LFG tool abuse

I post this in another thread because upon searching around the forums and being disappointed in general on how the report system works, I just need to vent out some steam from a incident that happened to me a recently.

I was in a fractal group and was doing the bosses and then someone complained about what I was supposed to do because I was running a chronomancer, I pointed out that I wasn't supporting people with aegis because I was doing straightforward dps, in my rotation I use wells and Time Warp to increase the overall dps.Then we wiped on the second boss of the fractal and one guy started complaining that I was not doing damage and that i was gymping the group by pretending to do so, I told him that in general I do enough damage, the theme of dps meterer appeared and I told him that I use it and I noticed I was doing more damage than any individual in the group, one by one everyone decided to leave because he insisted on talking about how should I play my class instead of just doing the boss we were about to do finally he leaves the instance leaving me alone, I posted for more people to try to complete the fractal but suddenly i wasn't in lfg after a few tries of looking for more I noticed that the same guy that was complaining about my performance was joining in just so he can leave and make me leave lfg and he waited to do that for almost 10 minutes, I tried to search a way for him to stop but I noticed that besides reporting him I could do nothing.

I tried looking for a way to report what was going on but I couldn't because besides the option to report someone by clicking on their name you can't tell Arena Net how or why you are reporting someone, the support button only leads to reporting bugs and going to the customer support page to report something, lets say more serious, and that's ok. But not being able to do anything about this player was frustrating.

Now I know that reporting players doesn't do anything that it is a feature in place to give people the feeling of having some control over a situation, but in this case just reporting and blocking him wasn't enough because he could just join in again and kick me from lfg, I suppose he wanted this so I would get frustrated but thanks to real life events I had to wait 5 minutes and then I found more people to do the rest of the fractal, which went fine.

As i said before I only post this so i can be more at ease about the situation and there is a non zero chance that I will end up having a suspension or something because of what I am writing and i sincerely don't care anymore; I am not doing this so Arena Net can improve their systems and become a better company, because that's how I see a complaint should be made, to improve show the company that provides certain service where to improve and make the service better.

I am doing this so if another player reads this and by some chance in life happens to cross paths with someone like that player he or she knows that there is nothing to do but just wait and try not to get angry.

One last thing, just as evidence that it happened to me I will post the photo of the chat box showing the player abusing the lfg system, well more like taking advantage of how it works, because he's not abusing the system, it is a feature of the game that anyone can do.

https://imgur.com/kvFBkWO

And another thing that belongs on the list of things that need to be changed with the LFG system. I hope some dev skims through these threads and makes notes.

@"democarplus.5179" said:I post this in another thread because upon searching around the forums and being disappointed in general on how the report system works, I just need to vent out some steam from a incident that happened to me a recently.

I was in a fractal group and was doing the bosses and then someone complained about what I was supposed to do because I was running a chronomancer, I pointed out that I wasn't supporting people with aegis because I was doing straightforward dps, in my rotation I use wells and Time Warp to increase the overall dps.Then we wiped on the second boss of the fractal and one guy started complaining that I was not doing damage and that i was gymping the group by pretending to do so, I told him that in general I do enough damage, the theme of dps meterer appeared and I told him that I use it and I noticed I was doing more damage than any individual in the group, one by one everyone decided to leave because he insisted on talking about how should I play my class instead of just doing the boss we were about to do finally he leaves the instance leaving me alone, I posted for more people to try to complete the fractal but suddenly i wasn't in lfg after a few tries of looking for more I noticed that the same guy that was complaining about my performance was joining in just so he can leave and make me leave lfg and he waited to do that for almost 10 minutes, I tried to search a way for him to stop but I noticed that besides reporting him I could do nothing.

I tried looking for a way to report what was going on but I couldn't because besides the option to report someone by clicking on their name you can't tell Arena Net how or why you are reporting someone, the support button only leads to reporting bugs and going to the customer support page to report something, lets say more serious, and that's ok. But not being able to do anything about this player was frustrating.

Now I know that reporting players doesn't do anything that it is a feature in place to give people the feeling of having some control over a situation, but in this case just reporting and blocking him wasn't enough because he could just join in again and kick me from lfg, I suppose he wanted this so I would get frustrated but thanks to real life events I had to wait 5 minutes and then I found more people to do the rest of the fractal, which went fine.

As i said before I only post this so i can be more at ease about the situation and there is a non zero chance that I will end up having a suspension or something because of what I am writing and i sincerely don't care anymore; I am not doing this so Arena Net can improve their systems and become a better company, because that's how I see a complaint should be made, to improve show the company that provides certain service where to improve and make the service better.

I am doing this so if another player reads this and by some chance in life happens to cross paths with someone like that player he or she knows that there is nothing to do but just wait and try not to get angry.

