Why do people here quit so easily?

The only 'quitter' that I've encountered recently was on an ITF I was leading. He quit when I asked him nicely to please stay with the team and not run off by himself completing all the objectives. He then got pissed that I didn't say while recruiting that it wasn't going to be a speed run ... 'the hell? Since when did speedruns become the default way of doing a TF? Anyway, after he left we completed the TF with 7 people in under an hour, just running all missions front to back, charging all the AVs. Awesome team that was.

The psychology of a quitter, that's a good question.

I'm not going to say if I see a lot or not but this is what I've seen in regards to people leaving.

1. Not totally honest. Most people that come online don't want to wait or "hunt" for the right group(s). They want XP or some shards. They get it and "find" a reason to quit. They may even lie to get what they want. For example, LGTF LVL 50 LFM, 3 Hour TF, PST for Invite.

They'll join knowing they won't stay and don't care about the what happens after them because it's just not their problem then. This is why I plan my play before I go online.

2. Come to play not grind. Again most people come to play for a relaxing, refreshing moment. They want to kick some butt and leave with a good feeling. I think I read something that said the average player spends between 1 or 2 hours a session. This isn't me but if I only had 1-2 hours to play I might say anything to get on a team.

3. Welcome to an MMO. We don't start playing at the same time or quit playing at the same time. This is the nature of this Virtual World. Coordination in this world is truly an achievement!

4. Some think they know the mechanics of this game. I had a guy quit once who said that we needed more of X to be successful as stated by the wiki. I replied that this game changes with every version.

What you read in the wiki is a snapshot in time. I wish I could tell you all of the holes I've found in this game and how I exploit them. If you do only speed runs, I promise you know very little about this game. Young people don't fully get this. Software is manmade and it is imperfect. It's ok to cultivate thinking ability...don't always believe what your told!

5. Fatigue/Manageable difficulty. Everyone's breaking point is different. For example, I played yesterday from 11am till 6am. I was falling asleep at my keyboard. We had a member quit and we just didn't have enough to beat the Honoree(LGTF), I tried hard for 3 hours(from 3:xx till 6am while I watched the honoree's life meter go up and down but never to zero), I finally quit because I was tired and realized you can't win every time. I was unhappy that I only only got 11 shards instead of 15 but I sleep great for 4.5 hours this morning :-)

6. Leadership Style. When I lead a team, I don't say much. I assume a majority of the players know this game and I don't want to restrict their personal styles. I consider others superior when I play because I'm trying to learn every corner of this game. I irritate the young player because my "leadership" style is not "Upfront" and "Command" driven. I don't kick people and I'll tolerate almost anything(even long bathroom breaks) because I'm have 360 vision about the context of this game. My only peeve is the "Speed" player that leaves the team behind and tries to grab everything for himself/herself. Why be on team if you won't wait or play with teammates?

7. Fear of Debt. I think this is the number one reason I hear people say before they quit. But the Debt in the VR is not like the Debt in reality. In reality, your wages get garnished, your ex hunts you down and uses the kids against you, etc...your world stops until things are brought back to balance. In CoH, we have wonderful credit terms so the debt payments are not required immediately and are spread out over time. It's almost unnoticeable the way it's done. A portion of your XP is used to service your debt. I don't know the ratios of XP to Debt but I die so much I get badges in CoH but I never worry about my debt and I think at any one time I've never carried more than 40-75K. It's a psychological barrier. I do not fear debt in the Virtual World...at least not while I have access to the delete key :-)

I have only every dropped one team almost immediately that i can remember of, and that was when it was a bunch of spanish players who refused to speak english in team chat. Being the only englishman there, i did feel very very very out of place, especially when they were running around everywhere and it seemed to be that I was responsible for ALL the healing there.

Since that incident (abour 4 years ago) I have yet to drop a team, unless it was a mutual quitting by all players... and even then we still try as hard as we could, and it just wasn't going anywhere.

Instead I am more likely to tell them that I am not up for teaming, then join and drop at a moments notice.

*edit* I think that playing that space MMO where I have been on ops that lasted for 12hours + for different reasons (some fun, others not so fun, but i was playing a core role for that fleet) I know what the meaning of "team commitment" is....

I think I've dropped from one TF before everyone else did, and that was because I had work in the morning and it was getting early. They knew beforehand I'd have to leave if it got too late.

However, I generally only do TFs with friends, which does make a difference. When you know the folks on the team, there's more of an urge to stick with it, and usually more of a consensus that it's all gone horribly wrong when it has.

people want it easy..for some reason hate working hard for something...losers

I did an LRSF that made me very proud of my teammates.

Took us 4 hours, around 100 deaths, and we essentially had to load on purples and take one AV at a time, die, then come back with purples. It wasn't a specialized team (far, far from it), just 8 players that needed it done and were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen.

Not once during that 4 hours did I hear a player recommend quitting.

That achievement, to me, is more remarkable than any speed run. It has been a very long time since I saw a team stick out a TF/SF like that.

Yes, tears come to my eyes too, but not for the same reasons...

I think I've quit 3 TFs in 7 years and thousands of TFs.

One, somebody back in the day insisted on running posi on invincible, and when my level 12 tank realised he couldn't stand up to 1 level 17 vahz minion, that was time to get out when the leader refused to turn it down and reform.

Another I had warned the leader before I joined I had a problem with storm graphics particularly hurrincane in that they make me ill. The stormie seemed to delight in standing next to me and hurricaning so I quit.

The third, yesterday, we'd done a barracuda after I warned the leader that we had no MM/def and very little debuffing, so would struggle with Reichs, and after we'd fought him for the best part of an hour, got rid of all the ambushes, and found we could take him down to half hits, he'd go invulnerable back up to 3/4 rinse repeat 6 times with no overall progress, I gave up.