Problem: Kicked from BAF because "I was an add and he was doing a 16 man only"

I personally would never dine in such a place as I'd find that to be highly uncomfortable. So what if one of the people at that table has a cold and is hacking up a lung? You're supposed to sit there with your open food while they do that?

This is one of the reasons why I think this silly analogy has run it's course.

They don't. We are subscribers of the service they provide but they can't dictate how we use that service unless it is illegal or against the ToS. For example, if your ISP told you that in order to get to the website/content you want to view, you *have* to go through some other advertisement or preferred partner gateway sites, how would you feel? That's what the current battle over "net neutrality" is essentially about. Which side of that fight are you on?

I can't assume that the developers are wrong because they have not made their position clear thus far. However, I can indeed opine that any extrapolation or interpretation of the devs intent by the players has the potential to be *wrong* since it is little more than opinion, much like mine. Player opinions have no place in dictating my in-game decisions.

No. It's not an interpretation or extrapolation. The current system sticks us in a group with everyone else that's using the system. That's how it works.

Is it a flaw? Maybe. Is it intended? Maybe. Can argue that all day, but in the end, it doesn't matter if we like it or not. That's what it does. If we don't want it to do that, we have to make threads (or contribute to), here in suggestions, saying so.

Kicking people from my league will not change that, it'll just frustrate the people I kicked.

If I don't like how it works, I won't use it until it's fixed. If I choose to use it, I'll put up with the issues associated with it. Want to get into an iTrial? Get used to teaming with PUGs. - That is, if/until it's changed,.

Which is partly why it's an analogy. Any actual business using the model I described would surely run afoul of numerous service problems and customer complaints... sorta like the LFG tool is doing here

And those complaints could be prevented by either making it clear that you can't kick people (like in those family restaurants), or telling the system you didn't want more people added (by being able to reserve tables).

The place the analogy sort of breaks down, but not quite, is that if you didn't want to eat in the family restaurant then you can go eat in another restaurant instead. There isn't a realistic alternative in-game for incarnate advancement to the trials, so that's where there's a break. But there are other MMORPGs, and that's where there isn't a break.

But encouraging people to go play other games by breaking with an expectation of 'teaming with whom I want to and not having random people added to it under any circumstances' that is maintained by all competitors and has been entrenched for the industry's 20 years of existence is a pretty foolish business move even if it might serve some sort of other positive or useful purpose... which I rather doubt it does.

And get used to said PUGs kicking you for whatever reason if you are not needed.

Or get used to SGs forming to max, thus once again making the LFG tool completely and utterly useless for it's intent. (EDIT: also known as the real reason the wait times listed as less than 1 min or less than 5 minutes are UNREALISTIC since everyone and their mama are forming up BEFORE queuing.)

If players were not currently using the LFG tool in that manner, there would be no problem. The problem is that some players are.


Impromptu teaming is also not a foreign concept in MMOs in general. CoH didn't invent the concept.


At this point, if I were the devs I would simply restructure the trials to make it unambiguous what the intent was in a way the players could not impose alternate meaning. I would basically make them zone events. Lambda and BAF would be visually situated as a "permanent zone" just like the Hive, and people would have to enter it just like the Hive. Everyone within the zone would automatically be added to an invisible zone-wide league, but players would be free to make whatever teams they wanted. Attempting to enter the zone would queue you until the minimum team size was queued. Attempting to enter the zone once a trial started would spawn a new instance of the zone.

It would be in all respects a Hive with a minimum occupancy requirement. Asking for a private Lambda would be like asking for a private Rikti invasion, which would be for the most part nonsensical. That would be the end of it for me. At that point anyone who wanted to argue that zone events should be private would be free to do so, and I would be free to work on making animated hair.

The real mistake the devs clearly made was in making the LFG queue abstract, and allowing people to believe that Lambda and BAF are not "real" places.

I'd argue that the number of folks who form up pre-mades (and this includes broadcasting that they are "looking for trial" in pocket D or RWZ) dwarfs the number of those who just jump in the queue expecting to get in on a group randomly.

