Guild Wars 2

This is an unedited post that I spent a small amount of time writing about a month ago. It’s redundant and needed work but I don’t have the time to commit to it right now. I felt bad in not posting it because I believe there’s important information in here for the people that are always kittening “I got kicked from this group for no reason!” Fyi, there’s always a reason, and this is the large majority of reasons my group used to kick TONS of people. Anyway, the post:

Dungeon Etiquette: Attitude and Behavior

Primarily this post is aimed at people who are joining a group for a dungeon, specifically explaining why my group is kicking and blocking large amounts of people from participating with us. Ideally I would hope that some of these people see this post, understand why they’ve been removed and improve. For reference my group, formed from players within my guild, typically only has three static members; usually, but not always, we fill the last two slots with people from gw2lfg.com. I understand the risk of inviting random players for dungeons but as my small team of three can clear most paths without assistance we don’t typically have issues inviting two more for some extra damage.

However, as of late, I’ve noticed a massive influx in selfish and idiotic behavior. I would like to clarify that I’m not referencing new or inexperienced players, but rather players that have multiple 80s. We’re ok with new players joining and trying to learn how to play more effectively in a dungeon environment, really. We’re willing to help people learn to play the game. This post isn’t about skill or gear; it’s about specific behaviors and attitudes.

So let’s discuss unacceptable behavior in a group:

—Joining and immediately leaving
—Arguing about how the dungeon is being run
—Wearing magic find gear
—Consistently not raising
—Consistently raising dead players/npcs over downed players
—Consistently taking time to ping drops during combat
—Consistently typing during fights
—Misusing timewarp
—Going afk
—Not having access to the area
—Not following targeting
—Fake Politeness
—Glitching
—Moving crystals away from players during the Jade Maw fractal
—Complaining about class/group setup

And some lesser things:

—Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves
—Hounds of Motherkittening Balthazar
—Entering the instance
—Commander tags
—Joining on a character lower than 80 when you have one or multiple 80s
—Splitting up mobs

Back to the top, with explanation this time:

—Joining and immediately leaving

(immediately in this case is any time before the path has started)

I don’t care why you left the group. Maybe you don’t like certain classes or maybe you don’t want to play with lower leveled characters. Just don’t bother joining groups if you’re looking for a particular setup: make your own group and be clear about your class/level expectations. If you honestly had to leave for outside reasons, yeah, that’s fine. Just say that and we won’t hate you.

We will, however, hate you if you decide you don’t want to wait long enough to find a fifth member, especially if you say you’re going to try to your luck with another group.

—Arguing about how the dungeon is being run

Some groups can be democracies but most are not. Most don’t give a kitten about how you want to run the dungeon and have their own plans for doing things, so if you’re joining random groups then you’d better be prepared to play the way they want to. If there is some ambiguity, like a gw2lfg.com post doesn’t say how the run is being done, then ask. You’re not the only person in the group and if you joined the group then accept that it’s not your group. You don’t get to make the calls.

Additionally, don’t assume anything. I’ve seen way too many people run ahead of us and then skip groups of monsters. If you’re not one of the individuals that initiated the group then you stay behind everyone else.

—Wearing magic find gear

If you’re wearing magic find then you’re hurting the group to help yourself, and only helping yourself to a marginal degree. You are literally giving up the major stat on a piece of gear, or a rune/sigil slot, for the magic find and are absolutely contributing less than your potential.

At the moment I’m not sure exactly how magic find scales but I suspect it doesn’t scale well. Given scaling, there are only a few dungeons where wearing magic find would be useful (unscaled), and honestly, if you’re wearing magic find in arah then you’re making a huge mistake.

—Consistently not raising

This is absolutely obnoxious and there is no excuse. If you didn’t notice then you’re not paying attention. Letting people full die is unacceptable.

—Consistently raising dead players/npcs over downed players

There is no reason to do this. Don’t do it.

—Consistently taking time to ping drops during combat

Please save it for the end of the run. Most of the time people don’t care about your yellows and you’re wasting time sitting in your inventory/chatlog. I’m ok with discussing drops at the end of a run, because, you know, we’re not fighting something then.

—Consistently typing during fights

Keep your typing to a minimum and focus on fighting the monsters. Please. If you’re typing it better be relevant to whatever you’re fighting at the time.

—Misusing Timewarp

Alright, sure, I can accept that hitting everyone with timewarp isn’t necessarily easy or even possible some times. Please don’t throw it down on yourself, especially if the maximum range is outside of melee range of whatever we happen to be fighting at the moment.

—Going afk

kitten happens and we get that. Afking in a dungeon slows everyone down so please try to take care of your business outside of dungeons or between paths if you can help it. At the very least announce you’re going afk. If you’re holding us up and haven’t said anything, we kick you. This isn’t exclusive to non-guildies.

—Not following targeting

In a word this category is about focus. Certain encounters contain mobs that are more of a threat than others. An example of this is A.C. path 2, Detha’s path: waves of ghosts spawn to attack Detha as she prepares some cannons. In scenario’s like this a friend of mine calls target on specific mobs so that we have some focus and can take down more dangerous monsters first. What I see happen very often is that people will not follow targeting which causes fights to take longer and big threats to deal more damage.

Something else I see occur to a lesser extent is that another player will call target on a different monster than the one my group has targeted. If you’re joining a partially premade group then just don’t interfere with targeting because it’s not your group. You can disagree or say something else is more of a threat but that is absolutely a discussion that does not need to take place during combat. If you’re just a full pickup group and you want to take use of the feature then try to designate one person to call out targets or step up and announce that you will.

—Not having access to the area

Don’t join a group if you’re not ready to enter. Especially don’t join a group and expect them to wait for you to walk your character across a few maps to get to the one we’re on.

—Fake Politeness

If you’re joining a group and offer to do something then you’d better kitten well do it when the group asks. For example: don’t join on a low level character, offer to switch to an 80 and then not do it when the group asks! We don’t care that you’re leveling a new character! You offered to do it and if you didn’t want to then just don’t say anything.

