Guild Wars 2

This will probably be broken into two parts because of length and forums having short attention span probably

I don’t mind people who are new to my fractal runs. We all have to start somewhere, and if I can help showing someone the ropes, I generally don’t mind doing that; I have patience— to an extent.

Today was the day I reached beyond my threshold to try and help a disastrous run in Fractals 10. I was wanting a quick and easy run, but upon finding out that there were some new members to certain fractals like collosus, I was instructing them on methods of completion.

Then, there was this one person. I won’t give out his name, but let’s say his moniker rhymed with the material from bulletproof vests, Kevlar. For the sake of telling the story, I will be naming him “Kevlar” but that is not his actual name. Back to the tale, every step of the way, he would ask “why can’t we do it this way, I did it this way last time.” “why this” “why that” why why why why why why why.

We move unto the Asuran stage, where me and one other person would try and handle the crystals while explaining to them how it needed to be done. All the new members needed to do was listen to how it was done, and then DPS. Previous to us grabbing the crystals we had told everyone to wait outside. As we’re gathering them, in comes good ol’ Kevlar to aggro the boss killing us both in the process before we could get the crystals.
“Why did I have to stay outside? Can’t I come in”
“…Didn’t we tell you we had to gather the crystals before you guys come in because each crystal needs to go into the terminals to turn the fan on or we all die?”
“Why do you need the crystals to turn on the fan?”
“…”

We somehow manage to get through after a less-than-clean attempt. Kevlar would forget to turn on the fan repeatedly. I would have to blink my way to the fan while handling crystals and resing in order to get Old Tom done.

We move unto the next fractal, and I hoped somewhere it would be an easy one.

Collosus. My heart sunk a little because teaching relatively new players with no experience this particular fractal is quite difficult, but I took on the task anyways with another experienced player in the party helping me.

“Why do we need the hammer?”
“Because we need to break the seals”

He promptly grabs the hammer and runs off with it not even knowing it’s purpose or how to handle the responsibility, stacks up to 40 and dies as I’m telling him to come back with it so I can explain the responsibility of seal breaking with the hammer. I’m beginning to get annoyed with teaching this person how to do this properly because he is continuously resistant to everything we’ve said, and he’s holding back the other people who need to learn. We get to the head phase of the boss where I explain to him the easy way to do this, where I hear…

“Why do we need to do it this way?” as he’s smacking both of the monsters with a hammer about to kill both on one side.
“Stop attacking for a moment”
“why”
“Because if you kill both, it spawns a lot and we’ll wipe. Leave one please.”
“But last time, I—”
“I don’t care what you did last time. This is easier. Please do it this way so that you save yourself trouble in future runs”

We get through colossus somehow, even though he kept taking the hammer and not knowing what to do with it, dragging the run on even longer.

I’m gritting my teeth in aggravation at this point. The pointless questions, the lack of cooperation, the continuous mistakes due to lack of listening, Kevlar has really pushed me and my other experienced teammate to the bounds of patience.

continued below

We finally get to Maw. We run through to the back to kill the tentacle.

“Why do we have to run behind to get the tentacles?”
“Because it’s easier” patience nearly gone
“But why?”
“Because unless you want to face check a bunch of jellyfish for no reason, come to the back and range the tentacle”
“Last time I did it, we—”
“Okay, I understand you are new to the dungeon. You’ve clearly showed me you’re new by how many mistakes you are clearly making. But I want you to stop asking questions like this right now because stopping to continuously explain to you things that should be incredibly transparent has made this dungeon way longer than it needed to be. You don’t need to continously ask, just follow what we’re saying. PLEASE for the love of all that is holy and sacred on this god-given earth, please just follow.”

As we get unto maw, I explain that I called target on Jade Maw and the process about picking up the crystals and pressing T to throw the crystals at the boss while killing the jade veterans for crystals, and no sooner that I get done explaining this, Kevlar begins to target the reflection crystals instead of keeping the target on Maw, making it harder for others in the group who are new to understand what I am trying to teach them. They begin to die.

Now I’m just completely unnerved.

