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Random Dungeon - Low level toon booted from the party... in the freak'n Cloak Tower!
rannxeroxx
Member Posts: 168 Arc User
WTF! Random dungeon queue with a low level toon, Cloak Tower, queued with two high level peeps, they just completely leave me behind and I am stuck fighting my way through the mobs the whole way, and when I am almost at the "waiting for your party" door they boot me from the freak'n party!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Devs, is this suppose to be fun?
Devs, is this suppose to be fun?
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My advice at this point, is to seek friends in the game. I know most MMOs tend to be somewhat anti-social. Facebook groups is a great place to start.
I dont know how many times I have queued FBI or MSP only to have 15 minutes each being a total waste as we wait for the vote to abandon option to appear. I no longer enjoy running dungeons for AD as a result. I used to pump money into the game as my small way of helping but honestly once my VIP has run out (22 days) I am mostly likely going to abandon this game as it is just not fun anymore have the dev's force the players to do these.
Note to the devs: If you were concerned about alot of the dungeons being ignored for the standard favourites, the answer is that the other dungeons are dull & boring in comparison so create better ones or improve them rather than forcing us to play those horrible dungeons. Forcing your players into this is killing the game - I dont understand how you never considered what the OP would experience and the number of abandons ridiculously hard dungeons would get.
As for collecting AD, I run 3 to 4 tasks a week per my characters and that is enough for me. However you need to be level 64 to run AR, and 70 to run the Red Wizards. Removing AD from low end dungeons is going to hurt players under level 60.
Personally I'd like to see the voted out feature completely gone from dungeons and skirmishes that require a party, the only exception to that being a player who is disconnected, keeping in mind not everyone connects at the same time. I've seen some players finely connecting with one or more members of the party already a third of the way through the dungeon, sometimes just power running by the opponents leaving others to fight their way through to try to catch up.
A gate at the beginning and possibly half way through where all members of the party must be assembled before proceeding I think would solve the problem of some players just powering through to the end, nicely.
Just a thought.
Some ppl are just rude and go AFK after they joined a que for some reason, others exploit the system and 'return' for a few seconds, so they dont get disconnected and wait for the others to finish the dungeon.
BTW there are so many threads about high lvl players running leveling dungeons PuG, bc the possibility, to run them in private que was just introduced a few month ago. No player with decent gear would go for public que in a leveling dungeons out of laziness. You would lose the time until the que pops and the time waiting for your teammates.
There are always two sides of a story. Running leveling dungeons I kill everything, bc it is still faster, then waiting for a low geared player fighting the surviving trash. On the other hand, running VT and getting insulted by a teammate, bc I did not kill the 3 adds that respawned at the camp fire. 3 of them were AFK for some time and the 3 adds spawned, before they entered the dungeon, he and his two pals were not able to kill 3 adds and I did not return for the 3 adds, but told them, that they might think about gearing up, if they cant handle 3 adds with 3 players.
But the my point remains, dungeons and skirmishes were designed to be run as a party, cooperatively, not as a solo event even if a player has the ability to power through, it should be about team work and the stronger, more experienced player helping the lower level, less experienced player from start to finish.
By the way, you mentioned you "did not return when 3 adds respawned at the camp fire" that pretty much indicates to me that you were well ahead of the other members of your group, not playing as a party member and when the other people in the party were having difficulty, you simply told them to 'get better gear'?
Not the way I tend to think of a DND questing party... Or did I get that wrong?
I doubt there are any simple or complete solutions but as I mentioned staging areas, where all players have to gather before they can proceed to the next area, this should essentially stop anyone from signing on and going AFK until it's over... and it also should stop anyone from running off (too far ahead) leaving everyone else behind.
It should also encourage the more proficient character(s) to stay with and help out the less experienced character(s) so they can all reach the staging areas at about the same time.
Cloak Tower: 1st mini boss needs a door change, 2nd is ok
Cragmire Crypts: 1st mini boss needs a door change, 2nd is ok
Graywolf Den: Both mini bosses are ok
Pirate King: Both mini bosses are ok
Frozen Heart: Both mini bosses are ok
Spellplague Cavern: Both mini bosses are ok
Temple of the Spider: Both mini bosses need a door change
Caverns of Karrundax: Both mini bosses are ok
("ok" means the door is ok, it just needs an assembly point)
Oh, btw, I would also add something else: the RAD reward will only drop if all bosses are dead! That should prevent the BiS-runAsFastAsYouCanFromDoorToDoor-players to skip/run past the boss once they passed the assembly point.
