Guild Wars 2

This thread is more of a rant, but it’s also meant to help me improve my efficiency in Fractals.

So today, I got together with this random group of people in order to do Fractals lvl 16. We didn’t know each other, but we were fairly coordinated and managed to complete the sub-levels without having to talk too much – everyone knew what they were doing.

We got to the Volcanic Fractal. Everything was going just fine, until we got to the final boss. Now, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty much sure you are supposed to focus the boss when he enters bubble form, break it and focus the elementals immediately after, since they can easily burst you down.

That was what everyone was doing. At a certain point, after bursting the boss’s bubble, I decided to clean the elementals by myself, while everyone was fighting the boss. Note that it was positioned at a remote corner of the rock island, and the remaining elementals, about 10, were in the opposite corner. I stopped attacking the shaman and focused on the adds.

That’s when the party leader went mental. He had not said anything to me in the past hour, then he suddenly said ‘are you even going to fight?’.
I replied ‘must kill the adds first’.
He replied ‘You must be kidding me’.
I rebutted ‘Well, you must have never done this level before, it’s common knowledge that you kill the adds after the bubble is broken’.
He said ‘Ok, byes’

And proceeded to expel me from the party. It was the sub-level before the Jade Maw one. I was extremely annoyed and frustrated.
I whispered to him asking why did he expel me, he said I was trolling the whole dungeon run, didn’t attack the boss and didn’t focus the bubble’.

I didn’t even talk to him since the beginning of the run! Let alone troll? Also, what would I gain in trolling a fractals run? I’m not a masochist!

I was pretty much kitten ed of with his attitude, so I said something of the sort ‘son, I’ve been doing this level dozens of times, and I’m pretty much sure that’s the correct strategy. You just wasted a big chunk of my night, had an incorrect attitude towards me in the dungeon and couldn’t provide with a solid argument to why did you expel me, so I reported you’.
He then proceeded to ‘threaten’ me to stop whispering him, or I would be reported.
Needless to say, it was the first time I blocked someone.

But seriously, did I do anything that wrong to deserve being kicked out? I mean, I didn’t even die once the whole run! And the guy just says ‘ok, bye’ and shoots me off?

I’ve never had problems with the GW2 community, everyone was pretty much more or less friendly, but this guy just brought up my homicidal tendencies.

I actually don’t mind if one of the members go after the elemental right away. I’m not sure of your comp but 4 members can burst down the bubble relatively quick.

If you have a mes, he can focus pull the adds underneath the boss so you get 2 for 1. A guardian’s reflection can also deal with the add’s projectiles while you burst down the bubble. I believe the key is dealing with adds and boss at the same time.

You did entirely the right thing. You stated that after the bubble was burst you went to killing the Lava Elementals.. You need to do this as they will either kill you or you will end up with twice the Lava Elementals next stage.

You were correct in your strategy, and correct in reporting him. Sorry that you lost your time like that. Usually when I end up in PuGs (so, all the time), someone takes a moment before each boss just to remind everyone what the plan will be. “Just a quick reminder: focus down the bubble then switch to adds. If someone dies, stop attacking the boss ASAP if the bubble is down.”

It gets better after 20 so just hang in there! Only had one bad experience but that was the typical almighty guild friends +pug(myself and another) story. Jokes on them at the end of the day since they were doing things wrong

According to your story, you were right and he was wrong. The sad thing is there was another idiot who agreed with the kick. (Lol, they censor kick. if I don’t say something after it…. wth?)

As somebody else mentioned, it’s okay if there are only like 3 or 4 people on the boss to burst it down, while somebody else focuses on the elementals. But, I think it’s understood that after the bubble brusts, kill the adds ASAP.

Reading your story carefully in an attempt to understand the behavior of the party it seems like what might have been going on is they had a strategy to pull the boss away from the adds so as to ignore them and finish the fight quicker by focusing on the boss. This would explain why they didn’t want you to attack the elementals.

As you tell it they are still total kitten bags for dropping someone for something as small as that, especially since the difference is probably 1-2 minutes off the length of the fight and its pathetic since 30 seconds of explanation from them would have had you doing what they wanted. On the other hand they may well have planned to drop you from the start and were simply waiting for the first remotely plausible excuse to do so.