—Glitching

This is more of a personal preference I suppose but I don’t see the necessity or purpose towards glitching outside of a very limited set of scenarios, such as the game legitimately breaking and blocking progress because it broke (Arah path 1 a few months ago as an example). If it’s your group I don’t mind if you cheat but I expect that all players in a group are consistent with the group’s choice. It bothers me when a player asks if we’re doing x glitch after my group has made it clear several times that we are not doing any glitching. The worst is when a player asks why not after we’ve said no. That’s around the point where I want to slap the person’s hands away from the keyboard and tell them to go sit in the corner. . If this was a hard game or if half the content was broken (I’m looking at you Final Fantasy 11) and that was literally the only way to beat a boss, sure. GW2 is fun and easy though. Basically, if you think you have to glitch to beat this game then, sorry, there’s something wrong with your play style.

—Moving crystals away from players during the Jade Maw fractal

I get why people move crystals to the one corner. It’s not a bad move, sure. What bothers me is when people take a crystal off of another player that isn’t in a corner and then move that crystal to the corner. If you insist on moving crystals to a safe area please leave at least one near anyone who isn’t in that corner.

—Complaining about class/group setup

This is exceptionally annoying. For one, there are very few things that are class exclusive. I will accept that some classes can do a few things better than others but that often requires a tight trait specialization. As for two: you’re doing it wrong if you need or think you need a class or build to run a dungeon. It certainly isn’t ideal to run something like five thieves or five necros but yes, those classes can win most paths. Arah path 4 is currently the only exception I have; really, this game was very well designed and you can do anything in any group as any spec, that being said…

The lesser things:

—Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves

This is a large category but mostly the problem here is ranged attacks. Ranged attacks are not ideal in almost every situation; ranged attacks do less damage and generally have less synergy with other players. Scepter guardians, Rifle Warriors, Pistol Thieves and Rangers are the largest offenders: these builds/weapons offer very little to group situations and strike me as either selfish (the character putting their well being above the groups), lazy, unskilled (can’t dodge effectively) or all of the above. When I see someone playing primarily with ranged attacks it sets off a red flag.

Rangers and Thieves, though… I’ve had a high amount (close to 90%) of bad experiences with people that play these classes. I’ve only seen one — one — ranger use one of their melee alternatives (I want to emphasize this: I’ve run about 6 paths daily since mid September. That’s a lot of dungeons and a lot of rangers). Often I don’t see a ranger contribute in any meaningful way to a group. For example, there is a healing field that rangers have: It’s incredible and I never see it. Why? I just don’t get it. As for thief, well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that has been specced towards anything close to support. When I say support I mean ANYTHING that assists the group aside from damage: really, just play warrior or something if that’s all you want to do. There isn’t a whole lot there, sure, but there are things and I never — literally never — have seen a thief build towards them or even have them on the side. So, when I see a thief, I have a mental red flag about the player.

—Hounds of Motherkittening Balthazar

That’s the official name, by the way; the devs just couldn’t fit the whole thing in. This is a category I’d like to put higher up but it serves more as a red flag about player skill level and that’s not something I necessarily wanted to touch in this. I also was tempted to say racial elites or racial skills in general but some have use, and some classes just don’t have much in the form of elites, however, when I see a warrior or a mesmer use Hounds of Balthazar there is a serious problem.

Specifically: the recast is fairly high (four minutes), the duration is low (30 seconds) and summoned pets/minions tend to not last very long in dungeon fights. If they had a higher duration, a lower recast, or could live for their full duration then I could see an argument being made about their use towards additional damage but they just won’t accomplish anything in a dungeon setting.

Just a few things on it: elites, like utility skills, are or can be situational. You don’t have to equip a skill that you’ll want to use every time it’s up, necessarily. There are plenty of situational elite’s that are well worth using if the situation arises (summoning warbanner on a fallen ally rather than using it at the start of the fight for buffs or using a timewarp to quickly raise some downed team members rather than for pure damage as a few examples). Beyond that class elites are almost always better, more efficient, or offer something pretty cool. If you’re using something like Hounds of Balthazar in a dungeon I would suggest checking out your class forums and asking about your class elites and their uses. As for just standard world exploration I could see a case made for hounds if you wanted a meat shield or something, but the recast is high and they don’t last long. Just not something useful in dungeons.

—Entering the instance

I hesitate to say “if you’re not the party leader don’t enter the instance,” because there isn’t exactly a party leader. This is more aimed at people who join random groups; if you’re joining a group then you’re not the one that’s supposed to enter the instance. It’s not a serious infraction; my group always asks that the person exit the instance so our designated group leader can open up one.

—Commander tags

Please take them off as they do nothing but annoy everyone else.

—Joining on a character lower than 80 when you have one or multiple 80s

This screams selfish because you are willingly gimping the group. And yes, you are gimping the group even if you’re at or above the level for a dungeon: scaling is pretty harsh. We’re ok with newer players but what we’re not ok with is a person joining a group and slowing us down so he can level up a character. You’re wasting everyone’s time. Even if your gear is perfectly up to date with your current level so that you’re not hit very harshly by the scale down system then you still don’t have full traits. Before the waypoint adjustment in dungeons I was somewhat ok with players swapping to another character for the boss but I now considered that unacceptable as well as you are forcing the team to either stay out of combat until you arrive for the fight or the group doesn’t wait and you walk through the entire dungeon, contributing 0%.

It goes without saying that entering on a character lower than the dungeon’s level cap is also unacceptable. You deserve to be kicked if you’re leeching.

Really, if you want exp then go out and do world exploration; you do not have the right to kitten a group because you want some exp.

—Splitting up mobs

Tough category because it’s highly subjective. Splitting up mobs really depends upon the situation. However, there are plenty of times when it’s beneficial to have several mobs clustered together; knocking them around in these situations slows down a dungeon quite a bit. Just think about it a bit before you mindlessly scatter monsters all over the place.

Overall, realize you’re in a group setting with real people and ask yourself if you would appreciate someone else doing the things you are. That’s all I ask.

We need something like this as a sticky as well as general group strategies.