In D&D you are supposed to random pug a group every 10 minutes for a dungeon?
In D&D you will knowingly go into a dungeon you have 0 chance to complete hoping that that session the GMs friend will play too and it will all slide...
In D&D it's the norm to prevent the party going on just because a person is a an afk freeloader ? Or just a sulking hamster that didn't like something so they will stick there without being able to be kicked or anyone else go on?
Is it in D&D spirit that you need to run the same content over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over to get a peridot ? And that's if you are lucky!
This is first and foremost an MMO, coincidentally it's in a known setting which appeals to D&D crowd, but before someone mistake what we are playing here.... we are playing an MMO, not D&D session. Unless D&D stands for Dailies & Dlockboxes (sorry, no lockboxes in D, but you get the idea)
To progress in an MMO, especially in an F2P model you either grind or pay. And it's ok. It's a working model, beneficial to both players and companies.
But again, lets not confuse things here, the MMO whole concept and attraction is the endless progress.
I've linked this before numerous times, and will link again:
That's where MMOs are at their core, once the progress is stopped, players will leave, the game will die. This is why there are events, busywork, modules every 4 months or so.
It's not the scenery to explore, nor marvelous dialogs and story line, the retention in MMOs is "power" progress. All the rest is what will make you choose the MMO for you, the setting, but it's the progress that will keep most of the players playing.
Now why we are even talking about this? Because to progress you need AD, a lot of it, crapton of it, cubic crapton.
And to get it in any meaningful way, you need to grind, grind like:
Remember, no progress -> quitting players. So players will run those dungeons for those measly 10k AD. Because that's the most obvious way to progress.
Don't expect a player on their 500 run to stop and smell the flowers... There are no flowers. No flowers, no cake. Maybe a peridot.
So back to the topic, the majority (Yes, assumption, but please lets agree on this) want to progress, some will pug, they want to run quickly and get their reward. Some will wait you, some will carry you, some will not.
But if you expect a homogeneous in ability party tackling a content, via it's mechanics, trying again and again, them vs the boss. Slowly progressing until the challenge overcome. You are in the wrong queue... That's where guilds and private queues are.
Pug world is do or die, it's the wild wild west of NW, or more like get carried west of NW.
So yes, personally, I wont leave players behind, I'll wait or try to help, but if this wont work, I wont kick but leave instead. I can afford it.
But we warned the devs that this is what will happen
Here for example, you guessed it, preview random queue feedback thread, page 18, let me quote myself: So here we are.
This clash was an expected behavior, forcing either groups, the new players or the farmers with some walls, or thoughts about team work will fail. Instead of 2 groups co-existing, all that it will make, is two increasingly unhappy groups, less patient, and less accommodating. This is basic human behavior and trying to force people into different behaviors is what got the problem in the first place.
When private queue was viable there was less friction, but the devs in their infinite wisdom decided that despite repeated warning and previous posts about high level players in low level dungeons decided to force it upon people. Now even those that used to avoid that issue all together, for example, most people I know if missing 5,4 etc. players for eToS just would run it with less people. But now everyone are 'forced' to RQ...
And it's moot to blame either group of people, definitely not the new players, though some of those will communicate like a rock, and move on purpose even slower. Nor the impatient farmers, that can accommodate more and help.
But there is one main address that..... Yet, from the streams and posts, it's obvious that they are reworking the scaling system, so even high level players gonna be 'half hour' in leveling dungeons very very soon... I guess mod13..
BTW, personally I don't pug, but with the recent RQ I've went for Epic dungeons RQ, got CN, not bad, got a party with some 8k people. I don't know if they RQed or Public Queued, but it was a 0 chance success if I was too 8k.
We finished it in a timely fashion with so much discrepancy in damage, that it was surreal, and not because I'm some great player, or they are bad. It's neither. It's just because the whole system is wrong. No linear progress.. No rewards from dungeons... The matchmaking isn't close to the meta or balance.. And how you put 8k random gear people into CN and think they will succeeded. If it was MSP? FBI? Then what?
On the vote kick issue, last night I ran random epic and got FBI first tank said right away "I'm dps this isn't going to work" then proceeded to just sit at the campfire while the rest of us cleared the first group of giants then left. The next tank that replaced him also refused to participate but wouldn't leave because he didn't want the leaver penalty. He wanted to make someone else kick him or the party vote abandon to avoid the leaver penalty.
