I bought a tag, kicked a newbie, and now I'm a demon lord

[scout.9723]

I'm posting this because it's been bothering me for a while. 

Yes, I kicked a newbie from my squad. You heard it right from me.

See, here's my one and only excuse: I was mentally exhausted and haven't had any sleep after a day and a half's work. That's it.

Despite this, I still wanted to do my dailies. I did my fracs, my metas, and since I had a little bit of energy left in me, I decided to do a normal mode XJJ strike. The only one I'm missing for the week. Coincidentally it was also the daily, so I thought I wouldn't need to wait long to finish it.

I recently bought a tag and saw that nobody was doing it in LFG, a pretty normal sight in NA my time. Buying the tag is the best thing in the game for grouping people up. Especially when you want to just get through the content by asking for experienced people.

And I did just that. I asked for experienced people for a normal mode XJJ daily.

A few people came in immediately, since I was the only tag on LFG, and one person said in squad chat that they were new. They were very respectful and if it were any other day, I would have kept them in the squad. That time, I didn't want to have any mishaps nor less dps that would affect the time it would take to do this run. I just wanted to zoom as fast as possible and get it over with.

So I told them that I'd rather have experienced people and insinuated that they should leave for now. I guess I was too subtle or they didn't want to leave because they stayed in the squad until I had to kick them. I warned them a couple of times before this, but I still felt guilty about it.

Afterwards, someone in my squad complained about me kicking the newbie and what they said really pissed me off. Not because they were defending the newbie, but because they were judging me for my decisions as a commander and being a hypocrite about it.

If they truly wanted to do a "White Knight" deed, they could have left the squad, whispered the newbie, and said "Hey, that guy was a kitten for kicking you. Why don't you join my squad and form a group together?". If they did that, it would've affected the newbie in a positive way.

Instead, I get dubbed a heathen, they lectured me like they knew better (despite not even tagging themselves), guilt tripped me more than I already am, then stayed in my squad till we zoomed through XJJ like I wasn't going to block them afterwards. If I wasn't almost fainting, I would have kicked them from the squad too.

So am I really the Demon Lord here? Will I always been seen as one for setting up expectations for my squad and enforcing it? Should I never kick a newbie out despite asking for experienced? 

You guys tell me.

[vares.8457]

lol you kicked a new player from a normal mode strike mission group? 

[Garrison Storm.3046]

Ultimately it's your tag and group.. so long as you've laid out expectations in advance and are respectful during the process (which seems like you met both conditions), then you shouldn't feel guilty or concerned about the fact that a couple of players amongst thousands may now think less of you.  There is responsibility on the player joining to accept the conditions of the group; in this case it seems like they were aware as they advised you of their inexperience, good on them... and you considered and then made the decision.

All hail the Arch-Lord-of-Hell.  😜  

Seriously, all good; no biggie. 

 

[scout.9723]

3 hours ago, vares.8457 said:

lol you kicked a new player from a normal mode strike mission group? 

 

So does your mocking question mean that, despite any requirement I asked in LFG or reasons I may only want specified people in my squad, I as the tag should still follow other people's moral expectations and not kick anyone from strikes as long as its Normal Mode?

Why, because it's easy?

What if I didn't think it was that easy?

I grinded 300 gold to get a tag. I put myself up there in LFG and asked for people to join. I have to deal with sorting subgroups. I have to make sure everyone is doing their job while also dealing with the fight. I have to deal with the consequences if people aren't doing their job and make the calls.

If I'm doing all of this, shouldn't I get at least some say in my own squad to either lower the risk of failure or lessen the time it takes to finish?

If a tag isn't allowed even that bit of formality, then it's no wonder nobody ever tags up.

 

2 hours ago, Garrison Storm.3046 said:

Ultimately it's your tag and group.. so long as you've laid out expectations in advance and are respectful during the process (which seems like you met both conditions), then you shouldn't feel guilty or concerned about the fact that a couple of players amongst thousands may now think less of you.  There is responsibility on the player joining to accept the conditions of the group; in this case it seems like they were aware as they advised you of their inexperience, good on them... and you considered and then made the decision.

All hail the Arch-Lord-of-Hell.  😜  

Seriously, all good; no biggie. 

 

 

Thank you. You made me feel much better about it. I'm pretty new with leading and also somewhat new in the game still. I was very surprised that being a commander wasn't only about simply putting a tag and posting in LFG. After tagging a while, I've been feeling a bit burdened by some of the people's expectations of me, so I got stressed out when this happened. It could also be my inexperience but I've been thinking that maybe leading isn't for me...

Edited April 25, 2023 by scout.9723

[Fueki.4753]

You specifically asked for experienced people, so an inexperienced player probably should have stayed away.

