Free player who is ticked at free players who don't learn to play

[Dobneygrum]

Sorry that my first post is a rant, but I just experienced the worst party ever. It was an unusual party in that it was comprised entirely of level 9 clerics... that is so important to this rant that I need to repeat it... LEVEL 9 CLERICS. We were all f2p, but we had all had 9 levels to get the basics of being a cleric down.

So... we tackle the Bookbinder Rescue on elite... which is tough without out a "rouge" as my party put it (They didn't seem to get why I was speaking in French saying, "Mais oui, et bleu, et un peu de jaune!"). No rogue makes it tougher, but we were still doing a 5th level adventure and we were all level 9 clerics.

We started off well: 1. We stopped to buff at the door. 2. We decided who was going to be the healer (that was me.. I play a rather squishy drow, but I excel at healing). That was the last thing that went right the whole adventure.

The first battle drains about half of my mana. I asked everyone to hold up for resist fire (I had never done it one elite before, and I didn't realize how deadly those casters can be.) Not only did they not wait for the buffs, no one healed themselves before tackling the next room. I managed to keep them all alive, but I was out of mana by the time the room was cleared. I asked if anyone had a dv, and the second he finished putting the last one on, another player runs off and gets killed. I raise dead, just in time for them to take off to another door. All except for one guy who gets himself killed on another trap by another door. I raise him just in time for the other two to die. He runs in and gets himself killed too. Finally, I am the only one left, I have no mana, and I'm trying desperately to heal myself with a wand long enough to get to the door. Luckily the adventure failed before I died.

Now, I've been in parties where everyone was killed before, but I couldn't believe that a party full of clerics had to be told to heal up between battles and to maintain a line of sight with the healer (did I mention they were level 9?). The worst part of this debacle was... they all died with mana bars at 3/4 full.

Oh well... they said... guess we needed that rouge after all.

[vettkinn]

Wow comrade, French speaking party of level 9 clerics??? By the way, bookbinder rescue is part of the Sharn Syndicate pack, so you guys were either premium or vips, not exactly pure F2P.

Anyway, just because the party is full of clerics it doesn't mean that its an uber group. An uber group is one that has a variety of classes. And imo, level 9 is still an excusable level to make mistakes, maybe those were their first characters perhaps?

[Quikster]

Wow comrade, French speaking party of level 9 clerics??? By the way, bookbinder rescue is part of the Sharn Syndicate pack, so you guys were either premium or vips, not exactly pure F2P.

Anyway, just because the party is full of clerics it doesn't mean that its an uber group. An uber group is one that has a variety of classes. And imo, level 9 is still an excusable level to make mistakes, maybe those were their first characters perhaps?

In my experience an uber group has nothing to do with classes.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Didn't even read your post!

First post is a rant!
Woot!

+1 for the brass kahunas!

[SquelchHU]

As someone who regularly solos those quests at level 5 or 6 on a non dedicated healer I am absolutely bewildered by all of this. The only thing in there I can see being threatening is the traps, but even they aren't that bad, and most of them can be completely avoided by breaking the doors from the side and timing your way through the trap, then pulling the lever inside to turn off the trap.

[JPDefault]

Two things I seldom find in DDO (most expecially in PUGs):
1) Patience.
2) Strategy.

[cdemeritt]

Wow... in a party of all clerics, no one should have to be "the healer", and everyone should be able to buff and heal themselves... Mind you even in most parties where I'm the main/sole healer, in still in with the fight, unless people are taking too much damage...


Edit: this seems to be more of a Newbie Vs. Noob thing more than a F2P Vs. P2P

[Sweetsoul86]

As someone who plays a healer almost exclusively I feel your pain, also, love the french. ^_~

I know it's frustrating but what will horrify you more is when you get to level 17 or 18 and you find someone who...for example is a wizard, who does not have any of the basic spells for high level quests, no crowd control and refuses to help the cleric in any buffing whatsoever...then you will cry, like I have and you'll look back and realize that people somehow manage to make it to any level without paying attention to what the heck they're actually doing. It's like they play in their sleep or something.

Sadly to say it's why a lot of the people who've been playing for years will only play within their guilds or with real life friends, there are just so many people who won't accept help or advice and who refuse to learn. I mean this both with vip and f2p. It used to be that new players could get help just about anywhere they turned and most of them genuinely wanted to learn, so there were always people ready to teach them but there are so many new players now it's harder for those who want the help to find it.

This is why I've advocated new players finding guilds who help new players on myddo, there are still many guilds happy to help people who want advice or help or just someone to bounce ideas or questions off of.

[KoboldTrapper]

wow... just... wow...
In the tabletop, a party of clerics is unstoppable against any threat apart from traps, and atheists. lol.

[Spoprockel]

I think i have met one of those clerics in Gwylans stand once. It was amazing.

I was the other cleric. He came in with leather armor and a bow. He kept kiting mobs through the whole area while our mage had set up a firewall. He didn't even stay close to me to heal him, nor did he heal himself more than a single time during that whole quest. And all the time he was only using his bow, kiting mobs all away from the firewalls.

The worst part was when we fought meneater. Two people died from aoe spells, he was one of them. With 4/5 of his blue bar full.

Worst cleric i've ever seen.

And i agree with cdemeritt, this doesn't sound like an F2P issue. There's no difference between free and paying bad players.

[Orratti]

I am already impressed with you as a new player when I read in your post that you actually had a wand. The number of players I have ran across recently that don't seem to know that wands and healing potions exist is astounding. It doesn't bother me too much as most of my characters are self sufficient and I don't mind playing party cleric with a ranger while still battling it out in melee because I enjoy the challenge. What does annoy me a bit though is when I am blowing my resources party healing in a group with another ranger 2 paladins and a bard with the rest not healing at all. If they do it only lasts until loh and spell points are drained.