Sadly most people wont care about this (mainly the people who cbf’d to get on the forums) because its the “internet”. “I can be as rude, disrespectful, disgustingly vicious towards someone else and walk away because I don’t care about them” mentality.

Luciusbrimstone.7925:

—Entering the instance

I hesitate to say “if you’re not the party leader don’t enter the instance,” because there isn’t exactly a party leader. This is more aimed at people who join random groups; if you’re joining a group then you’re not the one that’s supposed to enter the instance. It’s not a serious infraction; my group always asks that the person exit the instance so our designated group leader can open up one.

Just a curiosity, are you taking the other party member’s perspective into consideration?

The issue with griefing in the game has made some (even me) suspicious of guild groups when I join and 3 or more are of the same guild. I won’t say I always try to enter the instance first (some griefers will simply have their 3 guys already inside before inviting) but I tend to take a pic of the group’s names before starting at the least.

Groups that request I exit if I was the one that entered usually make me particularly suspicious and I have to decide if I even want to risk wasting my time or giving the group a chance.

…just some perspective for you.

Luciusbrimstone.7925:

This screams selfish because you are willingly gimping the group. And yes, you are gimping the group even if you’re at or above the level for a dungeon: scaling is pretty harsh.

Correction: Scaling is pretty harsh on level 80s.

That’s the thing about scaling…it scales…higher with level.

Welp, that’s alot of text

A couple things here that seem to border more on ranting than etiquette.
But the ones that don’t are well constructed and said.

Also, Scaling was adjusted a while ago.
If you haven’t checked it in a while, give it another go.

Also also,
I think it’s important to stress ‘Communication is key’.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Also, Scaling was adjusted a while ago.
If you haven’t checked it in a while, give it another go.

One reason I sort of gave up on my project to further calculate how much dynamic level scaling affects your actual level is because….someone did the work for me a long time ago!

Check this link out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dynamic-Level-Adjustment-1/first#post1334959

This does not need a sticky. It sounds like your group is quite harsh with the kicking. Level scaling has been adjusted, lower level characters are much more effective. Kicking people for things like pinging loot or typing is ridiculous. Sure misused Time Warps are slightly annoying, but not kickable. Same with a few other things, sure annoying, but not kickable.

The fact you’ve kicked and blocked “large amounts” makes you sound pretty ruthless. Maybe we need an etiquette of when not to kick.

I go through the list and give you my impression of your list. I basically agree about the etiquette w/ those I have not listed, not the action taken though…
—Consistently not raising.
What’s about the other alive players? Most PUG I noticed not rezzing players are due to they are inexperienced and confused of their roles during that moment. So I always said something like this “Every one should pay attention to down players and only 1 rez while the rest kiting away”. If you are the leader of a group and you don’t tell PUG what you expect in rezzing, hmmm.
—Misusing timewarp
Inexperience players.
—Not following targeting
Inexperience players not noticing that their target has changed & stuck.
—Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves
I love doing this w/ my friends so they have to work their butts off so I can boast that I’m the last one standing to rez (name your class here ) but you are not my friend so… Besides, these players in PUG group are mostly inexperienced players.
—Joining on a character lower than 80 when you have one or multiple 80s
You need to specify it at your LFG. It’s your fault.
—Splitting up mobs
Inexperienced.

I won’t kick anyone because they are inexperienced but I won’t join any group that kicks any inexperienced players neither. Unless, I specified “experienced players only” then all the points above is moot.

Most of your points are good, but the one about thieves not being specced for support is a little irritating. Thieves have very little in the way of supporting allies. We can stealth people, and that’s about it. We can’t offer much healing or cure conditions. The one way we have of granting boons is tied to stealing which has a long cooldown and requires traits. It also requires allies to be within melee range which often doesn’t happen with unorganized pugs. Our traps often suck because they don’t help much on large mobs and plain don’t work on most bosses.

The one significant thing we have for support is shadow refuge. It heals a small amount, but more importantly has a very long stealth. It also has a long cooldown though, and when party members are not ready for it, they can make themselves immune to it making it useless. This is why it’s used sparingly.

The one thing i’d like to see other thieves use more often is smoke screen. It’s a wall that blocks projectiles, why does it seem like I am the only one who sees how useful that is? Still, that’s only when there are ranged mobs, which isn’t very often.

Thief really isn’t much of a group class, which is why I rarely use it for PvE. Thieves can’t offer nearly the support that my Elementalist or Guardian can.

With that said, being able to deal insane amounts of damage is actually very supportive for the group, assuming the thief is skilled enough to not die. Taking out those acolytes in 2 hits in CoF for example is very useful.

So really, my only problems with thieves are when they don’t use smoke screen when there’s a lot of ranged mobs or the ones who die a lot.

Oh, and the not resurrecting thing. I hate it when people try to pick up downed players instead of finishing a weak mob. Killing a mob gives everyone rally. If you stop to res people instead of killing off a weak target, you’re doing it wrong.

Anyway, this topic is less about etiquette and more about being experienced. You are going to find people who don’t know the game very well when you pug. Most of this topic, while not wrong, is a little excessive.

I should probably clarify that we rarely kick mid-run. That’s probably important. It’s also probably relevant to say that we tend not to unless they’re committing multiple issues.

The biggest thing is when we ask or tell someone not to do something and they either ignore us or argue with us. I do take into account that a lot of things are inexperience and usually — not always but usually — ask them to either do or not do something with an explanation as to why.

We’re harsh when we’ve hit a stage of asking someone not to do something, explaining why and they either ignore us or argue with us.

@Leo: I’m aware that some guild groups do that and some people are afraid of being kicked for a guildie. The very first thing my group said upon joining is that we will never kick anyone for a group member, period. However I recognize that that is just my particular group. We’ve never had an issue where someone entered and refused to leave, and I try very hard to keep my group from removing people before the run is over. It really takes a lot to convince me otherwise; the player(s) in question have to not only be holding us back, they have to either be actively sabotaging our run or asserting that they are very much a hindrance beyond being not very good (as in, making fights so much harder, by disrupting gameplay mechanics or additional aggro, that we can’t win them).

