Blizzard seemed to produce the impossible with the LFD tool: a place where boosting completely useless morons is a norm and productive. The attempts to kick even utterly underperforming players is often frustrated by failure, and saying "he must go or I won't tank/heal anymore" can easily result to your kicking. The screenshot below came from the run when I evaluated a new tank aspirant for the undergeared project. So the tank here has full blue gear. You'd think no one can be below that, right?
Think again. The important part on this picture is not that 2 people managed to get below the blue tank. The point is that the only useful DPS in the run is not a "nice guy" who "wants to help out undergeared people". He call them suckers.
Yet when the second boss came, and the warrior managed to pull the same stunt:
To kick someone you need 3 votes. Me and the tank are 2. We can assume that the borderline useless hunter supported the other M&S. So both votes were decided by the good DPS, who did not have any love for the M&S. So why did he supported him?
He answers it clearly: he wants a fast run. Blizzard made almost perfect job. The bosses give badges to everyone, if you solo the boss, you don't get 5 badges. So carrying a dead weight costs you nothing (I assume no one wants any loot from the bosses). Even 500 DPS speeds up the run a bit, so why bother? Also the replacement of even a DPS costs you time: the interface jumps up, you press buttons, wait 10-15 secs until he gets into the instance and another 40-50 secs until he reaches the group. On the top of that you have only one kick, so if you use it to kick a useless DPS, you might cannot kick the tank or healer if he goes AFK (I mean literally). To make things worse, you can't kick anyone in the first 15 minutes, so unless all DPS are useless, you are closing to the endboss, there is 5-6 mins left from the dungeon. Why bother kicking?
Blizzard created a system where not carrying slackers costs you time. So only "moral" people refuse to boost, who selflessly sacrifice their own time to "teach a lesson" to an M&S to "make the world better". A goblin would suck it up and boost. Perfect!
Or not. Remember, every non-market system is abusable! The above system is perfect to enforce tanks and healers to boost. You can only boost or completely stop, and the latter costs you (and the team) more time. Also, since they are already in the instance, they can kick a tank or healer easily as they will get a new one soon (the collateral cost is paid by every DPS in the queue). However the system is abusable by the DPS!
If a DPS says he refuse to boost, and says after the first boss that he goes AFK if the moron is not kicked, he doesn't stop the group, just slows it down. At that point the group can kick him, the slacker or no one:
So to stop M&S, all you need is to mention that you can join the M&S! Make a macro today and spam it every time you go LFD as DPS: "I will post damage results on the first boss showing who is pulling his weight and who is slacking. I will suggest to kick the lowest DPS unless he is above the tank. If you refuse to kick him, I will go AFK and just /follow the healer. If he can slack, I can too". Remember, the vote of you + tank + healer is enough for the kick. With your macro, you are threatening the tank and the healer that they will soon 2-men the instance with 3 DPS on /follow. So they will be forced to kick someone, and the most obvious choice for kicking is the lowest guy. If they are "good souls", then enjoy your brand new AFK badges!
Think again. The important part on this picture is not that 2 people managed to get below the blue tank. The point is that the only useful DPS in the run is not a "nice guy" who "wants to help out undergeared people". He call them suckers.
Yet when the second boss came, and the warrior managed to pull the same stunt:
To kick someone you need 3 votes. Me and the tank are 2. We can assume that the borderline useless hunter supported the other M&S. So both votes were decided by the good DPS, who did not have any love for the M&S. So why did he supported him?
He answers it clearly: he wants a fast run. Blizzard made almost perfect job. The bosses give badges to everyone, if you solo the boss, you don't get 5 badges. So carrying a dead weight costs you nothing (I assume no one wants any loot from the bosses). Even 500 DPS speeds up the run a bit, so why bother? Also the replacement of even a DPS costs you time: the interface jumps up, you press buttons, wait 10-15 secs until he gets into the instance and another 40-50 secs until he reaches the group. On the top of that you have only one kick, so if you use it to kick a useless DPS, you might cannot kick the tank or healer if he goes AFK (I mean literally). To make things worse, you can't kick anyone in the first 15 minutes, so unless all DPS are useless, you are closing to the endboss, there is 5-6 mins left from the dungeon. Why bother kicking?
Blizzard created a system where not carrying slackers costs you time. So only "moral" people refuse to boost, who selflessly sacrifice their own time to "teach a lesson" to an M&S to "make the world better". A goblin would suck it up and boost. Perfect!
Or not. Remember, every non-market system is abusable! The above system is perfect to enforce tanks and healers to boost. You can only boost or completely stop, and the latter costs you (and the team) more time. Also, since they are already in the instance, they can kick a tank or healer easily as they will get a new one soon (the collateral cost is paid by every DPS in the queue). However the system is abusable by the DPS!
If a DPS says he refuse to boost, and says after the first boss that he goes AFK if the moron is not kicked, he doesn't stop the group, just slows it down. At that point the group can kick him, the slacker or no one:
- kick no one: the run is slow, and you get your badges AFK. You can Alt-tab (just switch windowed mode on) and read blogs, e-mails, news, eat, walk your dog, whatever. Just be on autofollow and the badges will come.
- kick the moron: they will lose the replace time, but win the difference of moron-DPS and the average DPS of the new person
- kick you: they will lose the replace time, and lose the difference of your good DPS (I'm assuming here you are not an M&S yourself) and the average DPS of the new person.