My metric for deciding whether or not to go with a particular pug (and I always try and make this choice before entering the dungeon) is whether or not I will enjoy, or at least be able to tolerate, spending the next 20-40 minutes together with these people. Engage them in chat and try to get a feel for their attitude towards running dungeons and current state of mind. I had one pug experience where I joined a group of 2 who knew each other, one of whom seemed to be in the foulest mood I think Ive ever seen. They invited someone to join the group who, from a glance at their achievement points certainly had lvl 80 characters but was currently on a lvl 2 alt. Immediately on seeing the lvl 2 character this player let out a string of abuse for wasting time then requested a boot of the understandably indignant victim. When I pointed out that they were probably in the process of switching to their lvl 80 character right at the moment they were booted and if there was any other reason for kicking them I was told to shut up and stop asking any more stupid questions. At this point I wished them good luck, msged the other guy that I hope his friend was feeling calmer soon, and quit the group asap. I can only imagine how it would have been if I had stuck with them.

TLDR, Find out if its a group of kittens before you start the dungeon, not half way through.

1st rule for any Group.

You can debate on the strategy…but if you ignore it and or don t read chat you are being a burden and deserve to be booted.

But pulling that boss to 1 corner to ignore half the eles would put him really really close to at least 1 of the humans…

maybe they had a ranger solving the issue

LordByron.8369:

1st rule for any Group.

You can debate on the strategy…but if you ignore it and or don t read chat you are being a burden and deserve to be booted.

I dont understand how that is relevant to the ops situation? He started to debate strategy, as you say is allowed, and was booted.

Guess they were in the last pahse and wanted to finish him of so the last bubble was broken and since those are easy lvl they just wanted to dps out the Boss while the adds are alive… pretty sure that was the reason … I guess this works we’ll on low lvl’s.

Webba.3071:

LordByron.8369:

1st rule for any Group.

You can debate on the strategy…but if you ignore it and or don t read chat you are being a burden and deserve to be booted.

I dont understand how that is relevant to the ops situation? He started to debate strategy, as you say is allowed, and was booted.

There are various ways to get past that level.

The one used by the party is one of the less used so i think they said something before starting.

When they finally started doing the thing he didn t follow what asked if i understood and instead started to argue.

Fractal requires teamplay….so you can argue before a fight but during the fight itself you have to follow what the party wants.

Also you are 1 out of 5 you can t decide by yourself.
Sometimes people ask you to follow some less used tactics, unless its an exploit, you have to follow them if most players decide so…

None knows the truth but you and your teammates, but I can guess a couple of things.
First of all, as the other 100 “got kicked from fractals” threads that preceeded this, you appear to be absolutely innocent. Well, I have no way to prove the contrary, so I’ll just go ahead and say that it was probably the biggest problem all pugs encounter: misunderstandings…
You said no flaming was involved before the fact happened. Fine. If not a single word was spoken before you engaged the boss, I’ll assume that Webba is right and they were pulling the boss away from the adds.
They didn’t tell you, but still, in my modest opinion, it also means that you didn’t pay attention to their position… I guess they were right on the other side? or you didn’t care about it, and probably in the eyes of those guys you were completely ignoring the team.
Trying to emphatize with them a bit, I can definitely say that seeing you killing mobs on the other side of the room would have annoyed/worried me too. You could have died, and exposed the team to a possible wipe (pug teams are so fragile…), you could have pulled the lava eles to them, you weren’t dpsing the boss.
Most of all (again, from what I can guess), in their eyes, you didn’t follow. And then they assumed you were mocking them for that strategy, and telling them that you know better. Like salt on a wound.
So, you stumbled upon a couple of extremely short-tempered players that lost their mind when they saw you wandering around, and they decided to kick you… Angry kids that can’t control themselves. A kick was very rude and unnecessary, but eh. Not everyone is understanding and well-mannered.
If I got everything right and I didn’t fail to reconstruct what happened (I probably didn’t understand crap), let me give you a couple of honest suggestions, even if they won’t make you feel better (not my style and not my aim):
- don’t assume it’s all their fault. Analyze the situation and ask yourself what you could have done to prevent that horrible situation. I think that you’re already doing this, you don’t sound like terribly arrogant;
- some pugs will just go ahead and pick the strategy for themselves without telling anyone. To save yourself some harm, either discuss the strategy BEFORE the engage IF you have time, or just swallow it and follow the team. Don’t argue it while you’re fighting if possible, even if it’s wrong, no need to get worked up about it;
- ask before the fight for any specific strategy, just try not to sound like a newb;
- try to be disgustingly polite, even if you’re angry and you’d love to strangle them. From what I can see, you were kind of rude and not so polite telling them they had no idea of the encounter. I’m not blaming you, I’m wayyyy more rude than this. Needless to say, I tend to pay the price for it.
For once I answered to one of these “I got kicked” thread because you sound like a reasonable person, and maybe you can partially understand their point of view too. I hope I’m not wrong.
Bonus suggestion: if you’re done analyzing the encounter, let it go now. And for the love of hello kitty stop thinking about it. If everyone did a thread everytime they got kicked for this or that reason we’d be filled with saints and lambs all over the place.
Yay, lunch ready finally.

