Etiquette in parties

[Purgatory]

There is only a few thing you need to know

BYOH, Know your own way! Dont neg 10 p me!!!!! Fast run, IP. dont waste my time and I wont waste yours.

If you dc and wanted the chest and its just a junk non-raid chest... sorry for your luck get a better connection and keep up.

If you have to ask any questions you are in the wrong group

[TheLallian]

Not exactly friendly to new-comers and first-timers. However if your LFM states 'fast run' then players should have some sort of self sufficiency for healing, know the way and know what to do in the quest (added).

Also point taken regarding junk chests, the party is not going to wait 5 mins for every minor chest. This was aimed at the main quest chests especially those with valuable loot like the end chests.

[Galeria]

Hmnn, nothing in the ettiquette about being ready to go when you join the LFM?

There's nothing quite as frustrating as waiting 15-20 minutes for a quest-raid to fill only to finally have the last member join and immediately say, "Have to go get boat buffs, I can do the training dummy really fast" as you watch all your buffs tick away.

I've even had people join to "hold a spot" while they go level up or reset enhancements, knowing everyone is waiting on them.

The opposite is racing as fast as you can to get to an "in progress" quest you just joined, only to enter and have it complete in 30 seconds with an 80% penalty on your first time run because no one in the party had the consideration to say, "We are almost finished, at the last fight."

When anyone joins an in progress quest, the party leader should give them a fair assessment of about how far into it they are. "We've started" is a whole different thing from "We are about to finish."

[Llewndyn]

You might want to restate this to the obvious: RL matters take priority over finishing a quest.

Also, No one is "Duty Bound" to finish a quest with a group. Its a game. If your guild calls you, and really needs you...where does your Loyalty Lie? Five Pugs or the raid group of your friends who need you?

RL is ALWAYS > DDO, or any game. That should go without saying. As for your second statement...

I have a problem with that. How many people in your guild do you know personally? If you left that guild and joined another one and that original guild wanted you to come help them would you leave your current guild's run of something to join them? No, I doubt you would. If I join a PUG, and nay, if any of my guildies join a PUG, we either wait for them to finish if we really need them or we go on and run whatever we were gonna run. If a PUG is going badly and the guild wants to run something, I will and have said "Hey, this isn't going so well, I'm gonna take off" but if I make the commitment, no matter how ethereal it might be, to a group, I stay through with said group. Nothing annoys me more that the random "guild calls, gotta go" when you don't know your guild any better than you do the PUG you are in.

Uh oh, I just came to a sad realization: what if all the times people claimed guild runs and left was because our PUG was going bad? Hmmm.... more analysis is needed, Johnson.

[somenewnoob]

I have my one commandment:

Don't be a **** to people.

Easy to remember and follow. If what you are about to do is ****ish, don't do it. You know the difference between ****ish and not ****ish.

[mobrien316]

My contribution to party etiquette:

Ship buffs are a luxury item. If you have time for them without inconveniencing the other party members, by all means go and get them. If everyone is waiting on you, I believe it is more considerate to forego the ship buffs and get things started.

When you have a group of level 20's doing a Shroud run on normal, and the last guy to join says, "Hang on a minute, I just have to get ship buffs and then I'll be right there," it always annoys me. Ship buffs for a capstoned character to do Shroud on normal? Really? With multiple clerics, favored souls, and arcanes who have already said they are happy to buff everyone?

Or when you are farming a quest for XP and after each run someone says, "Hang on, I have to get new ship buffs before we start again. These expire in 42 minutes..."

[Astroe]

Ok, I only read to about page two before i felt the need to contribute so i probably can't speak too well on the discussion as it now exists, but I do have some thoughts on, maybe not etiquette per say, but kind of how I feel we can help to integrate newbs into the flock.

Being fairly new to the game myself, I can tell you it's not fun when you don't know how to play the game, to be left dead. I've had groups that, even though I was contributing more kills than any other member at the time, picked up my stone and then avoided shrines for the rest of the quest.

I don't think people should do that. It takes the fun out of the game for someone who might otherwise enjoy it.

I think it would be better to ask people who may die more, or who run ahead and get killed, or do something else utterly newbish, whether they've done the quest. If they haven't, it's not really that much of an imposition to help them out a little. You don't have to be their mom, but it would be nice to stop for a second and explain that the hireling should take out the ooze at those low levels.

And though I am a new-ish player to DDO, I've played MMO's in the past and feel like I picked DDO up really fast. I may not understand all the intricacies of the game but surely enough to help a new player get his (I'd say or her, but we all know there are no girls on the internet) grips on the game.

So, for those of you ragers, who wish a fiery death on the uncooperative jerk zerging through butchers path, I suggest the "Adopt-a-Newb" Program. After the conclusion of the quest (it will end, trust me, it only seems like forever) send him a tell, ask him whats goin on, whether he knows that he missed all the good chests and that you could have deactivated those traps for him.

If he's a newb he'll likely admit it and you can go from there. Now the chat system isn't ideal for one-on-one communication so you can't be /tell'ing him every step of the way right? But I don't think it would hurt the group to go ahead and help him out. Usually the rest of the group will figure out whats going on and (I would hope) even pitch in.