But to me, it's a questionable decision to ask for experienced players on normal mode, even if you are tired, as that is the mode intended for players inexperienced with Strike Missions.

But it was your group and you had the right to kick anyone you wanted out.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[BumboJumbo.1308]

Based

[Wolfshade.9251]

On one hand, strike missions are easy enough to do in inexperienced groups. On the other, I know the pain of failing Boneskinner multiple times in the row because expecting people to move left when he raises his hand is too much... Tough choice. Your group, your rules. Important part is to be as polite about it as possible.

[Zohane.7208]

19 hours ago, scout.9723 said:

I'm posting this because it's been bothering me for a while. 

Yes, I kicked a newbie from my squad. You heard it right from me.

See, here's my one and only excuse: I was mentally exhausted and haven't had any sleep after a day and a half's work. That's it.

Despite this, I still wanted to do my dailies. I did my fracs, my metas, and since I had a little bit of energy left in me, I decided to do a normal mode XJJ strike. The only one I'm missing for the week. Coincidentally it was also the daily, so I thought I wouldn't need to wait long to finish it.

I recently bought a tag and saw that nobody was doing it in LFG, a pretty normal sight in NA my time. Buying the tag is the best thing in the game for grouping people up. Especially when you want to just get through the content by asking for experienced people.

And I did just that. I asked for experienced people for a normal mode XJJ daily.

A few people came in immediately, since I was the only tag on LFG, and one person said in squad chat that they were new. They were very respectful and if it were any other day, I would have kept them in the squad. That time, I didn't want to have any mishaps nor less dps that would affect the time it would take to do this run. I just wanted to zoom as fast as possible and get it over with.

So I told them that I'd rather have experienced people and insinuated that they should leave for now. I guess I was too subtle or they didn't want to leave because they stayed in the squad until I had to kick them. I warned them a couple of times before this, but I still felt guilty about it.

Afterwards, someone in my squad complained about me kicking the newbie and what they said really pissed me off. Not because they were defending the newbie, but because they were judging me for my decisions as a commander and being a hypocrite about it.

If they truly wanted to do a "White Knight" deed, they could have left the squad, whispered the newbie, and said "Hey, that guy was a kitten for kicking you. Why don't you join my squad and form a group together?". If they did that, it would've affected the newbie in a positive way.

Instead, I get dubbed a heathen, they lectured me like they knew better (despite not even tagging themselves), guilt tripped me more than I already am, then stayed in my squad till we zoomed through XJJ like I wasn't going to block them afterwards. If I wasn't almost fainting, I would have kicked them from the squad too.

So am I really the Demon Lord here? Will I always been seen as one for setting up expectations for my squad and enforcing it? Should I never kick a newbie out despite asking for experienced? 

You guys tell me.

A couple of thoughts:

First off - your group, your rules. Simple as that. If you'd asked for "ping 22 bananas and 9 mushrooms" that would've been the requirement. People not willing to follow that requirement should stay away.

The newbie joined and asked - which is fine. But when told you wanted people to follow the requirement, they should have left without delay.

Personally, I would not act in this manner for a single newbie and for an easy strike like junkyard. But that doesn't in any way invalidate your right to demand that people follow "the rules".

 

[pfuetzi.5421]

I agree, it is your group and you can make the rules. So, it would not villainize you for it.

However, an easy strike with one new player, I would have given them a pass, especially as they were forward about it.

You don't need to be nice but you shouldn't expect other players to like you for it 😉

Edited April 26, 2023 by pfuetzi.5421

[Biziut.3594]

Also agree with you op. As long as it's your squad you may even ask for all to join as pink charr maids. You make conditions of your own LFG, it is on joining player to meet this conditions.

[Ashantara.8731]

23 hours ago, vares.8457 said:

lol you kicked a new player from a normal mode strike mission group? 

That's nothing to laugh at. You wouldn't believe how many people die to the first few mechanics in XJJ, because they can't properly use WASD or spot the moving orange and red AoE fields way too late.

@scout.9723, nothing to feel guilty about. If people could read the LFG before joining, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[vares.8457]

16 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

That's nothing to laugh at. You wouldn't believe how many people die to the first few mechanics in XJJ, because they can't properly use WASD or spot the moving orange and red AoE fields way too late.

 

Yeah I have seen that, but it’s not necessarily new players that die there. I have seen plenty veteran players die at the beginning of XJJ. 

I am laughing about it because we are talking about normal mode here, not about CM. There is no difficulty and you can easily do the strike mission with half the squad dead. 
 

Maybe imagine how this must have felt for the new player. Why not give people a chance? Again, we are talking about normal mode here. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by vares.8457

[Ashantara.8731]

22 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

Yeah I have seen that, but it’s not necessarily new players that die there. I have seen plenty veteran players die at the beginning of XJJ. 

