Smaller, better leagues

To a point I agree with you... but I think there is a big difference between the innocent folks who want to try their best but just don't know what to do and are afraid to ask because their leader seems like a d-bag (which I myself was when I first began running trials) and the folks that Snow is talking about: folks who THINK they know everything, refuse to listen to instructions cuz they know better, and generally will not ever say anything in chat whatsoever. Not speaking up during these things is a mistake. Period. Even if you leader is a d-bag... he wants the rewards too... and so does everyone else on the team. (I had it happen several times where I said in a League I was new, and asked pointed questions about the instructions, if any, that were given and had a helpful NON-leader send me a tell helping me out.)

Those are stupid leaders. Period. Just because a lot of folks have everything T4-ed on their and their grandmother's account, doesn't mean everyone knows what is up. Several of my close gaming buds just got 50s recently, meaning they have no clue what is going on in the trials... and several others who have extremely limited playtime and so haven't had a chance to learn the ins-and-outs of all the trials. As such, they have me to explain what is going on, and help them out. I feel sorry for the folks who end up on teams with bad and/or un-helpful leaders and don't know anyone well enough to feel comfortable to ask.

I recall a few examples where I have scolded a leader or a fellow player in Leagues I was on due to their chat. One example was a leader who began speaking in all-caps being mad that prisoners were escaping... I simply stated: "Stop screaming at people that they are f-ing up... and give directions that will help them do this right." I saw no purpose in him being a jerk and getting pissed, screaming at someone will not help them understand what they are doing wrong. Another time we had one prisoner escape... ONE and a member of the team was demanding that one team or another state if it was from North or South's chokepoint... I was confused what difference it made and stated as much. Further, I said that missing a single Astral is no cause to flip out. I should have also stated that simply being better organized would have probably saved us. In this particular BAF, the leader got demoted through a DC or something and was giving instructions that he would routinely change or mis-state in the first place causing a good deal of confusion even among folks who had done a ton of BAFs.

Good point... and I have been guilty of perhaps talking a bit TOO much about what the leader has said. (I try not to get to the point where what I said could be construed as giving contrary instructions though.)

P.S. Nice to see ya post more and show off that sig I made for you!

As someone who accepts nearly everyone. I only booted one person off a league without warning, but they had dragged Marauder out of the compound (after being told to avoid that) failing a MoLambda before the badges were changed.

I've played with nearly all types of players on the trials. Even tonight I explained how BAF works to a new player. When I ask "has anyone not done this before?" or "is anyone unfamiliar with this?" (exactly that way), yes, I expect an answer. If I get anyone saying "yes", I launch into an explanation.

If I'm on a badge league that I've informed everyone we are going for a badge, then I fully expect people to listen or leave before we start as I'm generally picky about who I invite to those teams.

I'm not dismissive or rude when I ask.

Yeah, those are the ones that really tick me off. New players that don't know? Well, they generally take advice well and everyone is happier for it. The people that think they know better and don't listen are idiots.

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

This is madness IMO. The one general rule of tjumb I have if I'm not leading is 'follow instructions from the leader'. If I'm told to hit the north chokes, then I do. I'll have a quick scan around and if I see obvious masfive gaps (like nobody at all south) then I'll say so, but I'd never try to override the leader's instructions.

The first few times I led, I said 'I'm new to leading, so any advoce is welcome' before leading the team. Luckily, with the BAF, the general method is quite simple, so we did ok with no complaints from anyone.

When leading/being led, I'd rather see possibly redundant instruction like 'keep their hp levels equal' than nothing at all.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

You make many of my points, I think that a failure of leadership is far more common (at least in my experience being on leagues and watching both leaders and players, etc.) than a failure of someone who's never done the trial. What exactly does, "Team 1 acids and Team 2 grenades!" mean to someone who's never run the trial? Exactly nothing. The doors aren't marked "acids" and "grenades," they are marked storage and labs, right? So is it really "stupid" or "moronic" for someone who's never done the trial not to know where to go or even what to do? Most leaders don't even bother telling new people that we run from container or crate to container or crate not killing anything along the way. They just assume everyone knows . . . somehow, by osmosis, maybe (newsflash: not everyone reads every word posted on the site, nor in the forums. In fact, I'd venture to say that most players never even hit the site at all, let alone hurry here to find out what to do in a trial). And then these "leaders" get frustrated when people who don't know . . . don't know. Who's really at fault?

