When to draw the line on being "helpful"

I was reading another thread on the "niceness" of people and it made me want to start this thread about the difference of people needing help and people wanting someone to play the game for them. I didn't see another thread about this topic, and if there is, I'm sorry for ganking your topic.

I have had this issue pretty much the entire time I've played GW and even had to leave a guild where I was officer because I couldn't stand being treated like a "sugar daddy" anymore.

I am a helpful person. When I'm bored and don't know what to do, I love standing around in low lvl mish's and offering free help. I take my ToPK greenies and hand them out to new players which I find far more enjoyable than spending an hour trying to get 1 or 2k for them. I will always pm someone asking questions or potentially setting themselves up to be scammed and try to lead them in the right direction.

This unfortunately for some people makes them think that they don't have to work to earn anything in this game anymore. Even in my current alliance, there are certain players that are constantly "can someone give me xx","can someone help me do this mish?", then "can someone help me get to the next mish?", and do the next one and so on. Last night alone was a 2 hour onslaught from the same few people spamming over and over I need a weapon, I need money, I need a run, I need, I need. Then they cop an attitude when they don't get what they want right away. This just discourages me from wanting to help anyone.

I personally will always try to get through something on my own first, and if I die a dozen times, then I will ask for help. I have never asked anyone for money, and the only things that have ever been given to me were offered and not asked for.

I just wanted to get some other peoples perspectives on this whether this has ever been an issue for them, and if so, how have you handled it?

Yeah how dare they ask their guild and alliance if they can help them with a mission or if they have equipment to spare!!! What an outrage eh?

There's helping and there's beating factions again for absolutely no reason....

^^typical guru @$$hole.
he means ppl that end up spaming help msgs.

if they are using you, just kick them, ask for some1 to kick them, as it seems they arent offering anything to your alliance, they are just there to leech.

lol, I'm not talking helping with a mission, or giving a weapon or two

That's what I'm talking about

It comes down to how you perceive what the person is doing. If you feel that someone is not wanting to actually try to play the game on their own and not get any experience (for whatever reason), then I say don't help them.

But, if, in your opinion, the person is in dire need of help, I see nothing wrong with helping them. I myself have helped on occasion, especially on some of my favorite missions.

However, I've seen a lot of people spam for a low amount of money where it could easily be farmed and/or as quest awards (which is kind of annoying, really). It just comes down to perspective, really.

That is true and has happened to me a lot as well, there are lots of beggars who constantly cry for help and won't even try to do anything themselves. Most of them are still kids who are used to having someone spoil them. It's not that hard to recognize them - bad spelling, no manners, just "want want want", and especially naggy. I just ignore them and don't get grouped with them.

Begging is everywhere. That entitlement attitude is everywhere. It's just the way some people are raised. You can't escape it. The good thing is, most of them will grow out of it one day.

NEVER give something to a new player, all new players should be treated equally and should learn on their own, all the high end players just need to kick their butts in the right direction.

Whenever I help a new player in a lvl 10> mission I go as Monk and keep them alive, they figure out how to kill enemy and learn from it, and not have some lvl 20 Ele do all the work for them.

You should only help players learn the game, not give them free items (greens), gold and runs.

You can just say no, or ignore them and they'll go away.

i stop when they ask/want too much or when they start acting like twats.

Oddly I have the opposite problem, I have offered my help to friends on many occasions but they don't want to feel a burden by accepting it and "making" me help them out with low level missions.

Either that or I'm just really bad and no one wants to tell me.

I help when I want to.
No one forces me to help.

As easy as pie.

I'm very helpful also, I've also been bugged by people who think I can help 24/7. Those type of people I just ignore, even if they are in my guild. The ones that beg and beg and beg just need to be ignored. They'll go away eventually ^^.

yup its been an issue, usually if said person asked more than once in GC for a hand then he got kicked by me. Simply because i cannot stand effing beggars, if people ignored you /said they were busy the first time, asking again 30 seconds later isnt going to help much. The one time i did help someone he wanted to me to run him everywhere in the desert, do all the missions for him, then do glints and then when we were at droks buy him armour. Needless to say i wasnt impressed, so i ran him to the missions then i used the old, oh sugar me mum needs me for the next 2 years trick. He didnt ask me again.

Now im perfectly happy guildless and if i ever do join a guild it will be full of non idiots.(AKA noobs)

When i do stuff like running one of my chars to droknars forge i don't mind to take others along for free and even give them a extra tour.
I don't like doing anything like helping with a mission (which i have done a dozen times already with my chars) if i don't need the mission myself.
Giving away some purple weapons or mats to others wont hurt me but i would never give something worth 5k or above away for free.

Only annoying thing is that people i have helped often add me to their friends list and keep asking me for free weapons or running missions (which i don't want to do). They are never too demanding or something like that but i usually help others only once and only when i feel that doing so is fun for me as well.

The problem I have is when i help a person with a mission or quest, they add me to their friends list and just constantly pm me for help. For instance a while back I helped a guy (I'll call him billy) with Blacktide den mission. He pm's me a few days later, like I remember who he is anyway, and goes on to ask for more help. And me, don't mind helping when I'm not really doing anything, well the conversation is like this:

Billy: Hey can you help me a minute.
Me: I guess i can, I'm not really doing anything atm
Billy: I need help getting to the bone palace for ancient armor for my derv
Me: Ok, well where are you at
Billy: Yohlon Haven
Me: No, I mean how close are you to the bone palace
Billy: I just got to yohlon haven and now i need to get to the bone palace.
Me: You know thats about halfway through the game
Billy: You can just do the missions so I can get there
Me: Your gonna have to get closer to the bone palace
Billy: You can't just do missions for me?

I mean really! Come on! And this isn't the first person to ask such things like this. So I just don't help people anymore cause when I do I end up on their friends list so they can pm me daily to ask for things. And I don't mind helping people that are having problems getting through a mission cause I remember the problems I might have had getting through those missions. So thanks to all the people that constantly pm me, I just don't help people anymore.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
Give them this then promptly ignore them until they shut up.

OK, so I'm not quite that bad, generally I am more then happy to provide information on what works best in an area, build tips, counters and such, but I draw the line at actually helping people through the level. Give them the tools to beat an area and they are far better off then you doing it yourself. Now if they are one of the noobs who just wants to be taken through the game so they can farm UW or something, screw them.

Exceptions are generally made for places that are actually fairly tough. HM vanquishing/missions? Sure, I can find a character who needs it. UW? Happy to tag along.

There is a difference between asking for help and wanting everything on a silver platter.
A member of my guild wanter help for the last 5 or 6 proph missions , he asked us to help him every time he logged in. I didn't want to help , why? I helped him do the previous mission , he insulted everyone even though he dragged us all , and then had the courage to ask for more help.
I like to give info , but when someone wants me to give him a complete walkthrough of the game I just ignore him , Wiki is there for a reason.

Also I was in a situation where I gave a guy mats for a whole gladiator armor , he said thanks , and tomorrow he wanted money for the armor

I ended up putting the wiki site on the status bar for the guild AND had to show people how to use , since it's too hard for them