumper. Listening to friends helps takes my mind off the few bad seeds I encounter in the game (which now that I think about it is a good blessing, I've been fairly fortunate in my day-to-day livelihood in the game to not see many at all).
Aaron Nov 19th 2010 8:09AM
http://www.wowhead.com/item=23584 and lots of it!
Swifteye Nov 19th 2010 8:12AM
My work schedule doesn't allow me to participate in many of our guild's events, so generally when I DO get to go, I'm so happy that my patience for stupid mistakes is much greater than usual.
If, in spite of that, my group manages to suck so hard that I'm STILL grinding my molars at the end of it, I usually jump into a few BGs (or WG if it's time; I prefer that if given a choice) and kick the holy hell outta the other faction to let off some steam.
Usually that goes pretty well, but if I'm even getting sucky BG groups and just getting more and more frustrated because we can't win for anything, I usually say screw it, log off WoW, and head off to my favorite karaoke bar... singing releases stress better than anything for me, and getting smashed doesn't hurt, either (at least until the next morning).
BigBadGooz Nov 19th 2010 8:17AM
Let me introduce you to my friend jack Daniels and his buddy wiser.
slozon3 Nov 19th 2010 9:33AM
his bud wiser not buddy
Texicles Nov 19th 2010 11:44AM
Knob Creek on the rocks has floated me through a few stormy seas.
CDave Nov 19th 2010 12:12PM
Agreed. Alcohol. Copious and copious amounts of alcohol.
Also, on good nights? Alcohol. Copious and copious amounts of alcohol.
Maybe I should get help... from alcohol. Copious and copious amounts of alcohol.
matix Nov 19th 2010 8:23AM
I level alts.
See, in terms of having a bad game nights, I gave up raiding for PVP and still found it frustrating some times despite the 700% increase in fun (premades vs. PUGs... oh yeah, time to log).
So I level alt characters.
Yes, I get the practical benefit of having high-level crafters to make me whatever I need. And I learn how other classes work, which makes me more effective in battling them in PVP. But there's more.
Rather than giving up WOW, I returned the the simpler game experience that let me fall in love with it. I relive memories, try different questing areas, explore, etc. I avoid burnout, sure, but I get a much richer gaming experience.
If that fails, there's always a few beer and "quality time" with significant others. ^_^
Josin Nov 19th 2010 8:21AM
If we're in for a truly abysmal night, we call the raid early and take folks to something old-school for achievements, whether it be Sunwell Plateau, Karazhan or Molten Core. We've rescued some truly horrible nights this way.
No Quarter Nov 19th 2010 8:21AM
Turpster.
Just Turpster.
Krz Nov 19th 2010 8:25AM
Don't have a raiding guild now, but when I did, well, we raided anyway. We raided 6 1/2 days a week and would have raided 7 if it weren't for maintenance. Terrible idea. The guild disintegrated after a mere few months of this.
edgeblade69 Nov 19th 2010 8:26AM
Man this post has epic timing. My guild has been working on normal 10 man LK for a while and like your guild a lot of our members have disappeared until Cata comes out I guess, and we've managed to get him to 40-some % or so. But last night was horrible. Our best pull was like 50-some % or so. I was OTing the adds and for some reason I could not hold threat against our ranged DPS, despite the fact that I had little to no problem with that the previous 2 nights we did the fight. I wasn't doing anything differently, so it leads me to believe they had extra buffs they didn't have the previous nights or changed up their rotation slightly. Or maybe it was just an RNG screwjob and they had more crits than me, shrug.
We're taking a break from it til next week, which was already scheduled anyways, but convenient timing as well.
Jonisjalopy Nov 19th 2010 8:31AM
Copious amounts of alcohol and narcotics :D
Don't look at me like a have a problem...
Nina Katarina Nov 19th 2010 8:32AM
A portal to Stonard will solve an evening of bad 10-man. Kara is just plain fun, especially when half your raid can solo the content.
Chris M Nov 19th 2010 8:46AM
Can't vote this up enough- an evening steamrolling through Karazhan is just plain fun. We went in just last night with an entirely magic-damage raid- the room with the magic immune mana wyrms was hilarious. An evening of ventrilo, liquor, Karazhan, and good friends will take your mind off of anything- literally. From bad loot luck, RNG wipes, to the even more serious- when I lost my mother earlier this year, a guildmate had some family drama- an evening of good fun and good friends takes it all away.
Randy Nov 19th 2010 11:38AM
7 of us steamrolled Kara the other night it was great....it totally made up for last night doing Heroic 10 man Loot Ship (I mean gunship battle).....had it to 5 percent then the worst glitch ever.....Saurfang rocket jumped to OUR SHIP and proceeded to roflstomp us like were Karazhan. The dead silence on vent for 45 seconds followed up with.....Um....WTF just happened? Was epic.