So to stop M&S, all you need is to mention that you can join the M&S! Make a macro today and spam it every time you go LFD as DPS: "I will post damage results on the first boss showing who is pulling his weight and who is slacking. I will suggest to kick the lowest DPS unless he is above the tank. If you refuse to kick him, I will go AFK and just /follow the healer. If he can slack, I can too". Remember, the vote of you + tank + healer is enough for the kick. With your macro, you are threatening the tank and the healer that they will soon 2-men the instance with 3 DPS on /follow. So they will be forced to kick someone, and the most obvious choice for kicking is the lowest guy. If they are "good souls", then enjoy your brand new AFK badges!
75 comments:
It seems you still run the sizable risk of being kicked for initiating an anti-social policy.
I doubt this will work if you announce that you intend to do it. Out of the 3 choices the group has, the "don't kick anyone" choice ISN'T the moral choice - once you announce that you're "mean", the moral people will feel that it's their duty to kick you...
But maybe the best thing to do really is to just /follow the healer. The only thing you risk there is getting /ignored by the tank and healer, and if enough of them ignore you it might be hard to get a group.
I'm now really curious to know if this tactic will ever work.
The only time I was ever in a group where one of the dps did this, I was healing and I told the sulky guy to grow up and stop messing around, and he did. (This is because once you KNOW someone is capable of decent dps, it's easier to yell at him to just do it rather than boot anyone and wait for a replacement.)
Definitions from an online dictionary.
Nob:–noun.
1. Chiefly British Slang. a person of wealth or social importance.
2. Slang. the head.
Doesn't seem like such a bad thing to be called...
As much as I like some of your philosophies, I disagree with your method of dealing with M&S. You actually spend more time complaining than the time it would take to actually do the trivial content.
Time is money and this won't get you anywhere.
I'd agree with Tal.
I wouldn't make the threat to slack off, if the vote to kick the laggard fails, just do the AFK /follow without announcing it.
My guess is that the success rate of the threat works out to be low enough to not be worth the time saved if it works.
simpelest thing i usually do is just initiate the kick, most people tunnelvision on 'yes' anyway
People don't like being blackmailed or threatened.
Being threatened means that the other person has 'power' over you. Giving into agreeing with the blackmailer means that "I'm weaker than you and I shall accept your terms."
You think this thought won't fry any social's mind?
No. What happens then? Cognitive dissonance. In order to limit cognitive dissonance, any person is inclined to remove the dissonant thought, by removing its cause.
Namely, votekicking you for being 'mean'.
Theoretically, it wouldn't work.
On another note, this is EXACTLY what I meant by my e-mail and the parallel to prisoner's dilemma. Just because a situation is in a Nash equilibrium, does not mean that it's a global optimum.
Globally optimum would be to have all morons votekicked. Because of the reasons correctly identified by you, the Nash equilibrium (which all goblins pursue) is putting up with the idiots since the global optimum is more time consuming.
To be honest I dont see the point in trying to kick mediocre dps players unless they are doing something that deliberatly screwes the people around him (I'm looking at you, Thunderstorming and Typhooning idiots, throwing mobs into extra packs and messing with the tanks pulls even after being told to stop). If you sit down and refuse to continue because they are bad, its even worse than them being bad. If they are above 1k, they are fine for trivial content like heroics and I'll rather have a laugh at how much I can outdps them while healing.
On the other hand if someone is seriously underperforming (<500 dps DKs and huntards), everyone will be happy to get rid of the M/S anyway without all the extra drama.
@Kaaterina: maybe they would kick me for being mean. But that does not change the trick itself.
I mean Tal can be right: after the first bosskill and posting damage meters, I can just initiate votekick and be silently on /fallow on failure.
The optimal solution for yourself is getting badges for 0 work. By initiating votekick you probe the group. If they do kick, they show they expect performance. If they don't you are safe to underperform.
The point of the article is not being mean. The point is that you are free to slack too.
Check out this awesome DK, who managed to pull 1.1k in heroic UP:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Sha'tar&cn=Venomzzx
Gems and enchants are for noobs, and Rune of Stoneskin Gargoyle is the best for DPS.
Firstly, /follow is not slacking, its being a prat. As you have mostly demonstrated you are in the post above.
Secondly, most people who are overpowered are slacking. Just because I've got most of my t10s why do I have to work to get the most DPS I can do? I could be drinking a cup of coffee, standing in the gloop, who cares? I know I'm not gonna die and my dps will be about 5k, more than enough.
However, just as OP players don't have to perfom in heroics the same way they do in ICC, the same rules should apply to undergeared players. So long as the instance is completeable in a timely fashion, then their lack of dps is fine.
Since 3.3 I cannot remember a time when we wiped a single heroic and I have been doing them every day for my frost.
I think when he calls you a "nob", it's a misspelling of "knob", as in "knob-end" which is a British slang term for a penis, or a person who is annoying and acting entitled.
Hmm... your dps was lower than the tank. Does that mean that you should kick yourself? Maybe those who haven't heard of your undergeared project will think that you are being a moron for not wearing any epic gear, since you waste their time due to decrease in DPS as a result of wearing blue gear only. Above 1.5k dps is tolerable as people need to start somewhere...newbies need time to learn the mechanics of the game. Anyone with dps below 1.5k probably should be guided or removed if they are ignorant yet stubborn, especially those running with >1k dps. On another note, yesterday we had a 4k dps tank running a 400 dps guildie dk on norm FOS with us. No problems with that... 4400/2 = 2200 dps for norm FOS + the tank just mows everything. A little externality we gained from the pro tank helping out a guildie.