Natural selection should hopefully mean that these people don’t go much higher than lvl 16.. Unfortunately this often isn’t the case because they get carried to the high levels and kitten on everyone up there and still think they are boss beetch. Just you wait till you’re doing your 48 daily and some idiot’s running around yelling at everyone in his magic find /pvt set or camping ranged only weapons, pulling kitten out of aoe.. or killing the wrong mobs at seal. Perhaps the reason there’s no LFG system in game is because they knew pugging would drive people insane.

In your situation, I would have just gone with whatever the majority wanted. They have a bad attitude, but if you defy mob rule, that’s what’s expected. Sometimes a foreign tactic, may actually be better than what yours is.. So I always give it a chance, and if it fails, well that’s their fault, not yours. If it works, you learnt something new, and you didn’t kitten anyone off in the process. I’ve been on both situations. I’ve had people completely ignore the rest of the party and go off and do their own thing because they think it’s better, and I tell you what it really kitten es me off, especially when they fail or lead to a party wipe. Then I’ve seen people try stacking tactics on certain mobs where it’s a bad idea to do so or not stack in places where it would be a good idea to do so, and wipe, and I’ve been ignored when making the suggestion to try something else. However, eventually after a few wipes, they try something else.

rules.
1: keep the boss in the middle -(as far away from all the sacrifices as possible)
2: when the bubble is up all attack to pop it.
3: take out the worms once the shield is down. then repeat 1.
4: if someone goes down, target a low level worm for them to kill and lead boss away.
extra notes: if your party has regen/ projectil shields use them, othrwise keep moving

Arc DLad.2194:

rules.
1: keep the boss in the middle -(as far away from all the sacrifices as possible)
2: when the bubble is up all attack to pop it.
3: take out the worms once the shield is down. then repeat 1.
4: if someone goes down, target a low level worm for them to kill and lead boss away.
extra notes: if your party has regen/ projectil shields use them, othrwise keep moving

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

LordByron.8369:

Webba.3071:

LordByron.8369:

1st rule for any Group.

You can debate on the strategy…but if you ignore it and or don t read chat you are being a burden and deserve to be booted.

I dont understand how that is relevant to the ops situation? He started to debate strategy, as you say is allowed, and was booted.

There are various ways to get past that level.

The one used by the party is one of the less used so i think they said something before starting.

When they finally started doing the thing he didn t follow what asked if i understood and instead started to argue.

Fractal requires teamplay….so you can argue before a fight but during the fight itself you have to follow what the party wants.

Also you are 1 out of 5 you can t decide by yourself.
Sometimes people ask you to follow some less used tactics, unless its an exploit, you have to follow them if most players decide so…

I dont disagree with your analysis of that fractal, just pointing out that what the OP apparently did is not a reason to kick them (he indicates that there was no discussion with him about the lesser used strategy before the fight, if it is not the case then the situation changes). As far as I can tell it seems there was a lack of communication from both sides that caused a great deal of frustration for someone, obviously. Banning people without warnings is always a no for me though. Its too easy to be rude and selfish in these games as it is anyway.

