Snow Globe

At least I can say that I don't seek to punish other players for using a system as intended. I also don't punish a third party for being diplomatic. Wendy provided a great example of the people wanting a lock. She will not only 1-star and ignore an offending player, but she'll do the same to a leader she feels doesn't act according to her wishes fast enough.

I thought you were trying to avoid comparing viewpoints with me because we don't see eye to eye on this?

I've had countless personal attacks (both in an out of game), a global channel (that I used to be an active mod on) that was useful subverted and degraded to the point that even the GMs are saying "just move to another channel" (they can't do anything because some undisclosed player gave someone else mod status), all for the "fun" of a bunch of players that have mostly moved to another server. However those player's attitudes can be found throughout these threads. Also take a look a Rylas' last few posts in the other thread, is name calling really appropriate?

Most of the people I team with are decent people. They are people that would give up their time to help another player out. However there are enough players in these threads that seem to not want to team with others that it does appear that there will not be many open leagues.

Locking the league will become habit and they'll eventually just stop rationalizing why they are locking.

More people will lock the leagues than will leave them open. I'm seeing it already with people just trying to use the team lock for this. Allowing locking will kill any chance for the LFG to actually work.

Actually I thought I did say it, but in a nice way. How about this way from Second Measure:
You don't like the LFG queue system. You've made that abundantly clear. That system is the only means we have to access the trials. I don't see that as changing any time soon.

Over the years there have been many suggestions for the player problem of Badging vs PVP zones.

That content is only accessible from that tool.

I agree. They shouldn't have allowed private leagues in the first place. I suspect the league structure is a limitation of the team structure coding.

I'd actually agree with this as well.

It isn't an either/or.

People will lock leagues even if they wouldn't normally kick someone that came in from the queue.

You and others are assuming that only people that will kick others will lock the leagues, that isn't likely the case. Far more likely is that people will lock the teams and continue to lock the teams even if they wouldn't normally kick an additional player.

If it was your right, there would be a team lock and the queue wouldn't add people if between the minimum and maximum. So without a team lock, and the game putting people on your league, where is your right to not invite people? Please show me any way, outside of filling a league before entering the queue, to prevent other players from joining.

And I acknowledged that.

And people accuse me of being overly dramatic.

The terms are clear when the game adds players to the trial without the leader's (league or team) interaction.

Show me where I said I never teamed with anyone by my friends. I said I seldom do regular missions. Seldom does not mean "never", and there is plenty of other content besides regular missions. There are Task & Strike Forces, trials (of all types), there is the AE (though I've only done 15 AE missions in the last year). I've been doing 2-8 Incarnate trials a day, I've been doing several WSTs a week (except that first ITF week where I did around 30 of them), a few mothership raids and a CoP Trial. I've not touched a regular mission since Issue 20 launched, and the only solo mission I've done was the intro to the Mortimer Kal SF (and that is hardly what I call a mission). Did I know people during that content? Yes. Did I know everyone in all those TFs and Trials? No.

As far as booting, I'm actually more likely to just quit, but that is effectively booting the offender as they aren't doing missions with me.

You really have a dim view of players. Most players in the incarnate trials aren't leaches. I've had exactly one player testing out the reward tables that door sat. It didn't affect the league in any form. Outside that one time, and everyone during that run was aware of it, I've only had problems with 2 players. Those 2 players ruined multiple MoLambda runs. They've earned a spot on my global ignore list, and I won't invite anyone on that list to a trial.

You were asking about a slacker that did nothing but door sitting. They aren't participating, so they are a non-entity.

You did say:
I didn't have to twist what you said, you wrote it.

I have 12 characters on Virtue. My highest is level 32.

This is why I don't think it is productive for us to talk to each other. You either are deliberately exaggerating what I'm saying or you actually believe I'm saying what I am not. I don't know which it is, but I also don't care enough to continue to respond to you.

Thanks.

My problem is that I don't see that being the norm if people can lock the league.

My problem with the idea of a league lock is that this will be the norm, not open leagues.

I agree that it would mean that less people get kicked, but I don't think kicking is rampant.