@Vox: Yeah, it’s hard to not get emotional over some of the events that happened, mostly when people argue. Communication is key is very correct, though.

@Leo: Yeah you’re correct, scaling is harshest on 80. It still hits lower levels, though, and I’m still hesitant over lower level characters because they (probably) don’t have a full set of gear for their level, especially with how quickly one levels in a dungeon (assuming multiple runs of course). Thanks for the scaling info though, looking forward to checking it out.

@Laharl: Sorry for the miscommunication, we don’t kick people mid run over things like that unless they’re either doing it frequently after we’ve asked them not to and they’ve also been doing some other things on that list. The main thing that comes into play on that category is when they do it mid-‘boss’ fight and cause unnecessary deaths (usually their own) or something to that extent.

You are correct that the majority of the time it is more annoying than kickable. I’ll edit the original post to indicate that.

@Dog: No, I know thief doesn’t have that much; it’s just one of those things I expect when I see a thief. Speccing to support has a nasty side effect if you can’t actually support anyone (difficult to support with a ranged party). Stealth is incredibly useful at times. It’s just that I expect a thief to play only one way and that’s usually correct, though not necessarily the fault of the thief so much as the fault of the class.

@Laharl: Sorry for the miscommunication, we don’t kick people mid run over things like that unless they’re either doing it frequently after we’ve asked them not to and they’ve also been doing some other things on that list. The main thing that comes into play on that category is when they do it mid-‘boss’ fight and cause unnecessary deaths (usually their own) or something to that extent.

You are correct that the majority of the time it is more annoying than kickable. I’ll edit the original post to indicate that.

My apologies for misunderstanding. You seem quite reasonable. Maybe with some editing, this post could be used a sticky. As long as it’s clear that kicking is an absolute last resort, then maybe this could help minimize kicking.

I’m a bit confused by this post… perhaps you can elaborate a bit more for my benefit…

If you have so many “requirements” for running a dungeon, why would you even attempt a PUG? Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep track of the players you find “acceptable” according to the behaviors you listed and invite them accordingly?

Perhaps I’m a bit naive, but when I PUG an instance, I pretty much understand that it could go either way, and I’m pretty much on the same level as everyone else in the group (even if it’s 4 guildies and we’re pugging just one slot). Trying to impose my playstyle on another in a PUG seems a bit arrogant – as if it’s a privledge to run with a particular group, that are being so benevolent as to allow a PUG to join them (but only if they fall in line).

I don’t disagree with a lot of your points, but I’d consider them more guidelines for running a regular group/guild. Having such expectations from a PUG are a bit ambitious, no?

I really don’t like this:

“Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves”

Considering how I myself use Scepter on my guardian, and occasionally use p/p on my thief…and the fact that I actually main a thief…I don’t like what you’re saying…

I see no reason why people can’t play ranged…there is a reason why ranged weapons exist in this game…Some people enjoy the playstyle, others may not be experienced enough with the content to go in melee, you simply just can’t expect everyone to be experienced enough/want to melee.

You may not consider it support but thieves can support…Shadow Refuge, Smokescreen, Headshot, or Blinding Powder. Frankly, at the end of the day, whether or not you get through the content depends on how fast you kill stuff and it’s generally agreed that thieves have high dps…

As well, I don’t see anything wrong with the Scepter on the Guardian in the context of pve…

LyzeUH.1398:

I really don’t like this:

“Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves”

Yeah, I was gonna comment on this one but if the OP was sincere about the clarifications, I’d assume this would only be an even more minor peeve. Not sure about the others, but for the Warrior, I did run a Rifle build in dungeons for a bit (to tell you the truth, I ran quite a few different builds to get a feel for what I liked…basically using dungeons as personal tests which may not have been particularly polite but I keep other weapons around when I need them).

I enjoyed traited Rifle in Arah just because I found it fun and a nice change of pace to line up foes and unload on them where normally I wouldn’t be able to hit both because they weren’t close together. My hope is, when the devs say they are looking into making more builds viable, I hope they mean all the weapons. I don’t want to be looked at funny just because I’m not using a Greatsword or Axe.

Agree with everything you have written but please just add me to your block list now. I dont think Ive ever read such a kitten load of holier than kitten on here before. Thqnk you.

I see nothing wrong with joining and immediately leaving if you don’t like the group composition or if the group creator was dishonest. How about we talk about what lv 80 only means and why you decided to carry two 45s in the party?

Also, we could discuss the merits of your manners with regards to your name for Hounds.

OP talks about dungeon “etiquette” yet the whole post feels like elitism to me.

The OP talks about people who complains about class/group setup and then in the next bullet down begins to complain about ranged weapons and how he has never seen a good ranger or thief….

You also state that people who join PUGs should not try to run the group…. maybe because you want to run the group your way?

There is also good reasons for not rezzing someone off the ground. Often times, when a player goes down, they can be in a really bad situation. If a player goes to rez them, then the “domino effect” can occur, and it can cause more players to go down. This is seen in fights like Alpha or Lupi, where at times its just impossible to get to someone to rez them. To make a black and white statement like “there is no excuse to not rez someone,” makes it sound like you do not know what you are talking about.

it’s always fun to join a group where someone is who thinks he knows everything best but actually has a very limited understanding of the game. I don’t assume Luciusbrimstone belongs to this category, but if someone starts giving stupid commands, I will argue with them. for example: a p/p thief tried to tell everyone on an AC path 2 run to go after rangers first, because necros and eles aren’t a problem as you can just walk out of the circles. he always removed the targets from the necros.

apart from that, I mostly agree, it would be so much easier if people had the decency to not deliberately kitten a group.
while the ‘no ranged’ bit is a bit extreme, I agree that people should try to stay in a cluster, share their boons/heals and preferably attack melee as long as their health pool allows. but I’d rather if someone was switching to a ranged weapon when their health gets low instead of going down and having someone ress them and lose even more dmg.

a ranger running anything other than the water field (or placing it at max range) is just plain useless and should be kicked immediately though. it’s their one truly exceptional skill which combined with a blast-finisher heavy teammate (hammer guardian i.e.) can change the course of a fight more than any other skill from any class by itself. especially in not really coordinated groups.