Just and additional trick that can be taken advange off.
When you are stealthed you wont be unstealthed from getting blocked, so you could stealth when shield is up and destroy it, also adds will stop on their spots so they wont get on the way either.

Now here comes the another advise. You could drop the ashlegion spykitt for 10sec and do the same stuff. If its wrong→ remove it but dont flame me.

I honestly agree with everyone’s opinion, and I concede, maybe they were using an alternative strategy different than the one I’m used to.
And I’m definitely giving way much attention to a specific impolite person I came across while Fractal-ing.
I won’t try to defend my point of view, since you guys only have my side of the story, although I pretty much transcribed every word from the chat.
On the behavior issue, I always adopt a friendly-wise position towards the other group members. I say ‘hello’, ‘thanks for inviting me’, when others say something I respond, I congratulate people when they link their rare drops. I don’t complain when they make mistakes, and if they repeatedly make them, I point out what’s wrong and try to correct them (rarely do this, there’s always someone willing to do that besides me) Obviously some are friendlier than another.
For me, it is also standard to think that while running Fractals with PuGs I can’t expect advanced strategies. Trying to coordinate with 4 complete strangers takes time and patience. Therefore, I always assume a passive attitude. If someone wants to dictate strategy, I follow it. It’s not about being the best or the fastest method, for me, in Fractals and with PuGs, it’s the one that works. Might be slow and tedious, but it’s the one that gets me those relics/yellows/cores/vials/globs.

Maybe pulling the Legendary Shaman from the elementals might be the adequate strategy for high DPS groups that know what they’re doing, don’t move a lot in the map and aggro said mobs.
I remind you that other than the occasional ‘hey’, ‘lets get going’, no party member actually talked throughout the run. How was I supposed to know that they were going (IF they were) for the referred boss cornering method? No strategy was previously discussed, nothing at all. I’d like to add that I’m an Elelentalist running D/D. I also remember that while we were fighting, a warrior was dead in the middle of the lava (not near the island, pretty far away).
And since we didn’t discuss strategy/none was suggested, I went for the safe method, get rid of the elementals first. That was what everyone was doing for 2/3 of the fight. Why the sudden change of strategy (if there was even any). Was I really supposed to pick that up from the flow of the fight?

I too don’t discuss/fight/argue while fighting, I’ve had plenty of deaths in my early days because the chat window was active and spamming ‘s’ and ‘w’ instead of dodging.

I honestly hope that the increasingly difficulty will filter out all these kittens.

Ethics.4519:

Arc DLad.2194:

rules.
1: keep the boss in the middle -(as far away from all the sacrifices as possible)
2: when the bubble is up all attack to pop it.
3: take out the worms once the shield is down. then repeat 1.
4: if someone goes down, target a low level worm for them to kill and lead boss away.
extra notes: if your party has regen/ projectil shields use them, othrwise keep moving

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

If it’s in the middle you also take out half the eles by hitting the boss :P

Player Character.9467:

Ethics.4519:

Arc DLad.2194:

rules.
1: keep the boss in the middle -(as far away from all the sacrifices as possible)
2: when the bubble is up all attack to pop it.
3: take out the worms once the shield is down. then repeat 1.
4: if someone goes down, target a low level worm for them to kill and lead boss away.
extra notes: if your party has regen/ projectil shields use them, othrwise keep moving

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

If it’s in the middle you also take out half the eles by hitting the boss :P

Yes, that’s what I go for, I’m pretty fond of Lightning Whip to clear out the elementals and hit the boss at the same time!

My best guess is you had already wiped a couple of times on the boss and they simply needed any reason to kick you to replace you for more damage or a guard. Secondly in every situation of that boss imo there is no reason to ever let the ads live even last phase and further more iv never seen these ads in the corner with their thumb up their kitten they always affront someone.
It a good idea if you feel this could happen in a run to take a screenshot at the start when everyone is standing together to get all the names this will back up your report.

instead of fighting with each other you could have kept the deeps going.

also, lol, I never talk to peeps in pugs. I just say hi to everybody and switch to guild chat tab through the whole thing.