I don't get a thrill out of saying that people that are kicking are jerks. However I am really saddened by the attitudes expressed by those wanting free reign to kick people for little to no reason.

Guess what, if that is your attitude, then maybe the Trials are not for you. That isn't a bad thing. You don't like the queue system. Great, do other content. I don't like PVP so I don't tend to go into PVP zones except during off-peak times (well, since Issue 13 most of the time is "off peak"). I've not been in an arena match outside of a single match since early Issue 18 beta.

If players don't want to face what the queue might give them, those players are free to participate in the rest of the game.

I sincerely hope that you are not calling me a facist. I'm not the one telling people that they should just stop the playing the way they've been accustomed to. The developers are. You are entering the queue and not expecting to get others from the queue is completely irrational.

No, I said I seldom do regular missions with strangers. I do TFs and trials with people I don't know all the time. Most of my time I do TFs, SFs, and Trials. When I do missions I tend to solo or group with 2-5 players that are my close friends. Nothing shallow, I just consider my regular missions my "quiet time" in the game.

A person not acting is neither contributing or aiding. They are a non-entity. Unless they actively go out of their way to disrupt the trial, then they will have zero effect on a premade league. If they do go out of their way to disrupt the trial, people on the league can file a petition against the offender.

And the developers, by automatically putting people in the queue on teams and forcing teams to use the queue to start the trials, are telling players that they expect players to realize that there isn't such a thing as a private league when it comes to these trials.

I fully agree, but that is a completely separate issue than controlling team size.

I'm a programming and web designer, not a lawyer. However narrowing down a process and reducing things to their basics is, in my opinion, a trait that both programmers and lawyers have.

As far as intent, the people are posting their intent for all to read. Their intent is to have private leagues, either by a lock or by kicking. People are so fixated on that intent that they refuse to see anything positive about the system as it is working.

Try this instead: plan on additional people joining you, if they don't then relax. If they do, treat it as an opportunity to meet someone new and have a potential new SG buddy. There is plenty of other content available if you absolutely must have a SG only event.

I suspect they are tracking that. I wouldn't hold out any hopes of them abandoning it though.

From what little I know of other game's raids systems, the developers wanted something similar for this game. I would hazard a guess that the reason they didn't go the pure "join the queue and get whatever" route was because they wanted CoH's raid system to be friendlier.

However players started assuming that making the league before starting meant that the developers intended private leagues. That assumption is what we are facing in these threads. The fact that the queue adds players in the min to max range shows that the developers did not intend for private leagues to exist, unless it was a large super group that could field 24 players at a time.

If you (generic you) stop assuming a developer granted players a divine right to a private league and instead look at the system as a means to organize players while inside a trial, I'd think that you (again, generic) would see that the developers wanted to help players find a team doing the trials without knowing anyone. It really isn't that hard a concept to understand, certainly not as difficult as people in these threads are making it out to be. However instead of seeing the open invites as a good thing, the group-thought seems to be centred on how outside people are unwanted. To me that is putting the cart before the horse.

These trials are meant to get players together to over come the tasks in the trials. You are supposed to be randomly thrown together by Prometheus. Excluding (or kicking) players because of narrow (and frankly isolationist) views is completely counter-productive.

Instead of asking why can't we lock the teams, you (again, generic) might want to look at why the developers put the rules in place to add players to trials that are above the minimum, but not at the maximum. I think you might be surprised at the answers you might find.

Hero only: Heard the Call
Vigilante only: Fearsome
Villain only: Frenzied
Rogue only: Trickster

All the badges I just listed are for staying that alignment for 7 days. Other than those 4 badges, you don't have to be a specific alignment.

Come Full Circle and Ascended/Descended will be achieved when you are at the polar alignments (hero or villain), but you can't really miss them.

As far as AE badges are concerned, only Heroic or Villainous are alignment specific, Cunning & Walks the Line can be done with any alignment.

Don't worry about it as vigilantes can get anything heroes can (except those noted above).

This explanation is likely the best you'll get:
Or, as I've said previously in this thread:

And her response in that other thread wasn't credible.

You should have waited for 2 more controllers then.