Gonna add something here: A high level fractal group looking for geared players- pug joins, he pings his gear set, it’s fine. We get in, he’s wearing another set.
It appears to be crafted rares.
He insisits it’s the set he pinged, even though it’s an entirely different skin.
5 mins later, sigil of luck pops up next to his name.

We aren’t stupid my friend. /kick.

Oranisagu.3706:

it’s always fun to join a group where someone is who thinks he knows everything best but actually has a very limited understanding of the game. I don’t assume Luciusbrimstone belongs to this category, but if someone starts giving stupid commands, I will argue with them. for example: a p/p thief tried to tell everyone on an AC path 2 run to go after rangers first, because necros and eles aren’t a problem as you can just walk out of the circles. he always removed the targets from the necros.

apart from that, I mostly agree, it would be so much easier if people had the decency to not deliberately kitten a group.
while the ‘no ranged’ bit is a bit extreme, I agree that people should try to stay in a cluster, share their boons/heals and preferably attack melee as long as their health pool allows. but I’d rather if someone was switching to a ranged weapon when their health gets low instead of going down and having someone ress them and lose even more dmg.

a ranger running anything other than the water field (or placing it at max range) is just plain useless and should be kicked immediately though. it’s their one truly exceptional skill which combined with a blast-finisher heavy teammate (hammer guardian i.e.) can change the course of a fight more than any other skill from any class by itself. especially in not really coordinated groups.

I just wanna point out, that, while I agree, ranger’s water field is awesome.. what irks me is that, (when on my ranger) I place it down on the group, and NO-ONE combo finishes in it, even when health is low and it could have saved em. This is important, know your combos!

tldr (12 chars)

etiquette [et-i-kit, -ket]
(noun) conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion.

This sounds like a fail rant about how everyone should be running greatsword warriors in full beserkers to make your dungeon runs faster or something like that. Or it’s just a rant because you feel pugs have made your runs harder, but its probably more like a Learn to play issue for you.

LyzeUH.1398:

I really don’t like this:

“Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves”

Considering how I myself use Scepter on my guardian, and occasionally use p/p on my thief…and the fact that I actually main a thief…I don’t like what you’re saying…

I see no reason why people can’t play ranged…there is a reason why ranged weapons exist in this game…Some people enjoy the playstyle, others may not be experienced enough with the content to go in melee, you simply just can’t expect everyone to be experienced enough/want to melee.

This sort of attitude has appeared in the dungeon community in every MMO I’ve played. MMO class balance meta always produces “best” options for efficiency. Those who desire efficiency in their runs will view any major deviation from the best options as something not preferred.

The discrepancy between melee and ranged damage in GW2 is noticeable without a damage meter. This is “supposed” to be balanced by melee needing to spend more time dodging and backing out of melee because of high mob melee damage. This balancing act works pretty well in the open world. However, at least some of the GW2 dungeon boss mechanics require RDPS to dodge and reposition almost as much as melee. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that melee is just, well, better if the player has the twitch reflexes and knowledge of attack tells to get the dodges off properly.

Thing is, the OP’s rules of etiquette are primarily aimed at players who pug dungeons. Guild or friend groups tend to work out their own rules of etiquette, and are likely to be more forgiving of someone who prefers ranged for whatever reason. This is why I do not pug.

Sure, a preference issue like the use of a ranged weapon is something that is not in and of itself rude, but will be viewed as undesirable because of the desire for efficiency. You don’t have to like that attitude but it does exist and is not going to go away.

Alot of these sound very controlling to be honest…..especially the entering first one,if someone asks me to leave the dungeon so they can be party leader I automatically assume they are planning to kick me at somepoint during the run,especially of they have guildies.
As for the ranger not using his waterfield,for alot of AOE fights troll ugent is preferred because you can move around,instead of sticking to a circle for healing,.

Rangers dont need a waterfield to do AoE healing. Dwayna runes 6/6 means troll ungent will give AoE regen. Fern wolf f2 also gives AoE regen.

I think this thread pretty much sums up whats wrong with people running dungeons. They dont know other classes, what traits do what, and instead listen to nonsense from haters of X/Y/Z profession.

And demanding that players use X or Y skill, when they very well may have specced for alternate skills is a no no. You have NO right to tell anyone how to play the game, nor how they make the character they use.

Extremely elitist thread.

what a fun bunch

As part of LB’s group:

All of these come down to one simple fact: Don’t waste our time. It’s disrespectful.

Kuishen.6140:

As part of LB’s group:

All of these come down to one simple fact: Don’t waste our time. It’s disrespectful.

You waste more people’s time jumping through your moronic obstacle course to join a group than other people waste yours.

I mostly agree with what’s being said, but I would not want to run with you, partially because seeing a checklist of that size frankly puts me off the idea regardless of its content, when all I want is a casual run most of the time, partially because of the “I rule this town” mentality that you seem to have and that I can’t stand, but mostly because of the simple fact that I run a Thief as a main and you sound just like every other group – see a Thief, immediate disappointment and condescension before it’s even begun.

Let me tell you something – our direct support is TERRIBLE. If you try and argue otherwise, you haven’t played any other profession in the game, period. Venomsharing is absolutely pitiful, barring the occasion that you all stack on call on voice chat, and even then the result of those venoms is often extremely mediocre, and speccing in to that sort of build gimps the Thief entirely outside of venom uptime. Other systematic support options come in the form of the rather rubbish boon-shares, although they can be useful but not to the degree of most professions’ ability to give out, and stealth for the rubbish 5 second regen, and to get that you have to blow or two utilities. Dark field lifesteal is rather lame on such a high CD with so much utility that comes with it being blown. More importantly, most Thief support comes from being on the offensive and active – AoE blinds with stealth or S/P, daze control of key mobs, weakness application with Shortbow/Sword, stealth at opportune moments for ressing, that sort of thing. Essentially, the Thief is most likely giving out their indirect support in the midst of battle alongside DPS and not using a specific trait set that gears them for direct support and wrecks every other aspect of their profession. Any Thief worth their salt will have already adapted during PvE to evade most attacks at crucial moments and stay on the constant offensive to prevent momentum fading. They either went down that route or the “kite with a ranged weapon and hope I don’t die” option, and both variations are worlds apart and obvious to spot. Honestly, I find myself lasting longer than most teammates in all varieties of PUGs due to this forced adaptation at an early stage.

Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got salt where the sun don’t shine because you had a bunch of terribad Thief players. But then, I’ve seen tons of terribad Warriors, Guardians, Eles, Mesmers and more. Judge the player, not the profession. Or perhaps play those professions more to understand what you’re dealing with before coming to asinine conclusions about how they should play.

i know i’ll get flack for this.. but if specced correctly, a Guardian Scepter can do a TON of damage.

perhaps everyone should learn more about everyone’s classes before making assumptions. not sayign that EVERY scepter Guard is gonna do well.. but don’t discredit those that KNOW how to play before generalizing.

Munkee.3542:

Kuishen.6140:

As part of LB’s group:

All of these come down to one simple fact: Don’t waste our time. It’s disrespectful.

You waste more people’s time jumping through your moronic obstacle course to join a group than other people waste yours.

I fail to see how common sense is a moronic obstacle course. Of course for some people I suppose that’s true.

Also to the people who say we’re anti-thief. I am a thief. It’s the only class I play. 99% of the Thieves we get as PUGs are complete morons. We don’t kick anybody because they’re on a specific class. We kick people if they refuse to listen to instruction, which leads to a wipe and lots of wasted time.

You can tell what PuG need to do and don’t do.But don’t expect result going your way.Kick only when Pug really suck and being jerk to the team seem to work fine for me.

I can somewhat agree with some of these guidelines, but there’s one big thing that bugs me about your post and it’s this: Instance Ownership. If someone told me to that I had to leave the instance for one of their buddies to walk in first, I just go find another group. Likewise, if the party is already in the dungeon, I’ll find another group. Fancy-talk it any way you like, but knowing me, I’m very freakin’ paranoid when it comes to partial guild groups. I’ve seen too much griefing to trust guild groups— heck, I’ve been in groups where my own former guildmates engaged in shenanigans like that. It was pretty pathetic. So when it comes to instance ownership, I trust only one person on that part— me. There are some exceptions, like my certain people on my friends list, and veterans of this Dungeon sub-forum. If I recognize that you’re a person that contributes intelligently in this forum, then I’ll probably stick around. Otherwise, if you don’t trust me, then I don’t have to trust you either. If you can trust me with instance ownership, then I can trust you that you know what you’re doing.

In previous MMOs, I’m usually the main tank of the group. It usually means I’m very hard to replace— and if I’m in a crappy mood, which is very rare, you’d have to deal with it, or wait in queue for another 30 minutes or so just for a new party. Since GW2 has no dedicated tanks or healers, you can always replace me promptly if I decide I want to leave before we start up the dungeon.

Aside from that, I’m usually very calm, patient, and laid back; and usually the last person to bail if the party starts to deteriorate. If I leave and kill your instance before engaging the last boss, then you can always report me for griefing. I know I did wrong and deserve to be reported for it.

As with me as a typical dungeon runner, I usually walk in as an observer to the group as see how the pug run will flow; unless they all admit that they haven’t been there before in which I’ll have to do the leading. In that case, I just have One Basic Rule:

• If you can listen and know what you’re doing, then go nuts.

I honestly don’t care what profession or trait-spec you play as long we finish the dungeon. If we manage to clear content in a timely manner, then I won’t question your choice of weapons, that stack of Luck from your sigil, your strange playstyle, or the five yellow signet icons next to your name. At best, I’ll probably get a good feel of how the group is built based on how long it takes for stuff to die.

With that said, I’m not sure how I feel if I were to party with you after reading your opening posts. A checklist that’s just as big as a thesis paper usually rubs me the wrong way. I was this close to just posting “TL;DR”, but I can see that you’re trying to get a point across.

Personally, I’d make your list short with a neutral PoV. For me, the bigger the requirements, the more elitist-like it becomes. For me, I just find elitists to be very humorous. I can’t take those kind of people seriously anymore. I’m not saying that you’re an elitist, but I think following a guide about Etiquette should be short and sweet. For instance, the section about ranged DPS— I play a Grenade-spec Engineer, which obviously means I’m ranged. That also means I can stand as far as 1500 range and do appropriate damage, assuming I can predict where my grenades will land if I’m trying to hit a moving target. Sure, I could probably go Flamethrower or Bombs (both of which have their uses that I’m aware of) and attack in near-melee range, but unless you play an Engineer at level 80 as well, I’m not sure if I could take your criticism seriously. At that point, you’re just telling people how to play their profession, and unless you play the same profession they are, they probably won’t be taking you seriously either.

Kuishen.6140:

As part of LB’s group:

All of these come down to one simple fact: Don’t waste our time. It’s disrespectful.

I don’t understand this part. Did you do the PUG a favor by accepting them in your group or do you use them to benefit your group? To me, you need PUG for your own benefit or else why you need them at the 1st place? You need them and at the same time, you act bossy as if you give them the privilege to join your group.
This clearly indicates an educational challenged mind and like wise an extension of an immature group of elitists (and most of them having a huge issue of l2p), regardless of the nice clothes you have put on. Birds a feather flocks together indeed.

I read your post and honestly I think most of this is pretty much common sense to any MMO player with half a brain and a bit of MMO experience. Unfortunately where your argument fails for me is bringing this to the forums. Expecting others to do things your way, no matter how reasonable, in a PuG group is asking for disappointment. I’ve got enough MMO experience to know that, and so do you I imagine. Now I don’t presume to know your guild situation, but really the problem here is you for not knowing how to recruit, train, and keep quality guild members. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. Setting expectations with potential guild members, teaching them proper dungeon running techniques, and then building a solid relationship with them isn’t hard at all….it’s time consuming. If you’re not willing to put forth that effort, don’t come griping to the community about bad behavior in PuG groups.

