When to draw the line on being "helpful"

Yeah the adding to friends bit can be annoying it should be a mutual thing where you get a message saying X wants to add you to his friends list do you want this to happen.
Untill then I abide by the convention of asking if they mind before adding anyone.

I won't give to beggars (and I discourage others doing so in main - yes, I'm that mean!) it's easy enough to go out and kill stuff for drops to make 30g or whatever. Had an argument with a L5 monk in Ascalon once - he reckoned he was useless and couldnt kill stuff - I suggested he picked the wrong profession then later saw him looking for a -55 Cesta!!

As a Guild, we help all our new members get to grips with salvaging and the basics of 'farming' for gold and help them through missions so they feel confident and happy to stay in the game - it's the way we feel it should be but obviously other folks feel different - we also help out with some purple or gold weapons.

Yeah - the 'Can this person add you to Friends?' option would be nice, have helped too many people now when I had an idle moment to then get "Can you take me to Droks?" or "Will you buy me armour?" or "can you do this mission with me - Last day dawns?" all for helping some random soul get through a quest!

Perhaps we need something as basic as a page of Basic Etiquette on Wiki - the problem then is getting the so and so's to read Wiki!!

You draw the line when you offer nearly perfect weapons for *new* people in alliance chat, and one of the officers in your own guild whispers you, saying "You got any Colossal Scimitars you're giving away?", .... and your guild leader tries to buy a black and a white dye from you for ~1.5k less than I can sell them for at the dye trader.

She knew how much they cost, because she posted the amount in alliance chat earlier that afternoon.
Then, when I tell her I'm not stupid, she gives in and pays what she should, and tells me that I'm lucky she really needs the dyes...

That's when you stop helping anyone.

yea it kinda learning a balance on this subj. you will have peeps that will stick u to the end. u will have have peeps that join your guild just to milk it then leave.
and if u r lucky, u will make a friend that will stay. but to the op i do indeed give my greens away mostly to guildies and allies.

It's the old "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give him a fishing rod and he'll eat for a lifetime".

I like to help players as well, but most of the time I find that they do not want advice on how to play, they just want to get to the next place which puts me off helping.

The biggest problem I have with helping people is that I seam to get spread a little thin.

How do I decide when a Guildie asks for help at the same time as somebody on my friends list that I've only met 1-2 times and I am in the middle of doing something that I really want to do?

Some might say its a simple choice, but keep in mind often my Guild members don't NEED help they just want company and the guy on my friends list is often a NEWB that just can't do things alone at this piont. Add into that my time online is limited by lots of real world obligations.....

yea you got it on the spot.

* Advice is free. I give out advice when asked for it, and I give it out even when not asked for it . IMHO, its my duty to explain people why is not good idea to have their monk heroes animating minions.

* Stuff is not: I am NOT giving max weapon to newbie on his first character. Its not that it spoils them, but it removes one of early-game goals: equipment upgrade. Anyone more experienced than newbie can get his own weapons unless they need something very specific for build. Except gifts, of course.

* Time is not free either, If someone wants help: They cant ask for preemptive help, they must have tried and failed before to even consider helping them. If its lowbie mission, they just get my heroes - that way they at least have to direct them and you know, play instead of watching someone beating mission for them, if its high-ish mission they get some sound advice to try again. Only truly challenging missions require my presence . Unless they want company and not just help.

I don't mind helping, never have. Lots of folks have helped me out throughout the years in GW. BUT when I do help out with advice or a starter quest/mission and then the requests keep coming from that person for materials, weapons, gold, constant help with quests/missions, etc., I end up putting them on the Ignore list. I mean, geesh! Several have ended up on that list.

(Even more upsetting is when they've joined a guild and they're still asking me for xxx. Usually the answer to my question "why don't you ask a guildie" is met with "they tell me they're busy" or "they won't help" or "nobody's ever on playing" - which I take to mean they've set their status to Offline so they can play their own game without the constant interruptions .)