Personally I post dps meter and either:
1) ask mele dps to STOP leveling up weapon skill in dungeon
2) ask DPS to stop slacking
3) initiate vote kick without explanation
BTW getting new DPS cost you allmost zero effort and zero time. After the kick I just go forward and pull next trash (if I'm on my tank toon). By the time we reach next boss new DPS get's to us.
This sounds too awesome, so going to try this on my mage.
@Ayana
Gevlon's rule is: "The lowest DPS in the group gets kicked then and only then if their DPS is lower than tank's DPS". Koltas is below tank sligtly but he is not the lowest in the group.
I agree, that yes, people do have to start somewhere. I don't mind, if someone in quest/normal instance blues/late greens gemmed, for gods sake, with atleast green quality gems (which cost like 5-10g these days) + has some dust/essence only enchants (these days you get 'free' dust/essences even in normals by leeching from someone who has enchanting) pulls 1.1k dps. They most likely really are quite new their class, and just need to learn a better rotation, etc.
Now, if we armoury that rogue Bushmills:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Draenor&cn=Bushmills
Surprise-suprprise, what do we find, it can't be true...
Yes, pretty much most of gear is illvl 232. And ToC10 achievement. Sure that's new to the game, isn't it? Also that Undying Naxx10, and having Naxx10 cleared nearly a year ago is sure indicator that he is totally new and unexperienced.
Only question, that boggles my mind, is how did he get i245 t9 legs without having killed a single ToCGC10/25 or ToC25 boss. Maybe an armoury bug or something that I don't know.
Now with this 'complete lack of any PVE experience' and for sure being drastically 'undergeared for heroic', we see this guy pulling 1.1k dps. If that's not slacking, then what is?
The true goblinish thing to do is:
- initiate votekick
- if votekick fails, tell them you're sorry but your baby is crying and needs to be fed (or insert any random bullshit here)so you'll be on follow for 5 minutes or something
- "socials" will empathize with you and they'll tolerate your extended afk time since your baby is so cute
but consider this:
- if you're a tank or an healer this is a useless trick, your queues are so short that rationally it's not worth to kick someone unless they do 100dps; your runs will be faster anyway even if you keep the moron
- if you're a dps in the process of gearing up this is not good either.. after 15mins or more of queue by having a terribad dps and you afk following will lead to a 30mins+ run with possible wipes.. which is acceptable if you're just there for the frosts but bad otherwise.
This post is quite funny since I remember Gevlon predicting a couple months ago that the new LFG tool would have been the end of socials while it has encouraged a ridicolous level of boosting in the game.
This artificial boosting system has some positive aspects btw:
- lots of gear flowing around so goblins involved into the enchanting and jc markets are making more money (blue gems sell nicely idd)
- I can gear up for my off spec faster
I don't say that this is something I like, but the system is so well designed around boosting that it's simply counterproductive to fight it. Luckily M&S are the vast minority of people I meet using the LFG .
I can confirm that this actually works like "natural selection" among good players and this happened last night for my LFD group in Old Kingdom.
You can usually judge a PUG from LFD from the (lack of) conversation when the group forms, people will provide all the necessary buff. Smart paladin will buff kings instead of might when a dps warrior is present for example.
The whole run will be silence when everything happens like clock work. On this Old Kingdom run, the mage was literally /follow and just dpsed some trash along the way. tank got pissed off and just said voting kick after 2nd boss as mage is not pulling his weight and everyone just accepted, no drama or comment.
The next DPS that joined proved to be another M&S as he got "lost" running to last boss, and the 4 of us just said screw this, 4-man last boss and got the badges.
I don't care whether people are under the tank in the dps meter as long as they are doing more than 1500 dps. That's more than enough for heroics. But if people suck or are playing like utterly tards I'll threaten them with leaving the group.
Most of the time this does work :)
Gevlon: The optimal solution for yourself is getting badges for 0 work.
Then why bother with waiting to see the DPS results from the first boss? As soon as you enter the instance, /follow the healer, then go do something else.
If the other DPS are competent, the group will be near completion before the option to kick you is even available. If they decide to just finish with you being on /follow, you will get 5-7 badges with zero effort. If they kick you, you still get 2-3 badges with zero effort.
If the other DPS are M&S, then they will make less progress before the 15-minute timer expires, and the likelihood that the group would continue with you (or continue at all) is smaller. If they continue with you, you will get 5-7 badges with zero effort. If you get kicked or the group disbands, you may only get 0-2 badges, but it allows you to queue up sooner for another dungeon and get matched with better players.
In this regard, the goblin thing to do would be to become the slacker right from the start. But it depends on why a goblin even wants the badges; if you want to get 5/5 T9 gear for raiding ICC, for example, then getting the gear as fast as possible might be worth the additional time spent participating in groups, since you would be ready to raid sooner.
I'm in no hurry when doing my randoms. Idiots should be kicked where it hurts most.
I usually have the group agree on dragging the moron all the way to the last boss and there we kick the sucker. After that four-man boss down.
Why sink 20 minutes for someone who's not trying to pull weight when you can sink 40?
I am a pally tank and I would say that in 80% of instances, I am the # 2 or 3 dps (usually 2), in 10% i am #1, and in 10% I am #4.
Personally, I'm just happy if we can get everyone above 2K. (Mine is usually 2.7K-3K).
I'd just ignore the /Follower scrub and never group with him again. Nice try thou.
i wonder if its feasiable to kill trash for 15 minutes...skipping bosses...then kick the retard and do all the bosses.
I find the best position to be in is the Healer, when there is someone who pulls instead of the tank - or is just an annoying dead weight - I skip giving him heals. If that guy is a warrior or some other melee class, he usually is dead quite fast.