I completely agree, if the devs truly wanted them to be zone events, they should have made them as such. I'd argue that they DID not intend to make them zone events, as they gave US the ability to form them up BEFORE entering the queue and the ability of the league leader to KICK anyone off the team, as well as giving that ability to INDIVIDUAL team leaders of each team who make up the league.

I don't think this was a happy mistake. I think the devs INTENDED for these things to NOT work like the hami and RWZ raids or TFs. As in a NEW type of group content type.

EDIT: And now that I think further about this I think they did it this way instead of as a zone event like the RWZ raid, so that they could properly test the participation metric. Perhaps the metric could not work (currently) they way they want it to if they were open zone events. Ofcourse seeing as how the devs are the ONLY ones who know how the participation system works, only they would know. And I have a feeling they are not saying.

Bottom, line everything thus far from issue 20 makes it clear (to me anyway) that they did NOT intend for these to be open zone events like the RWZ or Hami.

Wouldn't that effectively allow people to legitimately grief the badges? For Lambda, all one person has to do is get the wrong (or any) weapon, and there goes a particular badge. On BAF all one has to do is pull an AV to another one. Boom no badge.

I'm not sure if that idea is serious or born of frustration with the thread, but if these trials were zone events they would be disasters. The Hamidon encounter is built in such a way that people can either get with the program or leech, but really can't do much to grief people trying to do the trial honestly. Not so much with the Incarnate trials.

You don't like 200 people packed into a zone hitting a mob for an hour and 35 Cleric Complete Heal chains?

I don't like 3 guilds sending DPS teams to the same encounter being tanked/healed by a 4th guild, with loot rights going to whichever of the 4 guilds' DPS teams does the most damage, with the 4th guild's major method of recourse being training mobs onto their competitors or otherwise counter-griefing them (such as by trying to shunt the boss's aggro onto them)

(ie, griefing and negative behavior was and is rampant in noninstanced raiding and the major player response was to be even bigger jerks.)

And that is a very good point.

It's extremely HARD to grief the RWZ raid. Everyone gets merits if they are fighting.

It's NOT at all hard to grief HAMI, simply by a person or persons sitting in the zone, since it caps at 50. Thus if a particular HAMI defeat strategy calls for a certain number of AT or powerset, simply having a person (or persons) sitting in the Hive not doing anything is a way for someone to block access to the AT or powerset that the rest of the Hami raid group may want. And guess what? There is NO WAY to get said person out in a timely manner, since you can't kick them out of the zone. (You can petition, but by the time the GM comes the rest of the Hami raid team may have left in utter frustration.)

For the Incarnate Trials you most certainly CAN kick out leachers very easily. Both the League leader and individual team leaders can.

Once AGAIN the more and more I think about this the more I think it's intentional that the devs did not make these zone events and gave us the tools to micromanage who we team with on these things.

"Everyone get a dr00d teleport to <so and so zone> NAOW!!! <So and so guild> is assembling and I think they're almost ready to rush <so and so mob>. We need to hurry up to beat them to the spawn!"

/badidea

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.

It is because I want to believe the developer promise that a player doesn't have to be a member of a group or know anyone on a server to participate in a trial. Allowing players to isolate their groups from outsiders causes that promise to be broken.

I would accept this, if badges were tweaked.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Don't get me wrong. I'm not making an argument that the system doesn't need to be changed- it does.

I'm arguing that kicking you from the trial because I want to 10 man it or 8 man it isn't the intended use of the kick feature, and doesn't solve anything- it only hurts your chance to do the trial.

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

New flash that developer promise has been fulfilled. if you don't think it has I advise you to step into Pocket D or the RWZ sometimes.

NEARLY every raid in those zones is formed by leaders and players broadcasting for PUGs.

So I REALLY think your expectation that every group would isolate themselves is unrealistic.

LOL

Really? So what pray-tell is the intended use of the kick feature if not to give league leaders and team leaders the ability to control who is on their team?

I'd really like to hear this.

It really also doesn't hurt my chance to do the trial. If I need to do a trial NAO, and don't have the time to wait (as in I have limited time) or am a casual player, there is an ultimate solution: I form my own.

One of the humrous things I often see when steppig into Pocket D or RWZ on some servers are numerous folks (10+ usually) standing around saying "looking for trial", "looking for BAF", "looking for lambda."