The fact that there are people willing to play a cleric nowadays is surprising. Perhaps that is why you ended up with so many in your party because they figure since you are already there you will do the healing and they won't have to do any. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were in their 1st party because they won't go in a group of players expecting them to keep them up because now it is so very hard with poor low lvl play. Clerics and healers don't even get asked if they need donations to cover expenses as they did once upon a time.

Now if you really want to put some icing on the cake tell me someone got ****ed because you didn't heal them or let them die.

[edit] not sure how helpful rouge would have been except to add a little color to the corpses.

[Milikki]

Im in the same boat at you here, getting frustrated with people.

TWICE today, my rogue was searching for traps when the group just ran ahead. Sprung the trap and guess who died...

And this was after I said "trap", and about half-way through searching for the panel. I guess they just didnt see the little animation, or read the party chat.

[Xeraphim]

In my experience an uber group has nothing to do with classes.

Correct.

Back on Mabar, we did Elite content with "Bring whatever you like" parties. 6 fighters(level cap 10) in VON 3 got sticky, but we made it all the same, without recalling out or re-entering once. It got a bit hairier in the Menechtarun on No-Healer Elite runs, but we got through those fine too... they just happened to be rather costly is all.

There is no excuse for incompetent human beings, but they permeate our world of late, vying to be recognized for their meager and inconsequential accomplishments. The rest of us have to pull the slack, and that's where you get Zergers from - those accustomed to soloing a dungeon with 5 soulstones in his pack, carefully avoiding shrines in order to avoid more anxiety, discomfort and mayhem.

[Begineizer]

[edit] not sure how helpful rouge would have been except to add a little color to the corpses.

ROFL



Anyway, I'm a level 8 Cleric, this is my first "serious" character, and I do understand your pain!

But the bottom line is we've all been in a bad party. The worst one are impatient party, it's like they're running to their death or something. When that happens, I just leave after the quest (or everyone died) and look for another party.

But that seldom happens (maybe 1 party out of 10). Can't really say noob players are a problem to the game.

[Dobneygrum]

Wow comrade, French speaking party of level 9 clerics??? By the way, bookbinder rescue is part of the Sharn Syndicate pack, so you guys were either premium or vips, not exactly pure F2P.

Anyway, just because the party is full of clerics it doesn't mean that its an uber group. An uber group is one that has a variety of classes. And imo, level 9 is still an excusable level to make mistakes, maybe those were their first characters perhaps?

Well let's see... I haven't paid for anything since I've started playing, I can only post in the f2p section, and I bought Sharn Syndicate with free Turbine points... so strikes me like I'm f2p.

Did I say it was an ubergroup? Pretty sure I didn't. I said it was a party full of level 9 clerics, and it was.

I agree level 9 players can still make mistakes, but for clerics to refuse to heal themselves... even when they are near death between battles with full mana bars... it is hardly an excusable mistake. Would you have reacted the same way if I had said that I was in a group of 4 level 9 Barbarians and 3 of them didn't have weapons? Or a party of level 9 Wizards who didn't cast any spells?

[Dobneygrum]

Thank-you to those who can share my pain... I agree that it isn't really an f2p vs. p2p thing, but I can only post in the f2p section, and I wanted people to read the post .

I also agree with cdemeritt that there needn't have been a "healer", but it is sometimes useful to have one person watching the health bars so that those who can really dish out the damage don't need to stop hitting and heal.

[Sweetsoul86]

Thank-you to those who can share my pain... I agree that it isn't really an f2p vs. p2p thing, but I can only post in the f2p section, and I wanted people to read the post .

You should think about using my.ddo.com because if you post these sorts of things as a blog you'll still get a lot of people reading from both f2p and p2p. ^_^

[Talon_Oakenleaf]

I am new to DDO and I picked a cleric for my first toon. Why you might ask, simple I did not know you could play in groups. But since I have been playing in groups I have played with some great people and at times I have played in some horrible groups. The ones I hate are the groups that everyone takes off in different directions and I am left there wonderring who to follow. Or the groups that rush head long into everythng so I hear your pain. Sad thing is some people play the same maps over and over again for whatever reason they have memorized every freakin leaf, they forget that some people don't know where they are going. Good luck in finding somewhere to fit in.

[Sweetsoul86]

Sad thing is some people play the same maps over and over again for whatever reason they have memorized every freakin leaf, they forget that some people don't know where they are going.

It's not so sad when you think some people have 10+ characters and they've had to run the quest on normal, hard, and elite, especially if it's got good loot or xp. Eventually you just start knowing where things are, I've been playing close to 2 yrs and I still get lost a lot of the time but there are some quests that I could probably do in my sleep simply because I've run them so many times on different toons, this happens even more with lower level quests because I don't even know how many toons I've made then scrapped because I messed it up in some way or another or I just didn't like the class or the race or whatever.

Yes, you are right that a lot of people forget that not everyone knows their way around but this is where YOU have to be vigilant, it's your own responsibility to let people know that you don't know the quest or haven't done it enough to find your way. In most cases people will tell you where you need to be or wait for you to help you get through and in some cases they'll be stupidly rude and leave you behind. You win some, you lose some. I know that when I'm in a group and someone doesn't tell me they're a new player or that they're not sure where to go it can get frustrating because I can't read your mind and I don't know if you're just messing around or if you need help, most of the time I'll just ask if you're a new player but not everyone does.

Best of luck to you.

[TekkenDevil]

Personally, in groups people either play my way, or they get to endure me free-riding and standing still doing nothing in quests 'cause they obviously don't need my help. Then when they all die, I laugh in their face and leave.

An A-hole solution, but dang if it doesn't save me from alot of headaches.....