The same thing goes with leaders who tell one team in BAF to hit the north path and the other two teams to hit the south path. Does someone who's never been on a BAF have any idea what this means? What the choke points are? How that differs from doors? That there even are doors? Or choke points? There is a lot of assumption on the part of leaders that goes a long way to their creating their own frustrations and falsely labeling perfectly intelligent (probably kind and lovely) people as idiots, morons, losers, et al.

Now, as to there being the type of player you describe who think they know the trials inside out and are confident that they could probably solo it, so they just do their own thing . . . well, hmph!, there's a word for those types, but it's not "moron."

You know what? I ISN'T that hard. I did my first trials this week. I had NO IDEA what acids and grenades meant or where they were, or how they were used. And when the leader said "group 1 lab, group 2 wh," I had no idea what THAT meant.

So I checked what group I was in, clicked a name on my team and followed them. I watched what they did and healed where I could.

Next time, I knew where to go.

Even if you're a total noob and have NEVER done the thing before, it's NOT hard to follow the directions.

"Team 1 south." Ok, I'm in team one, I click the name of a teammate and go... south for like 10 feet. It's not that hard to figure out where the leader wants you when the other teams are STILL IN SIGHT.

I've had very good experiences being a noob on the trials this week. I had ONE failure total in probably 25 trials at this point, and it was a combination of a terrible, aggressive leader who was mean and didn't explain anything, just made demands that people didn't seem to know how to meet - and a clueless team where NO ONE would speak up when they clearly didn't understand what she meant by "THROW A GRENADE FFS!"

It's really not hard to either follow the directions by following the other 7 people doing the same thing, OR to just say "where would I find a grenade if I had one?"

And you've just made my point. If someone is shouting "THROW A GRENADE FFS!" then clearly someone on the team either doesn't know they have grenades (to check their temp powers) or they don't know where to throw it (highly possible). Possibly even both. My point is that something that is clear as day to a leader may not be (and probably isn't) to the team/league.

Like you (and everyone else, for that matter), I had no idea what to do when I first ran the trials, but I followed my team and (say) headed "south" when I was told. It didn't help that I didn't know what to expect when I got "south," though, so I just did what I do when I saw baddies heading my way. To your point, a lot of "leaders" make demands that no one seems to know how to meet, and then they blame the people for not listening/reading. Well, as you note, it's entirely possible that the demands are confusing, unclear, or just downright strange.

I still assert that no one goes into a trial hoping they can screw it up for the entire league, that they are each doing their best to help. If they don't know what's going on and get incomprehensible directions shouted at them, then that's hardly their fault.

Again, this does not include the people who do understand how the trials work and just do whatever the heck they please. That's a whole other problem that seems to be getting morphed in this thread.

My opinion the new person is at fault. Not because they don't know what to do but because they didn't tell the leader that they don't know what to do. The (reasonably valid) assumption at this point is that 99% of people have already done the Lambda/BAF trials so leaders do not bother giving detailed instructions which would be a waste of everyone's time (in the same way that people rarely give detailed instruction on the older level 50 TFs).

So if you're doing a trial for the first time TELL THE LEADER. If they are at all deserving of being called a leader they will be happy to give you at least a condensed instruction set so that you know what to do ahead of time. Sitting in silence hoping that someone will suddenly decide to tell you what to do is really frustrating for everyone. Even if it's just a simple "FYI I have not done this before" when you join the league telling people that you need assistance is the first step towards getting it.

As an example I ran a Keyes a few nights ago. Several people told me when they joined that they were first timers so before we started I gave a brief rundown of the trial and told them how to make the two macros I find useful before we started. The trial went smootly and everyone went home happy.

There's a Catch-22 involved, though. The way that new players are treated is pretty shameful, and for someone to admit they've never done a trial takes a lot of confidence and nerve. Something, honestly, you won't see a newer player have (yet). Look, no one wants to look stupid, be called stupid, yelled at for making a stupid mistake . . . all I'm saying is that it's not always (or even, I'd argue, most frequently) the player's fault if they don't understand something. How nice are people when someone does DARE admit (and it takes some nerve!) that they haven't been doing Keyes since they were born? Not very from what I've seen. It's just name-calling, impatience, and general "you suck, you don't listen, and did I mention that you suck?" stuff that makes it even harder for people to admit they aren't pro's at a given trial. All I'm saying is instead of assuming the worst about others, some "leaders" need to take a good, hard look at themselves. Don't know you from a hole in the wall, I do know that Snow Globe is an open and generous leader, but he's few and far between.

