How toxic is World of Warcraft really?

When people encounter toxicity in WoW it is usually not during leveling. It is during the endgame and in particular during high m+ in my experience. I find most people will be nice towards newcomers in almost any game that you play but when playing at a more advanced level, people expect you to do things well and get annoyed if you drag them down. This is what creates toxicity in my opinion, combined with big egos.

The worst experiences are the ones that stick out the most. I can still remember the two times I have been kicked out of a group in Legion. One time was kinda warranted since it was a really really high key and I was kinda innting on the first pull of the key as an off-meta tank. The other one was in a seat of triumverate heroic where I went in for some quest completion on my shadow priest potato alt. A 3 player pre-made, one other person and me joined. The pre-made overpulled like crazy making for dangerous situations that had no reason to be dangerous. The other person first died, then got voted, which I denied and the votekick failed. After that the other person either dc'd or afk'd (not sure it's been a while) and the next votekick I confirmed. During the next inevitable overpull both myself and the replacement person died. At first they wanted to votekick the replacement person, which I denied. When that failed I was (evidently) voted out. Those kinds of experiences stick with you. The healer in the premade probably only healed his guys and completely ignored everyone else.

M+ can be pretty toxic. Also the most toxic players are in SoD and Cata where some ppl are expecting you to know every pixel since its old content mostly. This is nice video but its at end of expansion when more serious players play something else.

The "how do I leave the dungeon" hits close to home. Coming from Guild Wars 2 where I always had a leave button on the side of my screen or unlimited teleport scrolls to certain hubs (and no automatic queue system, only party finder), it was very confusing to me when I started playing WoW. Took me so many dungeons to finally understand the difference between "leave group" and "leave instance" :D Personally I mostly have good experiences during leveling, except when I tried tanking. In fact, I also had a lot of strangers helping me with my questions. The real toxicity came when trying to navigate instanced endgame content...

This was interesting to see, however as mentioned already most new players won't say anything because they either don't know how to, or on EU servers it's often language barrier issue. I think it also matters which Chromie time you pick.. Burning Crusade dungeons hit a lot harder than other expansions, and mistakes in there can lead to wipes which sometimes lead to toxicity. That being said, these days a toxic leveling dungeon experience is once in a blue moon. M+ is probably the worst offender for toxic behaviour because of the timer and key depletion system. Couple weeks ago I healed a +4 Halls on my overgeared shaman and the tank paladin who's key it was, after the first pull was very noticeably a beginner tank.. he was keyboard turning.. only pulling a few mobs, not using defensives etc. and all 3 DPS dogpiled on him the whole run, I asked them to stop but they threatened to leave the key instead. They were bullying the tank the whole run who never said a single word btw. I whispered them after and told them sorry for this experience and that he did fine (we didn't wipe and timed the key) and to keep learning.. he never answered me back either.. I was kinda hoping that he didn't understand a single word of what happened in there and just live in blissful ignorance.

Normally people just don't share their positive experiences. You mentioned the forums so here's an example: A bigger name there created a bunch of threads, things that made you smile, things that made you frown, etc. Guess what? Smile posts were probably less but they were a massive amount cause people just felt encouraged to share their positive experiences. It fostered a really sweet positive thing that I check almost daily just so I can congratulate them on an achievement or just give them a big ol heart for whatever lovely thing they shared. Surrounding yourself with that positivity actually goes a long way. It did for me at least. Also: Although you played badly on purpose you asked and showed interest. Even if someone got mad that was just humbling for them, making them realise that, yes, you're ''new'' and you're doing your best. I'd say there's a solution to make it better. You can encourage/ask in a friendly way if you see someone who's underperforming. Chances are that people would be very timid or maybe they'd even be punishing themselves because they feel they're failing you. You going out of your way to help rather than be toxic tends to not only help with the dungeon going properly but it encourages the player to keep playing and get better. Who knows, you might even make a lifelong friend out of that without even realising. Just be nice, whether you're a newbie or a veteran. Leveling dungeons can be toxic, although rarely but it has happened enough that each one of us here has had at least 1-2 experiences. In endgame people look at me weirdly because I just stick around no matter how bad it gets. Those can be some of the most memorable or fun experiences and if you're pretty decent and/or if your party's willing to try, you can still finish it and just have a positive experience or just a lot of fun getting a bunch of mechanics you've never seen or fun chats or whatever. That could probably make things less efficient for you but I'd say 10 years from now I'd remember the fact that I had a blast duoing a boss because I knew how to time my shields for both myself and the tank, etc., not that I got Wrathion's trinket from Ny'alotha 5 minutes quicker than I would have otherwise. (Also do you happen to be this Teezah at the start or was that just someone's thread you wanted to showcase? Name seems really familiar for some reason.)