One last thing, just as evidence that it happened to me I will post the photo of the chat box showing the player abusing the lfg system, well more like taking advantage of how it works, because he's not abusing the system, it is a feature of the game that anyone can do.

https://imgur.com/kvFBkWO

Yeah I have had this problem before with a weaver we kicked, they simply couldn't survive in 100CM and were not learning the mechanics, after about the 10th death we had to kick them. Its really not fair to the group. They then kept repeatedly joining the LFG until I had to leave fractals for a while.

As for your problem, well I feel for you. You're only going to be providing aegis on domi/insp which is low dps. If the party doesn't wants you to run with domi/insp they should specify this. If they are incapable of using their special action key for aegis and evade and their usual evade, along with a druid sustaining then them well that is.... unfortunate?

There was a safeguard system long ago? I recall something like I'm required to wait/ unable to use LFG for a period of time where everything is greyed out after joining & leaving 'X number of LFG party in a short time. Was giving me problem back then as it restricts me in a way from trying to join another mega server map looking for one that isn't full.Edit : The function was removed/ "bug" was fixed due to the reason stated.

@Itz Jay.8941 said:As for your problem, well I feel for you. You're only going to be providing aegis on domi/insp which is low dps. If the party doesn't wants you to run with domi/insp they should specify this. If they are incapable of using their special action key for aegis and evade and their usual evade, along with a druid sustaining then them well that is.... unfortunate?

I think the source of the frustration of the other players was that OP didn't run support chrono. If you see a mesmer in the party when you look at the LFG, you assume it's a chrono. Then you join, and if you see it's a mirage, you know it's not support. But when you see it is indeed a chrono, you expect it to be support. If it turns out to be damage dealer, you are in fact disappointed. The same goes for ranger/druid. I once joined a group that had a druid as only ranger, so I assumed it's a healer. We all learned quickly that he was not playing healer at all.

I actually left groups when I saw that the mesmer is playing mirage. It's because Anet made chrono so powerful that everybody expects you to play it with your mesmer, especially when you are the only mesmer in the group. If you go for damage dealer with a class whose support-role has been fostered by Anet for years, you cause bad vibes.

Communication could help in these cases, but gamers are generally not recognized for their great communication skills. Gear check would help more I think.

It's because the usual consensus when running fractals, especially in high tier 3 and tier 4, is that Chrono and Druid play the 'supports' for quickness/alacrity, heal top-ups and grace of the land.It doesn't matter now that Chrono is a viable DPS spec on it's own. In Fractals, when a group asks for a Chrono, they want it as a support, to provide those boons specifically. I suppose transparency while in the fractal LFG helps the most, Gear check would create a whole new level of toxicity imo. I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

@"Haleydawn.3764" said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

I don't think it's all about toxic elitism. When I see the low group dps when you have a damage dealer chrono in the group, I just think "dude, we would be better off and do more damage if you just played support." It's like having a swiss knife at hand when you want to open a bottle of wine but you are not using the corkscrew to open it. Instead you are using the blade and try to cut the cork until it eventually drives down the bottle. You still get to the wine, but it will have cork pieces in it.

@Faaris.8013 said:

@"Haleydawn.3764" said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

I think you missed my point.The OPs problem would’ve not been an issue had they searched initially for a support chrono, if he was playing a now viable dps chrono build.We search/list in lfg to fill roles, not just ‘chrono/Druid/dps’ if you’re a dps (no matter what profession) you search for what’s missing if you want to fill the roles.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

I think I did. Do you mean we are supposed to ask for "support chrono and healer druid" in LFG now instead of "chrono and druid"?

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

Clarity would make things so much easier. But as you said, pugs don’t really like communication until it’s too late. Druid is obviously a healer, but now Chrono has a viable dps build, clarity on what chrono your group needs would make a better experience.

If a party is looking for dps it will have "LF dps" or something like that in its listing, a power dps chrono would be accepted. If a party is looking for a support chrono it will have "LF chrono" in its listing and will likely boot a chrono as soon as it's found out to be power dps and not support. Anyone who's gotten to the point of doing high tier fractals or raids would almost certainly know this and I really don't think it's necessary to have to spell it out. Even if someone makes that mistake, it's really easy to pick up on.

As for the OP, I can't really say with certainty what was going on there. If you joined a group which was looking for a chrono and nothing but, you should have been running support, otherwise they would have been looking for dps. If the group was just looking for anyone to fill a slot, they should expect some hiccups here and there. Regardless of all that, the behaviour of that one guy removing your listing over and over was ridiculous. Personally, I would have just booted him (if possible) before he got everyone to leave, seeing as he was the most toxic and not really performing his own job all that well, replaced him, and gone on to finish the fractal. You can report his actions as some sort of abuse, but it's unlikely anything will come of it. The best you can do, which you said you did, is to block him and move on.

