The Boot Myth

...Yeah, what Luminara said

Personally, though, I don't boot people unless they are being an absolute little streak of dog doos. And I've only run into them a few times. Once was a guy who was insisting that I invited his friend, pre-SSK, and refused to understand just why it was a terrible idea to invite a guy so much lower than us, and why I refused to make every else have to support him. He got rather pissy...at which point I dissengaged all safties and went rather explosive on his organic self

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The Boot Myth is all too real. It's from people that still think that combat in this game is entirely numbers and that strategy has nothing to do with it. Those people should read my strategy guide which shows that ANY team combination can work, with the right strategy.

Wow dude. I'd have to say that's a terrible attitude. Sounds like you only have "fun" with MAX EXPEEZ!

I feel sorry for you.

Eh, I'm a 6 year vet. *shameless plug*

And... *I've* never been kicked from a team for the builds I've brought to a team before. (That I remember.) I have been denided a team because i wasn't what the team was looking for. (We really NEED a stone tank.. or a healer... ect) But that hasn't happened in a LONG time. Now a days i really only see people get "picky" when they try and build Master TF runs.

As for being on teams and having other players kicked for there builds... i've seen it, but it's a rareity. And while *I* wouldn't kick people for there builds, some of them unique builds were not very helpful to the team, and in fact where a hinderince. After all, a good player can make up for a builds weaknesses, but what happens when you don't have a good player running a crappy build? I don't have the heart to kick anyone, but have kind of wished they'd "quit" team a few times. LOL

But, like i said, it was much more common years ago. I don't see it hardly ever now. Like i said, people may get picky for master runs, but rarely for anything else. I don't even see healer spam as much as is used too. I think some people are still living in the past IMO. (not directed at anyone one person.) Times are better now. IMO of course. YMMV.

I've been kicked for lacking powers in the past, although it's been several years. In nearly every case, it's been while playing a defender, controller, or corruptor, and it's gone like this:

Tell: Would you please join my team?
Me: Sure.
(Join team. Leader enters same zone as me.)
Leader: Sorry, I wanted an Emp [or a Kin, if I'm playing a corruptor].
(Kicked)

Back in i4, this also happened to me on my first tanker, who was kicked for not being Stone Armor.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd think that most people who wanted some specific powerset would ask potential teammates if they have it before inviting them, especially if they're sending tells first, anyway. In fact, this is what I've generally seen. Back when the second-tier servers were busier and pick-up teams were more common, I'd routinely get tells when playing my support-set characters asking what sets they were. I assume people were looking for empathy and radiation emission, since my kinetics controller, the only support character I played frequently until recently, always got no response and no invite after telling them he was a kineticist. Everyone knows kins are teh gimpz anyway... (rollseyes) Ditto on my storm corruptor.

My Traps defender wasn't created until after the age of the pick-up group, so he hasn't had to deal with this.

Edit: I should add that I used to get yelled at routinely for knockback on my Archery blaster (Archery has one, count it, one power that has a chance for knockback). The same person who did this refused to try to manage his knockback when playing his Illusion/storm controller with my dark/dark scrapper. Finally, I stopped teaming with him with that character. I've gotten complaints about using Shockwave on my Stalker and Crane Kick on various Scrappers, too. So the idea that "players hate KB" is definitely rooted in actual player behavior.

Heh. The posturing is almost palpable. "Oh I've NEVER been kicked, nor would I EVER kick anyone from a team ..."

Uh uh.

Most of the people who have 'never kicked anyone from a team' have NEVER organised a team before, so they've rarely been in a situation for long enough, where they are the 'star holder' (see "star allergy")

As a 2004 Veteran, I've been kicked from many teams, sometimes because I was obnoxious, other times because others were obnoxious. Hell, I have friends kick me from the team because it amuses them to do so -- and I laugh too when it's appropriate and you get reinvited immediately anyway.

I've also done my fair share of kicking people. I kick people who behave -- oddly. The aforementioned 'petless masterminds' etc, people who just doorsit (enter a mission and go AFK). People who IMMEDIATELY 'afk' (unannounced) upon death, during team fights, when I try to resurrect them and they don't accept. Once, ok, fair enough, if it happen again they get booted, yes, even if it's a Task Force, unless they ANNOUNCE AFK first, if they get killed and don't accept my rez, I boot them. Aren't I the ogre!

I'm also know to kick people for being purposefully disruptive, included aggroing groups of critters alone then dragging them back to the team and causing unexpected team-wipes (scrappers are good at this). People who 'want to map' because they have invisibility, so each map they are off exploring rather than being with the team. People who die repeatedly, off on their own, because they think it's funny.

Over the years, I can remember a handful of instances of me kicking people, and dozens of instances of me being kicked. But that's very selective memory, because I don't tend to remember having kicked people from a team, and do tend to remember being kicked from one.

