Stupid Online Gamers Ranting

[Lightnin]

My monk/warrior in Guild Wars, Ksai Ninewinds, is primarily a healer. This makes him very popular for groups.

In a pickup group a while back, we picked up a warrior dude. This guy was ALL OVER the map, forcing me to constantly run back and forth between him and the rest of the group- and once he’d picked up another group of enemies, he’d come running back to the group, screaming for help. In between fights, he’d berate everyone else for doing, you know, the mission, instead of what he wanted to do. Finally, I’d had enough.

I told him, “You’re being a jerk, and you’re constantly running off from the rest of the group and getting us killed. Do it one more time, and you don’t get any more healing.”

Yep, he did it again, the very next fight. “Right. NO HEAL FOR YOU!”

After dying five or six (!) more times (I’d give him a rez, just to see how long he’d go), he finally logged off.
Another thing that pisses me off is when I join a pickup group and I find that I’m the only one who can rez- nobody else is bothering to carry their resurrection signet. When I ask them to bring the signets, they say, “Don’t you have rez?”

Well, yes. But what if I die?

Several times, they’ve said they’ve got the signet… but then, when I die, it turns out that they lied and didn’t actually bring it.

Jerks.

[Ferret_Herder]

@Seren

WoW priest here. I know exactly what you mean. Stupid mages taking aggro all the damn time. Seriously, if you’re not a druid in bear form, a warrior, or a paladin, you’d better not tease the mobs till they attack you.

Hey, do you play a troll priest on Sen’Jin with a name that starts with Seren? If so, hey, I’ve seen you around. My husband plays a troll hunter by the name of Ishidu (typically running around with his uniquely named boar pet, Piggy), and I know he’s done some bow/worshipful emotes to that character previously. I’m typically playing a troll priest named Suweerti but have an extreme case of alt-itis as well.

I was a little worried about playing MMORPGs with my husband when he first started, since he was new and I’d been playing for years, but he picked up the whole “squishy characters should avoid aggro,” “don’t overstress the healer,” and all that immediately. Then again, he’s an intelligent person who actually thinks about other people, and I typically assume the bad gamers violate both of those characteristics. After years of playing EQ, DAoC, EQ again, CoH/CoV, and now WoW, I’m gunshy to the point that I usually hate grouping with people I don’t already know from other games.

[Weirddave]

Roland Orzabal, my main is a 60 mage I agree with most of what you said with one exception. I also have a 49 priest who is shadow speced because I solo with him a lot, and if I’m in a party with a warlock, assuming everyone is doing ok on health at the moment, I always try to hit the mob ith a couple small shadow spells because Shadow Weaving (which stacks up to 5 times) make Mr. Warlock do a LOT more damange to the poor mob.

[Seren]

@Ferret Herder

Hey, do you play a troll priest on Sen’Jin with a name that starts with Seren? If so, hey, I’ve seen you around. My husband plays a troll hunter by the name of Ishidu (typically running around with his uniquely named boar pet, Piggy), and I know he’s done some bow/worshipful emotes to that character previously. I’m typically playing a troll priest named Suweerti but have an extreme case of alt-itis as well.

I was a little worried about playing MMORPGs with my husband when he first started, since he was new and I’d been playing for years, but he picked up the whole “squishy characters should avoid aggro,” “don’t overstress the healer,” and all that immediately. Then again, he’s an intelligent person who actually thinks about other people, and I typically assume the bad gamers violate both of those characteristics. After years of playing EQ, DAoC, EQ again, CoH/CoV, and now WoW, I’m gunshy to the point that I usually hate grouping with people I don’t already know from other games.

Nope. I’m on Durotar with an undead priest whose name has nothing to do with Seren, because someone on my server beat me to it.

And I’m the same as you when it comes to grouping. Everyone in my guild I know in real life and I try to only party with the ones that don’t frustrate me. I haven’t partied with strangers since way back in FFXI. That was enough frustration to last a lifetime.

[Burrido]

Learn2Play noob.

No seriously I understand. In EQ, players were so much smarter. In WoW, they are complete idiots. Concepts of a main tank, asissting healers, and general agro theory are beyond 90% of player base.

[Jayn_Newell]

Burrido, I think you’re exagerating.

It’s only beyond 89% of the player base.

There’s morons and assholes in every game though. Within a week of Guild Wars I was saying to myself, “And people complain about the WoW playerbase?” I’m loathe to shut off chat channels, or local would be permanently off already.

[furlibusea]

@Burrido

Learn2Play noob.

No seriously I understand. In EQ, players were so much smarter. In WoW, they are complete idiots. Concepts of a main tank, asissting healers, and general agro theory are beyond 90% of player base.

Come back to EQ… Actually I miss how long it used to take to level up in EQ, because it created a good learning curve. Mostly we knew who had ebayed and otherwise level meant something in terms of ability to play. Pickup groups always used to be awful but lately the number of times I have been asked for a rez alot on my mage. This would be ok except she is a silk wearing gnome and has a 2.0 mage epic and usualy has a pet about 5 times her size behind her.