No it's not the players fault if they don't understand something. However it is their fault for not seeking assistance. I've been running trials on Virtue since they were released (both as a leader and a member of others trials) and I have never seen anyone ridiculed for saying "I've never done this trial before and could use some assistance". If I did see someone ridiculing another player for that I'd kick them immediately (if I were the league leader) and 1-star them to remind me not to team with them again.

Asking the leader to explain the trial to you is the simplest way of getting the information you need to run the trial successfully but it is not the only method. There are several good guides written for all of the trials (both the Paragon Studios official guide and player-made ones) so if you don't want to ask for help read those it should explain enough to allow you to figure it out as you go. If you're unwilling to ask for help AND unwilling to read the guides then I'm afraid I have very little sympathy for you. You are essentially sitting around hoping that someone will decide to explain the trial to you.

If you don't tell me that you are new to the trial I will assume you know what you are doing and act accordingly (people are assumed competent until proven otherwise).

I've seen accidents happen. It's an ugly mess. I've actually been on a Lam run once where it was mostly first timers and no one really had confidence of how it worked. One guy quit early on when they realized that and felt the need to berate the group over it. It was more amusing when they requeued and selected in-progress and rejoined the fail-league though.

I think it's a two-fold issue. With leaders assuming that it's easy enough to 'follow along' [and hey, in BAF, it mostly is] until they learn the drill, and the new player assuming to just follow the drill as normal for the game unless said elsewise. It's pretty easy to assume it just works.

Lam and Keyes are chaotic. It's easy enough once you know what to do, but they are a bit intimidating before you do. Keyes, I think, may actually be better for new players right now, because it's extremely rare for a Keyes league leader not to spend a few minutes before queuing up explaining how it works.

Of course, frankly, I think it just goes down to being an accident. Better to educate the person so it doesn't happen again than be a jerk about it.

Thank you for the compliment. If anyone wishes to see how I lead trials, they are welcome to, or ask anyone I've done trials with.

The other night, we had a player that didn't know how to do Lambda. They were completely new to the Incarnate Trials. They didn't speak up and the trial failed. People, including myself (I wasn't the league leader), got angry with the one player who asked "What do I do with the grenades?" with only a minute left. They had 3. Needless to say we failed.

I'm sorry to say that in that minute I lost my temper, but not as bad as others. I apologized and I spent 15 minutes after the trial telling them that they weren't to take this as a typical experience. I told them to not beat themselves up for it. I stayed to explain the trials, point out guides, and answer a bunch of detail questions without the trial clock counting down.

Exactly.

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

I'll take the "you" here as a general "you" (I think that's how you mean it, after all). But the thing is that people, even some vets, don't like to say they don't know something. Granted, most vets will just read about it (there are great guides already, and as you note, the official guide has been up since launch), but the way that people screech and carry on when things don't go right is very daunting (I've been on trials with more than a bit of cursing, name-calling, and general nastiness to know that it happens all too often). Who wants to be the butt hole who doesn't have a clue and keeps asking questions? Who wants to be kicked for not contributing? And even when questions are asked, some "leaders" give pretty crappy answers (from "scroll up FGS" to "I just said . . . "; both are useless and just put people on the defensive). If you lead trials, you are, in essence, responsible, asking someone else to bear that responsibility is counter-productive. Dismissing that you may be at fault, that your leadership is not stellar (or even adequate) is not just counter-productive, but (okay, fine, I'll say it even though I hate to call people names, even generally-speaking) moronic. Gee, I'm leading this suck-bum trial but everyone else sucks? Uh-huh, sure they do.