As for the innate purity of 'never been kicked, never kicked anyone', the more appropriate label is 'gutless wonder'. The big deterrent to kicking people is the pretence that if you're goodie goodie two shoes all the time, you'll be mercifully free of the ravages of leader rage. It doesn't work like that, and if you play in Pubbie Team, across most servers, you will certainly experience far more 'random and inappropriate team expelling' than you previously thought possible. Of course, the mind-expanding nature of random teaming is probably way out there for some people, comfortable only in their clique, or with their play mates who 'deeply understand their special needs and concerns' -- yes Athyna I'm recalling your ongoing bout of stranger-danger-OMG-They-Might-Be-Horrible-to-me fear of playing with 'unknown' people. Snort

Maybe it's a sign that Union is a nice place, when I really only recall a few incidents of kicking / being kicked happening?

There's been a few times I wish I'd had the start so I could kick certain people...like the Bots/FF fail lord of Union (who if you've met him, you will know him) who seemed to forget to re-upgrade his pets and didn't have a clue how to use FF...on an ITF no less...Ugh. Bad day that was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I didn't get booted for this, but it's close enough and in the same spirit...

A friend asked me to join an ITF a friend of theirs was starting. I asked if I could grab my Tanker, and he said sure. I get on the team, and it turns out the team lead is a Brute who wants to be lead tank. Okay, somewhat disappointing, but I can deal with it. We get rolling, and I very carefully wait until they get a groups aggro before running in as well, avoid taunting except for stragglers, do my best to be useful and making a lot of effort to not step on the lead's toes. However, he keeps telling me to stop tanking so much. Well... I have to tank a little. I can't be expected to turn off all my armor and brawl somewhere in a corner, can I? I'm being careful to let him play lead. Suddenly, everything stops. Nobody's talking. Then the leader quits. My friend informs me that the lead was sending him tells about how I was ruining everything and making it impossible for him to keep his fury up. Keep in mind, we had been steamrolling everything. It was pretty perplexing... my friends joke about it to this day.

As for actually being kicked... yeah, I've had it happen to be occasionally. I've been kicked for not being a healzor on several different Defenders. I've been kicked for not having Speed Boost at level 8. Lots of other silly things like that... plus I've played some things that apparently a lot of people in this thread would kick me for... a support-only Empath (and no, I'm not smug about it... just have fun with it. I do have five of my secondaries, although only three are slotted for damage. And no, I don't just stand there with Healing Aura on auto.) Also, a petless Mastermind (although I have my search message set to clearly state that he doesn't have pets, don't invite if it bothers you... he mostly exists just to see what it's like.) I've never been kicked for being either of those, though.

As for what it takes for me to kick people from a team I'm running? Being a jerk. That's pretty much it.

I rarely boot someone for their power selections. I'm more likely to educate, in that regard, but some days I'm cranky. I will kick players who routinely go afk, kill us repeatedly, don't listen to me when I say things like "Stop running ahead" and "Stop teleporting our defender off buildings" or manage to irritate me by giving me or someone else on my team attitude.

Onto the more interesting conversation, I don't have speed boost, and I don't feel bad for it. I understand it's appeal to a team, but I really hate applying it every two minutes and, if I may be so selfish, my enjoyment of my free time is going to have to come first in this regard.

Furthermore, I don't think it's really that necessary. Transference rids you of your endurance problems and Fulcrum Shift is so stupidly powerful that you'll likely finish off the spawn before you get through your whole attack string anyway, and by that level I really expect my team members to have a competent attack string that doesn't need speed boost to be efficient. Speed Boost is a very nice buff at low levels, but post Transference I stop seeing the appeal (it's still there, but not enough to make me become unnecessarily stressed.)

I do make a note to inform people that I do not have speed boost, and if they've a problem with that to boot me. The crazy part? I don't get butt hurt when they do. After all, I'm deciding to be selfish, why can't they?

The only way I would take Speed Boost was if it became a PbAOE that could not affect me and lasted longer than it takes me to microwave dinner.

I have actually gotten kicked from a team while I was a Force Field Defender because I didn't have heals. It's an absolutely true story, and I couldn't help but laugh at them for being so very stupid.

Of course, this was also close to six years ago, and I haven't experienced the boot recently, so for all I know it might be a thing of the past.

Ages ago I my FF defender would occasionally get kicked for not being a healer; thankfully that's pretty rare now.

My Fire/Fire tank was kicked from a forming ITF for being fire/fire but not being fully IO'd out (I was not the main tank, but the leader decided even having a non-IO'd fire tank on the team at all was a liability).

Those are the only times I can recall getting kicked for a build, but I do put my primary/secondary in my search comment.

I also got kicked once for saying it was stupid to exit and reset a mission we were a couple rooms into just because another person joined the team.