Guess what not a one of those people decides to jump into the LFG Queue.

Instead you know what happens eventually? Someone breaks down and says a variation of the following in b-cast:

"Alright I guess I'll form one, if no one is forming. BAF/Lambda looking for members.
Pst."

So SnowGlobe's argument that most leagues will become private ones I find unrealistic.

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.

At this point I'm starting to think you're trolling me, but I'll respond anyway.

Kicking you off the team because you're a troll, or a leech, or griefing, is the intended use of the feature. Kicking you off the team because "Nah, I don't like how the system works, but I'm going to keep using it anyway, and I don't care if it affects your gameplay." is not the intended use.

Other posters are right that, like it or not, we SHOULD have been given a way to lock our leagues so others won't be placed in it. Until then, kicking a person because you're having a hissyfit that the change is not implemented is not the intended use of kick.

Well if they trials were set up as Arcana mentioned, logic would dictate the badges would change as well for the very reasons you mentioned.

Seems like a lot of work for something a lot of customers don't want and probably wouldn't like, though.

I know a lot of people who are more than happy to do hours of taskforces or trials, but wouldn't go to a hami raid unless it spat 20s out of their computer's CD tray for them.

How are you coming up with this assumption when the current reality suggests otherwise? As things are now, even the 16 player BAFs or 8 player Lambdas are for the most part, formed by PUGing. When I lead these non-max trials, I recruit all of the members by advertising in Pocket D broadcast, on a first come first serve basis. I'm not alone on doing this either as I see similar broadcasts literally every 5 minutes during peak hours. Where is the exclusion? Even *if* these SG/VG/Coalition/Friends only leagues do exist, they are in such a minority that it has little impact on the general PUGing population. Those types of leagues are of no consequence to me nor will I try to squeeze into their private runs when I can just spend all of 5 minutes to join a public one.

Now if the league lock feature was implemented, it does not change the fact that most of the pre-formed leagues will still be dominated by PUGers. That is the big picture here and I think perhaps, you need to widen the scope of your view instead of focusing so intently on the few people that for some reason, relies exclusively on the broken LFG tool to get into trials. Not when there is a far more viable alternative available.

As I said earlier in the thread, I'd have zero problem whatsoever with this if they made them actually function as Open World events. However the trials as implemented are not functioning as Open World events. They are functioning as Locked Team events with a poorly implemented (at least in my opinion) queue system to form teams. Make them work as actual "open world" instances and I'll be perfectly content. Alternatively if they aren't open world instances don't try to set the entry system as if they are.

I believe that the trial/queue system as currently implemented needs changes. From what I can see there are two viable paths that the devs could take, either make them more functional as "Open World" events or make them more functional as "Closed Team" events. I don't mind which path the devs choose, there are pros and cons to either system but, done right, both options provide a viable system. The current half and half system does not (again, in my opinion).

If I were a dev and was trying to make this an open world system I would do the following:
1. Provide an interface to select a specific instance, each instance shows the number of people and progress of the trial.
2. You can only enter solo but once inside the instance you are automatically added to a league, the league leader cannot use the kick command (but can use other commands).
3. Trial rewards are more evenly distributed over the different stages rather than 75% of the reward coming at the end.

Now if I wanted to make it a Closed Team event but make the LFG feature more useful I would do the following:
1. Allow leagues to enter the queue in a locked configuration.
2. Provide a bonus to trial completion if you entered the queue in a non-locked configuration, this would scale based on the size of the group entering, groups of 8 or less would get the highest bonus, groups more than 8 but less than two-thirds of the trial max would get a smaller bonus, groups containing more than two thirds of the max would get no bonus (possibly decrease trial rewards and/or include a diminishing returns on the bonus to keep it balanced).
3. Change the wait time calculations to only include the wait times of people who do not enter a trial almost immediately.


In the end I think either option would be better than what we currently have. I want the LFG feature to be useful and at the moment it isn't. The basic fact is that a pre-formed team will always be superior to a random team simply because it means at least one person present is willing to lead. As such for a LFG feature to be useful then either it needs to force people to use it (i.e. don't allow pre-formed teams to access the trials at all) or it needs to provide people with a reason to use it.