Nope, still boils down to an unknown that the players don't want to deal with. More to the point, most MOTrials I've seen done are picked groups with the maximum amount of players. MOLambda still requires a specific team composition. I've seen some *characters* not invited, but I've not seen *players* told to leave.

To use your own words:
I don't have a problem getting on the incarnate trials. I do sometimes have problems getting on trials that are successful, but that is generally due to everyone on the league not acting as a group.

I actually agree with this. I've even said something similar in a couple of previous posts in this thread.

I don't expect people to agree with me all the time. It would be boring if they did. I also agree that the only people with access to the hard numbers are the developers (if they are even bothering to data mine for the numbers of players kicked).

The question was how many times I entered the map without a Team. I did not have a team before soloing, and I was on a team of one when I finished loading into the map. To use your reasoning, I can't go anywhere without being on a team, even if it is just a team of one.

You can't invite someone to your team while in an incarnate trial.

Well, in beta about two dozen times before the developers put in the lower limits. The lower limit is an artificial limit put in place after the trials were. I'll be the first to admit that it isn't possible at this point though. However your question was if I could enter the map solo, and I did through the LFG system. I can still enter the trials without being on a team. That is the whole point of the LFG system. If you don't like that, I'd suggest that you PM one of the community reps or another redname to see if they'll change the system for you.

I could say the same thing about you. However it is very clear that you don't want a conversation.

The terms that the game will add players from the queue is abundantly clear as the game does it without your permission. Ignorance of the rules do not protect you from them.

That is implicit as the game puts them on your league.

If on a regular mission, I'd boot him after the mission was done. However it is unlikely that I'd ever be in that situation as I seldom do regular missions with people I don't know. I've never had to do that in my 75 months of playing.

On a TF, SF, or non-incarnate trial, it would depend on the person. People I know have gone AFK for large lengths of time. If it was someone I didn't know, I'd let the group decide then if they wanted the player gone, I'd let the player know and remove them from the team. It hasn't happened though, as most people that do come close to that stay outside the mission and get nothing for being AFK. I wouldn't kick 66% of the team for that. Instead I'd quit and find another group.

On an Incarnate trial, I'd let him door sit through the mission for the duration of the trial, I would put him on global ignore, and never invite him back to any league I run. During a trial I can't invite new players to the trial, and given that I'd have to be at the lower limits of the trial to have even the potential of a new player come in it would make zero difference to the trial whether they stay or go.

A non-entity can't hinder anything. At most they can be helpful to the success, at worst they have no effect.

What possible reason would a leader have to toss out someone they actually did recruit? Your hyperbole is funny. If the league leader recruits to a full league, everyone there is invited, if there isn't a full league there isn't any reason to kick someone that was invited.

That is a gross exaggeration, and you know it. Then again, your mind has already been made up on this.

The guy in question kicked two full teams of people off the league. Sixteen players kicked. What was left isn't 2 or 3 teams. That is 4-8 "invited" players depending on how many players entered the trial when it was below the minimum restriction. The developers pretty much said that you must be this tall to enter, and the little brat went in anyways.

Two or three extra players? I've seen, at most, 2 extra players from the queue. As far as two players causing lag, all I can say is that you are exaggerating your case to the point of being entirely ridiculous.

And Arcanaville tore Bill's argument about this apart without effort. I can point you to the post if you like.

[Edit]

Here is the link. Read it for yourself.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3623482

[/Edit]

On live, twice so far. On test, about a dozen times. All I had to do is click on LFG and enter the queue system. I did not have to join a team to do so and I didn't have to join a league to do so. All I had to do was accept the terms the LFG system imposed.

Now tell me how many times you've entered the Trials by not accepting the queue. I'm pretty sure that you can't.

I've entered the trials several times SOLO by joining the queue. The fact that the queue put me on a team after that means that while I can answer your question by saying "yes, I didn't have a team to enter the trial", you can't say that you got into the trial in any other way than the queue system.

I've even joined in progress trials via the queue system. I'm pretty sure the league leader wasn't given a choice in that instance either. I know that the league leader can't invite others to a league during a trial.

Yes, that is an explicit feature in the queue system.