We ended up fighting through the giants up to Hati's door but with many long fights with several deaths because we had absolutely no tank to hold aggro. Then vote abandoned at the door without even trying because we had no tank even with a tank in the instance. We probably would have actually finished if the tank was actually at least a decent tank and more importantly if the tank ACTUALLY PARTICIPATED. We had already been through two tanks that wouldn't though.
Sounds good on paper...plays horribly in reality.
I have no problem, doing 90% of the work in VT, CN etc. If you que for a level 70 dungeon and you and your friends are a) AFK, so you have to face the respawn, b) so incredible bad, that 3 of you (DC and 2 DDs) cant kill the smallest trash mob group the whole dungeon can provide (3 trash adds in VT) and c) you begin to insult me in the most colorful way, because I did not tail back on my own, to kill them, you can call me an elitist or a self-centered player, but in my opinion, it was a question of self restrain, to suggest to the other players, to gear up and not answer in kind.
On a side note, one of the other players mixed up my guild tag with the tag of another player and swore, that he would make my guild leader (wrong guild) kick me. I told him, that I am in another guild and he should feel free, to report me to MY guild leader, he kept insulting me and ignored my replies. Fun fact, I did know the guild leader of the (wrong) guild personally and did tell him via TS, that most likely the other player will complain about me, ignoring the fact, that I was not in this guild. He did not even know the guy.
The good news in that regard is that they wouldn't be able to public queue for FBI/MSP or even private queue as the IL req is 11K for public and (I believe) 10K for private.
Your point is valid though.
While there were issues with queue group make up prior to Random Queues, the problems have increased by factors rather than tiny increments since its introduction.
* Private queueing for L70s in leveling dungeons was one way people could speed run without inflicting themselves on <70 characters, and run at their own speed. The new system has not improved this.
* Having a range of Epic dungeons varying in IL req allowed people to pick and choose which dungeons they queued for, based on IL, ability, keys, Dungeoneers quests from cleric, and was a simple way to get the stuff you needed to do, done. The new system has not improved this.
* Allowing people to queue for Skirmishes they either liked, could complete, had Dungeoneers quests from cleric, keys, without an IL gateway, was a simple way to get the stuff you needed to do, done. The new system has not improved this.
* Gating all Epic dungeons behind the IL requirement for the second highest content in the game is going to prove even worse further down the line. Unless no new players start playing... ever. Because when TONG drops into Epic Random Queue and the IL req becomes 12K even more players are going to struggle to get in.
* Lower level Guilds that are mainly built up of lower IL players and don't have many, if any, Guild Boons are already massively behind the curve with helping their members get the required IL to enter end game content than well established guilds. Removing the ability for anyone below 10K to contribute Dungeoneers shards is like that scene in Misery... I believe the technical term is "Hobbling"...
* Some high end players "might" have been concerned when playing Heroes' Accord that if they got a dungeon OTHER than TONG they might not get all their daily cap of Shards of The Brave in one go... The new system HAS improved this, by making sure those pesky FBI and MSP dungeons that no one wants to play get shunted onto the lower IL players and let THEM deal with filling that <font color="orange">HAMSTER up with bodies... so BONUS!!!!
(Where I have written the words "The new system has not improved this" that is actually code for a phrase that would probably earn me a ban if I wrote it instead. And the point about Heroes' Accord being a BONUS... is meant in the spirit of extreme irony...)
I have advocated for geared toons not to get rewards for running leveling dungeons since before random queues and continue to believe that it ruins the experience of new players we all rely on for a healthy game. If the developers only remove the ability for level 70 characters to join the leveling dungeon random queue, they create a hole where fresh-ish 70's can't queue for AD anywhere. That issue would also have to be addressed. (White text = my personal opinion, not an official statement).
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
By going with the lesser experienced, lower geared players you are giving them the benefit of your experience and giving them the opportunity to obtain better gear, so hopefully they won't be such a hindrance and possibly even a benefit to you the next time (if ever) you run that dungeon again. Or perhaps they will be able to pass on the experience and opportunity you gave them to another player.
Some times it is hard for a few people to remember there are real people on the other side of the screen in this game, there will be those who threaten, insult, troll and taunt players just because that is the kind of person they are, but it sounds like you handled it well enough so kudos to you for your restraint in that instance.
