Cut Scene Bombing

This is very simple for me.

If I warned you first *and* the trial is already doing poorly (ie: failed acids or nades because not everyone was present) then it is a kick.

If I warned you first and the trial is doing fine despite slackers, I won't kick you. I will, however, make use of the note system and am likely never invite you or team with you again.

If I forgot to warn you, then I won't care, but at least try to make it lulzy.

Usually, I don't care and have been known to do it myself. However, I have the courtesy to ask first if I don't already know the league leader pretty well. I expect the same from my peers.

Hmm, how about a different wrinkle. If you're not the league leader on an open league, would you vote to kick?

If I'm leading a team? Yes, I'd kick them. I was just talking with Belle about this the other night after she left a team over an issue related to this.

Trials can be failed due to this. Is there a big chance of failure? No, but when you consider that there are usually 16 people, times half an hour to 45 minutes invested in running one of these things, that means that on the offhand chance that you do end up screwing it up for everyone, you've just needlessly wasted eight to twelve man-hours of work. Failing because someone makes an innocent mistake is one thing, I don't care. Failing because there's not enough coordination, I'm infinitely forgivable for that kind of thing. But failing because you're screwing around with something that has been shown can cause a trial to fail, that's just stupid. I have a very high tolerance for mistakes, but a very low tolerance for stupidity.

Not only that, but the rest of the team is usually down below getting repeatedly defeated. If the dancing idiot were with them, there's a decent chance that it could avoid someone's defeat. (Or two, or three, or four...) It could also let the team move faster because there are more hands helping out. Again, keep in mind that on a 16-person team, any time you cause to be wasted is a total effort of 16 times whatever that was.

The first time or two I saw this, it was cute. That was over three years ago. Ever since then, it has been stupid--someone riding on the coattails of someone else's cleverness. It's as funny as a old knock-knock joke. (And those have been old since I was, I dunno, eight years old?) Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. ZOMG! HA HA HA HA!!! Tell it again!!!

It's not a matter of people being too "serious." If I had a power that could randomly take an Incarnate component away from you and I sat there hitting the button over and over again, how funny would that be? Aw, you're just too serious! No, that would be me being a tool and directly impacting your gameplay experience for the sake of idiocy.

Last but not least, what if everyone decided that they want to bomb the cutscene? Oh yeah, the mission would fail because everyone would just stand around outside. But for some weird reason, if you're bombing the cutscene, you must think you're better than the people getting defeated down below. Yeah, while they're down there piling up the debt, you're goofing off up top leeching experience and drops. Yeah, I don't think so.

Personally, I wish that immediately before the cutscene, they would teleport everyone--not just the people down below--back inside the lobby of the facility to cut this foolishness out once and for all. In fact, that's not a bad idea in general, if for no other reason than to rally everyone together. Before facing Romulus, upon entering the BAF facility, before every cutscene leading into a major battle. *poof!* Now not only have we solved the cutscene bombing once and for all, but everyone's back together again and ready to fight. Win!

Until then, any trial I lead, I tell people that if they bomb the cutscene, I'm kicking them. Any trial I'm on, I ask people not to bomb the cutscene. If they do, I make a note of it so that next time I'm in a trial that they lead, I can stand around and goof off, leeching off of the others. After all, if it's good enough for them, it sure as hell is good enough for me and I'd just as soon not pile on the debt and work my butt off to risk not getting the end reward.

I would kick, but only if they had been warned first. Really, it's not funny anymore, and I'd prefer that no one do it than that a bonehead see everyone else doing it, think it's ok for him to do it, pull Marauder outside and fail the trial.

I would also kick someone at the end of a TF if they had done something they were explicitly told not to do or something unbelievably stupid that would be likely to cause the TF to fail, although that would really only apply to Master runs.

I wouldn't kick someone who cutscene bombed Romulus or the Assemble-the-Team door sitter doing so to the Psychic Clockwork King.

I'll admit when it first opened, if we were 1 or 2 temps away from finishing the raid, I'd mess around there.

But with stealth on, and far enough back I wouldn't drag him.

What bugs me are the terminal sitters that sit at the reactor spamming the power cell powers despite the "WARWORKS PRESENT TERMINAL LOCKED" and leave it to a few people to try and clear the 7+ bots next to them.

I love cutscene antics. I like doing it. I like it when teammates do it.

I have kicked people at the end of a TF, but not for being silly and having fun.

I don't get why you do the very thing you're so mad about. Seems hypocritical.

I like kicking people for silly and funny reasons. It's funny when they get kicked for cutscene bombing! No harm done either, because the people who didn't get kicked all share a laugh.

When asked why I kicked them for something so silly I respond "lol its funny." Because it is. To me, anyways.

If the teams are both at 9 acids and nades on Lambda, you had better come down and search. If a team is done and the other is at 9, I could see excuses being made, but still, there's no real reason to slack on the job because it's 'funny'.

I mean, kicking you for dancing in the cutscene while we were working our ***** off searching for those acids and grenades is funny too.

Other than that, I don't really mind people making fun of Romi or whatever other cutscene there is. The Lambda one is pretty unique, considering the situation before and after it.

When I've led Lambdas, I've generally tolerated it. It's one of those things where I don't really see any point, and don't really think it's funny, but, eh, to each their own, and I'm awesome; I could prolly solo most of the collecting anyway.

That said, I've also been a member on Lambdas where the leader didn't tolerate it, and I do agree that they were well within their rights not to when fair warning is given (and I personally have never seen anyone get kicked without fair warning). I'll also note that if, if, mind you, as it's not actually happened to me, a player's goofing off led to the trial failing...that player would probably not be welcome on future raid attempts that I were leading.

I do not run leagues however I fully support the leaders right to kick people who are not helping. This includes kicking before/during the last mission of TFs as well. And if a vote was brought up to kick I would vote yes (does our open league tell you a vote is being passed?).