Trial leadership .. what is going on!

Okay this thread is a minor rant and a place for anyone that has been seeing the same things I am about to describe to add their horror story.

In the past week or so I have been a part of or ran screaming away from all of the following:

1. League leader sat in the rwz and advertised he was recruiting for a BAF. I was looking to join one to get my daily dose of Empyrean goodness so I sent a tell and joined. As we recruited the final few members a TANK made a comment about how "HE" wished we were doing the Keyes Trial. Next thing I know we are queued up and I didn't notice until I hit the green confirm button but suddenly we are headed into the Keyes trial and poof we are teleporting. As soon as we arrived I quit the team and one starred the leader. Don't LIE to me to get me on your team and then expect me to just blindly do whatever. Way too many league form every day for anyone to have to put up with that.. BTW about 4 other members of that same league quit and wound up on the BAFIi joined shortly afterwards.

2. League leader advertised a BAF and I joined up.. when we got inside we were finally informed it was a master of run and we'd be doing the Keep em Seperated portion. Okay mostly I do the BAF for the easy astrals and Emp and am perfectly happy with the normal run but keep em seperate is another astral so fine. Problem was the leader threw teams together and didn't seem to care about actually making sure they could do their assigned jobs. The ADD team was the smallest of the three and ill equipped to keep the adds in check. I was on my Rad/Rad and we were doing a great job with Siege until we got totally overrun with adds, because most of the add team was in the hospital, and pretty soon the adds were totally out of control and people started to quit..INCLUDING the leader that put the mess togther to begin with. Okay first of all again don't lie.. if you intend to do a master run tell people so they can decide IF they want to join. And more important take a little time before qing to examine your teams and organinze them so there is a chance for success. LASTLY.. if you ever want me to join a team you run again don't quit when things go bad.. especially when its YOUR fault!

3. Today a group of us were standing around and someone said "Okay since no one else wants to I'll form a Lambda and we can do the BAF afterwards.. Sounded perfect until the teams formed. Team one, the leader's team btw, was nothing but brutes, tankers and scrappers. Team 2, the one I was placed on, was nothing but blasters, an MM, a corruptor, one tank and one SoA. In short team 2 was going to spend a LOT of time face down on the floor in phase two. I figured after he was done recruiting the leader would juggle but NO and not only that he announce that team 1 would be doing acids and 2 would get grenades. Acids always seems to be a little easier than the grenades .. less lag and a simpler route. Then this idiot actually q'd us up.. I was assuming all the time he was joking but he actually intended to run the league that way. I decline the q and quit. Now I don't give a crap if I hunt acids or grenades I have done enough trials to have both routes memorized but DO NOT put together a team that has failure written all over it and expect me to hang around so you can giggle at my frustration.

A good friend in one of my SGs asked me what was happening with trial leadership recently.. he'd been on a number that were poorly organized and failede misreably. My theory is this...

The really good leaders that we all loved teaming with now have every single one of their characters to 50 (+3) with all powers slotted to tier 4 and are playing lower levels toons or may even be on Beta getting a heads up on issue 21. What we have now is the bottom of the barrel.. players that THINK they know what they are doing trying to lead and blaming the failures on everyone else BUT themselves.

Personally, to date, I have avoided leading trials. At first I wanted to get to know the trial before I tried to run one and then LAG made my actually staying on line and not crashing during a trial very iffy so I stayed away from leadership.. I don't like to start something and then suddenlt go POOF and force someone else to assume leadership Well the lag situation has calmed down and i can't recall the last trial I joined that i dc'd on so I am seriously considering taking control myself.. at least that way I know what I am signed up for and I hope I know enough about the game to put together teams that stand a chance of survival.

So.. that's my rant. What sort of nightmares have you al been running into lately

Why would the leader in 3) sort teams when 9/10 times they get jumbled after the queue?
1) would annoy me into quitting, 2) sounds like an unexperienced leader.

Too many people state looking for any trial and then complain about how the leader wants to do it (eg keep them seperated)

I think you should start leading teams. It seems you are more than happy to complain about how poorly others do (this is repeat post theme by you) without being willing to do it yourself.

Calling the people who are willing to do more than "/b looking for trial' the bottom of the barrell is hardly going to encourage people to excell.

Its like PUG teams, dont like the ones you join? Make your own.

I had something like #1 happen the other day. I quite the BAF I was in when I saw a Lam forming. We weren't quite ready to go, I would be easy to replace, and the League leader said he didn't mind. So I join this Lam and am chatting with friends on another channel which I see the enter trial button pop up--only it's for BAF, not the Lam we were promised. Apparently, the leader gave up and brought the entire league over to a forming BAF. So I quite and started my own, only some bug left me unble to start or join any trials since the game somehow thought I was still waiting for teamates to start the BAF and it wouldn't let me quit it.

