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mrmellow
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While leveling two characters to 60, I've come across some downright horrible players in this game. And while no game is free of the occasional *bad apples*, this game stands out as having one of the worst MMO communities I've had the (dis)pleasure of playing with.
After starting epic runs on both my CW and GWF, I've had countless people ninja loot (both successfully and unsuccessfully) items they cannot use on their class. Most recently I was running normal Caverns of Karrundax over and over for the epic orb for my CW, only to have every other player in the instance need roll on it (only 1 other CW in the group and he had a better orb). I've seen GWFs need roll epic daggers for TRs. And it's now normal to need roll on enchants/profession items where in other MMOs people simply greed them unless they truly NEED them.
So, ranting aside, Cryptic/PW announced what they are going to do to address not only the ninja looting in this game in the* State of the Game News Article.*
*What can we do as a community to eliminate some of the bad experiences due to players who in seem to go out of their way to make others' experiences in this game bad??*
Edit: I've put what ambisinisterr changed between asterisks (*) to note what s/he added.
Here is a link to another good thread that outlines some problems I'm decrying here: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?177562-Grouping-tools-in-dire-need-of-improvement
Aside from issues while running dungeons, I will say that most of the people I have come across while questing are enjoyable to play with. PvP though...I'm not even going to get started.
After starting epic runs on both my CW and GWF, I've had countless people ninja loot (both successfully and unsuccessfully) items they cannot use on their class. Most recently I was running normal Caverns of Karrundax over and over for the epic orb for my CW, only to have every other player in the instance need roll on it (only 1 other CW in the group and he had a better orb). I've seen GWFs need roll epic daggers for TRs. And it's now normal to need roll on enchants/profession items where in other MMOs people simply greed them unless they truly NEED them.
So, ranting aside, Cryptic/PW announced what they are going to do to address not only the ninja looting in this game in the* State of the Game News Article.*
*What can we do as a community to eliminate some of the bad experiences due to players who in seem to go out of their way to make others' experiences in this game bad??*
Edit: I've put what ambisinisterr changed between asterisks (*) to note what s/he added.
Here is a link to another good thread that outlines some problems I'm decrying here: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?177562-Grouping-tools-in-dire-need-of-improvement
Aside from issues while running dungeons, I will say that most of the people I have come across while questing are enjoyable to play with. PvP though...I'm not even going to get started.
Post edited by mrmellow on
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I am going to give this thread a second chance though. I adjusted the OP a bit with some added information and reworded some lines to set the tone of the thread better. If you don't like the changes feel free to modify it how you feel fit mrmellow2.
I have to set some ground rules, though:
-All Forum Rules Apply
-No Profanity (yes it needs to be mentioned twice)
-No Naming and Shaming
-Keep the discussion Neverwinter Specific
On Topic - Personally I will actually need look at what people roll. If I see a class need an item which isn't for their class I will also need it and give it to the person who actually needs it. It's not ideal but it works and has made me a few good friends within the game.
Remember people are often products of their environment so while there are some bad apples I am sure many of them are just being dragged down by the rest. I know I have been surprised at how respectful players have become if you simply state their actions have bothered me.
With some time I know the community will improve. Launch crowds are, in all honesty, the worst time for any MMO community.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
What im starting to realize is that there is definitely a group that intentionally plays to exploit the game and carry themselves without class or gamesmanship. Almost like a new and in some circles accepted "style" of play. Kinda like a fad maybe. Ive never seen that "style" before and is somewhat bewildering to me. I cant see how its any fun. Though ive resigned myself to the fact that this type of player is certainly alive and well in NW.
1) Go back in time.
2) Prevent Wal-Mart from selling PCs
3) Prevent broadband from reaching every poorly-parented home in the country
4) Stop WoW from being released
Thermonuclear Urban Renewal ?
Maybe there could be some sort of IQ test during the account creation, but if that would be, most of PWE staff might end up loosing their accounts...