“Kevlar, what in the hell are you doing?”
“I’m calling targets on the crystals.”
“Please…please Kevlar. Just…no more. Just keep the target on Jade Maw.”
“But why? Last run I—”
“I…I’m nearly at a loss for words. I genuinely and sincerely do not care about your last run, if there even WAS a last run for you which I highly doubt as you’ve displayed next to no experience in this run. I am trying to teach you a better way to do things, and you have continuously usurped not only me, but have continually made it difficult for others to learn here to. I cannot explain to you any more. Just do it. I don’t care if you want to stop the run for another 10 minutes to ask me WHY, I’m not going to deal with it. Just turn off your brain, and follow me. Don’t ask anymore. "

He continues to target the crystals.

I can’t take it anymore. He’s killing everyone else who’s new in here, and has been the biggest pain in the rear I’ve ever experienced in a dungeon.

We kicked him out.

Shortly after, with a sense of remorse, I realize I didn’t feel right doing that to this person, even though he clearly suffered from some sort of Stupidity disorder. I get him back into the party. He obviously kept targetting the crystals, and I secretly prayed to a higher power that Maw would smite Kevlar into a pile of dust in a timely fashion before I kick him out again.

We got through it, and I thank everyone for their hard work and effort.

“Thank you guys for everything, good run, and Kevlar, please learn to listen. You held us back a lot with the constant resistance.”

The two others said their customary thanks for the run and left, with the exception of one; Can you guess who?

Kevlar. Good Ol’ Kevlar.

“I’ve got screenshots of all of this. I’m wondering if I should report you guys for being kittens and kicking me.”
“Listen, I didn’t say anything terrible to you during this entire run. If you want to report me, go ahead. I kicked you not because you’re inexperienced, but because you were fighting everything I said every step of this run. You don’t listen, you kept getting others killed, and not even a minute ago, you nearly caused everyone to wipe. Why? Because you cannot possibly listen. I invited you back here ONLY out of consideration for your feelings alone so you could get credit. That was IT. I hope you learned this run.”
“F*** you, b****”

and leaves.

And so, let this be the day that I declare this is the LAST time, the LAST time I try to teach pugs, ever again.
Thank you, Kevlar.

You know how everyone complains about people having no patience, and how they are jerks and/or Elitist?
Look no further than to the Kevlars who create them.

I’m sure Kevlar learned absolutely nothing due to his lack of cooperation, and will continue to plague other fractals runs until the time he quits because trying to teach a newbie is possible, but teaching an idiot is next to impossible.

I thought I would be nice to take the time out to teach new members runs they don’t understand, but I simply refuse to anymore. I will not indulge another Kevlar during my enjoyment in this game.

I’m pretty sure Kevlar will try to report me, because he’s just that much of a moron.

i want to say one thing:
i feel your pain

Yeah, I had someone like this in a level 20 fractal, every time I’d tell him what to do, He would say,“Don’t Worry, I’m experienced.” Then he would do whatever I told him not to. The run ended up taking an extra hour because he killed both people on Colossus at the arm seals, I’m not even sure if he had agony resistance because he would die at the beginning of every boss fight.
And yeah, I don’t mind teaching a noob how to do it, but teaching a noob who thinks he/she knows better, isn’t possible.

If it makes you feel any better, I had a similar experience with the maw, it was long ago I think, before targeting the jade maw was a popular thing, I’d target the jade maw and someone else would target the giants and tentacles, we kept at it for a while and I even told him that since maw is hard to target, I just like to target him once and press T, some people just drive you insane, I think we should call these people kevlar.

Bismuth.3165:

I think we should call these people kevlar.

Because they are idea-proof

Sounds like very dedicated trolling to be honest.

Bismuth.3165:

I think we should call these people kevlar.

Lol, that would be hilarious.

Kinda like a meme like “This dungeon was Kevlar’d” or something.

I’d feel bad for the player who’s name is Kevlar though. Dx

Segev.4108:

Sounds like very dedicated trolling to be honest.

Honestly, I began to think the same thing, but you can see in the way he was running around aimlessly that this was genuinely a player who not only didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but was completely unaware of surroundings.

The moral of the story is to feel no remorse and not re-invite people into your party :p

And Doctor, I can relate to that, probably such a common story too

“Why do I have to read all of this thread?

The last time I went to the forum is just to post a reply without reading the rest of the posts.."

Kevlar’d

alcopaul.2156:

“Why do I have to read all of this thread?

The last time I went to the forum is just to post a reply without reading the rest of the posts.."

Kevlar’d

Brilliant. Lol

But come on guys, we have to admit, we all have a kevlar inside all of us.