And someone mentioned that 95% of the players don't read the forum and will never read the etiquette rulebook. And to this I say, let them know.

If someone has a question you don't know the answer to, (and we should be offering to answer questions, it helps and I'll bet most of the experienced players had someone do that for them or wished someone would have) point them at the forums. All you have to do is give them forums.ddo.com easy to remember right?

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. But if I don't start seeing some friendly coaching in game soon I'll be back. *Menacing look*

[TheLallian]

Response to previous post...

If you are new to the quest it is up to you to inform everyone that it is your first time. Most times this is not an issue and if you can keep up you will not upset the party. Do NOT summon hirelings, open chests, activate levers, run ahead, open doors etc. You are new and do not know what impact this can have, so watch and learn.

If you are wanting to explore and understand the quest in greater detail then most PUG runs are not for you.

I would suggest you :
1. send /tell to the party leader to see if they will accommodate your needs before you join,
2. or better yet is to post your own LFM asking for a guide and a more experienced player will hopefully join in and show you around. When posting your LFM state in the description that you need a guide {added to list of common phrases}
3. join a guild. Guild runs tend to be more accommodating and many cater to new players.

[mobrien316]

The only times I have seen someone's stone get picked up and then purposely kept away from shrines is when that person is acting like a complete tool. Otherwise, some groups will take it to a shrine right away, and others will take it to the next available shrine.

[SiliconScout]

Honestly I would be happy with just the most basic etiquette.

1. Send tell and ask before you invite.
1a) If they ingore the invite and send a tell back to you letting you know to send a tell before blind inviting because it's seen as rude, for the love of Zeus don't send another invite. In my world that is an instant squelch.

2. If you are newb to the game / quest let the leader know it. If you are the leader then Swallow your pride and be willing to either pass the star or follow the advise of the crew who have run the quest before. Under no circumstances should you "pretend" to know what you are doing.

3. If a toon walks into a trap that you knew was there but didn't warn them about and gets one-shotted. Don't laugh at them in voice chat for it. Pick up their stone, apologize for not getting a warning to them and get them to a shrine.

4. If you are a caster / healer and you hit a shrine with a full mana bar then chances are you aren't doing enough to help your team. Healers can sometimes be excepted here depending on the PUG but if you are an Arcane, there really is no good reason to hoard the mana.

5. Don't run with an "open mic". Bind it to push to talk and use it that way. It's very distracting /. disrupting to the group to hear every little noise on your end of the room. It's quite possible you override the leader and he or she is unable to get instructions out that could be critical.

6. If you don't want to play follow the leader then don't bother joining a PUG unless it's a Zerg / speed run crew. Please, most of the time you are just going to make things harder on everyone but (and sometimes including) you.

7. Unless you know what to do with Agro, get used to waiting a couple of seconds before wading into battle. Especially if you are a squishy toon such as a sorc or rogue. The extra DPS you might get in will not compensate in any way for the extra mana / resources you are going to suck out of the group. If you can't get the hang of this then either change up toons or expect to have the Healer mark you for "after battle / before shrine" only in their mind. Also if you Zerg in and can't handle the Agro don't blame the healer for being a bad one.

8. Respect. Play, and speak, with respect. You don't know how old the people are on the other end of your mic and what they consider appropriate so be respectful.

That's about all I got. In my world if everyone in a PUG played like the above I would probably agree to join more of them. As it is I generally find about 50% of the PUGS I get in can't manage even half of the above. Which is why it's pretty rare for my Cleric to join a PUG, usually it's because it's a rare quest that he can't actually Solo.

Oh yeah and if one more free piece of advice, if you don't know the pit make sure you stick with, and listen to, the toons(s) who do. And for the love of Thor don't try and lead that quest. Please, it hurts us precious.

[SiliconScout]

Uh oh, I just came to a sad realization: what if all the times people claimed guild runs and left was because our PUG was going bad? Hmmm.... more analysis is needed, Johnson.

/Sheepish hand raise

Yeah guilty as charged but I usually finish out the PUG and use that excuse to avoid running more with it. More than once I have found myself having to baby sit through a run with a complete mess of a PUG and taking x3 longer than it would have if I just solo'd it or left them for dead. LOL.

So yeah I will usually finish it out if there is an actual chance of completion but then bail hard on a guildie call. Usually with the warning ahead of time that I am doing so once the run was done.

[TheLallian]

Good point about the use of mic, i.e., not to use open mic. {added to list}

Using "guild call" to leave a PUG as an excuse will reflect badly on your guild and perhaps on you as a player (depending on the circumstance and if you are in the middle of a quest or not).

I would recommend rather using another excuse if you feel the need for one, or just tell it straight out that the group is not working and you are not going to waste time/pots needlessly and suggest that the leader organize his/her LFM appropriately. Just be polite about it.

[TheLallian]

Very few people that post an LFM actually select the difficulty level. This is because it is not easy for people to see it when viewing the postings (you need to mouse-over the quest name).

Should we expect people to use this function given that it isn't that user-friendly? Most people just type the difficulty level into the party description.

