On Rampant Negativity in WoW PvP

Let me start by making something very clear. No, I am not simply writing this article to whine about people being mean to me when I enter random battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. Granted, I have had a fair few experiences like that now that I’ve been engaging in what I would consider an almost obscene amount of player-versus-player combat, as I briefly discussed here. I’m writing this article in an effort to call attention to what I see as a problem in the World of Warcraft community that should be addressed soon in some fashion.

I should probably begin by describing exactly what I perceive as the issue at hand here. Allow me to use one of my own personal negative experiences in a random battleground to help illustrate that. As I write this article, I currently have four max-level characters (all on the Alliance so far): a Druid, a Paladin, a Mage, and a Warrior. I’ve participated in enough battlegrounds with my Paladin to where I’ve acquired enough Honor to purchase and mostly upgrade a full set of Shadowlands Season 4 PvP gear for him.

The season-long revival of the Spoils of War buff has helped massively with that, but that’s not entirely relevant. In any case, when I decide to take a break from leveling more classes to 60, I usually switch to doing a few random battlegrounds on any of my other three max-level characters to work on getting them as well-geared as my Paladin currently is. The story I wish to tell concerns an altercation I had while in a battleground with my Mage. On my team, there was a player with what I consider to be a rather offensive name, which I won’t reveal here for obvious reasons.

That player proceeded to tell me off in Instance chat (so that the whole team saw it) for being “under-geared.” They apparently took issue with the fact that I and another player on our team had relatively small pools of health points, which was a sign that we weren’t exactly geared to the teeth and ready to do PvP all day. “Have gear or don’t queue,” they finished by saying, and then abruptly left the battleground. “Good riddance,” I thought after sending a few choice expletives their way.

I’m sure at least one person on our team reported me for that, but that’s fine with me. I think it was called for given the circumstances. In my defense, I was playing as a Mage at the time, as I said. For those who might be unfamiliar with WoW, Mages are the archetypal “glass cannon” class; as such, they aren’t exactly known for their massive health pools and/or ability to absorb tons of incoming damage and stay standing. For the record, we went on to win that battleground rather handily, though I’m certain I had little part to play in that victory because of my minuscule damage output.

I think scenarios like this are problematic because this rampant negativity and what I’ve taken to calling “gear elitism” in PvP environments can easily discourage players who are trying to learn their class more thoroughly and/or improve at fighting other players, both of which apply to me. After all, what’s the point in even doing battlegrounds to get gear if you’re just going to get yelled at for not already having it? If the last part of that line of thinking sounds a bit paradoxical to you, you’re not alone.

I’d like to think I’ve learned to shrug off the words of trolls and jerks for the most part while in PvP encounters, but this particular altercation really got under my skin. Things like this are why I prefer to do most of my PvP before I hit level 60. That’s because I’ve never had a single issue like this at levels below the maximum. You can’t buy PvP gear until you hit level 60, so no one is ultra-geared and everyone has a more equal footing. As I said, I vastly prefer things that way because I’m much less likely to encounter people who do battlegrounds all day, every day.

In case you don’t know, Blizzard introduced what they’re calling a “social contract” as of Patch 9.2.5, to which all players must agree before they’re allowed to start or continue playing. To summarize that contract, I think its two main takeaways are “help your fellow players” and the more general “don’t be a jerk.” The more negative experiences I have in battlegrounds, the more apparent it is that fewer players took the contract to heart than Blizzard would prefer. I can’t say I’m surprised by that.

So, how do I think Blizzard can and should address this problem? I think the answer is rather straightforward. You see, as far as I know, you can only report players while in a battleground for either being inactive (“AFK”) or outright refusing to participate. Blizzard refers to this report category as “Gameplay Sabotage,” which it very well can be depending on the circumstances. In my view, however, this cannot continue to be the only reason for which reports can be sent during battlegrounds and other instanced PvP.

It’s already possible to report players while outside of battlegrounds for things like inappropriate character or guild names and, much more pertinently in this context, abusive text chat. I strongly believe these report categories must be added to battleground environments as soon as possible. I’m convinced this is the primary way (if not the only way) of improving situations and preventing encounters like those that I and countless other players have had to deal with.

The “/ignore” command is nowhere near adequate for this. Just because it prevents you from seeing hostile players’ messages doesn’t mean it prevents them from going on to harass and belittle anyone else. For what it’s worth (which probably isn’t much), I call on Blizzard to take a swift and firm stand on these issues and make battlegrounds more enjoyable for all players.