The thing is that not everyone is comfortable blurting out to 14+ "strangers" that they don't know how a trial works. Yes, this is not good. But it's just a fact. Should they? Would you? Whatever, it doesn't matter, it just is. "Leaders" need to deal with it without putting the blame back on the player (generally-speaking what being a leader means). If you, as a leader, can't see that someone or more than one someones is obviously lost then you are the one who isn't listening, you are the one who isn't paying attention. Being "obviously lost" could be anything from a league chat comment of "why am I here killing stuff in the labs and no one else is?" to "gee, you might have mentioned that we are just going to from crate to crate before I died ten times." There are many varieties of these indicators of confusion or lack of knowledge about a trial, but they all boil down to the same thing: the player is telling you that they don't know what to do. Period. Ooooh, they didn't say so before you started? Or when you asked? So the whole league should suffer because you, the "leader," can't hear/read/listen later when someone indicates, very clearly, that they are lost? I think not. Should someone clue in that they're alone in the lab? Probably, but most don't. Should someone clue in to the fact that someone who doesn't know how to do the collection part of lam probably, oh, I don't know, doesn't know what 'nades and acids are? Or what to do with them? Sure, that's what leaders, real leaders, do. They don't just ask if everyone knows, they actually pay attention to what is said later. Maybe someone doesn't want to say, me, me look at me, I'm the numb nut who hasn't done this trial! But they may be able to indicate as much five minutes later with another comment in league chat (such as the ones above, taken from actual trials). But . . . what? It's too late then? You can't help them then because they didn't get their request in under the deadline? Leadership fail.

I've been on BAF's (yes, they're pretty easy, old hat to anyone who's done 10, 20, 30, 100+ and is +3, etc.) where the leader is totally useless. "Go south." Uh-huh, and that means what exactly? Even people who've run them a few (let's say, for sake of argument, three) times aren't going to know what's going on if they've been on crap leagues the first two times. Suggesting that everyone must read the guides to participate is . . . well, probably true. So this brings up a whole new issue, no?

I think you've nailed it. Players who've not done the trials do expect it to be like a "regular" mish or trial or tf, maybe with harder AVs but generally the same. So they assume they can just figure it out, kill/hold/debuff anything that moves and all will be well. Leaders think that people know far more about the trials than is likely (how long have trials been around now? A whole month? Two?), so they bark orders that sound like gibberish to new trial-goers, who are still in the "it's just another mission/tf" mindset. There are two parts to it. Spot on.

I DID say the leader was an ***. S/he really was, I've NEVER run with anyone so rude and aggressive so far. In fact, once we failed, this person felt the need to tell the team "thanks for nothing" before she quit. Just, wow. So ungracious, so nasty. But again, this is ONE leader and ONE failure out of about 25 at this point.

Just as much (in my opinion) to blame were the people who did NOT say "I have a grenade but I don't know what to do with it." Or "Where do I take this acid?" After the collection stage, the leader told everyone to give all their nades to a Defender who had no idea what to do with them (and said so.) But the leader was a total jerk about the fact no one was using the grenades, and that 3 portals remained open because no one used acids on them.

Several of us took the time to type in League "open your power window, look at the end of your temporary powers for Pacification Grenades or Acids, do you have one?" And NO ONE answered. The Defender didn't say anything after expressing confusion over being given grenades (and seriously, why would they go to a squishy?) and never used one, despite several of us telling him how or asking him to give them to us.

It was a total CF. The leader was an aggressive jerk, but the people who didn't know what they were doing would NOT take instruction, for some reason. Add to that, tanks were flying alone into Marauder and his pile of adds while the rest of the team was regrouping, then complaining they didn't get heals, and it was just a total mess. But there was PLENTY of blame to hand out to the leader and the new people both.

Yeah, me too. I almost never crash - except on trials. Something about the whole trial system seems very unstable.

Agreed. My husband, buddy and I told the team when we were doing our first trials that it was our first time. I don't feel like anyone took the time to explain anything to us - but then again, we didn't really need it, as it really isn't that complicated. There's probably 20 feet between "go north" and "go south" when you're at the tennis courts. If you can't figure out where "south" is, that's not the leader's fault.

And that, Snow Globe, is exactly why you are a stellar leader. Why didn't the person own up earlier? That's kind of rhetorical in that we can't know. He certainly wasn't a "moron" trying to screw up the trial for everyone, he just didn't know and for whatever reason wasn't willing to admit as much. That you took the time to explain and help him is what matters here and what highlights the problem I'm seeing. Someone who doesn't know is going to be berated, one-starred, otherwise tagged as "do not team with" . . . and over what? A simple mistake, a moment of frustration/disappointment on the league's part? But now that you, Snow Globe, have taken the time to help him, he will be better next time, an asset to a team (should they take him after he's been maligned and 1-starred for no good reason).

The point, as Snow Globe has so clearly illustrated, is that being a leader entails more than simply inviting people to a league.

Indeed I did. I find it more comfortable to write this sort of thing in the non-specific second person than try and write it in the third person.