@ambinisterr: Seriously dude, you are the 1st Mod I see actually coming forward with editing posts... I usually just end up wondering where the hell another post went. Posts and Threads usually just disappear on this forum o.O +1 to you sir.
Logic dictates that a true moron (say, a 50 IQ) would be childlike and unlikely to be able to figure out exploits and most likely would actually PLAY the game more or less as intended. Meanwhile the 150+ IQ guy is more likely to grow bored with the repetitive combat and seek an easier way to get loots. Therefore an IQ test would retain the smarter cheaters who actually figure out new exploits, and only ban the people that copied their work or worse, who did not exploit at all.....
Ban cheaters is ok, but if anything exploiting is going to correlate to high IQ, not the inverse.
so you would have to ban all the players who "passed" the IQ test but did not know to "fail" it or something nutty like that. Messagebox("sorry you are too smart to play this game"); ....
Well someone with an IQ of 150 likely doesn't waste his time at all on video games. The two that I know of, my boss and another co-worker, both card carrying members of mensa and both with IQ's certified several times over 150 - neither of them play games, neither even really watch any tv. Those type people are off in their own world.
In the USA its just homeless people and convicted sex offenders who can't find anyone that will rent to them.... hang around for another 3 years and probably all of us will be living under bridges and we'll have a Chinese flag flapping in the breeze overhead.
Well, the keep things neverwinter specific is a bit difficult as really there are other games that have done looting right, there's no harm in admitting they eliminated all loot drama in the process. But we all know those games and we know why it was a great idea.
You get so many badly rationalized arguments for keeping things as is, but all it ever leads to is one player having a better time of it than another, with instanced loot you don't have that loot drama but the supply of things can usually increase, causing economic repercussions, but that shouldn't be that strong an argument against it.
Alsternatively clarifying what NEED means as opposed to GREED would inevitably be the best bet, affording less of a chance to supply and demand but still not frustrating some players by keeping them on the "gearing treadmill" for the same amount of time per session. However an issue with this is the paltry loot tables on each of the dungeon bosses, really, there's like 2 items that drop from some of the pre epic ones... that's far too low...
Once loot is removed as a inflammatory aspect of the game.
Rate your party member & reward actually learning to actually play with competence:
After any dungeon run award performance points based on their contribution, and give me a way of giving this player a virtual thumbs up so that he/she can be rated better and can then go on to display that he's a generally positive, friendly member of the community to do a dungeon with and suited for it and allow him/her to be more easily recognized by future players who group with them.
Tie the party leader appointment to this system and have it happen when all players zone in, potentially this can be handled via pure points (performance and social points from suggested systems) or by affording them a bonus to a roll vs those that have enough points from suggested social systems to meet a threshold.
Players that score NEGATIVELY will suffer from possible negative aspects:
lowered chance to leading up to Inability to become a party leader.
Limited chat functionality in dungeon.
Imposed wait times between finishing a dungeon and joining queue a second time.
Reduced loot rolls for greed rolls (or need if loot distribution is still murky)
Or just various other negative aspects, I'm sure you can think of more.
the issue with random grouping can be boiled down to the extra layer of "lost in the crowd" anonymity it provides, with no way of narrowing down or refining how grouping is handled players will just randomly be paired with players of x gearscore but not necessarily x level of intelligence or decency, the worst thing WoW ever did was introduce cross server functional LFG, sure the wait times were low, but chances are you had little to no recourse should they be horribly toxic unless they really overstepped the bounds and were bannable potentially. Offering players ways to greedily grief their way through Random group finder, simply caused an opening wherein players could be toxic and still progress, essentially offering no way for the community of decent players to police and defend themselves, they were and probably still are always on the backfoot vs these people.
The result is toxic encounters become more common, and as this level of selfishness is allowed it also creates a need for the encounters to be "dumbed down" because it's expected that at least one member will selfishly spam through the dungeon without ever stopping to help any other players save for to offer some verbal abuse and ask they be kicked.
Think about that- the game is centered 100% around the auction house- you can get everything through it, and not only that- you cannot get very many things by playing the game- just gear... and even then, it's an excruciating long process, plagued by bugs, wasted time on unfinished dungeons, and of course ninjas.