Sabelle, I agree with you, we have to make “Kevlar” a meme.
Word: Kev·lar (Verb)
Definition: To be a noob in a dungeon, and not listen to instructions, ultimately causing the whole group to be annoyed with you; To be immune to other ideas besides your own

They really should put a limit on how far in fracs you can go without having achieved that level. Because while reading I kept wondering “How did he even get to level 10 fracs if he doesnt know how colossus works?” And then I realised everyone has their own reward level now.

Bismuth.3165:

But come on guys, we have to admit, we all have a kevlar inside all of us.

No.

The closest I’ve had to a Kevlar was a guy during a FotM run who argued with everyone over stunning the Ice Elemental out of its healing state. According to him there was no such thing, and that we were all newbs for thinking that there was. It took not stunning the Ice Elemental and someone quoting from the wiki to convince him otherwise, after which he was just silent.

Well, at least our Kevlar listened… eventually. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I encountered the OP’s Kevlar… anywhere… doing anything.

I do feel for the guy who’s actually named Kevlar, though. :P He’s probably all wondering why no one’s allowing him on any FotM runs anymore. XD

achensherd.2735:

I do feel for the guy who’s actually named Kevlar, though. :P He’s probably all wondering why no one’s allowing him on any FotM runs anymore. XD

Well, hopefully that doesn’t happen. I did specify it wasn’t a person named Kevlar.

Bismuth.3165:

But come on guys, we have to admit, we all have a kevlar inside all of us.

Bismuth.3165:

But come on guys, we have to admit, we all have a kevlar inside all of us.

Questioning is one thing. Kevlaring is like:

I’ve had similar experiences with the Aetherblade dungeon so i know how you feel OP. Too many people not listening what to do. Too many people not responding when being asked “Does anyone not know how to do this boss fight?” When they die, they then say “woah, what do we do here?” Too many people rage quitting, because they’re having a tough time in the dungeon, instead of asking for tips or just don’t want to learn how to play.

And people wonder why on GW2LFG, groups are only looking for experienced players? Hmm i wonder why.

CrossFire.8037:

I’ve had similar experiences with the Aetherblade dungeon so i know how you feel OP. Too many people not listening what to do. Too many people not responding when being asked “Does anyone not know how to do this boss fight?” When they die, they then say “woah, what do we do here?” Too many people rage quitting, because they’re having a tough time in the dungeon, instead of asking for tips or just don’t want to learn how to play.

And people wonder why on GW2LFG, groups are only looking for experienced players? Hmm i wonder why.

Some people are content staying willfully ignorant. They have to learn the hard way.

You can try and pull an ostrich to a lake to drink but if they’re simply content with sticking their head in the sand, there really can’t be anything done for them, and like me, they’re probably frustrated with people not listening.

It’s one thing to hit a language barrier, because that’s not controllable, but to have someone completely ignore you—Well, It whittles down your patience.

I had a Kevlar earlier today in Aetherblade Retreat. This one starts the final boss of a group that hasn’t a clue what to do, before even having a chance to utter the words “here’s what to do”. Then, finding Mia immune to damage, Kevlar decides to lead the others to killing Horrik, not once, but twice! The first time I was like, “don’t kill Horrik, Mia just rezes him” and “kite Mia to to blue, she loses stacks of shield, she then can take damage”. And he continues to keep killing Horrik. Two others join in on me basically yelling at this guy to get off Horrik, and this continues though the first phase.

Oh, and the cannonball run? The one which was explained to go to separate corners to split up the fire and just dodge the rings in your corner area. This Kevlar decides to run from corner to corner to corner, kitting cannon fire directly to all the other members of the group, who were doing fine dodging the rings without added pressure. Needless to day, this group wiped 3x on this boss, then Kevlar of all people said “I’m done with this”, leaves…..and he was the instance starter, so we’re all kicked. G-Kevlar-G

Usually I skip giant stories, but this was actually a good one. I applaud you for trying as hard as you did with Mr. Kevlar.

I feel your pain bro, I don’t teach dungeons anymore either
because of to many kevlar type players.
but…

There’s also the other side of the story.
some of the people I taught went on to become great dungeon players, one of them even got the dungeon master title before I did making me actually focus on it and get it even though it wasn’t one of my goals.