[Skywatcher]

@Revenant Threshold

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!”

Fire blaster? If so, I think I encountered that very same player, in the same situation. I must’ve told him about five times to stop pulling with an AOE. He seemed to finally listen…until we were overrun by at least two groups. I yell for everyone to move back, which they don’t, and we get faceplants all around. I quit the group after that.

If a Defender tells you to move, you’d better listen!

[D_Odds]

@Lute Skywatcher

If a Defender tells you to move, you’d better listen!

Unless you’re a scrapper. Scrappers are supposed to be suicidal. As long as a scrapper has one hit point left, s/he can win. Failure for a Scrapper to think that way will result in an immediate AT change to a Tanker.

[Athena]

@Burrido

Learn2Play noob.

No seriously I understand. In EQ, players were so much smarter. In WoW, they are complete idiots. Concepts of a main tank, asissting healers, and general agro theory are beyond 90% of player base.

Y’know, when I played EQ, I never thought I’d see worse players. But you’re right - WoW seems to attract a great number of people who have no concept at all that there may even be strategy in a group situation. Like a lot of people here, I just hate grouping with anyone but people I know.

Too bad we can’t all be on the same server. I’ve a feeling the Dopers could be a good group of people to play with.

[Humanist]

Heh, I know.

You should see what it’s like for my brother and me. We play identical elec/kin “defenders”, and occasionally, when we get bored, invite someone else (usually a scrapper) to team with us so they can be converted to the kinetics lifestyle. We don’t have a rez, we’re not healers, but we’ll heal you when you get hurt if… IF… you stand right next to the enemy you’re targeting. If they run away when they start getting low, the heal will miss them, that’s the way the power works (AoE heal, centered on the enemy). We explain this very simply when they join us. And, because of the way we fight, we’re usually in the thick of it, so I can just say, “Stay close to me and you’ll get massive buffs and be hit by nearly every heal we perform.” No dice, hwoever. People get the double Kinetics buffs and think they’re invincible. Sure enough…

“Y U NO HEAL ME HELRZ!”

“The problem was geographic. See, the heal intended for you went off, as expected, around the zombie that wanted your limbs as a trophy, while you were somewhere in the vicinity of Bangladesh.”

Am I the only one who carries greens?

[Roland_Orzabal]

@Weirddave

Roland Orzabal, my main is a 60 mage I agree with most of what you said with one exception. I also have a 49 priest who is shadow speced because I solo with him a lot, and if I’m in a party with a warlock, assuming everyone is doing ok on health at the moment, I always try to hit the mob ith a couple small shadow spells because Shadow Weaving (which stacks up to 5 times) make Mr. Warlock do a LOT more damange to the poor mob.

Fine by me; you’re checking first and foremost to make sure everyone’s health is acceptable, and then you’re casting a particular debuff with a specific purpose in mind. This is worlds away from just chucking around spells willy-nilly and giving whichever mob’s closest a bonk on the head for good measure. What you’re doing probably doesn’t even attract aggro, which is by far my main gripe with the Aggrotards’ actions.

[Dunderman]

The more I read and hear about these games, the less I want to start playing.

[Taters]

The above is one of the main reasons I don’t play WoW anymore.

My main is/was a pally. I’m less than half a level away from 60; have been for months on end.

While some groups were good, toward the end I just seemed to hook up with some awful groups.

I like to know my role BEFORE going in. Someone should step and politely inform everyone as to their role. It works better that way, you get through instance without dying, AND you get good loot.

As a pally, I can tank and heal. Granted, the healing isn’t as good as a priest, but I have some powerful healing specs. What I can’t do (very well anyway), is tank, be in the middle of a huge fight and track on everyone who needs healing. I do my best, dammit, but STFU if you’re drawing aggro because you’re retarded and not using STRATEGY! Don’t cry to me if you’re running up ahead and get killed. I’m not going to constantly heal you, to the detriment of the rest of the group.

Also, if we’re in a raid group, can we put the right combination in each group, shall we Let’s NOT put four warlocks and one pally in a group. That’s retarded. Ideally, it should be MT, priest, pally, warlock and rogue. The classes should be spread out among the groups, with MT and healer in EACH group.

[Burrido]

@Humanist

“Y U NO HEAL ME HELRZ!”

Heh, last week I got, “NOOB! YOU TOTLY LET ME DIE11 t(’-'t)”.

@furlibusea

Come back to EQ… Actually I miss how long it used to take to level up in EQ, because it created a good learning curve. Mostly we knew who had ebayed and otherwise level meant something in terms of ability to play. Pickup groups always used to be awful but lately the number of times I have been asked for a rez alot on my mage. This would be ok except she is a silk wearing gnome and has a 2.0 mage epic and usualy has a pet about 5 times her size behind her.

