The Queue: Fridays are confusing

Not as confusing as Thursdays, but still pretty confusing.

This is the Queue. Let’s chat.

I think it’s fine to go into an activity with little experience as long as you tell the people you’re playing with. This can actually be a little tough, because exactly as is happening here, a lack of knowledge is stigmatized — everyone is expected to know everything and to be good at everything, and some groups can be hostile to inexperienced players. And so players may not want to admit to not knowing something. But if everyone is on the same page, the group can help an inexperienced player and the group can get through (maybe not as well as if they had a pro, but still get through) and have fun.

So I don’t think an inexperienced player doing a low-key Mythic+ is necessarily bad. Everyone has to learn somewhere.

But that’s clearly not what happened.  You got someone who didn’t know the basics trying to do high-end content without explaining they were new or asking for help — and that’s not okay. Succeeding in group content inherently requires teamwork. Teamwork requires communication. Not explaining their inexperience means the team can’t properly work together, and you’re doomed to a difficult or failed run. Whether accidentally or on purpose, it disrespects the time, preparation, and effort everyone else is putting in. It’s rude, at best.

And if you’re inexperienced, you shouldn’t do a crucial role like tanking, which must be done properly to keep the group going. A DPS character can be lost without it being the end of the run, but an inexperienced tank — who isn’t asking for help — is never going to work out. And either way, if you don’t know the mechanics, you should check it out in a lower level dungeon, or read a guide, or watch a video. Dungeons today can be complicated, and it’s easy to mess things up if you’re inexperienced.

So yes, I think it’s rude. It doesn’t just ruin that one player’s experience, it ruins everyone’s experience. It wastes everyone’s time. It makes everyone have a bad day. It’s rude.

I think the right way for a player who didn’t know the mechanics of a dungeon would have firstly, said something to the group, and secondly, played a DPS spec. And, honestly, if they were just getting into Mythic+ they should have been running a +1 or standard Mythic, at most. There are ways to learn new content without causing a miserable experience for everybody, and this wasn’t it.

A warlock.

They know the ins and outs of negotiating with demons, and are familiar with the twists and turns of demonic contracts. I think that makes them well suited to poking holes in legal documents, and if that doesn’t work they could just steal out the jury’s souls and call it a day.

Do you remember Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 2, episode 12: The Royale? It’s okay, I can fill you in: in this episode, an alien intelligence (maybe) is trying to help a human that crash landed on a planet, but doesn’t know anything about humans, and so created a place for the human to live based off of a bad novel about a casino. The human that started is long dead, but this fake casino is still going. Enter the crew of the Enterprise, who stumble into it and get stuck! There is no way to leave until the story of the novel is completed.

Now, picture this potential Balatro movie. You are trapped in a strange alternate version of the typical casino, created by an entity that does not understand you, or what a casino is, or what poker is, or really what card games are. There is only one game to be played on the casino floor, and it isn’t like any game you know. The dealer keeps mixing new, mismatched cards into the deck, and you can’t figure out how a tarot card fits into a poker hand. You keep trying to escape, but every endless hallway eventually leads back to the casino floor. There are no windows and no clocks which, okay, actually is appropriate to the setting. You aren’t sure how long you’ve been here, and you just want to go home. Sleep in your own bed. Maybe see the sun again. There’s no way out.

So you start playing. You start playing, and the game starts to make sense. You start playing and now you can’t stop. You aren’t sure you want to leave. You would have to stop playing to do that. Where would you even go, anyway? Would they have Balatro there? You aren’t sure how long you’ve been here, but you’ve stopped thinking about it.

(I guess the relation to that Star Trek episode is pretty tenuous.)

That would be logging in every day to see all of the (same) new titles I just earned. (I keep figuring this has to get fixed sometime, but so far no luck.)

Since I’m wearing Reven’s backpack forever, I don’t see the appeal either.

That’s all for today friends. I hope you have a good afternoon and a good weekend to follow. Take care and I’ll see you next week.