Make a game revolving around being greedy- well of course the community is going to be unbelievably toxic- there's zero reason to cooperate with anyone who isn't a long term partner, like a guildy.
I am amazed that they could take the D&D world, and a community which has long been centered around cooperation and teamwork- and turn it into one of the most toxic mmorpgs of the decade.
I think you are wrong. I don't watch TV at all though. The scale is steeper than that, its not "several times" as its an exponential scale. The smartest folks barely score over 200, if that. 180 is genius, or used to be (?). Wife and I are both 140-150ish (depends on what test is involved, and exact numbers do not exist for anyone) and we both play this and other MMOs. Everyone needs some sort of entertainment. I know quite a few other gamers who are probably around or above mine, too ... tons of programmers play games and quite a few of them are very smart, for one example. And D&D specifically has always attracted smarter folks (though this game's implementation of D&D is sketchy and I am not sure that applies here, still many here know enough about D&D that apparently the label alone attracted some players).
That is because offline, in the real world, there are laws and punishments. Its exactly the same thing!
Exactly,
I'll add that on the internet, at the opposite of the real life, you have no clear identity, you are anonymous, evading some of the social laws, judgments and punishments from your peer. You can even change name, isn't it convenient enough?
The only thing you can do against people with less morality:
1)Ignore/Blacklist them. In my experience it didn't happened often, but if i catch again that person in my group and i have the lead, i,ll make sure to kick him and replace him just before the last boss.
2)Be honest and a good player, even when confronted to that type of people, this will give you a chance to be included in high-level group of players that will be pleased by your attitude and will always increase the enjoyment inside the game on the long-term to be respected by others players even if it's a small percentage of them, it can always grows bigger.
3)If you can avoid to PUG players it saves lot of trouble. Don't be shy to ask for a group instead of queuing and friendlist people you enjoyed playing with. There's more people sensible to that issue than people profiting from it.
Make a list of what the issues and problems are and keep the list updated as to what is being worked on.
If there are 50 problems, have a list with all 50 on it and a check mark beside the ones that are being worked on. If a problem isn't on the list then it should be considered unknown and players should report it and it should be added to the list within a day.
Basically you could say...stop treating us like mushrooms (keeping us in the dark and feeding us dung).
To improve the community...
Not much we can do now other than keep calm and ride out the beta/launch. People are going to get annoyed and POed with things, so let them vent (I have my fair share of it). But don't feed the flames, nor the trolls. Just avoid trying to argue about it.
The biggest opportunity I see is to support our Foundry authors. I'm a little biased here since that's my only interest in Neverwinter right now. Yet those authors are the ones who are going to be giving everyone quality content during the long dry spells in-between Neverwinter updates. Let's be honest with ourselves: I for one don't expect much of an end-game from Cryptic. It's nice to be optimistic, but I'd rather be practical. Community content from the Foundry is what's going to keep Neverwinter afloat. We need a lot of support from Cryptic in keeping the tools updates and providing more resources (details, NPCs, encounters, etc.) over time.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
agree. personally, I'd spend less time/immerse less if I find the game/community stressful and spend more time on others that I actually enjoy, or to get over my OC-ness and get to end game with less drama--avoid PUGs if I need to group up, organize everything with friends/players I've made runs previously. just file reports on abusive players and keep hitting that pass button because you know it's the right thing to do.
I agree with what you are saying as far as supporting the Foundry authors. Taking the time and engaging yourself into their story makes this game fun and enjoyable when you are bored in ques or waiting for a dungeon delve to pop.
The main problem is that there will always be some people who will abuse the system because they can hide behind a well of anonymity in the online world. For now you just have to make your own list of people to avoid and move on.
There are something to do before hand. Such as.
