On Dealing with Asshats

1. http://paladinwithin.blogspot.com/2010/07/behavior-in-groups-towards-tanks.html

2. http://csahf.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-not-just-tanks-that-are-idiots-it.html


I am merely going to point to the above posts as the point and response of my post today. In both blog entries, the bloggers state specifically about their annoyances with other group members who decide that their group members play the game for their own benefit. I would gather that many of these guys are kids and not adults. but I could be wrong. this topic has been addressed previously in my posts about tanking and why it has tanked for me (tanked is a term used to describe something failing, dying, or droping. tanking in WoW is a term used to describe the activity of maintaining the computer enemy's "hate" towards you. the more hate they have for you, the more they will attack you and not the healer).

As many of you know, I play all roles in this game. There are three dps (named because of what they do, namely, they produce high damage per second (dps) for the group, as opposed to the tank and healer), one healer whose job is to heal everyone. EVERYONE. and a tank, who holds the attention of the computer mobs. So in heroics, as we call it, five people enter and attempt to be victorious in their endeavors there.

The mechanics of the group fight is simple. The tank will run into a group of mobs (computer controlled, mobile objects) and does his abilities to keep the mob's attention. then the dps will start their attack and take down the mob's health until it does. the healer will heal the tank primarily, himself secondly and the dps lastly. the idea behind this set of priority is simple. if the tank dies, the mobs will wipe the group. if the healer dies, the tank will eventually die and then the mobs will wipe the group. if the dps dies, then it just takes longer to kill the mobs.

Now this is how groups should work, with everyone doing their job to get to the bosses and complete the instance. the problem occurs when people, behind the veil of anonymity and the safety of their own home, decides to be jerks in the game and demand people to play the game their way. and with the invention of the random dungeon finder, this has gotten to the point where people sometimes forget that they are playing with four other human beings, especially when the human beings are from different servers.

The dungeon finder is a great invention, actually. it was made to put groups together automatically, so that the tank can just queue up as a tank, or the dps can queue up as dps, be automatically put into a group, and when the group has all the elements of being a group (1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps), they get sent to a random dungeon. Now this process works within I set of realms, meaning the person I could be grouped with could be from a different realm than me. more often than not, this is the case. and because this is the case, there's almost no incentive for anyone who felt that they were being treated disrespectfully to hunt down the perpetrators. Instead, they just need to get over it, move on, vent, and add the idiot to the ignore list.

I know I've put several people on ignore before. they are not worth the hassle to party with again. they're usually from different servers, of course, as being on the same server would be too close for comfort and they would shut up. they're usually the people who can perform well, as in, be in great gear and produce high dps, or they have the more "important" role. my contention with this is that everyone has an important role. some people might think being the tank or the healer is more important than being a dps, but I find that each role has the same level of importance and each deserving the same levels of respect. what I don’t like are the tanks who think they are god's gift, or the healer who has to mention about how great their healing is (shamans usually =P) or the dps who does twice as much damage as everyone else. sometimes it's necessary to remind jerks that they are simply not that important. the above links show just how easy it is to really ignore the jerks, let him be the spoild child behind the computer and move on.

- bad tank? boot and get a new one. refuse to heal and have a dps switch specs/gear and tank instead.
- bad dps? boot. let him die a few times, then boot. or let him spice up the chat box before he leaves. let him pull with no healing or tank taunting. no one needs his pompous ass anyway.
- bad healer? boot. or get a new one. ignore his requests to gogogogogo. instead, take your time. it is, after all, to his best interest that the tank doesn’t die and at least one dps is alive to finish killing the mobs. otherwise, it would just take longer.
- run with friends. the "kick" feature is more highly used when playing with friends, especially with Immortelle. She's pretty kick-happy. She'll check your gear score and say to everyone, a 5k gear score mage should not be doing 4k dps. but then again, Immy does 6k dps just goofing off. as of writing, she and her guild is one boss away from "Light of the Dawn".

As mentioned above, there is a "kick" feature in instances where you can actually kick a player from the group. I say, use it! usually its saved up for when the group cant stand the idiot anymore. but sometimes I find that we tolerate them too much, which only encourages them to be even bigger jerks in their next instance. this is sort of a way to condoning their behavior. our apathy leads to their brazeness. sounds logical. because it is a game, many of us behind the computer screen will tolerate some asshattery here and there for the sake of time, or to save the trouble of finding a replacement. sometimes the boot needs to hit the butt quicker, and that asshat needs to be sent out of the dungeon. maybe if enough people deal with it this way, we will have less idiots demanding the group to play their way, or according to their standards.

I could mention stories of the many times I've come across asses in the game, but its really useless internet garbage no one really cares to read. you have enough examples from the above links. sometimes I dealt with it, other times I didn’t care much. many times, when I do decide to kick someone, its after I've had enough of their idiocy. there have been many times where I, when tanking, had to tell the dps or the healer if they didn’t like the speed of my pulls, they can pull and tank it themselves. that usually shuts them up. or they leave.

So with all that said, i think everyone will come across these idiots in time and when they do, they will know the possible ways to deal with the situation. when playing in a game where you're randomly added to a group there is bound to be differences, preferences and expectations. everyone plays this game differently, after all. you can group them into several different categories, but remeber that this is only the nature of the beast. people will need to realize that they arent playing with their guildies, or their friends. Rather, they are playing with strangers who may have different motives and goals than they do. it is up to us all to use the tools given to us in-game to deal with the people who we find unsavory, or jerks.