Rylas

I accept your terms.

I don't know... you didn't exactly make this a long winded reply. You probably don't know what you're talking about then. I'm not going to consider this post unless it gets an edit and has at least 1,000 more words. And they better be 5 (or more) syllable words, too!

It's ok. Noyjitat is slowly becoming more ignorant himself. As we all are.

You made me blush.

Whoa whoa whoa. Don't tell me I've been braiding these bad boys for nothing!

I hear you. I kind of expected the axe after the Finale they gave us. I saw V being cancelled long before the season was over (it'd gotten worse with each episode's writing). But I think I was most disspointed in the Event getting cancelled, since it was finally ramping up to something good.

Oh well, maybe next year...

Because believe it or not, they sometimes know what they're doing. Case in point: Star Wars. From what I've heard, Hollywood nixed some of Lucas' ideas for the original trilogy that, had they been done, would have been bad for the movie.

Because sometimes the Artist's/Writer's/Musician's unadulterated vision is not as great as they thought. Letting them slap it on the internet before it had it's full potential realized is a shame in my opinion. While publishers/Hollywood can turn out some real brain dead material [i.e. Smallville, Phantom Menace] there are many in the industry who do their part in familiarizing themselves with material the target audience has really enjoyed and will help the artist better achieve that goal while keeping their vision as true as possible.

No writer wants their book to bomb.

Because sometimes, even a writer/artist can be their own worst enemy. When you don't do the research to see if your material is gonna get laughs, your web comic likely won't be funny. You're inside joke with friends turned into a web comic could possibly fall flat. Some writers can still function without an editor, but I'd guess they're the minority.

Remember Sinead O'Connor? She was doing great until a certain SNL performance when there wasn't a filter between her and the audience. Sometimes the editor is there for your own good.

Music labels also fund recording and help network artists with producers who know a lot about music and have a lot of talent. While I'll admit most labels turn out total junk, I think that the few gems they help produce because of those networking abilities makes them worth it.

Because most artists don't make good business people. And while you might want to think differently of them, artists want to make money.

I think the ones we scoff at are usually the ones that just out right suck. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that a self-published artist could be amazing.

I'm not sure it can be a vocal minority. Not when you take into account that enough data mining convinced the devs that uncommons were improperly weighted. It would appear more people have been experiencing what this "minority" is talking about, than what you are experiencing yourself.

Perhaps, and I'm just throwing out a crazy concept here, but maybe you're one of the luckier outliers.

Personally, I think there are too many variables to take into account that a simple metric could ever be sufficient for. If you're terribly concerned with minority/majority numbers, I think it's a safe bet that the majority of players aren't going to door sit. If so, subjugating them to a metric that can't adapt to all the quirks* of each individual trial that's run is punishing the majority for the acts of the minority. I find that worse than some door sitters getting commons instead of threads.

* By quirks, I mean anything that would cause a player to not live up to the metric, while still providing plenty of participation. Real Life can call someone away for 5 minutes, but for the other 40 minutes of the trial, they're doing everything in their power to assure the success of the team. At the same time, one person's concept of participation is different than someone else's, as has been shown by people saying you were basically spamming powers, and not really moving the team closer to the goal line.

1. What about AT's that have toggle-heavy powersets? Should they turn those on and off? I don't see that being an intelligent method of participation, and if the metric is about spamming different powers as much as possible, then having only one power set to spam from sounds unbalanced. Of course, that's assuming your understanding of the system is even correct, which I doubt.

2. Do you not think most people here haven't tried spamming powers like you have?

Did anyone ask for consistent Rares and Very Rares? No.

Would that be the result if the participation metric was removed?

HELL NO!

Why? Because the drop tables are still weighted differently.

So let's say you and some friends want to form a Master of Lambda (MoL), but you can only find 12 people willing to put in the time for it since it takes more than one run to do. You think it's preferred by the player base that they should leave an MoL up to chance with random adds?

I see no rationality in that. Nor most of what you've posted on expectations of the player base.

And kick them. As some people evidently are doing.

Or just keep playing the content you want, and using the tools available to kick unwanted adds. As some people evidently are doing

Yes, be a <censored> and play the way you want to play, and keep the ability of choice in teaming that the game has built on for 7 years. You evil evil <censored>! HOW DARE YOU!

(I find it funny you call me out in a different thread for name calling in this one, yet you hide behind self censorship to pretend you aren't doing the same. Good thing I didn't sarcastically ask for your address.)

Assuming playing the way you like and have been accustomed to does make you feel bad...

If just a few people asking for better options in the LFG tool has got you this defensive, imagine what kind of break-down you'll have if your suggestion actually happened and the entire community was here with pitch forks and torches.

You make this statement like anyone who views differently is going to just change there mind and play other content that doesn't progress their character. Fat chance. Instead, more people will be frustrated when using the LFG tool and getting kicked, thus discouraging the use of the LFG tool at all. So why let a good idea go to waste?

Let's make it a better tool FOR EVERYONE, so that it can actually achieve the intent the devs were going for: Finding teams faster. Just because some people might lock their leagues doesn't mean they all will. I know you've formed the opinion that they would based off of your personal experience, but maybe your experience had less to do with the player-base, and more to do with you.

So, you either have little to no understanding of the concept of sarcasm, or you're purposefully hiding behind technicalities in a desperate attempt to get someone in trouble with the mods.