Then when he asks for a res, I just say something like "oops, sorry, I am out of mana". As long as the real tank (that I assume was also pissed) and the healer are in cooperation - the dps dont matter.
The most interesting point of this post is that it flies in a completely opposite direction of healers rezzing. It's ok to waste time arguing and slowing the run down over low dps, but not over slackers refusing to run which also slows the run down. Especially when the slacker refusing to run is usually the one that caused the wipe.
To each their own I guess. I guess I'd be thinking 'what a douchebag'. I'm gearing up my 80 warlock now and figuring out best rotations, gear, etc. Yup, I'm doing it in heroics. My gear is fully enchanted. I full buff myself with 2x drums, eatting (I refuse to flask, still). When I started a few days ago I had 1400 dps. Now I'm up to 1800 dps (not huge jump, I know).
Some of those slackers/morons you may be carrying are gearing up actively trying to be the best they can. I mean if they can't go through heroics how else would you get gear so 'not to be slacking'. Yes you are in blues but all ilvl 200. I still have a green weapon and two green trinkets. I could run quests for my 6th toon or I can try to do stuff like TOC or heroics to buy the badge trinket.
Eventually your so called slackers are going to need to get into a heroic and get some gear. THat's how it works. In my recent heroics there is one or two dps that is geared, maybe the tank or the healer is geared, and there is 1-2 dps that are undergeared (or actually appropriately geared for heroics).
Honestly if you only want geared people, just run with your guild and quit complaining.
"Above the tank" is a higher standard than it is worth enforcing in pug randoms if the tank is a good player or overgeared.
Everyone should be able to do 2k at 80, even without optimizing blue gear and enchants etc. But even that is more than is necessary for clean fast kills of 3.0 heroics. 1500 is plenty. But as you've seen, a good player in blues can do 2k as a tank (I already knew that, because I was doing that on my bear before I had any raid gear back in 3.0) Heroic fights are fast as hell and the tank *should* be getting a headstart on damage done, so a dps class that is in worse gear than liviann could legitimately damage below them in gear and skill that is appropriate for the instance. If they are a great player they probably won't, but we are interested in penalizing M&S who drag down the group, not everybody who isn't either really good or overgeared.
If you can do 1500, you are pulling your weight in 3.0 heroics. Getting up in arms over people doing 1500+ is being a jackass, IMO. Expecting more than that is expecting boosting yourself.
Doing less than 1500 is expecting boosting, because you can't easily clear those dungeons if all dps do <1500 and the tank and healer are of similar skill/gear level. So what you are expected to bring to the table when queueing for those is 1500 dps.
If you're in ToC5H or the ICC5H dungeons, I'd use a different standard, because the dungeon finder won't let you in those without a good fully enchanted blue set or some epics.
Here is my version of a hard game :)
1. Leveling to max (lvl 80) should take you 80 years. Experience is awarded realtime so you cant get someone else to boost your experience.
2. Death penalty: If you die, you cannot play the game anymore
3. From level 1 to level 20 (maybe even more if you are really lazy) you get "boosted".
4. From level 20 something to almost 50 you will have to boost too if you chose to. If however you chose to boost, then you are forced to boost until the low level players reach a point where they can 'boost" themselves.
5. The resources are gathered trough daily grind. The normal time spent on grind is around 8 hours. Of course, depending on what dailies you grind, you might not need to grind 7 days a week and 8 hours a day.
6. The physical strength of your character is the best between level 20 -> 40. After that it will slowly decay.
7. There are several cases where players can reach more than 80 levels, however there are even more of players that didn't reach that so playing should be careful (not to die).
This is a game that surely out of 6.000.000.000 people very very few will chose to play it ;)
@Gibbiex: I can't believe you still pull the "geared" issue after I do everything in BLUES.
You have a green weapon: then you SLACK. Let me help you out: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45085.
BTW you really think that 2 green trinkets are responsible for the difference of your 1800 and my 3000?
Maybe you should read some warlock resources.
I'm a warrior tank - the same warrior tank that blizz said is lacking in DPS. Yet I still manage to be #2 or #1 for 99.9% of all my heroic runs. It frustrates to no end.
However, Gevlon, you of all people should know time is money. Do I hate the idiot who's doing less DPS than me? you better believe it... but I am willing to put up with it for 10-15 min to get my badges and get back to my auctions ASAP.
As long as the person is doing over 1k dps AND they are in blues, I don't care if they stay. If the tank has 2k+ dps and is in purple gear from ToC, well they d*mn well better be doing more dps than a dps in blues from rep rewards!!!
I try to step back and remember where I was (dps-wise) when I first hit 80 and started running heroics. So rep blues are my min raid requirement as well as the dps requirement. At least it shows they are making some effort and not expecting to be "run through" these heroics for their gear.
I have been grouped with hunters lately only doing about 800dps in HoR or PoS. We do try to remove them as these encounters, including the trash, are just a bit harder sometimes than the easy mode of the original heroics.
We had a crap elem shaman with us in Gundrak the other day who was probably chatting while she was supposed to be hitting stuff... was doing horrible DPS. And to prove that it was crap, I (the healer) was healing and DPSing at the same time... and kept doing better DPS than the shaman, even while keeping everyone healthy. I had to print Recount to the channel... the shaman was all insulted but everyone else was incredibly amused. The hell with doing better than the tank, at least do better than the healer!!