The other night, in a level 28 fractal we had a guy just like this; his name was something to do with insanity. Right at the start of the run I explained that if anyone had any questions or if higher level fractals were new to them, don’t hesitate to ask; though seemingly everyone knew what to do.

Except insanity.

Luring the jellyfish away and tanking it with his face, standing BEHIND the ice golem and aggroing it backwards, luring mobs over to the guy on the control panel in the cage. All the while asserting that “No, i know this, done it LOTS of times before!”

Oh and he had no AR of course and spent most his time on his kitten . It reached the stage where we were deliberately leaving him dead during the boss fights, because it was easier to 4 man it than have him actively working against us.

…and let’s not talk about another level 26 run last week where people just kept dying on the bosses and i couldn’t figure why. Turns out 3 of the players had no AR whatsoever, and had tried sneak in hoping nobody’d notice… well kitten, 1 leecher might get under the radar but 3 of you?

I was host that day, I apologized to the other party member and closed the instance there and then, I was not gonna carry these guys through cliffside

I hope you guys aren’t too put off teaching anymore. I’ve only ever done level 1 of the fractals and had a guy take us through who knew it backwards. When it comes time for me to get serious about them I’d like to think there’s people still out there who aren’t too burnt.

And that guy in the story was appalling. He really gives content newbs a bad name.

Great story.

I don’t think I’ve ever ran into someone that awful yet.

I pray to god that the word “Kevlar” makes it into the game and people start to use it. As alot of us had that ONE guy who would ruin our lives.

Ryuujin.8236:

…and let’s not talk about another level 26 run last week where people just kept dying on the bosses and i couldn’t figure why. Turns out 3 of the players had no AR whatsoever, and had tried sneak in hoping nobody’d notice… well kitten, 1 leecher might get under the radar but 3 of you?

That’s… something that i really don’t understand. I mean, why? They don’t get any better drops (since they’re capped at their personal level), and only making it harder on themselves. And their personal level just couldn’t be anywhere close to 26, or they would have at least some AR already. Just getting to 20 guarantees one ring with a chance for more. And a single amulet is also not that hard.

Astralporing.1957:

Ryuujin.8236:

…and let’s not talk about another level 26 run last week where people just kept dying on the bosses and i couldn’t figure why. Turns out 3 of the players had no AR whatsoever, and had tried sneak in hoping nobody’d notice… well kitten, 1 leecher might get under the radar but 3 of you?

That’s… something that i really don’t understand. I mean, why? They don’t get any better drops (since they’re capped at their personal level), and only making it harder on themselves. And their personal level just couldn’t be anywhere close to 26, or they would have at least some AR already. Just getting to 20 guarantees one ring with a chance for more. And a single amulet is also not that hard.

Maybe they are very good at sneaking individually and they managed to do only the odd levels in the 20s? :P

Astralporing.1957:

Ryuujin.8236:

…and let’s not talk about another level 26 run last week where people just kept dying on the bosses and i couldn’t figure why. Turns out 3 of the players had no AR whatsoever, and had tried sneak in hoping nobody’d notice… well kitten, 1 leecher might get under the radar but 3 of you?

That’s… something that i really don’t understand. I mean, why? They don’t get any better drops (since they’re capped at their personal level), and only making it harder on themselves. And their personal level just couldn’t be anywhere close to 26, or they would have at least some AR already. Just getting to 20 guarantees one ring with a chance for more. And a single amulet is also not that hard.

That’s true. I think it’s more or less they don’t know about the dungeon enough to know about why they need to stack agony resistance before they go into higher levels. I always end up doing research or asking for information before I do dungeons I’m unfamiliar with so I don’t encumber the team who inherits me on their first run, and I wish more people would do this to a certain extent.

If I absolutely have to go into an unfamiliar territory completely blind, I’ll let them know before they start that I am 100% fledgling to the dungeon so they can decide whether they have enough time to show me the ropes or not.

Youtubing dungeons I didn’t know about also helped me.

I love your Kevlar story. I am sure many of us who have had PuG groups and have had crazy PuG stories. I’ve had a few on FoTM which mostly turned out well when we stopped reviving Kevlar players until they learned to listen or outright booted them for trolling.

It’s pretty easy to tell who is trolling and who isn’t. I think your Kevlar may have been the former.

It seems nowadays, that there are more people trying to sneak in high level fractals while having no AR.