Ya I could be wrong on this but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an elemental not aggro regardless of party position, maybe I just don’t hump the lava enough… although most of my runs we park it in the middle, stick a chill on it, and just plow the field when he shields.

Player Character.9467:

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

ofcourse there are situations where you can do enough dps to do something different, i never said it was the best and only way to do it haha.

It shouldn’t be possible to kick players from the party during an instance. That’s totally broken.

Arc DLad.2194:

Player Character.9467:

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

ofcourse there are situations where you can do enough kittens to do something different, i said it was the best and only way to do it hurdurr. I’m a big poopy face and I smell my own butt.

I never said that, thanks for inventing a quote with my name on it.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

It shouldn’t be possible to kick players from the party during an instance. That’s totally broken.

Ya cuz THAT wouldn’t promote trolling.

Player Character.9467:

Arc DLad.2194:

Player Character.9467:

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

ofcourse there are situations where you can do enough kittens to do something different, i said it was the best and only way to do it hurdurr. I’m a big poopy face and I smell my own butt.

I never said that, thanks for inventing a quote with my name on it.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

It shouldn’t be possible to kick players from the party during an instance. That’s totally broken.

Ya cuz THAT wouldn’t promote trolling.

There is always a downside. But tbh, which person would troll in the last fractal? I don’t think ppl would spend so much time to troll at the end and such things. At least it doesn’t support bad manners and unfairness.

There are times that you need to be able to kick. Thankfully it’s really very rare. But if someone is just not listening and agroing mobs onto the party, pulling boss the wrong way etc. What can you do?

Not being able to kick people would completely support Bad Manners, People could say whatever they wanted, do whatever they wanted and the team would have no recourse.

It would also support unfairness, if someone just wasn’t up to the dungeon or wasn’t listening to the group, either the group would have to disband through no fault of their own, or would have to drag someone that was making the dungeon much harder for them through the whole dungeon. This doesn’t really sound fair to me.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Player Character.9467:

Arc DLad.2194:

Player Character.9467:

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

ofcourse there are situations where you can do enough kittens to do something different, i said it was the best and only way to do it hurdurr. I’m a big poopy face and I smell my own butt.

I never said that, thanks for inventing a quote with my name on it.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

It shouldn’t be possible to kick players from the party during an instance. That’s totally broken.

Ya cuz THAT wouldn’t promote trolling.

There is always a downside. But tbh, which person would troll in the last fractal? I don’t think ppl would spend so much time to troll at the end and such things. At least it doesn’t support bad manners and unfairness.

I see too many people get in, get halfway through and then switch to their magic find sets and slack off. Now imagine you can’t kick them.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

It shouldn’t be possible to kick players from the party during an instance. That’s totally broken.

How about worst idea ever?

I don’t PUG much, but this would just encourage sh*tters to go AFK and leech off of the rest of the team.

Not to mention, you couldn’t kick MF leeches, terribads, people that don’t listen etc.

Like you said earlier, every system has it’s downsides. The kick system has the downside that it can cause griefing by kick, which is why a majority (3/5) should agree to kick, not just 2/5. Your suggestion however gives a LOT worse downsides than the current one has.

Player Character.9467:

Arc DLad.2194:

Player Character.9467:

Those are bad rules. Many high DPS/fast attacking parties might choose to focus on getting some of the adds down before focusing on the shield, especially if it’s in the middle.

ofcourse there are situations where you can do enough kittens to do something different, i said it was the best and only way to do it hurdurr. I’m a big poopy face and I smell my own butt.

I never said that, thanks for inventing a quote with my name on it.

I said the original quote, I think he was just trying to clip it so it’s not a wall of text and accidentally cut out too many names or something.

The only reason I commented was because you state rules like that’s how it should happen all the time. In reality it’s better to take 2 min before the fight and explain how you plan to do things and agree on strategy, so as not to waste 10-15 min by wiping and running back.