I follow the same standard as Gnome of Zurich. 1500-1600 DPS is what a DPS should be pulling in a basic heroic for the run to be smooth (if no tank or healer failure). If one of the DPS is pulling 3k or 4k that is going to pull the DPS of the 'standard' geared people down so I allow a bit of slack on that. Below that or if they are activerly screwing up then they should be running regular 80 dungeons since they are either not skilled enough for heroics or lack the gear to compensate.
In addition I run an addon called Elite Group which takes a snapshot of the gear and dungeon experience of the group and lets me quickly see who is overgeared, undergeared or mis-geared. This way I can get a beter picture of what I should expect and see who is simply overwhelmed by the instance and who is a slacker.
I have no issues with kicking people who are slacking off or who are seriously underperforming but first I want to know what exactly is happening and not make assumptions. However, once I know what the problem is I will act if I think that a person is just a leech and not actually trying to improve.
Here’s my weekly playtime report for the week of 17th – 23rd of January:
Sunday 17th 7 min (Auction House)
Monday 18th 25 min (H-AN)
Tuesday 19th 32 min (Server Queue was greater than play time so I worked on a DK on another server)
Wednesday 20th 45 min (H-CoS)
Friday 22nd 106 min (H-PoS + Razorscale Weekly Raid Quest)
Saturday 23rd 55 min (H-DTK)
All the numbers above include my full playtime. Since I am a DPS I queue for the Random Heroic as soon as I log in. Saturday had an especially long queue. Every group I joined was a pug, and I never spoke other than linking my drums and asking for might.
Slackers or not I don’t see the point of communicating with your PUG unless you are having problems progressing through the dungeon.
I admit to being a little boggled.
1 good DPS can do the DPS the entire group could do back when Wrath first came out. If you want to sit there on follow or afk, I could care less. It just seems odd to spend $15 a month to play a game that you are a looking for ways not to play.
I think it's illogical to equate "doing low dps" with slacking or just being on /follow. I find that a lot of people who do low dps do so because they don't know how to gear their character or which skills to use for optimal dps, but they still run along and try, which I (and most people) don't mind. However, when I see someone on /follow the whole time they'll get a warning and a swift kick soon afterwards if they don't start participating. Motivation matters - I want to actually play the game and do so with likeminded people. How good they are is irrelevant as long as they are good enough and participate. On the other hand I have no interest in "playing" with people who don't actually want to play, as it defeats the point of the game.
By the way, we've got an entire 10 page thread on Maintankadin with screenshots where everyone in the party is doing less damage than the tank.
I had a similar situation in H TOC5 man the other day. One of the DPS did not run back when he was killed during the jousting. Since you can't kick till the debuff is off, he downed all but the Black Knight. I told him when his timer was up he was going. He laughed, then 12 minutes later he got kicked.
This really does seem to be much ado about nothing. With these heroics, you can blow by them in like 15 minutes. Most of the time, everything goes fine, and even if someone is not doing maximum effort, the whole thing is a joke and is not hard at all.
So why make such a stink? Just go forward, finish the instance. I could understand if heroics were 50/50 proposition, but they appear to be in the high 90's as far as success, so making an effort each and every time to monitor DPS and raising a stink when someone is "subpar" just seems counterproductive. Huge waste of time and energy.
If you can 4-man, you can 5-man with a guy who is subpar.
My huge problem with heroics is they just seem like a stupid boring grind, like an honor grind. Not hard at all, emblems guaranteed, just takes alot of time to get gear, which will be obsolete in a few months anyway.
Honestly, I do not know why people even do them anymore. I have quit.
@Gevlon: "BTW you really think that 2 green trinkets are responsible for the difference of your 1800 and my 3000?"
I only see one dps report in the screenshots from Koltas, and its for 1865 dps. I don't see 3000 dps in there.
Seriously you need to lighten up. If people do 1500, that's plenty to avoid a kick.
While I sympathize with the mess and agree it can suck. I'd start the vote kick as soon as I read your threat. Because that's what it is, and I don't like being threatened. Nearly everytime I kick some well geared well performing asshole from my group it runs flawlessly from that point on.
The bad dps may not have the capacity (moron) or will (slacker) to change. Trying to change that is often a waste of time. Even if they are willing to change you can't change them in that pug.
A slacking dps is barely noticed without meters unless they get themselves (or others) killed, and except for people like you, I never hear any complaints. Because everything is working, albeit slower.
When dps makes life difficult in the new dungeons (no interrupts, no focus fire, low dps) its often thought of as the healers fault. That sucks, but its the reality of the moronocracy(c).
So when the healer truly slacks, people are pretty much certain to die, and then its almost a guaranteed kick. You are not doing anything but wasting your own time as well as the time of bad or good players. And way more than any dps who merely dpses lower than the tank.
If you really think getting (hopefully) better DPS matters to make the run go significantly faster, complain: "%t's low dps is slowing us way down, anybody can do 2k in blue gear. I vote to kick". If your vote fails, you can either quit the group (possibly slowing you down even more, you could get a worse group) or limp along until the low dps actually gets someone killed (i.e. Loken). Try another vote, everyone is running back anyway. If that fails, quit the group and chock it up to bad luck. I don't see why
Personally I find sucking it up works best. My mage can do 9k on bosses so I can carry the rest of the dps. My healer can get a group in minutes after quitting, so who cares?
From my experience with bad players in LFD. Once one person has been vote kicked a second cannot be kicked for some time unless they are offline. So why not perfect your method and go on follow after they kick the non-performer, knowing that you are safe from that point on unless they stop completely? You can no longer be kicked. You'd be getting your badges then for no work without the possibility of being kicked.