I know Aetherblade has its fair share of annoying as hell players who don’t listen. We had one claiming he was experienced and that we should start killing Horrik first. We called him out on his inexperience and that Mai would revive Horrik everytime and replenishing her shields. The dude insisted he was right and tried to prove us wrong. Once he killed Horrik and saw we were telling the truth, he promptly left. We then four manned the rest and finished the dungeon with no problems.

You sound like a good person, with alot of patience, i myself have little to 0 patience, i try and help PuGs every now and then but there becomes a point where you cannot… and get angry and kick or headbutt a wall.

Either “Kevlar” was an incredibly experienced griefer and you’ve just been “had” by a true master… or….

I can’t even finish that statement. Because “or” is inconceivable. Either he was really incapable of learning, or he was incapable of believing you could see through his claims of previous experience.

I’m so sorry you went through all that.

And thank you for sharing your heroic attempt at helping someone through a set of fractals they obviously had not been through before. (Assuming it was not, indeed a troll.)

I’m guessing there are many here who understand your pain.

“Kevlar” as a verb? In WoW, it was Leroy Jenkins. Except in that case, it was staged.

omfg, OP i feel your pain… LOTS of it.

Seriously tho, when I started fractals I went slowly from 1 level at a time and even if I know what to do I always pretend not to know or just observe. This gives me ideas on what will/will not work before I hit the 20s where the whole thing starts to actually get harder.

Once we had to 3-man the seals at 26 simply because the other 2 kitten killed the marked target and rage-quitted since they keep on running all over the place. It took us 15 mins to 3-man it compared to having a full party where we were stuck for almost an hour.

And another with a guardian who refused to use buffs or even put up a wall of reflect. He keep on hacking and slashing (probably a zerker build) and dying all the time… and getting mad when we don’t rez him. Eventually rage-quitted at fire shaman.

Well, that reminds me of the sky pirate end boss . She’s a thief. When she points her gun at you, she will teleport to you . Learn to dodge .

Most puggies i played with don’t dodge , don’t bring condition removal and only use either berserker’s (fun to see them die in two hits) or MF gear .

…sorry for your bad experience. Thank you for giving back to the community by coaching people.

Someone can be so far gone in a fear state that they can’t think. That is sometimes indistinguishable from profound stupidity.

There’s an old story about a middle manager at Intel about a decade ago, who was giving a presentation to the CEO, was fixated on “getting the sale” on a specific point, was asked a simple and direct fact question by the CEO, and (instead of stopping to focus on and answer the question to the best of his ability) was insubordinate to the CEO by evading the question and directing the discussion back to the point he was trying to sell…twice. The sale he was so fixated on was irrelevant, because his career was over.

If this was someone for whom the Fractals were so scary, that he was incapable of rationally doing his homework, would lie not out of simple deception to get into a higher group but out of fear to get in any group at all, and having not done the homework was fixated on his perception about how a previous PUG did level 1…yes…I can see what you experienced.

Someone in that kind of fear state just needs to be kicked, they’re incapable of reason.

But then, Goldenwing could be right, this could be a griefer.

Or someone with a profound mental disability.

Or a five year old trying to pass as an adult.

Good luck, and please don’t let this one bad experience sour you on the GW2 community.

One of the reasons I NEVER do dungeons with PUGs. I’m in a great guild that will do a dungeon almost any time asked.

bewhatever.2390:

…sorry for your bad experience. Thank you for giving back to the community by coaching people.

Someone can be so far gone in a fear state that they can’t think. That is sometimes indistinguishable from profound stupidity.

There’s an old story about a middle manager at Intel about a decade ago, who was giving a presentation to the CEO, was fixated on “getting the sale” on a specific point, was asked a simple and direct fact question by the CEO, and (instead of stopping to focus on and answer the question to the best of his ability) was insubordinate to the CEO by evading the question and directing the discussion back to the point he was trying to sell…twice. The sale he was so fixated on was irrelevant, because his career was over.

If this was someone for whom the Fractals were so scary, that he was incapable of rationally doing his homework, would lie not out of simple deception to get into a higher group but out of fear to get in any group at all, and having not done the homework was fixated on his perception about how a previous PUG did level 1…yes…I can see what you experienced.

Someone in that kind of fear state just needs to be kicked, they’re incapable of reason.

But then, Goldenwing could be right, this could be a griefer.

Or someone with a profound mental disability.

Or a five year old trying to pass as an adult.