I am laughing about it because we are talking about normal mode here, not about CM. There is no difficulty and you can easily do the strike mission with half the squad dead. 
 

Maybe imagine how this must have felt for the new player. Why not give people a chance? Again, we are talking about normal mode here. 

There are plenty of squads that don't ask for experience or KP. If, however, a squad advertizement in LFG specifically states such requirements, the Commander is not at fault.

The new player asked politely whether they can join, even though they don't meet said requirements, and the Commander responded politely that they preferred experienced players. No harm done there.
 

By the way, "It's just normal mode Strikes!" is not a valid argument here, because the new player will learn zero if they joined this squad and died instantly. They are better off joining a training/newbie-friendly squad in order to be taught mechanics and have a pleasant experience rather than laying around dead for the next 10 minutes of the fight.

[vares.8457]

8 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

There are plenty of squads that don't ask for experience or KP. If, however, a squad advertizement in LFG specifically states such requirements, the Commander is not at fault.

The new player asked politely whether they can join, even though they don't meet said requirements, and the Commander responded politely that they preferred experienced players. No harm done there.
 

By the way, "It's just normal mode Strikes!" is not a valid argument here, because the new player will learn zero if they joined this squad and died instantly. They are better off joining a training/newbie-friendly squad in order to be taught mechanics and have a pleasant experience rather than laying around dead for the next 10 minutes of the fight.

It is not really about fault. At least I don’t care about that. Some seem to forget the social aspect of playing an MMO. 
To assume that a new player will die instantly is wrong and quite stupid. I have on several occasions seen new player perform better than veteran players. You really don’t need a training squad for normal mode strike missions. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by vares.8457

[Ashantara.8731]

14 minutes ago, vares.8457 said:

Some seem to forget the social aspect of playing an MMO. 
To assume that a new player will die instantly is wrong and quite stupid.

True, but the OP explained, in length, why they didn't have the nerves to find out that day -- and that is also a human aspect, because sometimes a person is just overtired and doesn't have it in them to explain mechanics etc. It's just as "stupid" to put such expectations into a Commander, you know?

I don't think this incident is even worth a discussion, to be honest, because -- as I stated earlier -- there are always groups that welcome newbies and take the time to explain mechanics. Tagging up for a squad doesn't automatically come with a prerequisite of a current willingness to teach and/or having tons of time.

[Cuks.8241]

Your squad, your rules. 

Been kicking players since wow wrath of the lich king. Totaly understand. Sometimes you have a bad day and you get trigered fast. 

And yeah white knights are the most annoying. Wanna be a nice guy? You take over and lead through the raid 25 puggers. 

[zeyeti.8347]

Don't be rough on yourself you asked experienced players , they are not , your choice to kick them or not , as everybody says they can make their own squad , join a training guild or look for hours in the lfg for a non asked exp. group.

I'd rather feel bad entering an exp. squad , lie about my experience , and make them fail an encounter cause my lack of exp. , so waste 9 ppl times , thats the worst , and ofc you know that happens a lot "afk" sneaking without any kp when you asked for it not saying anything expecting you to forget about them and get carry by the whole team.

You asked for a sandwich with beef , you get one with tapenade only , what do you do ? kick the sandwich and ask for another one .

Edited April 26, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Dr Meta.3158]

Just read the title, is this a new isekai anime?

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

bad ppl will invade any exp/know mechs groups when they see no strict kp reqs. theyre desperate and will have no problem abusing your goodwill while not only being useless but also actively griefing the team by failing mechs wherever possible

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Incurve Giidis.7829

[soul.9651]

6 hours ago, Incurve Giidis.7829 said:

bad ppl will invade any exp/know mechs groups when they see no strict kp reqs. theyre desperate and will have no problem abusing your goodwill while not only being useless but also actively griefing the team by failing mechs wherever possible

 

Or they just want to do the content and its their only option how to do it... Do u think the new person will instantly gonna have a 300g tag, will know all the roles and gonna make their own lfg from day one they started to think doing eod nm strikes?..

[mandala.8507]

Just a couple of thoughts @scout.9723.

First off, we only have your viewpoint on this, so the whole "am I the baddie" question really can't be answered by us unless we got to see how you actually chose to interact with these players.

Secondly, as people have mentioned, normal mode strikes are pretty simple. But even more than this, Xunlai Jade Junkyard specifically is almost impossible to fail with a mixed exp group, and other players messing up mechanics or dying can only ever marginally impact your own gameplay.

To be honest, XJJ normal mode is so easy I'd take 9 freshly hatched Quaggan calves into that encounter with the utmost confidence we could get the kill.