QFT. I miss the accomplishment of having a max level character. Levels meant something. Another thing Wow lacks is accountability. Players constantly fuck each other over simply for the fact that they can get away with it.

[Brainiac4]

Ah, the joys of playing with kids. I was in a good pick-up group a couple of days ago. I usually avoid them, because people are idiots, but the guy setting it up:

• actually sent me a /tell instead of just blind inviting me
• said he needed “damage” (my main is a blaster) instead of “a bridge” (which in CoH parlance is someone a few levels lower than the person who’s going to run the mission who can sidekick up a much lower-level character for powerleveling)
• when I initially said “sorry, need to log soon to put kids to bed” was polite in response
• when looking for people in Request specifically mentioned that this was not a powerleveling attempt
• said he was looking for people to help him and his son run missions

In other words, I was dealing with an adult. I find that CoH has a fair number of them. CoV, on the other hand, seems to have more than its fair share of juveniles (of all ages).

This should not be taken as a purely ageist statement. My problem isn’t with people who are young in years, it’s with people who are young in brains.

[Weirddave]

@Roland Orzabal

giving whichever mob’s closest a bonk on the head for good measure.

Every run Scholomance? When you’re going over to kill Jandice Barov, the non-elite undead mobs in the crypt are immune to fire, frost and arcane spells, which makes attacking them problematic when you’re a mage. So, last time I was there, I hit one on the head with my staff, and got a CRITICAL HIT! It did 4 damage. hehe

[Sierra_Indigo]

There’s a few unfortunate truths here - WoW is going to attract a lot of kiddies. Why? Because their parents see it’s a game that’s on a lot of shelves, you can buy cards to prepay for it, and it’s been released in countries where other MMORPGs haven’t got a look-in.

Same with CoV. Over in Aus, CoV got a much bigger release/pimping than CoH did. Thus more parents saw it in EB and other retailers, and bought it for little Dakotttaaa for Christmas that year. Also, the badassitude of playing villains is always going to attract those with little or no mental capacity (not all CoV players are 'tards, but most 'tards are CoV players).

I’m not gunshy about a PUG, but if I get into a group and there’s asshats, if they don’t moderate their behaviour I have no compunction about leaving the group and hearthing back to wherever home is set. I’ve found a few interesting trends, though…

In WoW, I’ve found a lot more friendlier, more mature groups on the Horde side. I’ve got a terminal case of Altitis. I started on the Alliance side. Found so many people there who were assholes, really nasty, full of “L2P N00B!” and roll-hoggers. Also, we kept losing battlegrounds. I got sick of it. So I rolled some horde alts on a PvE server. The players were friendlier, I found more PUGs where they’d actually help anyone who was clearly a n00b learn how to play their character. There was more strategy in instances, and they kept winning the battlegrounds. Why? Because they were communicating and making plans, something my Alliance alts never saw. So I tried a few different servers, just to make sure I didn’t have a weird bias going. In most instances, apart from a few exceptions which just seemed to prove the rule, the Alliance players mostly seemed to be the assholes I thought they were, and the Horde players seemed to be the nicer, more mature-seeming players.

But in CoH/V, I found it worked the other way. The “good guys” were the more mature, adult players and the villains seemed to be all the L2P kiddies who didn’t have a clue how to play.

[Burrido]

@Sierra Indigo

In WoW, I’ve found a lot more friendlier, more mature groups on the Horde side. I’ve got a terminal case of Altitis. I started on the Alliance side. Found so many people there who were assholes, really nasty, full of “L2P N00B!” and roll-hoggers. Also, we kept losing battlegrounds. I got sick of it. So I rolled some horde alts on a PvE server. The players were friendlier, I found more PUGs where they’d actually help anyone who was clearly a n00b learn how to play their character. There was more strategy in instances, and they kept winning the battlegrounds. Why? Because they were communicating and making plans, something my Alliance alts never saw. So I tried a few different servers, just to make sure I didn’t have a weird bias going. In most instances, apart from a few exceptions which just seemed to prove the rule, the Alliance players mostly seemed to be the assholes I thought they were, and the Horde players seemed to be the nicer, more mature-seeming players.

I play horde on 2 servers (pve, rppvp) and alliance on pvp. Absolutely agree with you on the fact that horde seems to work together better. There’s been a number of unoffical polls indicating that horde players were 3-4 years older on average. In fact the only problem I really see is that Horde expects to always win. Which leads to a spoiled brat mentality if things aren’t going their way.

[jayjay]

@Burrido

I play horde on 2 servers (pve, rppvp) and alliance on pvp. Absolutely agree with you on the fact that horde seems to work together better. There’s been a number of unoffical polls indicating that horde players were 3-4 years older on average.

On the assumption that this is because more mature players are willing to play an “ugly” toon, this dynamic should change quite quickly when Burning Crusade comes out. Blood elves will be the Great Leveler as far as percentage of kiddies. Female blood elf boobies ftw!