Which the player doing the kicking is entirely in the wrong. They agreed to the terms of the trial as soon as they clicked on the "Enter Queue" button. The rest of the players agreed to the terms when they accepted the dialog box.

The moment your group entered the turnstile it ceased to be "your" team. The trials don't start with a contact, so you have to use the turnstile. By entering the turnstile you are agreeing with the terms of the turnstile, just like going to a contact. It is just that the turnstile has a term that you may not like.

Something you may have failed to realize is that if the league drops below the minimum players can enter the trial even in progress.

The thing is that you don't have the choice whether to use the turnstile or not in order to do the trials. You HAVE to use it. Everyone in the league HAS to agree with the terms. If you don't agree with the turnstile you can't enter the mission at all as you are dropped from the league and the turnstile.

Being able to make a full league prior to entering the queue is a part of the LFG system. Whatever. I don't need anecdotes telling of successful experiences with the queue. Having a full team starting isn't the issue.

If they fill the league to the maximum for the trial, that isn't an issue.

Here is the issue:

Everyone explicitly accepts the queue system by clicking on the accept button. Everyone. Someone isn't clicking on the accept button for them without their knowledge. By accepting that they are entering the queue/turnstile, they are accepting that players beyond their group will be able to join if the group isn't at the max amount for the trial.

If players entered the trial without joining the queue and accepting the queue's conditions then they would have grounds for saying "this is private".

Actually it started with Arcanaville in post #15, well before I took it up.

I may be guilty of expanding/reiterating the argument, but not of starting it.

Those two quotes were not an "either/or". Players, as evidenced by yourself and others here -will- kick players that enter from the queue. The players doing the kicking will have all manner of rationalizations, but all of those reasons boil down to "I don't want to team with outsiders or people I don't know." The developers are smart enough to realize that some people will be jerks and will kick people from the league. However they likely think the actual amount of people kicked for that reason would be small. They are probably hoping that people will see the trials are able to be done with PUGs and will not care if someone enters from the queue. They probably even have a higher opinion than most people in this thread about the courtesy of people leading these trials.

Yes, it would be an issue. It means that the system designed to get them on a team as quickly as possible is being subverted by a bunch of jerks that are willing to punish someone that they don't know for something beyond their control. You can't start a Lambda or BAF by going to a contact. You have to use the LFG queue. By doing so you agree with the terms that the queue imposes.

Among those terms is that if you don't have a full league, the queue will add people up to the max amount for that trial. As a person entering the trial you are presented with a choice to accept or decline the invite to the trial. The moment everyone clicks "Accept" instead of "Decline" they are bound to the agreement of the rules for the system. Try to wriggle around it as much as you want, everyone is given the same choice.

That leader was an idiot. If the number of people in the trial are below the minimum, then the LFG queue automatically adds people from the queue up to the minimum. In the case of BAF, that is 12 people.

I hope everyone kicked petitioned the idiot and the GMs gave him a much needed time-out from the game.

Same can be said of SG Bases and missions. There isn't any difference.

I may hold the developers to a high standard, but I'm not going to hold the developers to a standard that takes responsibility for a player's choice to be a jerk.

As far as wanting to simply team with their friends, the developers are looking to make incarnate content for solo and small teams. Until such time that content is made, the way the system works in this case is clear.

Actually, that is exactly what it is.

Exactly how often are people being kicked from a trial once it starts because they came in from the queue? Please be as accurate as possible.

Have you kicked anyone for that reason? Would you kick someone for that reason? If the answer is "no", then I'm going to assume that you are a decent person until proven otherwise. I expect that the developers also expect that the majority of people will accept people from the queue as well.

Unless this is happening in the thousands or even hundreds of times since Issue 20 has launched, then I'd suggest that people are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Actually, the zone are instances. Even Atlas Park is an instance.

At some point you will have to accept that the sole responsibility for a leader kicking another player rests solely with the person doing the kicking, no one else. It isn't the developer's fault, it is the player's unreasonable expectation that there be private leagues that is causing the problems here.

Hami Raids and Mothership Raids are instanced. You can have up to 50 players in either of those instances. More than 50 players locks the zone, just like 24 players locks the BAF or 16 locks Lambda Sector.