Maybe I'm a jerk but I really do not care for people who have that attitude. We are not born knowing everything, we learn throughout our lives and admitting you don't know something is the first step to learning it. I've had to work with people in real life who refuse to admit that they don't know something and you know what? They end up causing a lot more problems and a lot more work for other people trying to muddle through than if they had had the guts to admit up front that they needed help. Admitting a lack of knowledge is not a weakness, it's a strength.

Yes, people tend to get annoyed when things go wrong. But part of the reason is that if the person had said upfront that they were unclear on what to do it could have been explained which would have avoided the situation in the first place.

Again, I'll say that asking questions is not a sign of weakness. As for being kicked for not contributing, it's much easier to contribute if you know what you are doing and it's much easier to know what you are doing if you ask in advance.

Yes, there are stupid team leaders out there. Not much can be done about that except add a player note and don't team with them in the future.

Yes, I am responsible. But what am I responsible for? I am responsible for providing direction and leadership to the league as a whole. I'm responsible for selecting a strategy and ensuring that people are following it. I'm responsible for making sure that when the league splits the splits are reasonably balanced (ideally I would also make sure that the split groups have adequate leadership but that can be tricky unless you know the people involved).

Now the first one is obviously the one we are discussing. I will provide direction and leadership to the league, but I will tailor it to the needs of the league. Since I don't know everyone involved I base my assumption of knowledge on the average demonstrated by the sever unless I'm told differently. When the trials were new I gave detailed explanations but as people got more experienced I backed off on doing that with, at most, a brief run down unless someone said they needed more. I did the same when Keyes came out (actually I still tend to default to explaining in Keyes, it doesn't get run much so the odds of a first timer are high). I consider this a perfectly valid method to use, I HATE people who waste my time explaining something I already know and the same is true of leagues. If all people in the league know it I am just wasting time for the sake of hearing myself speak. If someone doesn't know then I'm happy to explain but I'm not going to waste the time of every person on every league I run just in case someone doesn't know.

And indeed if I see someone who is obviously lost I'll offer advice. I'd have preferred them to tell me ahead of time but I can handle it in progress if necessary. Some of it's little tricks, for example doing choke points on BAF I'll always assign team 1 north and 2 and 3 south. Do you know why? Because I can do a quick scan of the area and tell at a glance if people are in position or not. Anyone with a bright green name should be near me, teal names should be south. If I see someone out of position I'll give them a minute to move and then send them a friendly tell. Some of it's less obvious, when I run Lambda I always assign team 1 to grenades. Why? Because it means there is a good chance I'll get a couple of grenades that way. A lack of acid doesn't really hurt the league (in fact I've started not using acids at all) but a lack of pac grenades can. Assigning myself to pac grenades means there is a person I know for a fact is competent getting at least some of them.

Okay, great, you sound like a good leader. So who is this horrible person who, single-highhandedly, screws up your entire trial? What moronic thing does this person do that entirely messes up the trials you lead? What can one person do, in other words, that is so horrific that the entire trial fails? (barring a badge run, of course) I'm also curious about how many "moronic" players you have had on your teams; apparently, there's a whole contingent of morons sneaking onto trials with the sole intent of screwing them up.

Ugh, sorry, snark has become a meal here, but I think (hope) you take my point.

They could engage Marauder's minion swarm before everyone is ready and lead Marauder out of the room.

That incident is one that happened recently in a trial I was on [and quite possibly one that Adeon was, since we're both on Virtue I believe]. It sucks. It really really freaking sucks. I took the time after the event to explain to the new player how that part worked personally. However, several people were pissed off at the player for that incident.

Personally, I saw it as an accident, and didn't think the person deserved the hate levied against them.

Snow Globe gave another example [they get a bulk of the temps and don't realize how to use them]. However, with Snow Globe's example, if it got to the point where Marauder wasn't getting pacified, I'd go off and start clearing crates on my own. Hopefully getting a few others to help me, but it's simply another a fail mistake that's just slightly more recoverable.

Either you're mis-reading my posts or you're confusing what I said with what other people have said. I've never actually had a trial fail due to one person doing something incompetent (including the ever popular "lead Marauder out of the area" failure). I've had a few trials that failed back when they were new and people were still learning them but it's been a while since I've seen a failure. The closest I had was when the choke points were new and a trial failed due to the southern choke point being to far west despite me repeatedly asking in league chat for them to move further east. The trial failed we restarted and I specifically lead them where they needed to be ahead of time.