1) Some classes scale better in blues then others.
2) All I care about is badges
3) I am the healer
4) If I don't like someone because they suck I stop healing them.
@Gevlon - I think your trying to hard to help others. Repair bills are a better teacher then vote kick. Abuse the power of the tree.
I seems that you have run into a double standard. Tanks and healers bear a lot of responsability for the success of a group. DPS 9on the other hand do not. For the most part they can hide behind two or even sometimes one other player. I can see what you are saying, they should have to do some work if I do. In reality if the group is achieving the content it is really faster to just keep going.
I tank and I bring my own healer with me, so this is less of a problem. In a case where it is realy bad we can just leave. Most times we stick to it, I figure it is training for when content gets harder.
I haven't had to use this, mostly because it is obvious we are a team, but letting your party know the tank and healer came and go together gives you a lot of power.
PS our queues are pretty much instant when we are together.
I am usually healing in the heroics, and i dont mind low lvl players...i mind more so people who do the stupid things...ie pulling instead of letting the tank pulling...or face pulling for that matter. Or if they are tanking not watching out for my mana bar...am usually ok mana wise and dont mind chain pulling but every now and then i like to drink up. I just mind players who do the dumb things...if they are low on the dps matter, or even if the tank is a newbie tank...as long as they are playing smartly, i dont mind carrying. Maybe part of it is a karmaic acknowledgment that eventually I will have a freshly minted 80 who will be unleashed on the heroics. So might as well put out the good vibes now, and at least "train" people to be more accepting of folks who are a undergeared or what not.
And by the way - i find your method of dealing with it as petty. I know i'd probably either drop group or vote to kick you, if I came across someone like you in my group.
Oh to add - I posted a moment ago, the healer who disagreed with your methodology.
2 things to add
1. If a player is being stupid, i will not focus on them healwise.
2. I actually find it when a group is under duress, ie the supposedly fights get more complicated more interesting personally, because it keep my reflexes sharp and in effect is a pseudo training for the harder combat that i will face in raids and what not.
This is the Goblin blog sooo....
Pretty simple really, time is money (or in this case EoT's), as has been pointed out by Gevlon on many occasions. The baddie(s) aren't in your guild, probably not even on your server, they really have no impact on you other than this 15m run through a heroic.
Bottom line, is time spent convincing group to replace bad dps < time spent continuing with said poor dps to finish the instance (and also risking alienating the tank/healer and hence increasing time spent even more).
The strategy you suggest might work, but I do think that the more likely outcome (since the majority has already voted not to kick based on performance) is that you will be kicked for being anti-social. The suggestion of quietly joining the slacker may prove more effective, and has the added benefit of being less work. On a large scale it could also encourage more performance based kicking as more and more groups get noticably slower due to the slackers and goblins.
Wanting to be fair, punish and reform others, while useful in some circumstances and making you feel better, are not very goblinish. This means that the calculation in your head should be Time lost for replacement<Time gained by assuming an average dps replacement. For example, if you're 5 minutes away from finishing, your group is doing (3k, 3k, 2k, 1k) 9k, after replacement you're looking at (3k, 3k, 3k, 2k) 11k. Take out a minute for the replacement to be found and run to you and your net change in total time to completion becomes (5m@9k=2700kdam) - (1m@8k=480k) / (11k) + 1m = 4.36 minutes.
It seems trivial, but on a 15-20 minute run, that is 3-4% increase, even after suffering through most of the run with dead weight. I think I might try a simple spreadsheet that I can tab out to and then announce to the group "we would save x minutes if we kicked this person now" and see how that goes.
Aren't you being 'moral' by starting this crusade against M&S instead of just getting your badges in less time? Obviously your intentions are great: you wan't to stop rushing M&S. But your actions won't put an end to the M&S. It's just a waste of time. The M&S will continue to exist, no matter what you do. Accept this fact, abuse their stupidity.
Anonymous poster 4,
'Nob'is British slang for a 'dick'.
Also I agree with the non-slacker dps here. I want my badges and it's not my job to teach scrubs how to play or enforce non-slacking behaviour.
Any truly awful players go on my ignore list so I don't pug with them again.
True goblins are often indistinguishable from M&S because we say all the 'nice' things while retaining goblin behaviour.
Ball you're calculations are a bit off ...
Given your parameters, 9K DPS, 5M left in run, there is approx 2700K damage left. Upping your team DPS to 11K will reduce that time to do 2700K damage to 4.06 minutes. BUT you now have to add in replacement time, which is said to be 1m, which then puts ya at 5.06m. So replacing the DPS in that particular case COST you 3.6s ... a proverbial wash.
If someone is pulling 500 dps, chances are if you initiate the votekick people will just kick him. If you say all of this snobby "I demand that you kick him or I will go afk" stuff beforehand, chances are people will start to get annoyed at you and sympathize with the moron. If your only objective is to get results, then don't make a big deal out of kicking someone.
I also adopt the if you can't beat them join them approach. As a dps, I will afk more often and auto attack every now and again. As a healer, it's very much either this fool/tool goes or I don't heal. I have been booted from group quite a few times for this approach, from people who rather tolerate leeching or underperformance. Usually though the group sees no point in carrying the leecher.
There's also this thing that Blizzard should address where undergeared people cannot select for e.g. HHoR but if they hit random dungeon they have a chance of entering HHor.
Arn't your actions Gevlon an example of an ape sub-routine? You expend more effort to prevent him from getting what you feel he doesn't deserve, despite the fact he hadn't caused significant detrement to the run, other than taking advantage of the system and of better players.