I really wish our guild would implement that policy. As a whole, our alliance is very generous with freebies. A few guilds have guild banks that the officers can access that hold weapons or just stuff that people can use. Unfortunately we also have a lot of little kids that abuse the generous nature of the officers and constantly beg for freebies. There is one kid in particular that I can't stand. Each time he logs in he asks for free weapons. He needs money for armor and a run to droks or a run to Rata sum and a good farming build and a weapon for that build we just gave him and a run to NF to cap the elite skill needed for the build and 7 tomes for the other 7 skills on the bar please and of course he needs power leveling.

This kid has been playing the game for over 2 years yet he has only 500g saved in his storage. He's helpless. One of our officers helped him with the cap son quest and every item that dropped he begged the officer to give it to him. At one point he admired the shield that my friend was using. He asked for the stats and my friend showed it to him. He then asked for the shield for free. When our officer refused and said that the shield was his, he threw a royal tantrum and yelled that OFFICERS ARE SUPPOSED TO HELP!!!!! GIVE ME YOUR SHIELD. I NEED IT!!!!! My friend just laughed and mapped out.

I'm not an officer or this kid would have been kicked long ago. I think our guild leader has spoken to him about his behaviour and it helped for a bit, but he's gradually returning to his begging again.

Talking doesn't normally cut it with people like that, he will stay in the guild as long as he's getting freebies/free help. When that stops he will move to another guild and do it all over again.

Mind you, players like the one you mentioned are just a dead weight in any guild, there is really no point in keeping them there. Easy solution is warn and kick if it happens again. You are probably better off without someone like that in your guild. That's why absolutely no begging for freebies is right there on our code of conduct, just to discourage any leechers from attempting to join us.

I am in a guild where we have a wide tradition for being helpful, both with items and helping in missions etc.
I regularly go to help with missions etc, but if its the same person that keeps asking for help I back out (had one of these lately)
For entirely new people I would give them a purple/blue ordinary skin thing it can help them out, maybe a little materials for armor, bit never money. I would be happy to give advice on how to use salvage kits etc to get materials, also to suggest some good basic skills they should use. Like that lvl12 necro with a horrid bar, about 5-7 attribute in everything and skills from 6 various attributes lol.
Another guy asked for materials to an entire maxed armor set, I quickly checked it out and told him I had this and that to spare, and gave him roughly what was needed for leggings although i had stuff to make several sets. My simple advice was: get 1 piece at a time and get back to armorer when you have stuff to make more.
Often a small help is enough to get them moving and feel they are advancing in the game.
Decent people who are just new to the game and dont know everything are the best you can get to help, they are grateful and remember you later Some day it will be you who have been struggling with a vanquish or HM mission and need help, then they will be there for you
For those kids who just demand and want and beg and whine...it isnt my kids, let their parents help them

where do I draw the line on being helpful:

When I feel like helping someone. If I don't, than fend for yourselves.

I do the same. I also give them a few tips on their builds, what to avoid, what to look for. I also use this method to screen out potential guildies (dont want any 13 years old begging Killroy)

Best tip you can give a new player: hit the F10 key and register on Guru

I tend to echo something like "why don't you go out and get it yourself?" when people spam for gold, gear, etc. Usually it shuts them up, and as long as you don't cop an attitude back at them if they do it, most people can't find anything to complain about.

I like to help others out - I've made some good friends in GW by answering calls for help. Though I do agree with what has been said in this thread already; there is a difference between asking for help and expecting things to be handed to you on a silver platter.

Asking for help once in a while is not a bad thing. Sometimes you need help to get through a tough mission, but when it comes to the point of taking advantage of the generosity of others it becomes a serious problem. That's when I stop being generous and start being the equivalent of a drill sergeant.

I dont mind helping people out, but you can tell when some people are simply rude and act as if you OWE them something and it is your duty to help them out. Then you start feeling used and I stop being helpful to that guy from then on.

There's a difference between being offered stuff and asking for free stuff outright. What gets me is when someone says "does anyone have a good cheap sword?" I offer up a basic gold sword, max, low req, inscribable, decent mods...they say "no ty that's ugly" or "do you have a (insert rare skin item here)?"