I can't even recall any specific cases of truly incompetent players. Minor annoyances, sure they come up all the time, such as people ignoring positioning requests ("please get on this side of Nightstar so the tanker can pull Siege that means everyone") or masterminds who don't set their pets on aggressive for the prisoners but nothing game breaking.

Now that doesn't mean I don't keep an eye out for it and take precautions against the possibility. Back when I actually bothered aciding the doors in Lambda I would automatically start taking out the extra containment chamber in the courtyard on the grounds that someone would lose their acid but it was never a big deal.

At the end of the day my motto is "never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence". If someone is doing something wrong I assume it's because they don't know what to do. I'm happy to explain but a lot of the time I have no way of knowing who I need to talk to unless they tell me (a lot of people seem to completely ignore league chat).

I'm personally guessing that the new person got a couple of the outside crate drops too. We managed to get 20/20 temps in the sabotage phase. Other problems with that trial were:

a) Six doors were still active and we were asking for only 2 to remain open for the extra merit.
b) After a few minutes with no response, we started clearing containment chambers for extra acids.
c) after a couple more acids were used, someone started wasting grenades with no one around the AV (about 4 were used with hardly anyone attacking).
d) By the five minute left mark we had the AV to 25% health (a couple of players were trying to restock grenades at that point while the rest of the people were attacking the AV).

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

Whoa easy easy... Look being moronic is by no means limited to team members... I have seen my share of morons running TF and the I trials. It goes both ways and I am not referring to someone barnd new that simply doesn't know the ropes yet. Even with a detailed explanation once the trial begins and you have mayhem crashing all around you its easy to get confused. The vast majority of teams and team leaders know and understand that and will shrug off a mistake and move on.

What we are referring to are that small percentage, actually I am amazed it seems larger than I had expected, of players that seem to have the attitude that insructions apply to everyone else but not them. These are the people that show up in cut scenes during a lambda because .. "I helped find the acids its not my JOB to hunt for grenades" Despite the fact that as they exited the lab their leader specifically said .. Go help team X finish finding grenades! They are the impatient jerk so sure if they don't attack NOW instead of waiting for Siege and the ADDs to get into position then they won't get that rare or very rare they need. And of course as I mentioned this includes leaders as well. My favorite example was a Lambda leader that specifically told his team to help with acids after his team finished off the grenades.. when the cut scene rolled GUESS who was the only player from either team dancing with Maurder.

Are there leaders and players out there that are just absolutely convinced the ONLY way to do things is their way... sure there are. These are, in some cases the 7+ year vets that obviously know more about the game than anyone since they started in beta before the game even went live. How DARE we question their knowledge or methods. Take heart I have the feeling some of these people will be the ones running to the new VIP server to avoid playing with the "common trash". LOL I plan to wave good bye and send thank you cards for the lag they will take away with them.. most of it caused by their egoes. I actually had a player like this tell me how I should be playing my Plant/Rad controller. I asked if he'd ever played the powerset combo himself.. NO. I asked if he'd ever plated a controller before .. NO. And yet somehow his infinite knowledge of the COH universe made it possible for him to better understand how my powers worked and the best methods I should use when deploying them.... Funny I was around 40 level at that point and had been on a pile of Task Forces and trial along with PUG groups running everything from arc to radios and no one else ever had a problem with me debuffing the crap out of stuff and anchoring everything to the floor. See .. morons come in all shapes, sizes and species here.

I wish you luck in the future and I think if you just enjoy the GOOD teams you find and push the bad out of your head you'll be fine. Not sure where or when you play but I am on Virtue most evenings after 6PM EST and I can honestly say the good teams/leader outnumber the bad. After you fins a few .. add them to your frineds list and look for them. I have found most are on the same time nightly running trials for the astrals and emps .. I hook up with a leader I know and can relax and enjoy the fun.

Oh .. heres a hint I do use the note cards and rate leaders.. 1 star means STAY away BAD BAD man 4 star = MY Hero! That way even if you run into a BAD leader you only run into them once.

Just to jump in and defend Adeon I have teamed with him many, many times and he is definately an excellent leader. This was back when the trials were new and his instructions and patience helped many of us become good at the trials. See my post above.. Adeon IS one of the leaders I have a note card on and has as many stars as it will allow me to give.