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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsDrama Mamas: Choosing between raiding and friendships
by Robin Torres 
Feb 6th 2012 at 1:00PM
In the video above, Candace's friends are off having fun without her. Since she is unwilling to find her own fun, she takes a portal to Mars to hang out with strangers -- and breaks into song. There are parallels with this week's letter (except for the song part).
Hi Robin & Lisa,
I'm finally writing in with my own dilemma. Since I started playing this game in mid-Wrath, I've played with my girlfriend and our mutual friend. We have a strong bond and truly enjoy playing together, and GF and I have even met our friend IRL. In Wrath, I led our 10 man raid group, and we loved every minute of ICC. Once the Cataclysm was upon us, we expected to continue raiding. However, things rarely work out as planned, and we missed T11 completely, mostly due to the dissolution of our guild. Eventually I became frustrated with lack of progress and quit the game for a while.
When I came back, GF and friend had joined a very casual guild with little to no interest in raiding. I tried to convince them several times to leave the guild and start raiding again, but they claimed to not have enough time, didn't want to be on a strict raid schedule, and didn't want to lose exalted with guild. I left the guild by myself to try and join a raid team, but felt unmotivated to really follow through without them. After a couple of months I came back to the casual guild and leveled or geared alts in dungeon gear to bide the time and feel as if I had some sort of progression. However, raiding with friends is the most satisfying thing for me in WoW, and when I don't, I feel as though my time spent playing is wasted.
Since 4.3, things have been slightly better. The advent of Raid Finder is a band-aid to my long-festering wound; GF and friend are finally willing to raid again with me, and it has been going well. But for the past three weeks, no less than three strangers per raid have specifically singled me out in raid or in tells, astonished as to why I do so much DPS with such "terrible" Raid Finder gear, and shocked that I don't even raid on normal mode. After the third week of hearing the same thing from completely random people, it really pains me that anyone can see that we should be in a raiding guild. Ultimately, the problem hasn't really gone away
What can I do about the nagging feeling that we should be raiding? Should I separate from my friends, or quit WoW altogether if it's going to continue to be unsatisfying?
Thanks for any advice on this matter,
Stuck Between a Rock and a Saronite Boulder
Drama Mama Lisa: Stuck Between, the issue as I see it isn't tha -- wait a minute .... We've gotten off on the wrong foot here. You're not "Stuck Between." No, Stuck Between A Rock and a Saronite Boulder, the short form of your name is most definitely "Boulder" -- because boulder-headed is exactly what you're being right now.That nagging feeling that you should be raiding? Boulder, my dear, you are raiding right now. You wanted to be with your friends, in a raid, having fun. And you are! That nagging feeling isn't about what you're doing right now at all. It's about your ego.
Think about it: Life was hunky-dory and you were having fun with your friends, until players outside your circle commented on your low-status playstyle. Now you feel as if you're parading about with a neon XXX NELF N00BZ ALL NIGHT LONG CIALIS VIAGRA XXX sign over your head, with the whole realm pointing and snickering behind their hands.
And maybe they are. Does it really matter? What's the goal here? If it's playing with your friends, which is what you claim, then you're exactly where you wanted to be. Accept the compliments on your DPS with good grace and don't get sucked into the status wars.
On the other hand, if you can't let go of wanting to play in a way that your friends simply are no longer interested in, then yes, you're going to have to zip it up and get yourself into a raiding group. Then again, yes, you already tried that. Yes, it wasn't the same without your friends. Yes, this has all brought you back to this very spot.
So what's the thing causing your nagging feeling, both when you tried raiding on your own before and now? What's that subversive little voice whispering in your ear? Once you can roll that little pebble out the door, I have a feeling the rest of the landslide will roll aside and your path will be absolutely smooth and clear.
Drama Mama Robin: I think the solution to your problem is simple: Join a raiding guild and when you aren't raiding, have fun with your friends using the Raid Finder.That makes my answer rather short, though, so let me expound. I think it's really important to stress something that Lisa referred to in her response:
Your friends do not want to participate in progression raiding.
They have made that perfectly clear to you. Everyone should play this game to have fun. If they don't have fun raiding except on easy mode, then that is the only way they should raid. Just like on the playground, if The Spawn wants to play hide and seek and no one else wants to, she can't force her friends to do it. They have to come up with a game they all want to play, and she needs to find friends who like hide and seek as much as she does but at another time. Nagging them repeatedly to play the game that only she wants to play is going to mean loss of playmates for any game.
Furthermore, I'm a bit confused about something. When people compliment you on your raiding skills, how does that translate to all of you needing to be in a raiding guild? Logically speaking, I don't get where the "we" comes from.
If you join a raiding guild on your own and then Raid Finder it with your friends on off nights, I think one of three things will happen:
- You will have a great time, and your friends will be happy that you're not bugging them any more. Everyone will be happy.
- You will have a great time, and your friends will envy your gear and fun level. They'll also appreciate that you've stopped hounding them and will ask to join you. Everyone will be happy.
- You will feel unsatisfied because you can't have your friends and progressively raid with them too. Your friends will feel guilty, and will you continue to try to recruit them. Everyone will be unhappy.
So your action plan is to stop badgering your friends, get into a raiding guild, then schedule Raid Finder nights with your friends on off nights. Good luck!
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with a little help and insight from the Drama Mamas. Play nice ... and when in doubt, ask the Drama Mamas at robin@wowinsider.com. Read Robin's section of this post on how to get your letter answered and please remember that we cannot answer privately.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Drama Mamas
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Robin Torres Feb 6th 2012 4:26PM
My favorite line is "It only took a magic portal to Mars to give me some self worth!"