1) Set the ground rules before hand if everyone doesn't agree/or if loot is extremely important to you then find another group
2) If you as suspicious about your groups members do a lower level dungeon and see what their actions are on loot that doesn't really matter IE Cloak Tower. I was in a group with my brother where we 4 manned Idris because the tank disconnected. After the LONG fight a Control Wizard Neck dropped that was an upgrade for my brother and I (we were both on our CWs) A TR rolled need and beat us both. We tried to mention it but it was irrelevant he was not going to give it back. Found a new group and rolled through Mad Dragon no problem.
3) Do not assume it won't happen to you. It will eventually. While the community is full of people who like playing a game for playing a game and are not "super greedy I NEEDS ALL THE ASTRAL DIAMONDSZZ!!!!!" kind of people there are some out there who will do what they will to get their way. If we stop grouping with them then they will go away.
4) If you are SUPER CONCERNED about getting that sweet item you need find people you trust in guild or RL friends to play with.
I know these ideas have been states many times. I feel that if we perform some of these actions and focus on our efforts to make the game a good community that these other issues will dissolve over time. As the community moderator said Openings for MMOs are the worst. The community will get better after the initial failure and that awkward growing period the game will have.
If you are upset about a ninja looter, then take the time to imurse yourself in a foundry quest or two and enjoy the story that someone has taken time to put together FOR YOU!!! You can bash some monsters heads in there and have fun.
Last night there were only 3 of my regular group online so we pugged 2 spots. We got a rogue and a CW. At one point a purple dagger dropped and the rogue greeded and lost, to one of my guildies. The rogue said, "Drat! I meant to roll Need on that. Oh well." so I asked in TS if the CW who won it minded giving it to him, he said, basically, "What? Huh? I won something? Oh! A dagger, course I don't mind." and as he was initiating the trade, I typed, "Well lucky for you that we're nice then."
The rogue was happy and even mentioned at the end that this had been his very first elite dungeon run.
There are nice people playing MMOs, they usually just keep to themselves and stick with their own guilds because they don't like conflict and they don't like being harassed. I think this funnels the worst of the lot into PuGs, and makes it more statistically likely to run into a bad player. It's sad but just one of those things.
I suggest joining a guild. Try one out, if it's not to your tastes, leave and move to another.
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It has nothing to do with religion (and there was no ad hom in my post- pointing out actual practice), rather micromanaging the way people behave in general. People complaining because others aren't playing the way they want reminded me of my neighbors acting pompous and pious because we let our kids go Trick or Treating. Loot bickering and the drama surrounding it seems to be self-inflicted more than anything. If everyone rolls Need, everyone has an equal random chance right? I don't really care enough about the loot system and mostly play the Foundry, but would rather not have to deal with this kind of thing in a game and an outlet that I usually use to escape this very type of thing.
Mandatory shock therapy.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Not really, no. In fact, I would probably prefer either BoP (which wouldn't be profitable for PW/Cryptic) or FFA. I think it was the way this topic was worded with all the morality and behavior policing that brought out my father instincts and grumpy old man attitude.
And while I appreciate the job the Community Mods do, I have to say (as another user mentioned) keeping the topic to Neverwinter only, when other games offer solutions and ideas to address these issues, it seems only rational to discuss them. As far as naming and shaming goes, I would be all for each server to have a thread updated and maintained by the community with a list of people who abuse the system to be blacklisted (so long as evidence such as screenshots are submitted). It might sound like McCarthyism, but it worked for my server on WoW back in the day, it could work here if utilized properly.
Finally, changing the "tone" of the thread seems a bit overdone. Erasing legitimate posts that offered real solutions to these problems along with others that served no purpose is overstepping it. I won't edit what the Comm Mod changed, but I will say I don't appreciate my words being changed nor the title of the post being changed, as it was a reflection of how I, a player and possible paying customer of this game, feels about his fellow gamers.
Funnily enough, I spent a lot of time on the EU forums of wow suggesting that the queue LFD/LFR queues simply be split in two, and your preferred looting practice (free for all or need over greed) determine who you were paired with as a filter of sorts. So the funny part is all morality and ethics aside, catering to everyone is as usual the best policy. Choice is always the ideal answer then.