This may be a casual game for some, but doing nothing is a little too casual for my understanding of what a game is, especially when you joined a group including other people who's time you intended to waste
When I have Speed Runners charge ahead and leave all the monsters for me, well in those cases I send a message and remind them it will slow them down even more as I die over and over again and have to go back to the last fire place to start over. Sometimes they come back for me, sometimes they don't.
But to be clear, this happened before and after 12b. This is not a new situation caused by the RQs.
In DND no player knows about their chances for success or failure prior to stepping through the portal, all any DND player can do is attempt to prepare adequately, play cooperatively to the best of their ability and hope for the best.
No one is forced to grind the same content "over and over again", people choose to do that in order for them to earn what they need/want to progress to better skills or gear...
Kind of like a person going to work "over and over again", to get a paycheck, to afford that new do-dad they need/want.
In DND your character's skill and ability set depends on a random roll of the dice, notice the word "random", not every character will have the same level or skill or ability when it comes to offense or defense, armor or power, but regardless that is the party and people either find a way to make it work, they win or the lose - or they don't play. Seems pretty simple to me.
The down side of all of this is dungeons tend to be slower and everybody has to do their part instead of one or two people powering through regardless of what the other people in the party are able to do, unarguably a huge change... but the up side is some of the lower level characters who would have never had the opportunity to challenge these dungeons now have the opportunity to go with higher level players with the ability to share their experience giving the lower level players the opportunity to hopefully learn and progress in experience and ability... and isn't that the way it is supposed to be?
Try to produce just about anything... a person may be the greatest novelist in the world, but without someone who might not be able to put a sentence together for a book, but as editor, proofer, publisher and printer, different skills and different levels of expertise they work together and eventually achieve the ultimate goal.
I'm still not a big fan of the ability to just kick someone out of a party, particularly is the only consideration is one player isn't powerful enough or experienced enough to keep up with other members of the party - but I acknowledge that there are some people who will put forth no or little effort and expect others to do the dirty work, so they can glide in and reap the rewards at the end... so again, no easy or simple complete solution comes to mind, but I still think the staging areas idea is worth consideration.
But there is why I wrote that looong part as why progress is the single most important attraction of MMOs without a clear progress path MMOs will die.
That and the social aspect, which is actually indeed in-common with P&P D&D.
If it's not 'your thing' it's totally valid, there are players who login, bash some stuff, and logoff. It's their total right. But on the other hand the F2P as a company earning model is not aiming for them. They are (mostly) not the target audience, nor a majority of the player base. You don't release harder content for players who don't care about it, nor you try to sell P2Progress faster items to them. You sell fashion, which evidently was removed from the Zen store (unfortunately).
2. You are not correct, in a good D&D session there is a DM/GM that responsible to make it a fun expiriance. Either by providing adequate success chances or story driven solution, avoidance, or even a story driven death (and other things that you probably experienced or spend time of thinking how to create). This is not the case in our automated system.
In an automated system the most fun outcome in PvP will be 50/50. In PvE it's mostly a success, or partial success with progress, regardless of time.
It's all about overcoming a challenge, this BTW was excessively studied and still is in the education field. How to formulate questions to students and at what difficulty level, to easy and there is a loss of interest, to hard and people give up. There is a band of difficulty at which the student / player is challenged, but able to progress, overcome that challenge, even if it's a section of a question or a first boss that they couldn't do earlier. This results in good feeling, and self reinforcement, provides positive feedback and insensitive to keep on going to the next challenge.
That band, the not to easy, and not to hard is varied per person.
3. This is not what will happen. As I've said before, slower dungeons will not bring more love and cooperation. Lets compare to a professional situation, lets assume you are a long time worker, and someone brought you an intern, the first time you will put the effort, you will explain, teach, and do your best to help. But then after an hour you get another intern, and you need to do the same, while still doing your job, and then again, patience will vary, but even the most accommodating people will get terse after a hundred or so interns in short time.
And now imagine that instead of eager to learn interns you will get some that don't speak any common language with you. Some that will think that know better because they have played table top D&D 50 years ago. Some will just refuse to follow an example because they want to learn for themselves, though who cares that there are other people there too. Some will just channle their inner keyboard warrior, but the nasty type, and will describe all their fictional encounters with your mother, just for your presumption of offering their infallible ego advice or correction. Some will afk without a word. And some press every single repealing skill they have, just because flying mobs are fun.. Should I go on ? There is a reason why I don't pug....
