General Courtesy as a leader

[muffinlad]

Brief Story-

Logged into to play my TR'ed FvS, who has made it to 11, and has plenty of quests to do. Looking over the LFM, I see a 11-14 VoN run. Perfect! I have not done VoN 5-6 on this character yet, the group has 6 people already in it, and I will supply the second Wisdom and healing.

The group is slowly filling, and I see we have one spot left, and I take a look to see what the Group Leader is looking for to see if I can send out some tells, or offer general encouragement to join.

A) The Group Leader has changed the level range to 11-16.
B) There is a level 15 in group.

So, I ask/state "By changing the group admission levels, you have harmed the 11's in the group."

The Group Leader's response "There are no 11's in the group"....when, in fact, there were two.

I excuse myself. I don't waste anyone's time with accusations- It is a game after all. However- It would have saved my time if the group leader had simply said "We are not filling fast enough, so I am going to open the group up to a wider range." Instead of saying nothing about it. Yes, I still would have left the group, but I don't begrudge any leaders call on that...just not being consulted before the change. (even with in-game change notices, you can miss them as they scroll by)

It's an obligation to courtesy, to let people know you are making a change when that change will adversely impact them, and let them feel empowered to make the choice to stay or go.

I try to keep that in mind when ever I am filling a group.

Regs,

muffinleader

[unionyes]

I have never run with General Courtesy, although I once did VON 5 and 6 with Major Doorknob.

But I agree with you, if you are going to change the parameters partway through the grouping process, then you need to be very clear about it up front, at the very least.

When I am leading a pug (not often) and there is some desire from the group to change the level range or quest, I even go so far as to ask the one who is going to be disadvantaged if they want to switch toons or if they are OK with doing TR even though we had advertised for STK in the LFM. Most of the time it isn't a problem.

There is downside for everyone here. Imagine if the OP hadn't noticed that he was losing a ton of xp on his first run until he went inside the quest and brought up the scorecard? I would have said oops, nobody said anything about powerlevels, going to say thanks but no thanks, then I would have dropped.

Of course, then there would likely be a thread today about people who sign up for a raid and then drop group as it's about to start

[Flasharte]

I agree, and would add that I fell it is also discurteous to advance a lvl while in a group if that will change the spread and nerf others xp.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Had the same thing happen to me a couple times. Last time I was on a von1-4 elite run on my TR FvS... we picked up a couple new ppl (guildies of the group leader) after von 2, and half way through von 3 I realized that I has being power levelled, zero xp.

When I said something the leader's answer was "oops".

At that point I told them I hoped they were all prepared for self healing and recalled.

[muffinlad]

There is downside for everyone here. Imagine if the OP hadn't noticed that he was losing a ton of xp on his first run until he went inside the quest and brought up the scorecard? I would have said oops, nobody said anything about powerlevels, going to say thanks but no thanks, then I would have dropped.

Of course, then there would likely be a thread today about people who sign up for a raid and then drop group as it's about to start

That is exactly what I would have done too...and as one of the Wis 20+, it typically would cause everyone else in the group to have a problem as well, so my departure would have been disruptive not only to myself, but everyone involved.

It is absolutely my "responsiblity" to check to make sure the leader has not made an error, as the experience points are mine to earn (or fail to), but it sure makes it simpler when everyone works together to hit that goal.

Food for thought, anyway,

muffinchef

[Rydin_Dirtay]

Once Turbine makes flagging for Von5-6 permanent (which I heard-rightly-or-wrongly--is supposed to happen with Wednesday's update...) then maybe this kind of thing won't happen so much.

I think a lot of it is out of ignorance on the part of the PL's (party leaders) rather than any attempt to deviously powerlevel others.

[Frodo_Lives]

If you are putting a group together I consider it bad form to change the parameters without discussing it with the group. Either character levels, quest difficulty, the quest that is being advertised.

I would be willing to believe that any changes being made are usually done with the thought of trying to get a group together faster and not realizing the difficulties that this may present for the current group members i.e. power leveling.

However with all the TRs out there who are trying to maximize every xp opportunity even changing the difficulty being run from say normal to hard could change some peoples mind about the group and if they want to run.

Yes mistakes happen, and yes you are responsible for yourself, but as a group leader you should try to make sure that what you put on your LFM is what you are actually going to do.

[Mithran]

If you are putting a group together I consider it bad form to change the parameters without discussing it with the group. Either character levels, quest difficulty, the quest that is being advertised.

I would be willing to believe that any changes being made are usually done with the thought of trying to get a group together faster and not realizing the difficulties that this may present for the current group members i.e. power leveling.

However with all the TRs out there who are trying to maximize every xp opportunity even changing the difficulty being run from say normal to hard could change some peoples mind about the group and if they want to run.

Yes mistakes happen, and yes you are responsible for yourself, but as a group leader you should try to make sure that what you put on your LFM is what you are actually going to do.

/Signed

I do my best to take the players as they apply and regard the LFM statements as a binding contract. To be fair, most others post theirs with the same degree of integrity.

[TechNoFear]

/squelch General Courtesy [the evil bugger and his cohort General Disarray will not get away with it!]

[Raegoul]

mmmm Drama

[NXPlasmid]

/squelch General Courtesy [the evil bugger and his cohort General Disarray will not get away with it!]

yes he was clearly promoted far too quickly, I remember when he was Sargent courtesy... very bad.

[DasLurch]

I know that General Decency has been dead here for a long time. No fear of him sticking his "holier than thou" nose in here...

[DasLurch]

I do feel for ya tho Cs, it's happened to me before, but not on a TR'd character. I would think that that would make it even worse. I hope you can get one done soon at level. That's the problem I have with the raids here as of right now. I tend to "outlevel" them before I get to run them at the correct level. I guess that's less of a problem for a TR'd character though...