Sigh. Not a good night for me.

The first thing I thought when I saw this thread was something I've been seeing recently: someone does all the recruiting and says "Oh, by the way, I can't lead, so someone else will have to do it."

Heh, I was on a BAF today where the leader, once we zoned, went AFK for the duration of it. At one point a few others in the league pointed out that this person does so on a regular basis.

We need a leader rep in the game. Maybe where there's a team vote after TF's/SF's, and trials. Just a thought. The majority of the team would decide a + or - point or nothing for the leader rep.

Some people are just turds.

I've actually been a on a few failed normal BAF runs lately. Blew my mind.

I'll lead when I feel like it. But I'll usually state the latter very bluntly if someone complains about a trial not forming.

I think your theory is probably right, and I'll say this about #3: someone learned one way to do Lambda almost right. When I'm running Lambda, I do tend to build an all-melee team and an everybody-else team. The all-melee team gets grenades, because people with the melee defense powersets do better in the crowded spaces of all those shelf racks and tiny little rooms; the warehouse map is horrific, in particular, for masterminds. It's also perfect for people (like half or more of the brutes and tankers I meet) who want to run off on their own. Over on the lab side of the map, the ranged DPS and support characters can swarm in two concentric circles together, inner then outer usually, with the buffers keeping the RDPS up long enough to take out the cylinders. Works like a charm.

I can't imagine what a cluster-hump it was trying to do it the other way around, though. *shudder*

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That being said, I have a very firm rule about complaints about team and league leaders: if you have strong opinions about how teams or leagues should be lead, YOU recruit one. Or else make your suggestions once, politely and preferably via /tell, and then shut the heck up.

how i usually avoid all of those is A) dont run trials, or B) run only with people that you know (at least leader wise)

i personally dislike the trials because the reward system is awful...crash to close to end you get threads, crash at completion you get diddly even though you were there the whole time, get on a bad team and fail = more wasted time

IMO a hami raid is almost more fun than the trials and i think hami raids have worse rewards than the trials lol

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Quote:

Originally Posted by InfamousBrad That being said, I have a very firm rule about complaints about team and league leaders: if you have strong opinions about how teams or leagues should be lead, YOU recruit one. Or else make your suggestions once, politely and preferably via /tell, and then shut the heck up.

That's an opinion.

1 - That's annoying, but sometimes things change. Was it being discussed by the league, or was it just that one person mentioned it and the leader changed his mind on a whim?

2 - Keep 'em Separated isn't what I would call a "master" run, on some servers/global channels it's standard routine. Others on the team could have stepped in and helped, it doesn't always require a leader, just players willing to ask for help, and others willing to help. Just because the "leader" says "team 3 is adds" doesn't mean everyone has to follow along blindly.

3 - As someone else mentioned, teams can be rearranged once you enter the instance, and many times the teams get messed up, and just because they're the leader, you don't have to follow them silently. Voice your opinion.

It works both ways..as people have said. Some leaders are just idiots, some are just leading because no one else will, for others it is their first time. If you join a league where the teams look like a bad mix..and you know they are..SPEAK UP. I hope you said something before you quit that league, at least pointing out why you quit.If the guy was an idiot, point it out. If he was a new leader, help him. Quitting doesn't do anything.

I also agree with the 'If you don't like a team you joined, make your own.' I had one BAF on virtue..the leader formed the team after a good 30 mins of the entire zone moaning that there were no leagues going. Then we get in, and he wants to pull NS to teh courts (he was from freedom, that's how we do it there). No big deal right, its a huge 10 foot from the wall pulling spot right? WRONG. Basically the entire league starts moaning and abusing him, saying the courts are stupid blah blah. The whining went on over the entire trial..with all the cry babies refusing to admit you don't HAVE to run baf that way.

If the above example, it is pretty clear who were the idiots..90% of that whole league! If you cant follow a simple direction from the guy who formed it..please, go away.

Another example. On Freedom, there's a guy who puts together, shall we say..'special' leagues. Teams of all brutes, all tanks etc etc. I joined one of these (before I knew him) and it looked simply awful. Did anyone quit before we started? Sure they did. In fact..the leader himself left. Then it was 20 odd people of bad AT mixes, all frustrated and angry. I took over the league, WITH the bad mix..and we ran a perfect baf.

The reason you might have found so many bad leagues recently, as a friend pointed out...double XP has just happened. SO there is a heap of freshly minted 50s doing the trials..without the shiny powers.

Retracted.

Been looking at the wrong post line.

Too early in the morning for me.

Apologies

You'd hate Union; Every BAF I've been on has kept Siege and NS seperate, just because that's how we roll over here across the pond

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.

Until you lead a successful league, that avoids all the issues you present, you don't have much of a platform to ***** from.