Good luck, and please don’t let this one bad experience sour you on the GW2 community.

I don’t think he was too scared out of his mind to think rationally. We weren’t intimidating him into performance, we were politely asking him to cooperate, which he could not do because he had to nitpick everything or try to force his own way through to the detriment of everyone else in the party.

Im Mudbone.1437:

One of the reasons I NEVER do dungeons with PUGs. I’m in a great guild that will do a dungeon almost any time asked.

I’m in a relatively nice guild. It’s more for socializing rather than actual doing content together, and we only come together in a huge gathering once a week for guild event runs.

It’s nice because it’s a relaxing atmosphere, but I end up having to LFG my dungeon runs for the most part.

achensherd.2735:

Bismuth.3165:

But come on guys, we have to admit, we all have a kevlar inside all of us.

Questioning is one thing. Kevlaring is like:

True, for me it’s mostly questioning methods and asking why are we not doing this bob lob law method

Sad story OP, hope you do someday like me : find at least 2 or 3 regular guildmate for dungeons so that you can agree with them to never rez the type-Kevlar pugs and 3-4manning dungeons

I’m 95% certain this is a troll.

Although I am a bit of an evil person, one of my good qualities is that I am VERY helpful to people. Heck, it was my job for 3 years to teach people science and mathematics, and I actually liked that job. I’ve done stuff like this in pretty much every multiplayer game I’ve played, and will continue doing it for years to come.

It is in these very rare instances that I encounter what is arguably the worst type of trolling imaginable outside of something that can actually be construed as direct harassment. There is no name for this type of trolling, as it is incredibly rare, and also it only works when used on one type of person. I used to call these “drowning trolls” because they sit in the middle of the lake screaming for help, and then just pull under whomever comes to help them. However, I am taking a liking to the term “Kevlar”.

Basically it is any troll who feigns an inordinate amount of incompetence and a combative nature on any and all issues with the hopes of lulling helpful people into a never-ending attempt to help that individual. Their form of trolling is not focused on being offensive or obtrusive, but being frustrating. It works best against people who are genuinely helpful, whereas for those who are not helpful they are just somewhat obtrusive. I say this is the worst kind of trolling because when done right, it is the most destructive form of trolling for several reasons:

#1: It excuses the troll to be physically obtrusive on matters while still retaining a position in the party. Where normal loltrolls get kicked immediately when they ruin things, these trolls can convince people that they should stay for long amounts of time. This is until the helpful people run out of patience, and genuinely helpful people have a lot of patience.

#2: It ties up the rest of the team while other players tell them how to do things.

#3: They spread misinformation very rapidly. Their stories of “I did this last time!” and “I read that doesn’t work and we have to do such and such now” and “No, that won’t work because of X” are extremely damaging to other new players, who do not have the experience to know how things work. Because of that, their misinformation will often spread from player to player like a stupidity virus, tying up more and more teams with players who legitimately do not know that they’ve been fed lies.

#4:They make helpful people quit. This is quite horrible, since the charitable players make up the peak of community quality, and their help spreads throughout the community as a communicable act of generosity (an intelligence virus, if you will).

#5: They will join guilds, forums, communities in general, and will persist in their misinformation for as long as possible and on as large a scale as possible.

I theorize that these people are some of the most evil people on the planet. Regular trolling is understandable on a certain level: people need validation of their existence and attention, so they will be obtrusive and offensive to get it. But these trolls, it is just pure hate that drives them to prey on those who are sincerely charitable for absolutely no profit at all. So, whenever I have met one of these rare trolls, they have always been met with a kick + block + I tell everyone I know to also block them.

Spotting them is the hard part. As a general rule, players can be incredibly incompetent without being trolls. Often times they won’t listen to advice due to some personal goal or due to language barriers, and sometimes due to issues like chat lag. But you can usually identify these trolls when they can speak and respond actively, and yet do not listen to advice, do not respect authority, and will tell contradictory anecdotes that are basically impossible. They will make an attempt to disagree with you on things that should be common sense to anyone, even third world children who do not speak English. When they go on offense against advice that has been given without any legitimate reason to do so is a dead giveaway.

Astralporing.1957:

That’s… something that i really don’t understand. I mean, why? They don’t get any better drops (since they’re capped at their personal level), and only making it harder on themselves. And their personal level just couldn’t be anywhere close to 26, or they would have at least some AR already. Just getting to 20 guarantees one ring with a chance for more. And a single amulet is also not that hard.