I had a guildie that started asking for help with this low level quest in NF. I hate nightfall now that I'm completely finished with it on my warrior, so I decided to tell the dude what he needed to do to get the quest done. All he responded with was "are you going to come help me or not?" then when I told him I couldn't, he started talking shit. Needless to say after about 10 minutes of him berating me and others because we're "noobs" because we can't come help him on noob island, I gave him the boot. I help new people all the time, I just hate when people demand help, think they're entitled to a free ride from more experienced players ( like we're here for your bidding...sure), and cop an attitude when they don't get anything.

I am very careful with which people I help.

There are some guys in friend list that are always kind, every time they ask for help they do it in a polite way and they always want to give me something in return (money, gols or green items they don't use and so on).
I always refuse any payment, because for them my help is free.
A "thank you" is enough.

They are the kind of people that if I help them with a mission, they don't just sit around and watch me tear apart everything that looks funny at me. They do their best to partecipate.

With this kind of people I've become friend in RL even if we live quite far from each other.

The guys that I DON'T HELP at all are those that want the things and the help and take it for granted.

I give a lot of freebies to new players or low level players.
Things like non max golds, some minor rune I don't use, and so on.

Here's a list of guys that killed the will to help strangers in me.

1) In Old Ascalon I write on all chat that I'm giving away nonmax gold weapons. One guy W/El lv6 approaches me and asks to see what items they were. (One was a gold sword with a +14^50% and a +28hp or +29, don't remember it well) He started writing in all chat "who do you want to give this crap to? It is useless" and stuff like that, than he opens trade and shows me a sword of the forgottens and says "this is a real sword", and began calling me a "noob".
WTF... Why on earth do you come to the "nonmax weapons giver" if you already have a green?
That item ended up in the hands of another guy, which run to the merchant as soon as I gave the item. I suspect that he merched it (can't be sure, but I've lost faith in GW players).
I'll never waste my time again this way.

A lot like this:

2) I had in friend list a guy with which I had some pleasant conversation. One day he handed his account to his son, and he stopped playing. This kid began asking for help for every little inch of the game... basically he didn't even try to do stuff, he simply waited for me to login and then ask whatever he thought he needed. The most was when he asked a run for his new char from Old Ascalon to Lion's Arch, and then he told me "I'm going afk cuz I must go out with my gf. Be fast in bringing my char there."
This guy ended up in my /ignore list and I left him in old ascalon.

3) A kid joined a guild in which I was an officer and asked for help. I helped him on a couple of quests, then I told him I had to go to work. He bitched a bit that then nobody was going to help him then (trying alone is so hard?). Before going away I explained him what the 9 ring was, and told him that I was leaving my char on that place farming for lucky points.
He got mad because I wasn't helping him that way.
He threw a tantrum against my char (while I was afk) and bitched for about 30 minutes in the guild chat before leaving the guild saying "that bastard officer should help people, instead he did nothing to help me". (After guiding him trough all the canthan new year quests.)

Same feeling :

4) In one of the guild I joined, on the first day I was ther, one of the officer asked for help with a mission. Since I like to play with people, even if I had already done that mission, I decided to help him.
That opened the gates.
After that he asked me for half of my obsidian shards (for FREE), because he was in "real need" (yeah, whatever). I told him NO. The day after he asked for a free run to all the 3 missions in the desert. I told him NO. The day after he asked my Kephket's Refuge (for free), because I already had another good gold staff (Divine Favor). NO again.
On every guild activity where he joins, he keeps PMing me for every single gold drop, asking if it is good and if the answer is "yes" then his question is "will you give it to me? I need it". This guy is amazing. He doesn't even says "hello" when you login. He plays with guild roster and friend list open, and asks directly for stuff. Last time as soon as I logged in, he greeted me with "can you buy me a black dye, plz?".

I have many other stories about people that killed completely in me the will to help others.
My help is going to the selected few that know how to behave.

