I’m sure most (if not everyone) on these boards who play online games have come across a particularily infuriating player, so as I don’t think my story will carry a whole thread feel free to post your own experiences.
I play City of Heroes. I recently teamed up with quite possibly the worst player ever.
I play a “defender” - a healer. I am the person on a team who heals and brings back from the dead (“res’ing”) the rest of the team, should it be needed. As such, I generally stay back and use ranged attacks on enemies, since if I die often no-one’s there to res me.
This other player, mighty avenger, is a “blaster”. As the name suggests, this type of character is one with a low amount of hitpoints but can do a lot of damage at range. At range.
Non-stupid player: “Hmm. This means i’d better stay away from the enemy and just blast away at them.”
mighty avenger: “Hmm. The best thing for me to do is charge directly at the enemy and fire off a few shots right in the middle of them, attracting all their attention onto me, and then retreat to a range distance, resulting in the whole group of enemies running after me and slapbang into the sane other blasters and defender.”
This strategy, surprisingly enough, resulted in mighty avenger being killed a lot (as well as a lot of hassle for the rest of us). After dealing with the rest of the enemies (with none of the other team members getting themselves killed, since they weren’t idiots), I would res him.
Non-stupid player: “Hmm. My strategy is getting me killed much more than everyone else. Perhaps my strategy isn’t as good as the other blasters; it might be better just to ape how they play.”
mighty avenger: “Hmm. My strategy is getting me killed much more than everyone else. Clearly this is the fault of the defender, who isn’t healing me when I need it, despite that i’m gaining much more damage than the defender can heal by making 6-7 enemies stand around me hitting me with bats instead of letting those who can take that much damage go first. I’d better verbally abuse the defender; that’s the solution!”
In case it’s not obvious; Gah!