I don’t understand it myself. Like you say by tier 2 you’d expect them to have SOME AR – it’s possible that they did have “some” AR, but it was too low to stop the agony being a death sentence in tandem with the hit from the boss itself.

When I asked “kitten” one of them claimed that “he’d changed his build lately and didn’t have any appropriate AR gear for it now”, when I told him “Well put it back on anyway it has to be better to have the wrong stats then no AR”, he told me “Oh i don’t keep that kitten, I vendor stuff I don’t need anymore”.

I don’t buy that excuse at all though, the other one claimed to be a really experienced player and he wouldn’t be a burden as he could just dodge the attacks (The fact he’d spent the entirety of mossman and all of the first cliffside fight dead says otherwise) while the other just apologised profusely and begged not to be kicked.

Wow, man. This a hard story to read. Kevlar certainly is a moron =_=
I purchased my copy of the game less than two months ago and I make the effort to learn faster. I’ve already seen a few ‘kevlars’ in my time playing too.

This is a textbook example of a noob. A lot of people love to throw that word around, for people who lose in matches, those who are not OP, those who make slight mistakes, or those who have a different opinion, but those aren’t noobs at all. This is – flat out not listening and being straight up stupid. You should have kicked him out much earlier. He’s not your responsibility, you know owe him nothing. Honestly, I am most shocked by the shamelessness of it. No embarrassment? No shame!?

Hmm, can’t knock you for your efforts but it does feel like you put way more in than necessary.

My approach has always been ‘go with the flow’. If I want a smooth run, I join 20+ fractals. If I don’t care, I’ll join whoever needs help.

And in the ‘needs help’ category, I don’t try to coach, I just offer advice. If the group wants to try rushing Old Tom without stacking crystals, well LET’S GO! And when we die a few times and people are trying to figure it out, I’ll pop in and say “yeah, the crystals power the fans to turn off the poison gas. probably would be best to stack them before you start fighting”. I don’t have to explain why because they already died to experience why.

If they don’t understand the mechanics of the hammer and seals or keep falling over dead from the endless swarm of cultists, I’ll pop in and say “gotta do x, y and z” and they know why because they experienced it, tried to figure it out and failed. It’d be better if they didn’t fail and actually figured it out, I could then pop into explain an easier method.

And if after a couple of times I help them through and they outwardly ask “You know this fight, Leo?” then I’ll explain it.

Basically, if I’m going to be slamming my head against the walls of these fractals, I’d rather be playing and dying than typing and dying…

…but then I haven’t played fractals in months. They add any new ones yet?

Khisanth.2948:

Astralporing.1957:

Ryuujin.8236:

…and let’s not talk about another level 26 run last week where people just kept dying on the bosses and i couldn’t figure why. Turns out 3 of the players had no AR whatsoever, and had tried sneak in hoping nobody’d notice… well kitten, 1 leecher might get under the radar but 3 of you?

That’s… something that i really don’t understand. I mean, why? They don’t get any better drops (since they’re capped at their personal level), and only making it harder on themselves. And their personal level just couldn’t be anywhere close to 26, or they would have at least some AR already. Just getting to 20 guarantees one ring with a chance for more. And a single amulet is also not that hard.

Maybe they are very good at sneaking individually and they managed to do only the odd levels in the 20s? :P

This is something I used to encounter a lot while playing City of Heroes. I used to host various team based and raid based activities, and it would always amaze me how often it is that one team will be utterly incompetent and nonresponsive, and yet a different team of nearly identical makeup would blow through content like it was nothing.

It’s really a numbers thing: for any population, a certain percentage will be slacking. That is, these players will not be putting in a full effort to perform at expectations, to learn the game content, or even learn proper team dynamics. This percentage is relatively low, due to how easy it is to learn something without actively trying to learn something. The chances of getting one of them on your team isn’t very common. Sure, there will be players that underperform, but they aren’t always slacking.

However, by sheer chance sometimes two or more of these players will end up on the same team, and then their performance compounds itself. Imagine the team dynamic kind of like pascals triangle: when you have good players, they play off of each other, making better plays than any individual player could have made. For example, a shortbow thief paired with a staff elementalist will often spam his blast finisher inside of water fields, healing the team, or inside of fire fields to give might to the whole team. By combining their effects, they become something greater than the individual. Do this with 3 more players, and sometimes you can get something truly amazing.