It just takes one more click when creating the LFM, so easily done. I am getting into the habit of doing this now.

[Astroe]

So I've been having this problem I was hopiing someone could help me solve. When I create a party it shows me a screen where I can set the mission, see party requests and such, my question is, if I close that window, how do I open it again?

I can't have that big ass thing, that there seems to be no way to resize btw, covering half my screen. I'd miss the Trog! But if I close it I can't change the mission that we show as doing when the mish ends.

So is there a hotkey for that menu? I've looked in the Keymap but to be honest there are a lot of hotkeys and I may have missed it.

[TheLallian]

Just go back to create party (press "o" to get there quickly), make your changes and click on 'update party'.

[Paleus]

Ok, a lot of things here. My overall impression is that creating a universal 'standard' of etiquette is never going to work because reality is too messy to cover all the possibilities, the majority of the population won't be reading the forums, even if we enumerated all possibilities and the whole of the population was reading this it boils down to insisting everyone follow someone else's beliefs. Even if that is a majority imposing its will on the minority, sometimes the minority may just want to do things their way and be left in peace to do it. That's why we have guild runs, channel runs, friends lists, and even LFMs where we try to spell out some of this stuff, but not in bible length form etc.

Anyway, for example there are many things in the list that I would question but I'll just restrict my comments to one.

"If you have a limited amount of time available, do not join a quest you know takes longer than said time window then yell at the Raid party constantly to hurry up because you have to go."

I "know" that it only takes between 12 and 15 minutes to do Running with the Devils, and that is being generous with time. How do I know this, because that is approximately what I've averaged when soloing or running with a group of people I know. But I'm going to guess that new players and uber-vets also "know" that the quest takes a different amount of time to run. So, who's time is right? How do we know ahead of time how much time it will take?

Just this week I went in on a pug devils run that went horribly, horribly wrong in my opinion, well past the amount of time the quest should have taken (partially my fault for not being more awesome than you) and it was clear the group, including myself, wasn't up to the challenge of the difficulty we had selected. But the unofficial party leader, ie the person that co-opted the party and told everyone what to do and how to do it (not the star) thought we were doing perfectly fine, and I was being unconscionably inconsiderate for questioning his plans. At what point would I have been in the "ok" to leave the group because it was taking far longer than expected and I didn't have the time? At the thirty minute mark, at the hour mark, hour and half mark, never its always wrong because I should have "known" exactly how long it would take this group to finish?

Oh, and too clarify, I think its never acceptable to "yell" at someone. I don't take exception to that clause, but that just falls under be a frickin' nice person and if you have a disagreement explain it nicely. I'm questioning the concept of "knowing" how long something takes and never making a mistake about joining a group only to realize that your definition and their definition don't actually mesh.

[TheLallian]

I have always advocated to actively use the class selection in LFM to only advertize for players of the class you are looking to join.

I recently joined in a group that kept the LFM open to all classes and used the description to specify that only healers were wanted. The leader justified keeping all classes checked so that everyone of all classes could see the LFM and if the viewers had a healer alt, they could swap to it. (But if the party class was restricted to FvS and Clerics, potential party players would not have seen the LFM)

This is a valid point.

But one could also then say that with the same logic one should post an LFM for levels 1 - 20...

After much cogitation I feel that the LFM should be level and class accurate and that it is up to the minority of players that would want to see all party adverts (that may apply to their alts) to set their LFM list option 'Show groups I am not eligible for' checked.

[Ralmeth]

Hmnn, nothing in the ettiquette about being ready to go when you join the LFM?

There's nothing quite as frustrating as waiting 15-20 minutes for a quest-raid to fill only to finally have the last member join and immediately say, "Have to go get boat buffs, I can do the training dummy really fast" as you watch all your buffs tick away.

It is very poor etiquette to be the last person to join a quest that's not exceptionally hard (ex. Shroud) and go and grab ship buffs while everyone waits for you. This really grinds my gears and is very inconsiderate.

[TheLallian]

Added

• Get to the quest quickly, don't keep the group waiting on you, especially if you are the last to join (only get ship buffs if there is time and its required for the quest).

[Corwinsky]

Hmnn, nothing in the ettiquette about being ready to go when you join the LFM?

There's nothing quite as frustrating as waiting 15-20 minutes for a quest-raid to fill only to finally have the last member join and immediately say, "Have to go get boat buffs, I can do the training dummy really fast" as you watch all your buffs tick away.

I've even had people join to "hold a spot" while they go level up or reset enhancements, knowing everyone is waiting on them.

The opposite is racing as fast as you can to get to an "in progress" quest you just joined, only to enter and have it complete in 30 seconds with an 80% penalty on your first time run because no one in the party had the consideration to say, "We are almost finished, at the last fight."

When anyone joins an in progress quest, the party leader should give them a fair assessment of about how far into it they are. "We've started" is a whole different thing from "We are about to finish."

If I join a in-progress quest it's because i'm only interested in the favor or final chest (unique loots, token in epic). Otherwise I don't join in-progress quests or at least I'll ask where they're at before stepping in (if no answer don't step in).
In your example obviously they were in the last fight so had other things to do than spontaneously telling you that.
Obviously if