An easy way for anet to improve this is to simply have a block work both ways when if comes to LFG. As far as I know, blocking someone will prevent me from seeing that person's LFG post, but that person would be able to see and join my groups. It's kind of ridiculous.

Putting aside how people think a class should be played, the original post was about reporting and player safeguards to prevent system abuse/harassment such as the example used.

This may be actually along the lines of a previous discussion/poll - should a blocked player be able to join your group?https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/17977/should-blocked-players-be-allowed-to-join-your-party-squad/p1

My personal stance on this is - no - if a player features on the block list of you or one of your party members, the system should not let them freely join the same party or at least provide a warning window or text such as "player1 is attempting to join group. player1 has been blocekd by player2" or "player1 cannot join party until they are unblocked by player2"

Implementing such a system would in my opinion not be too disruptive and certainly solve OPs problem.

Level 75 (Shattered Observatory) was a recommended fractal on this specific day and since most of the recommended groups aren't looking for meta comps or distinct roles the issue of this group wasn't the OP as chrono wether he was dps or support.The rec thing is proven by the chat btw.: "recs" (and I ran it the same day with pugs during my routine ^^)

You can discuss about it for hours, doesn't matter. Of course, a build adjustment by the OP would have been advantageous for the group but I'm sorry to say: Competent players would have either had a clear lfg message and kick the OP out of the group after failing/not meeting the requirements - not later than the 2nd wipe (needless to say they wouldn't have wiped in the first place on 75) - or just let it go and finish the fractal without saying much because they would be able to without chrono - very easily. Come on, it's 75, not 100 or even 100 CM!

The fact that the OP has been left alone in the instance speaks for itself: The group wasn't able to kill Viirastra due to whateverest reasons. Since you don't need any aegis at all - not even in challenge mode where it's just used by default to burst as hard as you can - it is obvious that nobody in this group was in the shape to handle her at least decently. Actually you have respawn points at 66% and 33% after the cc phase- even in CM! - so a single player would have been able to bring all of them back to life (after cc'ing the fifth clone).

My advice for the skrittshow afterwards:

• Report such player and block him immediately. No need to invest any further concentration in this guy.

• As long as it's no challenge mode instance leave it and join any other group out there. You'll get your daily recs faster with that than waiting in a fixed instance. A decent group needs about 5 minutes to get to Viirastra from the start.

• Also, I would be a little bit suspicious about seeing someone being in between level 75 alone (could result in longer waiting or people instaleaving again).

• If you really wanted to keep your instance you could have solved the problem by waiting a couple of minutes to reset your lfg. Those freaks usually don't waste their time that long.

They could make a cooldown for players joining via LFG to reduce the chances of that happening. Something like, join once or twice within 5 minutes, no time penalty. On the third and subsequent attempts, have a cooldown of 5 minutes.

@CedarDog.9723 said:They could make a cooldown for players joining via LFG to reduce the chances of that happening. Something like, join once or twice within 5 minutes, no time penalty. On the third and subsequent attempts, have a cooldown of 5 minutes.

Would only open another Problem: When you join a LFG, but the setup in the group is not what they wrote in the discription, you leave and have a penalty for it. :/

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Itz Jay.8941 said:As for your problem, well I feel for you. You're only going to be providing aegis on domi/insp which is low dps. If the party doesn't wants you to run with domi/insp they should specify this. If they are incapable of using their special action key for aegis and evade and their usual evade, along with a druid sustaining then them well that is.... unfortunate?

Yeah tbh I'm just assuming since the OP did mention time warp, that the OP is still running chrono quickness/alacrity but running traits for DPS. You can trait chrono for perma boons with around 10-12k DPS or you can trait it for aegis share which is no DPS. If my assumptions are incorrect of course, and the OP is running full zerk gear then yes the OP should have clarified they are DPS and not utility boonshare..

All I'm saying is that you don't really need to run aegis share in 100CM especially if you are running a healing druid, if your gameplay is even remotely good, you have plenty of evade and hypernova launch to cover any failed mechs.

@Itz Jay.8941 said:All I'm saying is that you don't really need to run aegis share in 100CM especially if you are running a healing druid, if your gameplay is even remotely good, you have plenty of evade and hypernova launch to cover any failed mechs.

Yeah, but this was a bunch of noobs, they were wiping at level 75, not 100cm ^^

My guess is that even a full support chrono wouldn't have helped them. Let's be honest, you don't need a chrono at all for SO at level 75.

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Itz Jay.8941 said:All I'm saying is that you don't really need to run aegis share in 100CM especially if you are running a healing druid, if your gameplay is even remotely good, you have plenty of evade and hypernova launch to cover any failed mechs.

Oh I'm retarded I just assumed it was 100CM for some reason xD yeah 75 is a piece of cake, no need for a chrono. That being said I was doing recs the other day and 75 was on it. We got to the last boss, and nobody split to do the orbs in the phases so people were grabbing 2 orbs, others trying to help split them but actually making it worse. They simply could not do it, eventually I told everyone to put a marker between each pillar, I stood there typing for about 5 minutes how to do it, yet they still didn't place a marker.