Nikaido.3457:

You don’t like pugs, they don’t like you either, just recruit more people into your guild, pugs aren’t slaves that have to submit to your every desire.

Enough said n FYI Secpt guardians with sheild do alot of buffing and healing so clearly u kno nothing about this game if u dont like how ppl are then stop QQing (Crying) on forums and use ur guildies or Recruit more JUST SAYING

@ Ari Kagura:

You literally state the reason why we do this in your fifth sentence: We’ve had too many people screw us over, so we eliminate the chance of it happening to us. I don’t see how that’s unreasonable and if you have a problem with it, that’s really not OUR problem. We get on to play the game to accomplish things, not have our time wasted because somebody decided to be a kitten, so we don’t take the chance.

We don’t take issue with people using whatever build they want, and LB’s post came off as a tad more abrasive than it needed to be in that particular area, but between the 3 of us we’ve played almost every class to 80, we know what the traits and weapons do and because of that we have an understanding that certain things simply aren’t as good as the alternative. This game is not perfectly balanced so there are always going to be things that are the “best”. We’re not gonna kick you for being a Longbow ranger or a Scepter guardian. We are however going to be watching how you utilize those skillsets and note if you’re doing it properly. If you aren’t, then we’re not gonna want to have anything to do with you after the run.

This is not a checklist that we require you to read before you join our group. This is common sense that we expect you to know about the game you play and if you don’t, then this post was to educate you so you can better yourself and better your gameplay experience for yourself and the people you play with.

@SkyChef: We do, in effect, do the PUGs we get a favor by being efficient at whatever it is we’re doing without using glitches or bullkitten mechanics so you can actually learn how to play the game properly and efficiently and having a general smooth experience. If you don’t want to be efficient that is totally fine, but that’s not how we play and we’d rather have people in our group that also like to be efficient.

I see that you however feel the need to insult our group because of some perceived insult to yourself.

@Starhawk: We’ve discussed that in length. We don’t come across people who we like and play well enough very often and when we do, they already have a guild and don’t feel like joining ours. We’ve made a few contacts but people quit for various reasons as well. The thought process behind this post was merely to put the information out there. We knew that we were going to get negative responses and we’re prepared for that, those people are probably the very people we’re talking about in the post. This wasn’t posted for their benefit because they don’t agree with us in the first place.

@Demeron: I fail to see how any of what we did was QQing. We made an informative post (majority of the people in the thread have agreed this is all mostly common sense) about some bad habits people tend to have while playing this game, and MMOs in general. It’s up to them and you if you wish to better your experience with the game.

We’re well aware that Scepter guardian has some uses (have yet to see one use that weapon properly though), and like I said, we’ll never kick somebody just because they’re using a certain build or class. We kick people because they refuse to listen to how we are going to go about things and/or are the sole cause of multiple wipes.

This includes people not reading our gw2lfg.com ad properly. We always state in our ad that we are not skipping monsters and we are not using glitches. Every other group we get somebody who skips monsters or insists that we use a glitch/exploit. At that point they are given a warning and told that we stated in the ad that we were not doing so. If they refuse to listen then we kick them because they are wasting time sitting past the monsters we are fighting or trying to glitch something and not helping the group.

Again, don’t waste our time and we won’t waste yours.

Luciusbrimstone.7925:

This is an unedited post that I spent a small amount of time writing about a month ago. It’s redundant and needed work but I don’t have the time to commit to it right now. I felt bad in not posting it because I believe there’s important information in here for the people that are always kittening “I got kicked from this group for no reason!”

the actual reason is that you are an elitist in the worst meaning of the word…
There are things in your reasoning that are not only your personal distorted view of the game but also really shows lack of experience….

The worst thing is when you meet a newbie (in the good meaning) thinking he is a pro….this may be the case….

—Arguing about how the dungeon is being run

you kick people….and you decide how to do things …. ._. maybe there is a better way and you still don t want to hear it?

—Consistently not raising

This is quite noobish….

Some build/classes cannot afford to stand still to raise in the middle of a fight…
I play mesmer and ele….while ele is one of the best profession at ressing and i manage to recover desperate situation, my mesmer cannot even sustain 2 hits…..

1st rule do not risk to be downed to ress someone……was written months ago by first dungeon runners and actually there was no need for….

Understand that some classes are made to deal damage and other to survive….
Do you prefer having 2-3 downed players instaed of 1?

—Consistently typing during fights

communication…nuff said….if you are not good enough to type and play its your problem.
(i play an ele too and one of the few running dungeon with a balanced build and D/D using combos and stuff…)

—Misusing timewarp

use your own mesmer ……you possibly don t know what is the right way to use it…
It may be used to ress someone or may be a cooldown tactic.
OR may invoolve something you don t know….

How about people kicking you when you use the wrong skill?

—Glitching

respect your party will…..
Expecially since sometimes glitch are workaround to other glitch that makes things unnecessary difficult for players but are on “the list of things to do….” (as often happens when glitches are against players )

TLDR
I think its perfectly acceptable to report you for griefing in most cases you when boot people …..

Also i think you should read etiquettes on dungeon running rather than writing….

It would makes things better for Others, but for you also when you read misconceptions you are not aware of…..

Kuishen.6140:

We made an informative post (majority of the people in the thread have agreed this is all mostly common sense) about some bad habits people tend to have while playing this game, and MMOs in general.

Again, don’t waste our time and we won’t waste yours.

Common sense =/= informative. In fact, those two words are pretty much the opposite of one another.

You cannot be informative if everyone already knows the information presented. Therefore, you prove that this entire topic is useless. You also prove that you are elitist against everyone that is not you.

I would love to see the thread title changed to “Dungeon Propaganda: Let me tell you how to play.” It seems much more fitting.

Don’t waste our time creating bad topics and we won’t waste time making you guys look bad.

Now I think people are just posting for the sake of argument. I mean, some of the points made were quite valid and common etiquette and yet you have post after post afterward that will tear down each point, even the valid ones.

