"Noobs" and who is really new

[dirtphillips]

I decided over the weekend, as I was burned out over epics and raids, to play a lowbie. Having never played monk before, I did some research and rolled one up and started at 4. My guildies were all at 20, so I PUGed. After joining about 8 different groups and staying with them for varying degrees of time, I have to say there seem to be alot less friendly people than when I started.

For instance, when I suggested that the ranger with 47 hit points might reconsider using a longbow/shortbow instead of a crossbow, i got a "st*u noob" comment back (while i had 147 hp at the time). Needless to say, I dropped group and moved on.

Another time, I grouped with one nice rogue who tended to talk way too much and seemed to be fairly new. But he seemed nice enough and I quietly enjoyed his excitement at the low level loot. He also appreciated that I could open elite and appreciated that I could help him through it. However, after inviting him to our guild ship ship and finishing one quest, we discussed the next quest and agreed. I arrived at the quest entrance and the rogue (using voice the whole time, not chat) said, "OK, I'm at the portal for the ship". I informed him (by chat) that we still had 40 minutes left on buffs and that we could complete the next quest with time left on the ship buffs. He repeated his statement and nothing I said seemed to change his mind. I went ahead and reinvited him to the ship and decided if this happened again, I would move on. A second rogue joined our group for the next quest, and this second rogue made a couple of boneheaded decisions and the voice rogue lost it and called him a noob repeatedly. He dropped group after the end of the quest before I had a chance to excuse myself.

There are other examples which are even less interesting than these, but it just makes me wonder, 'Do all of the new players automatically believe one month makes them an expert?" I know there is a "noob stupid remark of the week" thread, but I dislike the rather rude title and my comments are solely directed at Orien players. I thought this might be a good opportunity for some humor of other examples from you guys (and gals?) of clearly clueless players acting foolishly.

[Crazyfruit]

The game is on Steam now. I'm not surprised - this is how a lot of people there are in any multiplayer game.

[JustMe_ca]

Lowbie pugging can be a real experience - I've been called a "stuck-up elitist" but never a noob.

I guess I can be a bit stuck up, but when you join an almost complete misery's peak and pull a hireling on an empty dungeon, I will be questioning both your manners (for pulling a hire without asking), or your need for the heals on an empty dungeon.

I also find it amusing to meet low hit point second/third lifers (usually bards) who want to basically pike (or die and pike) every dungeon cause they are gracing everyone with their songs. People get offended when i suggest more hit points will result in fewer deaths

It is also fun to meet the new rogues that don't have the equipment to disable elite traps - sometimes you can teach them what they need, and sometimes they just ignore your advice (and continue to blow traps)

Lowbie adventure is definitely an adventure - I prefer to get out of that area as fast as possible

[TrinityTurtle]

Irestone Inlet is a fun way to tell.

Newb - "hey, we're gonna click this torch, get off the boat asap, i'ts going to blow" The new player response is at the minimum to get off the boat, often saying thank you for the warning.

Noob - "Hey, we're gonna click this torch, get off the boat asap, it's going to blow" The noob's response was to flip out about how offensive it was that we thought he was stupid, and he doesnt play games to get pranked. We're trying to calmly and rationally get him off the boat, no go. The inevitable happens, his soul stone is in an in acessible point in mid air at that point, and he proceeds to flip out at us over how we're not getting him to the shrine.

[mixomatozis]

i really enjoy to see so many *mighty* names. so many Sauuurrronss, Gganjalfs, Dddark wizards etc that takes 8 con and have 40 hp at lvl 7.

Dare you to say something about that. The mighty lords are offended.

[Nerveya]

Everyone is a noob! It's just how well they hide it

[Sonos]

The game is on Steam now. I'm not surprised - this is how a lot of people there are in any multiplayer game.

Interesting POV. I would venture to say that a good majority of Steam players come from the FPS realm where this sort of trash-talk flows like wine, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.

Sorry for the botched D & D quote(not Dungeons & Dragons).