4. You know what is the first recommendation in any MMO ( at least from what I saw) ? Get into a guild / friends...
Don't think for a second that I condone kicking a person who is just not skilled or geared enough. I'm more than willing to try and let people learn and offer any advice I can, and after 5 years of NWintering sometimes I even can. But those that are willing to listen and learn are usually not there, they will look for similar minded guild / channels / friends, to avoid the the exact downsides of the pug queue. The reasonable people will see by themselves that after some tries there is no improvement. The even more sensible & polite will offer to leave to get replacement, those people doing their best, and I will do my best to help them and not replacing anyone. And they are usually self aware enough to see that the content is not to their level. It's the game design fault for not having linear progress. And instead shuffling everyone to the same mud pit. The excuse of "try in public / private" queues just doesn't work. But anyway, those people are not the average pug. So, no, adding walls will not aid in communication. Or actually it will, like giving a flamethrower to an oily situation, there will be a lot of communication, but none of it actually productive (Unless one consider learning curse words in new languages)
The problem is that it was escalated considerably by the RQ. Considerable amount of players out of whom did dungeons for AD, did it via private and/or public queue eToS x2 and some 2 x eSoT. Now it's no longer the best / viable method for alts, so the same people will run leveling dungeons. And that means an influx of level 70 chars or alts of level 70 players. That only do this for AD.
Some will be polite, some will try to kick, some will wait, some will not, but at the end it's an added friction not only between high level players and low level (which is by itself could have been a good thing in a different setting, like a mentor program) but a conceptually different subgroups of the player base. One group is there for the content, linear progress, leveling and gear, and learning the game, and the other only for AD.
For the first taking the time and learning is the best method, and for the second it's a measurement of AD/hour. It's a conflict that can be spotted miles ahead. And yet instead of a resolution, the design escalating, and it will not be resolved by a better scaling system. It will only add to frustration or high level players will run full premades and then the whole RQ to decrease queue wait time idea will be a bust.
While I have characters for whom the new system will allow to play the content they are geared for, I also have characters over a year old that I have played through most campaigns, geared up in relevant equipment to a pretty high standard who can handle most 8.4K dungeons with a high degree of proficiency who are not yet quite 11K.
Mainly because the guild they are in doesn't throw IL at them like confetti...
Now they are reduced to running leveling dungeons as sub optimal alts.
It's fine for members of L20 guilds who have an (essentially) "accidental" +500 IL from an irrelevant to PVE dungeon PVP Boon, and the bonus of +500IL for having a fast horse or increased XP gain... but there are a LOT of people hovering in the shadows of 11K for whom the ERQ situation HAMSTERS them up the HAMSTER hole... (There, I did it for them...)
It feels like the new ERQ and RQ in general seems to only focus on the current high end players and holding on to them, while regarding new players and potential new players as an irrellevance. The vefry notion that ERQ will expand to include TONG when the next IL gateway drops is ludicrous. No one is buying the "its much easier to get to 11K now" unless one assumes all members of none L20 full specced guilds will soon jump ship and roll into the welcoming arms of those guilds that have lost players to the recent rule changes and are now looking to recruit.
The absolute disregard for anyone of level and IL lower than 10/11K and the guilds they are likely to populate is clear.
Adding an IL req for skirmishes, and then insisting that that IL be met before ANY dungeoneers shards are available to a L70 is just... completely HAMSTER.
But to your point that, they are closely watching behaviour... they should be watching the responses on line. Because I know that many of the people in my alliance are too HAMSTER polite to come here and say what they they really think, and will try their damndest to play the HAMSTER fest of ERQ without complaining, and try to make the best of it.
However they dress it up with forthcoming observations of how the new system appears to be working... the fact that they put the perceived requirements of high end gamers' need to gain a full ration of Seals of The Brave in ONE dungeon run above the general needs of EVERY character between 8.4K and 11K sucks HAMSTER.
However the solution for low level people would be to have separate dungeons base on both rewards and level. For people under 30 the reward would be high XP and gold gain over AD. Players over 50 would get high AD and gold gain over XP. Other MMOs have their players clumped together by level 1-20, 21-40, etc.. This doesn't eliminate a player from running the dungeon they just end up being paired up with other players their own level.
In the end, no matter what developers do, it is up to us players to make the game fun and enjoyable for others. Don't be !@#$ to others and help each other to have fun!