It's not that you were out of line to kick a newbie, it's just that most veteran 10-man content enjoyers would understandably question the competence of anyone who adamantly insisted that only exp people be part of their normal mode XJJ run.

Also, I can 100% guarantee you wasted more of your time and limited bandwidth typing out messages to this newbie soft-launching your eventual kick than you would have by just letting them run into Ankka's necro goop face first and be defeated for the rest of the encounter.

And if you were going to kick them eventually anyway, you should have just hit them immediately with the "just looking for exp players today, sorry", given them 10-15 seconds to read what you said and maybe leave on their own, and then just kicked them. I'm not sure why you were beating around the bush and forcing them to remove themselves from the group. Some new players might not even be aware of how exactly to leave on their own, so the fact that you say you chose to repeatedly warn them to leave instead of just kindly kicking them seems super odd to me.

All I can say about your exchanges after the point in which you kicked the new player is that being the Commander doesn't free you from others' opinions or legitimize your actions beyond the scope of your group in particular. You made the choice to kick a new player, another player in your squad wasn't happy with you for doing it the way that you did (or maybe for doing it at all, who knows; we don't have enough details), and that has upset you and made you feel like the baddie even if you don't believe you are.

The takeaways for me if I were in your shoes would be that my decisions upset at least one member of my squad to the point where they verbally accosted me enough to make me block them, that I might have given a new player a bad experience by typing out warnings to them instead of just kicking them with dignity or letting them stay and flail around, and I didn't even save time or energy doing so and the interactions I had bothered me so much I felt the need to type a whole forum topic up about it.

I wouldn't lament over the exchange or try to justify it. I would simply recognize that my Commander gameplay was super sloppy and unoptimized and try to make adjustments in the future to avoid similar occurrences. Even if I felt like I did nothing wrong, I would be making sure to avoid instigating similar situations in the future — because no one came away happy with how it went down the first time and there are clear paths toward improvement.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I remember at release we thought these strikes were hard because they were such a step up from the joke of Icebrood Saga strikes in difficulty (excepting Boneskinner). Let's be honest though, they're really just the equivalent of T1 Fractals with permanent death, and the difference between an experienced or inexperienced group is minimal, so there's really no reason to remove someone from a group unless they're being disrupted.

 

Even the damage doesn't matter that much, just that the group avoids the single instant-kill mechanic in each strike and doesn't slowly lose all their players from attrition.

 

That said you asked for experienced and they were inexperienced so its fair. That doesn't mean it was the morally-correct decision, it just means its fair. Its your group and your rules, so just try to keep in mind what its like to be the newbie sometimes I guess.

 

Over the years I met some of my best friends in game as players who I considered ignoring, kicking, or otherwise avoiding because I didn't want to deal with them.

Edited April 27, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[zeyeti.8347]

3 hours ago, soul.9651 said:

Or they just want to do the content and its their only option how to do it... Do u think the new person will instantly gonna have a 300g tag, will know all the roles and gonna make their own lfg from day one they started to think doing eod nm strikes?..

this is why you have the option to join a guild , to ask , to improve by learning from vet. players .

if they don't want , well it's their choice , and if the only option to do this content is to sneak after a non asking kp nor exp. lfg , ... thats called being a leech.

I remember playing the game where 30k was the optimal benchmark and training on endgame content knowing really well we gonna fail 15 times before succeeding , now ppl want access to all of that immediately ... ofc today on half of that content you can bring up 2-3 new players and carry them with very little effort , but are they gonna learn how to dps , how to heal , how to boon that way ? no , this way they gonna stay underforming and once they join a group who asked some exp. and get kicked , they gonna get angry ... and not understand why , it's endgame content for a reason .

i know we talk about nm strikes missions here and those are really not endgame content , but if coms ask for 250 bananas as kp , you have it or not and it's his choice to kick you or not , the kp system exist because ppl know they gonna face lyers who say they know everything and just hope to get carry , this is why kps exist and were used by players , it's not an "elite" thing , it's born because a lot of people can't be trusted.

Edited April 27, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Shiva.2059]

I think generally if you are feeling guilty about behaving poorly, there's a good reason for that.  Yes you were tired and yes you probably would not be feeling the need to write about this had you signed out earlier, but hey many people probably feel that they should have signed out prior to an incident.

Way too many people think that this is ok.  After all, we are a much friendlier and better community than WoW here..... arn't we?

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Shiva.2059
take out a blank line

[soul.9651]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

this is why you have the option to join a guild , to ask , to improve by learning from vet. players .

 

Sure but how many people want to join guild yet cant find one?so if some cant find the guild to join despite asking people for it in forums or reddit, can you call it having an option to join the guild?