And you wonder why you've had so much "venom" thrown at you.

Of course, I'm not sure I should bother calling out any of SG's shenanigans at this point. I'm pretty sure I've moved to the ignore list. It's how he wins his arguments.

Snow Globe, perhaps the issue is that you tend to come across as pretty darn condescending. Whether you mean to, or not. If by the name calling you were talking about was being called a "fascist," it's only because you're demeanor (or the way your demeanor comes across) just gives that impression of you. I'm more than content to "play nice," but it's hard to do so with most of what you've been saying to ayone who disagrees with you.

Unfortunately, they got a cease and desist order from Apple and they aren't available anymore. I love Apple, but sometimes they don't how to have fun.

No, you just think it would break that promise. The mentality you attribute the players of the game just isn't accurate. When I20 dropped, I was impressed with the number of people who had quickly selected the Helper title. There's more open friendliness out there than you think.

You WANT to believe that if people had the option to lock leagues, they all would. You've made that clear. The problem is, that's not what's happening now. Except for some BAFs (for lag issues) the majority of pre-made leagues I've seen try to get as close to the max as they can. I'm not saying my experience speaks for all, but that's just because doing so would make me look as uninformed as you.

I wouldn't. Why completely restructure the whole system into events that would negate the tool of the LFG and it's potential for better team forming for new players (who won't be participating in these trials anyway).

I would accept a LFG structure that allowed people forming their PUGs to put the formation of their team on an alert to those looking for a league. They could flag their league for Lambda or BAF and if someone has flagged themselves to be looking for those trials, they'd automatically join the league from any zone (instead of inside the trial).

Someone could have 5 people in a team and just hit LFM for X Trial, and queue could automatically add members to the league before things got started. This would also allow for prep-time.

At the same time, people could form their league, enter the queue for a trial, and mark it as locked. Everyone has an option that works, and those outsiders looking for teams would get them.

Yes, I know, you'll object that everyone will lock it, but that's solely based on your belief which amounts to nothing. Not to be rude, its just a fact. What you keep asserting has no value in certainty. There will be plenty of loners to fill the queue with the minimum. Yes there will be slow times of day, but it will not be the impossibility you insist on.

[edit] I forgot to add, I think the LFG system should remain anonymous. Teams flagging themselves for LFM should not see a list of people flagging themselves for LFG. The queue should just fill up the league as much as possible from what's available. Players should still be able to run about in what zones they need to while they wait for it to fill up, and the Turnstyle should not require they all be in 1 zone to get started.

And you haven't just made up your mind that you know exactly what the devs want?

I've been in leagues that use the team lock because they don't want players jumbled around between teams when the trial starts. Does that mean all leagues do this? Or does your experience count more than other peoples? Or does your sampling just mean nothing?

Did they say they we're trying to prevent more people from joining when you saw it? If so, and your complete ASSUMPTION became true (all leagues would lock), it would still only point to the fact that it's a feature the majority of players desire.

I don't even think it's a majority of players that would like the option, but I'm sure it's a substantial share of the player base.

It implies no such thing. All that implies is that people don't want to be forced to play with people they don't know sometimes.

So let's just agree that making blanket statements about the playerbase as you've been doing isn't a valid point, since it's just going to spiral into an endless cycle of me repeating an equally valid blanket statement back.

Actually, I never said I would feel bad. You're horrible at putting words into other's mouths. I don't think it's intentional, I think you just assume a lot.

I won't put the blame on the person who came along. Now, if it's something like an SG event (which my situation wasn't, it was just a PUG team), and we really wanted it to remain as such, I'll kindly inform the person that they've had a bit of bad luck by getting us, and wish him on his way with the best intentions. Apply what morality you think you can to that, but I wouldn't recommend teaching an ethics course if I were you.

No, they're in their late 20's early 30's.

That chart was confusing as hell. I'll just stick with calling them "not an option."

I don't think you're really describing the argument we're making then. And if that's what you're interpreting from our suggestions, then maybe some clarification would help you understand we're not asking for selfish gains.

Advocating locked leagues does not imply a "my mission" mentality anymore than Task Force teams do. Occasionally, people will just want to team with their friends, SG, etc, for a myriad of reasons. An SG event is not someone being able to claim it's "their mission." It's just an event in which friends could enjoy their company without intrusion of others. Yes, some people might treat it as their mission, but you're just turning it into a blanket statement for everyone. That's a fallacy.

On the other part of your comment, you're talking about exclusivity that doesn't exist. No one has exclusive access to the ITF. Everyone can use this content at anytime they want to form/join a team and do it. The ITF is not restricted to anyone except by level. Allowing people to form locked leagues will not make trials exclusive either. Anyone willing to enter the queue will still be able to access them. Are there times of the day when the queue will take longer? Yes, but there's times of the day it will take you longer to form an ITF. That's nothing to do with making things exclusive.

If you think everyone will just start forming locked leagues, then you have to concede that everyone wishes they could just play with their friends/sg mates. And if that's the case, then you have to admit the queue system is going against the entire population of players preference. But guess what!? Not all teams will lock their league, and the queue could still be a functional tool. Probably more so than it is now.

My mom's cousin's kids (I don't know what that makes them to me, other than "not an option") are named Faith and Hope. I always felt bad for them.