It is frustrating for sure. I could have been in a similar situation as you last night. I was running with a geared guild group of 4 from another server. I was the tank but 2 of their DPS relentlessly chainpulled, pulled aggro, facepulled, etc.
I faced this situation: make a scene, stop trying to tank and let them die (which happened once) or shut up and just play, although it makes me have to work much harder. Their healer didnt seem to care what was happening either, let alone who he was healing.
I chose the later, for fear I would just get kicked by these 4 friends, when I was short for time in the first place. In the end, the other warrior, sustaining 5k+ dps took more damage (32%) than I did trying to tank (30) when I usually shoot for 50-60% damage taken.
I had a read of the comments so far.
It's true that there's enough dps to balance out the leecher's.
The point is Gevlon like me and many others don't like leechers.
Below are two true scenarios I came across last week.
Hunter in green/blue gear reaching 500dps. Go and get rep rewards, enchants, gems, work on rotations to compensate for crappy gear until 1k dps output at least.
Hunter in 5400 gearscore that's purple shiny gear that most casual gamers cannot attain, and the stupid pet did some work while the huntard stood back browsing the net or some other stupid non wow dps related act, averaging 1.5k dps.
Both cases deserve to be booted. Sadly the latter did not cos at least 2 people thought 1.5k dps in item lvl 245+ gear is adequate.
Bottom line - I don't like leechers and I don't like them thinking we owe them charity. Some other wow blogger said this random heroic is like entering a contract with people you don't know but can only hope they live up to their contract of meeting their role obligation whether it'st anking, healing or dpsing. Do the best you can whether that's 1.3k dps or 6k dps. A level 80 dps character not reaching 1k dps in patch 3.3 WotLK is fail. A level 80 dps character in top end raid gear doing 1.5 dps is fail.
Should you boost a tank that just reached 80 and gearing up by running heroics as dps for badges(which is much faster than doing normals until they have the best blue tank gear)?
I geared my warrior tank this way and received a lot abuse because of my low dps (which was largely due to the fact that I priorised tanking items over dps items). A triumph badge geared tank will allow for a quicker run than one in blue gear (not to mention that it is my experience that alot of healers and dps will refuse to run a heroic with a blue geared tank). I would argue that boosting the new tank is worthwhile because you will get geared tank sooner which will reduce your queue times.
I just say "stop slacking" or "step it up, ".
Takes 15 mins before you can kick someone, so its generally not worth kicking anyone unless its taking a lot of time for some reason(on of the longer heroics, tank or healer being afk, etc).
I only do it if someone is afk - I often dont dare suggesting a vote kick either because you never know when you will get people against you.
I once got kicked for saying "gogo". Its not worth it if you want fast runs.
Running the daily heroic is by far my least favorite thing in wow.
Unfortunately it is still worth running due to the rewards.
Since I hate running heroics, and since time is the real currency of wow I want to finish my daily as quickly as possible. Unless somebody is wiping the group, or taking afk's it takes longer to kick somebody than it does to carry them.
I do not care if everybody working equally hard. I just want to get in and out and start doing something I actually enjoy in the game.
Yes this unintentionally helps m+S, but helping bads is a smaller evil than spending any extra time in a heroic dungeon.
Bro... I'm 43 and play my toons like a pro... when I tank I usually DPS #1 or #2... when I DPS I also score #1 or #2... but I also have a 10 year old son that loves WOW and works hard to get better at it every day... but he won't pull my numbers. There are kids out there playing and paying their hard earned allowances to do it (mowing, picking up dog poop, etc)... have some fun man... a low DPS can make your run more challenging. I don't mind a little heckling... that makes the game more interesting too... but save the cut throat for the real AFKers.
@anonymous
Ball you're calculations are a bit off ...
You forgot to add in the damage your group would do while waiting for the replacement. You're going to keep killing while you replace instead of sitting and waiting.
I would suggest that you use the "less than the tank" rule on bosses only. I remember my aff lock in 3.0.0. E.g. If you are running with overgeared farming badges, then a DoT DPS has to use an inferior rotation or see trash die before many ticks.
If the goal is justice, you care about whether someone is slacking, underperforming. If the goal is efficient, then you care about is DPS good enough so as keeping them is better than replacing.
Person A is 2000 DPS in greens and performing at 99 percentile of what players in that gear would do. person B is 2100DPS in 213+ epics doing 20 percentile of what players in that gear would do. If your goal is badges, you would prefer to kick A, if your goal is "justice" then you would kick B.
If you are trying to get badges, not reform the world, why do you care what gear the person has? Is a hardworking 1500DPS better than a slacking 1500DPS? Is 1400 DPS but less than the pally tank worse than 1350 that is ahead of the druid tank. If you are going to audit people, then it seems like a dps# is a better metric than the tank.
i think you left out an option, just leave the group. Why pick sides, or expect that this will be the last drama?
So your brilliant idea is to vastly prolong the time it takes you to complete instances, with no benefit to yourself. The goblinish ideal must have changed, I thought it was to produce max benefit to yourself regardless of how it affected others, but apparently it's to punish others regardless of cost or benefit to yourself.
actually made a spreadsheet to calculate time saved by replacing, and while the actual time savings is generally under a minute for 500-1500 dps slackers up to 9 minutes remaining, the actual break even points are lower than I expected. Replacing a 1k dps with a 2k dps, you break even if you have only 2 minutes until completion. Even replacing a 1.5k dps with a 2k you break even at the 4 minute mark.
Paladin tanks always do more damage than equally geared people. The warrior in the first part has level 70 gear and warriors are the class that scale best with gear.