[dirtphillips]

"Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?"

*ding from player joining PUG"*

"Share plz"

[Chai]

Noob is just a generic insult people call anyone who doesnt agree with their method of playing nowdays.

Yeah Ive seen it construed to mean different things, but people use the word noob here in DDO like they would 'artard" in WOW.

[IAmDesolator3]

If you think Orien is bad for lvl 4 rage zergers, try some other servers. I've heard if you don't make it to the entrance within 10 seconds of joining the party, they will drive to your house and smash your computer :P Jk but this is true. If they don't complete a sub-level 10 quest in under 5 minutes, they will actually rage quit, rage uninstall the game, rage sell their computer, and rage join an amish community. True story.
You would think everyone like that would be playing WoW or SRO but nope, mega OCD rage monkey lowbie speed levelers are on Orien too :P
I can't believe nobody mentioned this but there's a fairly accurate test. If they're like level 6 and they have wings around their name, run lol. Although I don't really care about speed levelers in my group as long as they don't die, break the quest, or have an immensely bad attitude.
Or just be a wizard and solo everything :P

[dirtphillips]

Most TR power levelers make reasonable attempts to segregate themselves from new/inadequate players that could cost them time or XP.

My intent this weekend was to PUG and try monk out while being helpful to newer players. Since bravery bonus is not a consideration for a toon I may not even keep, I could play any diff and be OK with it. I was just struck at the generally poor attitude, unwillingness to listen, and very short tempers.

As Crush correctly points out, they are awesome in their own eyes and you should not dare to question that.

[IAmDesolator3]

This reminds me of a kid playing DDO on a demo system in my store. He was 13 and pretty annoying and impatient and generally obnoxious. He refused to read anything that any NPC said then rage quit at the door "puzzle" in that korthos island quest with the ice cooling the 4 crystals. So impatient, awful players (aka kids) do not typically make it off Korthos lol. Those poor, poor Korthos NPC residents lol. But when they do, they join dirtphillips' party apparently rofl. My condolences.

[~Susie1262]

The very ones calling everyone noobs are the problems. I am put in mind of a Robert A. Heinlein quote:
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

[Stormblade721]

Interesting POV. I would venture to say that a good majority of Steam players come from the FPS realm where this sort of trash-talk flows like wine, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.

Sorry for the botched D & D quote(not Dungeons & Dragons).

Rhere's something fishy about this

[beilschmidt]

I also find it amusing to meet low hit point second/third lifers (usually bards) who want to basically pike (or die and pike) every dungeon cause they are gracing everyone with their songs. People get offended when i suggest more hit points will result in fewer deaths

Am I the only person who takes Toughness feat for almost every class/toon? I never skip it.

[Nyxianne]

This may be a noob/newbish question, but what does hp have to do with using a crossbow over a shortbow/longbow? Both are ranged, are they not?

This is part of why I hate pugging anymore - there's this assumption that you don't know what you are doing if you aren't mainstream. So what if someone likes running quests on n/h/e instead of e/n/h or if someone wants to run wizking as a group instead of having people solo a tower, or if a divine actually wants to heal a group, or even if someone prefers bastard swords to khopehses (*GASP* the horror).
Keep in mind, while to you you're just giving a friendly bit of advice, being the noble more knowledgeable benefactor (and no, I'm not trying to be sarcastic there) to someone else it can come across as just another person pointing out the "flaws" in the build they like.

The other parts of why I don't pug is the whole xp/min thing, I realize that people are trying to maximize their playtime and minimize the grind, but some of the more fun quests are low xp, and if someone dies it shouldn't be the end of the world.

