Rather than waste everybody’s time the past few days with filler content (read: I am about out of ideas), Svenn decided to pool his creative efforts into one post- the results of which are hopefully a more cogent discussion.
There has been a lot of buzz about DPS performance in PuGs formed with the LFD tool. Gelvon over at The Greedy Goblin advocates for prompt dismissal of poor performers, Rohan of Blessing of Kings leans towards the "tolerate and finish approach", and even Larisa of The Pink Pigtail Inn- the paragon of cheer and joy in the blogosphere, has weighed in on her personal use of the Vote Kick option (albeit in respects to tanks and healers not DPS). These posts are just a small representation of the material out there concerned with this topic.
Svenn too has encountered his fair share of “sub-optimal” players in both LFD and premade groups, and has always come out the run with the emblems he expected coming in. So what’s all the fuss about? Near as I can tell, separating fact from opinion, there are several conclusions that can be reached:
As heroics are repeated ad-nausea, minute per emblem (MpE) becomes increasingly important. When the instance was new and fresh people were more tolerant of longer runs, as long as they were successful. With the sparkle of newness long since faded, heroics are just another grind- best gotten done and over with as quickly as possible.
Gear < Skill is an unpopular argument. While that does not change the underlying truth of the statement, acceptance of the argument all too often will implicate yourself or your behaviors as part of the problem and as such is better left unexamined. (Gear is not a limiting factor if you already have skill, so why try and grind badges to get more? If you don’t have skill, gear will enable you to get farther, but still won’t address the underlying condition of lack of skill. Etc.)
Vote kicking is Mean >:(, that is to say it is viewed negatively by most. Right, wrong, or indifferent-people hesitate to “pull the trigger” unless the situation is incredibly dire. If you vote kick for low DPS output, you set a standard. By setting this standard, you now obligate yourself to the standard (more work for you) and; you have no guarantee that the next replacement will be any better than the person you just vote kicked.
The outcome of this then becomes one of personal values. If you are invested in ridding WoW, or at least your Heroic run of crappy DPS then- Vote Kick away. If you want to get your Heroic, get your badges, and get out then- Vote Kick only when necessary. If you want to argue that Gear is less of a factor than it is made out to be- come talk to Svenn or a wall, because no one else is likely to listen (and I already have the gear so I probably don’t count).
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
5 days ago
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I 100% agree that talking to Svenn is the equivalent of talking to the wall. Yes you can pretend that it's listening, but at the end of the day the wall still just sits there doing zero dps (w/o exteral stressors) and Svenn whatever do whatever it is that he had originally planned to do anyway.
January 28, 2010 at 1:26 PMI am only limited in my use of the vote kick feature during the first 15 minutes of the group. I prefer liberal use of the tool since it's a quick way to deal with tools. I don't care much for getting annoyed by puggees but I do have the fallback of the /ignore feature if they're terrible.
One way to fix this situation is to gear yourself in ilevel 187 stuff (probably purchased on the cheap if you don't want to make it) and join up with a similary geared group.
Vote kicking doesn't seem to work well if you don't announce that you're initiating a vote kick i.e. "I'm initiating a votekick on Oni for being an asshat that stands in the blue/green/purple/rainbow colored mess on the floor, etc". I'm more than likely to see a message stating that the vote didn't pass that I initiated than ever seeing a votekick initiated by someone else. This could be because pugging makes me grumpy. I should have received a pet that is as grumpy as a warlock imp instead of a disgusting pug that wipes its butt on the ground after sniffing messes that it makes.
At the end of the day you should immediately initiate a votekick once the instance sickness wears off on a random player just to keep everyone on their toes! Who knows maybe I could be the next randomly booted member because at the end of the day we all know that you can't complete a random heroic with less than a 5k gearscore.
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