Last night I did a Fractal run with a fellow guildie and 3 pick ups. I believe 2 of the extras were from the same guild but it’s mostly irrelevant. What is important is that about halfway through the run an argument started between two of the party members. My guildmate and I stayed out of the argument and tried to calm things down a little – we weren’t there for drama we just wanted to complete the daily. After a small spat the argument seemed done, that is until we got to the jade sea fractal…
Right at the end of the boss fight (literally one hit left) one of the people that was arguing nabbed a stone out from under the other guy that was arguing when he had been targeted by the laser. This (of course) caused a kick vote, one which my guildmate and I didn’t really notice and did not participate in because we were scrambling to get a stone before we were obliterated by the boss’s parting shot. Seconds after the boss goes down we are immediately transferred to Lion’s Arch – no chest, no daily, just straight to LA with one less player in the party.
Now, I’m sure the two guys that kicked the third were trying to screw him out of the boss loot and daily (they had complained the third guy was wasting their time). What they succeeded doing was screwing us all out of it, including my guildmate and I who had no part in the argument and just wanted to get the daily done. We were both pretty angry afterwards and logged off. I thought about making this post last night but decided to cool down first. In lieu of calling people out, I’ve decided to make a few suggestions to help prevent this in the future, and hopefully people will relate to the story enough that ANet will take notice and make these enhancements a priority.
First, I’d like to suggest that they fix whatever it is that caused us to be immediately booted out of the Fractals when one member of the party is kicked – that seems like a pretty glaring bug. Second, I’d like to suggest that the votes to kick someone from a party be increased to three for a group of five. This would have easily prevented this situation by ensuring that two people from the same guild couldn’t abuse a kick vote – regardless of the argument and the abrasiveness of the other players we all deserved the loot because we all put in the time and effort for it.
Finally what I would like to suggest, and I know it has been mentioned before, a better player reporting system. The player that ultimately was kicked honestly deserved to be reported for his behavior. I’m sure there are plenty of instrumentation that probably needs to be filled out in order to make a proper reporting system, but I can tell you that the player base would greatly appreciate it. Chat logs would have clearly shown the abusive behavior of the player that was kicked so that they could be punished properly without the players feeling like they had to punish him by kicking him at the last second before he got the boss reward and daily and ultimately screwing everyone over in the party.