One placed his marker on one pillar and I said that wont work because you'll be in the middle of two orbs so you may aggro both, wouldn't listen to me at all. One even said stop wasting my time, I said well I am teaching you how to complete the fractal, I do 100CM daily and you can't even do 75 after me explaining the mechanics, you can't even place a marker, so who's wasting who's time?! As you can imagine it was at that point I left!

@Itz Jay.8941 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Itz Jay.8941 said:All I'm saying is that you don't really need to run aegis share in 100CM especially if you are running a healing druid, if your gameplay is even remotely good, you have plenty of evade and hypernova launch to cover any failed mechs.

An then they start calling you a elitist xD.

@Faaris.8013 said:

@"Haleydawn.3764" said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

I main a mesmer, play both boon Chrono and Mirage, and I'd say Chrono is somewhat overrated in T4 pugs, at least given non-ideal circumstances. I still almost always go Chrono if there isn't another mesmer in the group, since it just feels bad to play without one, but in terms of group dps and getting bosses killed, I've found that Mirage can be better sometimes (I haven't played dps Chrono yet, so can't speak for that). The problem with Chrono is that you still need your party members to actually do the dps, so there's a limit to how much you can carry your group. If your group has low dps because they are bad, you as a Chrono can only increase their dps by 25-50%, whereas as a Mirage (which does some of the highest sustained dps in the game without relying on your party members like a Weaver does) you can sometimes do much more damage than everyone else's combined and just carry the group. Of course there are still situations where even for a bad group a Chrono would be better (if cc and pulls are really important, etc.) but the point is that it's not universally the case.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

I think you missed the point.If you are playing a class that can do both role X and role Y but does one role better or at least one role is harder to fill/more important then people will expect you to fill that role.So if you're playing a chrono - that can both dps and support - people will expect you to play a support - because a DPS is easier to find.

It doesn't matter in this case because it was a very inexperienced group. Nothing would have changed if he had switched to support chrono because we can assume that he wouldn't have even known where and when to aegis.In this case and fractal (lvl 75) the classes are of lower priority because it is a mechanic heavy frac with no real dps race. If you play all those mechanics right you don't get any problems at all. It was rec again yesterday and many pugs are still not familiar with it at that level. As an experienced player you can easily carry them through it, nothing in there deals so much dmg that you are in danger to wipe!

@Xantaria.8726 said:

@CedarDog.9723 said:They could make a cooldown for players joining via LFG to reduce the chances of that happening. Something like, join once or twice within 5 minutes, no time penalty. On the third and subsequent attempts, have a cooldown of 5 minutes.

I meant for players retrying to enter the same LFG party/squad. Not for people trying to enter a different group.

@Harper.4173 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

Ahh dude. I get what you mean but it shouldn't be like that, not anymore at least. It has been a month since the patch, I mean Jesus..PvE-wise power Chrono is tied with Holosmith at 33/34K average, come on....it's past time everyone understands this already. As someone who has been playing DPS Chrono for the last 3 weeks or so, I cannot begin to tell the amount of utter crap I've had to put up with in this little while..

I mean, if a party is looking for a support chrono only it's one thing, but if a party is looking for a non specific DPS and a chrono joins to fill the damage role, they don't get to talk smack to him and are either obtuse or just plain stupid if they refuse. A DPS Chrono will only slow the party down if he's inexperienced and/or can't handle the rotation, other than that it's a good addition to the group and depending on the boss can give anything less than a proper guardian a run for his damage.

Now, is the support variant more important to the party? OK I get that. Are people used to thinking of chronomancer as a support only spec? Sure. Is the DPS variant eating away at the pool of support chronos? tough luck Maybe, maybe not. The argument that freshening up the mesmer meta brought more people to the class can also be made.

But now that we mesmers have the choice, are we allowed to make it and do proper damage just like any person that would bring their holosmith or whatever instead? Whether people like it or not, they better believe it.

@Eliavres.4910 said:

@Harper.4173 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:I don't agree with pigeon holing Mesmer and Druid into these roles, but elitists are, well, elitist.

Man - it is like this. I play warrior. Warrior has decent dps specs now. Do you think any group will have me as anything other than BS?Even if warrior had great DPS it would still be BS.The DPS variant is eating away at the pool of support chronos - absolutely - and people don't like that. Because a support chrono has more value to everyone than a DPS one. So people will collectively put pressure on chrono players to support. Like I said - I've mained warrior since launch. I fully know and understand what it means to be pushed into a perpetual support role.

And ultimately - whether you accept it or not - you better believe people will force you to do what's good and convenient for them without caring much how you feel about it.