Yeah, this thread is probably a waste now…

No this is a good example of griefing…
And should not be accepted….

Only a couple of thing may be valid…..most of them are just wrong.

Luciusbrimstone.7925:

—Commander tags

Please take them off as they do nothing but annoy everyone else.

There’s more than 1 reason why people turn their commander icon on.

as for me, i bought commander icon only for the ‘squad’ chanel chat, and the reason why i turn it on at dungeon sometimes is because i have few RL friend who have bad time when typing english, since we need large guild for new stuff like dungeon mission, etc, we have represent that guild. so we need ‘private’ chanel for multiple person chating, and at this game the only possible way to do it is to buy commander icon(beside party chat, but we dont always run dungeon together)

but well, i always state my condition when start joining pugs, so forgive us for that annoying blue map icon, i wish i can keep it of while keep the squad chanel on =,=

u can blame anet for this lack of ‘chanel’ chat

LordByron.8369:

the actual reason is that you are an elitist in the worst meaning of the word…
There are things in your reasoning that are not only your personal distorted view of the game but also really shows lack of experience….

The worst thing is when you meet a newbie (in the good meaning) thinking he is a pro….this may be the case….

You fail to qualify any of this with examples so I’m just gonna write this comment off as trolling. You also seem incapable of voicing your opinion without being insulting to others, it’s something you should probably work on.

—Arguing about how the dungeon is being run

you kick people….and you decide how to do things …. ._. maybe there is a better way and you still don t want to hear it?

We’re perfectly open to suggestions, we don’t kick people for voicing an opinion, we kick people for continually arguing on a matter without providing anything to the discussion other than “Well I don’t like how you guys do it so I’m just gonna say so repeatedly and argue about it for no reason.” Way to take this point way out of context.

—Consistently not raising

This is quite noobish….

Some build/classes cannot afford to stand still to raise in the middle of a fight…
I play mesmer and ele….while ele is one of the best profession at ressing and i manage to recover desperate situation, my mesmer cannot even sustain 2 hits…..

1st rule do not risk to be downed to ress someone……was written months ago by first dungeon runners and actually there was no need for….

Understand that some classes are made to deal damage and other to survive….
Do you prefer having 2-3 downed players instaed of 1?

Again, taken out of context. We don’t expect you to drop everything to raise a downed person. We do expect that if the monster isn’t targeting you and/or you have the means to do so quickly, you should probably be helping raise instead of just standing there shooting at the mob. If you’re being targeted by the monster and somebody goes down it is now your job to keep it off of the downed people until they can get up.

Your comment about how certain classes are made to only deal damage and others to survive is completely wrong. There may be classes that do certain things better than others, but every class has the potential to fulfill any role to an extent.

—Consistently typing during fights

communication…nuff said….if you are not good enough to type and play its your problem.
(i play an ele too and one of the few running dungeon with a balanced build and D/D using combos and stuff…)

Again, taken out of context. If you need to communicate something during a battle, that’s fine. What’s not fine is taking the time to ping drops or talking about inane crap that isn’t relevant to what’s currently happening in a heated battle. If there is downtime during whatever you’re doing, then go ahead and make light conversation, but don’t do it in the middle of something that requires a certain degree of concentration.

—Misusing timewarp

use your own mesmer ……you possibly don t know what is the right way to use it…
It may be used to ress someone or may be a cooldown tactic.
OR may invoolve something you don t know….

How about people kicking you when you use the wrong skill?

Once again, mistakes will be made, nobody is perfect. But repeatedly putting timewarp on yourself when you’re not standing with the group has no place in a game that is centric on group play. We’re not talking about using it to raise somebody, or accidentally hitting the wrong button. We’re talking about repeated misuse of an ability that benefits the entire team by only using it on yourself.

Saying “use your own mesmer” is an incredibly childish response. How about the people that are currently playing the class learn to work together with the team instead of being selfish?

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—Glitching

respect your party will…..
Expecially since sometimes glitch are workaround to other glitch that makes things unnecessary difficult for players but are on “the list of things to do….” (as often happens when glitches are against players )

Um. Newsflash: Glitching is never a valid strategy, especially when in most cases nowadays it is used simply to save some time. I’m 99% sure that it’s against the ToS as well. What happens when they fix the glitch you’ve been using to breeze through a particular fight? You are left with a player who doesn’t understand the mechanics of a boss and is way less useful than he could be if he had just not been glitching it in the first place.

We’ve had personal experience with this on Mossman. People had gotten so used to getting underneath that bridge that when we said we weren’t going to do use that glitch, they repeatedly died because they didn’t know how to dodge his attacks, thus wasting everybody’s time and being a detriment to the group.

So no, we don’t have to “respect that our party will”, because that’s not a valid strategy and we refuse to participate in it, if you don’t like that, you can leave the party.

TLDR
I think its perfectly acceptable to report you for griefing in most cases you when boot people …..

Also i think you should read etiquettes on dungeon running rather than writing….

It would makes things better for Others, but for you also when you read misconceptions you are not aware of…..

If you can report us for “griefing” (I really think you should look up the definition of that word), then it is also perfectly acceptable for us to report each of the people we kick for “griefing” because they are being a detriment to our group and causing us trouble while playing the game.

You seem to have quite a lot of misconceptions yourself.

I would also like to point out that we never claimed not to be elitists, but we’re not unreasonable people in the slightest. We don’t demand anything other than you know how to play the game and you don’t waste our time. We don’t attempt to quantify skill levels because that varies person to person. If you’re making an honest attempt to learn how to play we appreciate that as well.

@Whoever was arguing the semantics of common sense:

You must be the only human being I know that was born with common sense then. Common sense can be common sense without everybody knowing it already. You see, people need to learn common sense, they don’t just magically have it. So yes you can in fact be informative while teaching about common sense. You are arguing semantics and nitpicking on word usage which means the entire point of the post went over your head.

@Whoever said this was a wasted thread:

I agree, it’s a shame that people immediately screamed elitist, as if that somehow makes our points any less valid. Just because you don’t like a certain group of people doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them or that they are wrong.

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