The most toxic parts of the community, the ones that used to attack new players, all moved to Classic. SoD is especially bad right now, expecting you to parse while leveling.

I think the most toxic I've ever dealt with was during MoP timewalking. This group of friends basically cussed at me, called me slurs and threatened to kick me because I refused to vote-kick another player that seemed new. We didn't even make it to the first boss and they became so unhinged over not getting their way. Or another time I was in LFR on Razageth. Most people didn't know mechanics and we kept wiping. LFR hadn't even been unlocked 3 days and this one warlock kept telling us how stupid we were compared to him. Then he died to the exact mechanics he was crying about and he was real quiet after that. Another one that recently happened just last week during MoP remix. I joined a SoO mythic raid where the raid leader, a Blood DK with over 300k threads, invited everyone who was max geared except for this one shaman healer who dungeon boosted himself to 70, still had level 40 gear, 11k threads and not even half his talents picked out. Everything seemed friendly at first, but I just couldn't ignore the shaman. Why was he there when the ilevel requirement to join was 400+? Why isn't he being kicked when he keeps dying to a light breeze? Why isn't anyone else pointing this out? And most of all, why hasn't the DK noticed? The toxic part came in when we weren't dpsing as hard as the DK. Except for the paper shaman and the DK, we were all 100k+ threads. So of course he was dealing more damage. He just had to rub it in our faces. When the shaman died for the 10th time, I asked if he was a carry. I've heard stories of people using other players to carry some scrub without their knowledge, so I had to know. Some rogue said "No, he's just so good he keeps taking aggro." ??? The shaman was never kicked. Ever. We finally made it to Garrosh and kept dying to mechanics. The whole time the DK kept telling us how trash we were and that we should be ashamed. Once we finally killed Garrosh, I immediately put the DK on ignore and bailed.

As others have pointed out, toxic people are mainly in M+, pvp and raiding which are all endgame things. The worst toxicity outside of endgame content is people not responding to whispers

Great video! I just started playing and was kind of nervous about doing something wrong, this encouraged me to communicate more, thanks!

Look, I'm not saying other games being vastly more toxic makes it okay in WoW in any way. But holy crap having creative insult competitions with eastern europeans in DotA voice chat certainly shifted my perspective, I've been active in M+ since Legion and even the worst there is a nice breeze to that lmao.

Way back in vanilla I tried to play my first tank. It didn't go well and I was screamed at and hounded for a long time. I never grouped again. Played all the way from BC through Shadowlands without ever doing a dungeon or raid.

I used to be a very toxic player in my 20s, horrible person. I trolled, i grilled people for not being optimal, i yelled at plauers for underperforming, the works. After maturing and reading books, seeing the world, i have genuine regret for how i treated others online, and have been on a redemption arc since. In the end we are just playing video games and people deserve kindness, not toxicity

Great video and it really makes me wish blizzard would put some effort into the leveling experience rather than having it be a glorified time gate to endgame

The worst toxicity I experienced was during solo shuffle. Other than that, it’s more or less rare -

This was great, so nice to see there are nice people out there willing to help. I think we tend to remember the toxic interactions as they stick out more than the positive ones in our minds but this just shows that the majority of people are actually alright :)

Usually only the M+ Tryhard Cope Kids are the only problem I encounter. They think they are highbreed for completing the 2 mechanic dungeon 3% more harder than before is something to be proud of and they are the Elite players.

I think the closing statement sums up my feelings on it all. I never get impatient with people who are new at the game and are willing/wanting to learn, I do get impatient with people who knowingly don’t understand a mechanic or function of the game and refuse to ask or read chat when advice is offered. It’s a give and take situation, I’m sacrificing my time and energy on trying to herd cats and people who need help refuse it. Be willing to learn and people will be willing to teach!

Honestly I feel like there should be a teaininf scenaruo required to complete before you can queue as a tank or healer. The roles require more game understanding and people queueing one of those roles and not knowing the game is generally how toxic experienced start.

If you play mostly solo there is not so much toxicity but if you play any group content it has quite lot bad apples.