Phineas and Ferb has enough references that only adults understand to make it okay for us to watch. Of course, I am a parent and have a good excuse.
AudreyR Feb 6th 2012 11:44PM
No one needs an excuse to watch a genuinely entertaining show.
Dareasha Feb 6th 2012 6:31PM
Boyfriend sounds like a control freak. Over the years we had many couples join our "Raiding Guild with family policies" guild. (e.g. No asshats) It was almost always because one half of the couple didn't want to raid and felt our non-required raiding would be more fun (Sorry, no, you don't have to show up, but if you do, you better be able to do the encounters!) The other half would feel that our raiding, slow progression but progression, would be better than nothing.
It never worked.
More often than not, uber half of the couple would go all freakfest, get in an argument with an officer or the guild leader or raid leader and haul their significant other out and go join an uber guild and the non-raider would be miserable.
I watched many couples over the years in this situation gaming.. and always was one a control freak. Chances are, boyfriend is insecure, doesn't want girlfriend out of his watch, and has a habit of controlling her through guilt and is at a loss when it isn't working for him.
Or he could just be selfish as advertised. Either way -- he should go join an uber epeen raiding guild on his own and stop making his lady miserable.
Lipstick Feb 6th 2012 9:39PM
The whole if you join a raiding guild, and do LFR with your friends on the side and everyone will be happy thing, is a total myth.
Hate to say it, but it is. If this guy gets into "serious" raiding... GF and Friend may begin to feel neglected and ignored. Either that, or they may begin to drift away slowly from one another in game as they meet new people and have separate interactions.
Growing in different directions doesn't always have to mean growing apart, but it often does. One of the reasons I've met so many people who wanted to raid more hardcore, but couldn't because of their guild over the years is that many people feel forced to not do what they want to do, in effort to stay close to people they like/enjoy playing with.
In many ways, LFR wont solve the issues caused by merging 10s and 25 lockouts on servers. By merging the lockouts in CONJUNCTION with the guild leveling system, it made it so straying outside of your guild for pugging purposes wasn't attractive, as most players feel like they have to do things with their guild. It makes people even more reluctant then they might have been in the past to pug content, as it wont count for guild achievements on a boss if they have to pug beyond a certain number.
Back in the say, it use to be you could do your "serious" or HM raiding with a guild on 25 .. and then pug a 10m with your friends guild, on normal on the weekends. That option just really isn't there any more unless you've got an alt of similar roll, gear, and skill.
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I am irritated so many people in the comments are calling this guy selfish. It's no more selfish for them to decline to raid with him, than it is for him to want them to raid with him. In both cases one party isn't getting what they want, simply because there are more of them, and less of him doesn't change the fact that as friends, neither party is willing to bend on their wants/needs/desires. He's not selfish, in my eyes merely scared to branch out.
Some people want to raid, but they worry that they'll wind up in a guild where people yell at them for every little mistake they make and are afraid to give it a shot. Others join a guild to raid where they don't know anyone, and for whatever reason they feel too shy to get to know their new guildees or feel as if by making new friends they are in some way being disloyal to their old friends.
It sounds to me like OP would feel safer and happier making the plunge into raiding if he felt he had his friends by his side.
drumwiz86 Feb 6th 2012 10:14PM
Basic rules when it comes to what you want and friends.
1. Go for what you want.
2. If your friends can't or won't handle it maturely, they aren't really worth having as friends.
Tyson Feb 6th 2012 10:41PM
I can completely understand where they are coming from. I raided with friends during wrath and eventually got to 11/12 on heroic 25 man icc and assumed that things would keep going like that during cata. Within a couple months of Cata the guild I was in almost completely fell apart so I joined a new guild with a few IRL friends. I spent months there pretty much doing nothing aside from some random bgs and dungeons.
Then one day I met someone from my server in a bg where we carried are team and got to talking and moved my toons over there where I was able to do rated bgs almost nightly and soon joined the 10 man raid team during FL where we made a lot of progress in a short time.
Then fall semester started and we lost a tank and 2 healers and many great rbg players. After lots of recruiting we recovered and then Star Wars came out and we lost most of the raid team and some more good rbgers. Since then I've only been in an occasional raid that pugs a few spots where I usually outperform everyone in that raid.
What I've come to notice is I don't want to play Star Wars without my RL friends and I don't want to leave my guild as there would likely be no way for me to do rated battlegrounds again if I did. The LFR helped a few weeks but ultimately the experience is shallow. I don't feel excited to kill bosses in there.
I blame most of these issues on the way raid lockouts have worked since Cata was released since I used to raid a 10 and 25 man version of many raids weekly and now have less content to do and can only do it once.
jojo Feb 9th 2012 12:26PM
I don't think you are alone in your boat, as I am with you. I too, have the raiding bug. I know my potential as well as my limits. My friends are great friends, but they are not "raiders". We try to raid as a guild, but we don't get very far. When we pug 3 or 4 spots we get further but they are alts from other raiding guilds in our realm. I am torn between leaving the guild and venturing out on my own or raiding with my friends. Granted when we do down bosses in a guild/pug run it is exciting but being 1/8 DS normal is not that exciting to me anymore. I want more, I want better. I don't want to leave my guild or friends as it would feel as punishment to myself if I did. So for now I chose the lesser of punishments and keep pushing for more kills in guild and pug the rest when I can, but I do know what you mean. When I figure out an answer I will let you know, until then, hang in there with whatever choice you choose.