[jonqrandom]

Am I the only person who takes Toughness feat for almost every class/toon? I never skip it.

gods no, it's standard. problem is, to a newb, it looks totally underwhelming - a feat, for 3HP + 1 per level? really? it should mention in the feat text that it unlocks up to 80HPs worth of enhancements. it's the same with con. first time you roll a toon, whatever con you select has very little bearing at level 1, causing a couple of HP difference - not surprising then that a newb goes "ah, why bother, i can get more str/dex/etc."

i think there should be an in-game tutorial during character gen, unskipable for the 1st toon you select "customize" for on an account, that actually explains things like toughness, con, saves, the fact that there are enhancements that depend on certain stats or feats - especially the PrEs. i know it wouldn't solve all the problems - but i woulda read it, and i don't think i'm alone.

[jonqrandom]

This may be a noob/newbish question, but what does hp have to do with using a crossbow over a shortbow/longbow? Both are ranged, are they not?

HP has nothing to do with it, they just have terrible rate of fire compared even to a bow. crossbows may have some utility in certain situations - what comes to mind for me is lowbie casters using them to supplement the poor early dps/running out of SP, or higher level ones getting high enough attack bonus to use ones with improved shattermantle before instakilling or otherwise needing to break spell resistance - but it's still slow, single target only and i don't know if it's actually a viable tactic for toons without the past lives to up their spell penetration.

This is part of why I hate pugging anymore - there's this assumption that you don't know what you are doing if you aren't mainstream. So what if someone likes running quests on n/h/e instead of e/n/h or if someone wants to run wizking as a group instead of having people solo a tower, or if a divine actually wants to heal a group, or even if someone prefers bastard swords to khopehses (*GASP* the horror).
Keep in mind, while to you you're just giving a friendly bit of advice, being the noble more knowledgeable benefactor (and no, I'm not trying to be sarcastic there) to someone else it can come across as just another person pointing out the "flaws" in the build they like.

all you can really do is be polite, and respectful of the fact that the player may have a particular build plan in mind. but some players simply have no idea - and that's not their fault if they're new, but this is a complex game and if they won't listen to friendly advice (like "hey, you oughta grab some fortification, it'll really help you take less damage", or "here, i've got this spare +4 con item you can have, it'll give you more HP and better fort saves") then the likelyhood is they'll be bad players. it's only correlation, not causation, and i know there are the odd players who can successfully run 8 con wonders, but they're rarer than rocking-horse dung.

The other parts of why I don't pug is the whole xp/min thing, I realize that people are trying to maximize their playtime and minimize the grind, but some of the more fun quests are low xp, and if someone dies it shouldn't be the end of the world.

it's not. and if anyone starts screaming at someone for dieing, there's a problem. conversely, when some dump-con zero-fort fool starts cussing out the healer for "letting" them die (i.e. they got one-shotted from full HP by a crit and what in the hell is a healer supposed to do about that?), there's also a problem.

[dirtphillips]

This may be a noob/newbish question, but what does hp have to do with using a crossbow over a shortbow/longbow? Both are ranged, are they not?

At least some of the feats in ranger do not work at all with crossbows (manyshot and rapid shot, i think). The pugger I had the encounter with was posting in the party chat asking about how he can make his ranger better. Clearly the question was not directed at me or he has extraordinary short term memory loss. In game, I try to keep my ideas to myself unless something obvious comes up or someone asks. I think an earlier comment about Steam must have been true. He was definitely a "winner", that's for sure.

Maybe I have rose colored glasses on, but I never recalled that amount of crass-ness and general level of mal-contentedness (is that even a word?) in new players. Maybe most of the older, more mature players have been through DDO and are moving on and now we're getting the younger, more ... socially challenged player.

[baletraeger]

Every few months we get a fresh batch trying out DDO, and you're naturally going to have an attrition of players who find that this simply is not the game for them. I remember seeing a post about there being three types of player (D&Der, MMORPGer, and FPSer), and in order a higher chance for them to 'get it'. We have had a large influx this summer with MoTU, maybe almost as much as when F2P started back in 2010.

Don't worry, by Christmas we'll have lost all the 'noobs' that don't play well with others to one of the newer releases as they continue their quest for the double rainbow.

Good Journeys!