One glaring problem is that your negotiations involve an ultimatum. Ultimatums are negotiation killers, because any smart negotiator will immediately begin acting as if you have already carried out your ultimatum. (The highest example of this is that the US treats a nuclear ultimatum the same as an actual nuclear attack.)
If I'm in the group, and you say, "you do X or I'll quit" and I don't support X, I'm going to be the one who initiates the vote kick against you. You are trying to take over the group with an ultimatum, and I won't allow that, or I have no negotiating power. It's better for me to have you gone, and go back to a negotiated outcome.
@Phelbs: this is nonsense. Without displaying your requests and offering rewards for compliance and consequences for non-compliance there is no negotiation at all.
I mean how could one make an offer? "do X pls pls pls be nice m8s".
Granted, for socials it might work better to sugar-coat it, but the message is still the same.
All this talk about right and wrong and profits and time are out of place here. What it comes down too is "The Goblin Way" and if this particular article embodies it. A goblin would want the most emblems per hour. Since you can not boot someone until the 15 minute time is up, and most dungeons can be cleared in 15-20 minutes, slowing down and waiting to kick a person will lower your emblems / hour ratio.
Gevlon is anti-social. Goblins are not always anti-social. After all, why would they keep talking to all these strangers and giving out quests if they only wanted to be left alone? Gevlon wants to stand out. He wants to be the one that is different from the group, no matter what.
Lots of people wanted money but had none. He made some so he was different. Lots of people said soloing instances was hard to impossible, so he did it to be different. 90% of people seem to be happy with the XLFG, so as expected, he needs to be different.
I don't know. I play a paladin tank. I have no issues waiting for dungeons, I have no issues with pulling as fast as I can without causing the healer to go OOM. I have no issues with clearing ever instances (some maybe not the last boss and a few trash pulls) before the timer runs out. If the timer runs out and the group sucks, I just leave and requeue...
As a side note, I want to see Gevlon take his blood dk and solo some level 80 heroics. Just because most people hate blood, most people despise deathknights, and most people cant solo lvl 80 heroics. At least it would be something worth reading....
there is a DK blog somewhere where the DK was soloing content. Forgot the name, but twas an interesting read.
@Phelbs: this is nonsense. Without displaying your requests and offering rewards for compliance and consequences for non-compliance there is no negotiation at all.
It's not nonsense. It's Negotiation 101. "I blow everything up" is not a consequence. It's an ultimatum, and it leaves no room for compromise.
I'm not easy on slackers. I don't heal people who stand in fires, I don't heal dps between pulls (sit down and eat, sucker) and if the group isn't following the strat, I stop healing. But if someone threatens "X or I leave" then I take them up on the "I leave" part and initiate a vote kick.
"One glaring problem is that your negotiations involve an ultimatum. Ultimatums are negotiation killers, because any smart negotiator will immediately begin acting as if you have already carried out your ultimatum. " (phelps)
"Without displaying your requests and offering rewards for compliance and consequences for non-compliance there is no negotiation at all." (gevlon)
This is a confusing state of affairs above, I'm going to make a reply to phelps that I believe more truly represents why gevlon's strategy was presented:
You say that ultimatums are 'negotiation killers'--but what does ultimatum mean? From the latin, basically "last request", or last demand. When one issues an ultimatum, one is INTENTIONALLY ENDING the negotiation. I do not understand your argument, which seems to rest upon this basic misunderstanding of the mindset of anyone issuing an ultimatum.
I am not sure that I understand your next point either, although I do find it intriguing. Let us suppose that the ultimatum I have issued you is "Give me your wallet, or I will kill you with this Glock." You would then, as a smart negotiator, act as if I had already killed you? There are indeed circumstances where giving in to such physical threats only assures your death, but let's say 5 men with guns are robbing you, then the percentages favor giving them your wallet as an immediate action. Surrealism aside, while I believe your reply holds some basic truth about how to call someone's bluff/respond to an unacceptable ultimatum, it is certainly not something that applies with any generality.
@Gevlon: He(phelps) is saying that any strategy you come up with to shortcut negotiation will be unacceptable to him, that he insists on a full process with no preconditions, carried out between 5 people in a small text window, that any reasonable person would expect could easily take longer than it would take to just finish the entire instance. Since your ultimatum, as he calls it, seems to be expressly designed to avoid just such an occurrence, shouldn't your response to him be "I'm glad you agree that my strategy works, I wish you well in your alternative approach."?
"It's not nonsense. It's Negotiation 101. "I blow everything up" is not a consequence. It's an ultimatum, and it leaves no room for compromise."
It's both a consequence and an ultimatum, those are not contradictory terms in this instance.
"I'm not easy on slackers. I don't heal people who stand in fires, I don't heal dps between pulls (sit down and eat, sucker) and if the group isn't following the strat, I stop healing. But if someone threatens "X or I leave" then I take them up on the "I leave" part and initiate a vote kick.""
Those are both consequences and actions. If you bothered to give them one warning, then they would be ultimatums. "Stop standing in the fire, I won't heal you there." "Follow the strategy that will work, or I'll let the group wipe." "Don't make ultimatums, or I'll vote to kick you from the group" This last one is deliciously self-referential, although it's merely hypothetical.
However, all your talk about negotiation notwithstanding, you don't even give them one warning, you just do what you want. Your position is self-consistent, and avoids ultimatums, but any reasonable person would see your behavior as being even farther from negotiation than Gevlon's ultimatum process, which is admittedly already pretty dang far from it.
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