So when three of these slackers show up on the same team by chance, they end up bringing the whole team down a whole lot further than what seems conceivable. They’re not in DPS gear but they’re always face planted, they don’t put down combo fields or use finishers inside of them, they hang back and don’t attack while in combat that scales by player, ect.

I actually had something like this happen to me earlier today. I was trying to do the AR dungeon once with every level 80 toon I had engineer, necromancer, thief). The engineer and the necromancer didn’t have that much trouble at all, and the random pugs they were on blew through content like it was a standard dungeon. But my thief… oh boy. I spent four hours on that dungeon. The first team I was on had low DPS, low suvivability, and didn’t understand how any of the fights were supposed to work. Their natural response to the challenges was to give up and leave. We never even finished that dungeon.

But then I joined another random PUG strewn across different servers, and it was like night and day. Despite the fact that I was running the exact same build on the exact same thief, everything went better. Using the same tactics I died not even half as often, I could put out more damage than previously, and I could support the team better. I also managed to provide a use for P/P on thief finally (hint on the Mai Trin fight: Use Headshot to remove stacks of defiant, and then use scorpion wire to pull Mai directly into the electric AoE. On reduced cooldown, scorpion wire is up every 16 seconds).

What was the big difference? I’m not sure. I imagine it is because my team actively contributed instead of spewing narb everywhere.

Unpredictability.4086:

Honestly, I am most shocked by the shamelessness of it. No embarrassment? No shame!?

Most people don’t feel shame hiding behind the safety of their monitor screen. Raging is another story.

Personally as a thief as a main, I feel a bit ashamed if we don’t get dredge as that is the only one that I feel am being useful (gears, stealthing for destroying gate and tele to buckets). Feels a bit useless to be a thief in other fractals.

On the other hand most pug parties I been too have a personal dislike for dredge and avoid it like a plague. I rather take dredge than grawl any day tho (or seals unless it is a good group).

Ryuujin.8236:

When I asked “kitten” one of them claimed that “he’d changed his build lately and didn’t have any appropriate AR gear for it now”, when I told him “Well put it back on anyway it has to be better to have the wrong stats then no AR”, he told me “Oh i don’t keep that kitten, I vendor stuff I don’t need anymore”.

Lmao, with how time consuming it is to get ascended accessories like rings and earrings, there is no one in their right mindwho would simply “NPC” them. He’s either a really huge troll, or a complete idiot if he thinks anyone would buy that story.

Unpredictability.4086:

This is a textbook example of a noob. A lot of people love to throw that word around, for people who lose in matches, those who are not OP, those who make slight mistakes, or those who have a different opinion, but those aren’t noobs at all. This is – flat out not listening and being straight up stupid. You should have kicked him out much earlier. He’s not your responsibility, you know owe him nothing. Honestly, I am most shocked by the shamelessness of it. No embarrassment? No shame!?

It’s true, I probably should have kicked him out earlier. At first I thought it was just him not knowing any better, but towards the end of the run I started to really think about how all of his faults were stemming because he refused to listen. I think he was actually convinced that he knew better than me and wanted to push his way around. It was painful, but I got through it.

As for shame, I don’t think he felt any. I think in the end he was convinced that I was being a jerk to him throughout the run, even though he was completely dead weight and wouldn’t listen to a word I said. I genuinely feel bad for whoever gets him in a party, he’s going to be kicked left and right until he learns how to listen to instruction.

Also, there is the whole “I never have to see you again anyways/you’re behind a computer screen” that keeps him from feeling ashamed. I think he’s just that stupid unfortunately.

Sabelle.2159:

I thought I would be nice to take the time out to teach new members runs they don’t understand, but I simply refuse to anymore. I will not indulge another Kevlar during my enjoyment in this game.

I’m pretty sure Kevlar will try to report me, because he’s just that much of a moron.

I agree with the what someone said above – sounds like dedicated trolling. There are people out there who get their fun from ruining others’ fun. Gotta be a bit tougher and kick someone like that early on.

Someone who’s genuinely slow or stupid (and therefore worth persevering with, in a kind way) would be expressing more confusion, it sounds like the guy was just laughing at you.

That’s what trolling is: when people are taking something seriously, you take the kitten out of it.