I will help players help themselves. And as long as it does not involve leaving an outpost or removing anything from storage, then they can have whatever information they require. But I don't go questing/etc with them unless it's Hard Mode or one of those troublesome bottlenecks in Normal Mode. If it's hard mode then at least they have dragged a char through the whole campaign and shown a little willing.

I am guilty of dumping my unwanted weapons on guildless, low-levels in Ascalon though as I remember I was pretty chuffed when a level 20 did that for me when I was a newb doing a quest out of Piken. It was a purple fiery Spatha, 15-21, 15^50 and vastly superior to anything I had at the time. The way the game is now, there are so many perfect weapons flying around which never degrade that you don't really hurt newbies by giving them away.

I'm not a fan of the guild beggars and have also experienced it recently. An officer was spamming ally chat, requesting a 5k run and complaining they had no gold and could only pay with one lockpick. And a guild leader(!) from the within an alliance whispering anyone whose name appeared in Ally chat and trying to get hold of rare mats and/or coin for elite armour. Pitiful. PLAY THE GAME!

Yea..exactly. And there's these ppl who spam you random questions all the time, like for EVERYTHING.

What's a good monk hero build? What's a good weapon for a monk hero? What about a ritualist instead? Do you have any good builds? My monks are very bad, can you come do this mission for me please? And on and on and on...

Ugh...lern2wiki noobs!

The main problem stems from the fact that the Guild Wars community seems to be getting more and more lazy. Newer players want everything now, and are not prepared to earn it. Helping people is enjoyable, but it does become difficult when that person then spams you for help every time they get a new quest.

I tried to take a new tactic a while back. I stood in The Marketplace and found people wanting help with getting to Vizunah Square. On the way I would watch how they played, and what skills their heroes used. On the way, I would make comments about my observations, starting with general ones to start with, to see what reaction I got. Some people out there are genuinely nice, and I have made some very good friends through doing this. For the players who were prepared to take criticism, I helped them to develop their skills and tactics, and show them how to make the most of their heroes. I would help them on a few missions and quests here and there, always doing the same thing, and they become noticeably better. Now those I helped are doing the same for others, and rarely call on me for help any more without having tried and failed something many times first.

If they wont take criticism and just want you to do things for them, cut the ties. If they are willing to learn and take on advice, help them out, stick with them, and help them become better players. If you fix the root of the problem it drastically helps them to fend for themselves if they have to Hero/Hench stuff.

You need to make your position known early on to prevent the continual messaging. Trying things like "have you even tried it yourself first?" sometimes works. If they say "no", you can then say "well I can't help right now, but if you did you might find out how easy it is.". It's invariably the case that these players haven't even bothered trying it themselves before they ask for help.

I also firmly believe that just saying "no" isn't the answer. Unless it's a cereal offender who only asks for help all the time I find the following quite useful, for people you don't know who regularly ask for help in Alliance Chat:

1: "Can someone help with {Mission}???"
1: "Please? Anyone free???"
2: "Busy now sry"
3: "I'm farming lol"
me: "I'm busy just now, have you tried it yourself yet?"
1: "Yes I died"
me: "Have you tried taking {hero} with {skills}? Also using {Henchmen} is useful because they have {Skill}"
me: "I might be able to help after I'm finished vanquishing, but I'll be a while".
1: "ok thanks, I'll try with that".

I invariably find that they go and try it with the advice you gave, and often succeed.

Telling people you're busy just makes them spam harder until they find someone to help them. Suggesting a solution "in the meantime" until you might be free works quite well usually. It often seems to make them go away and think about builds a bit.

While you're right and it sounds you speak from a lot of experience, I also noticed how people (not necessarily the experienced ones I guess) often mention that newbies are noobs. And it happens that the conclusion of their reasoning becomes true even before they observe and talk to newbies, a phenomenon well known in sociology where the words generate the problem, rather than the problem generating the words.

I guess some experienced and helpful players (everyone can be helpful and spread the lessons they learned, which is the only way to maintain a very healthy community) can be discouraged from helping simply by listening at the general ambiance, without any "real evidence", just a depressing feeling that newbies are kids who "want, want, want, me, me, me" (these guys exist).

After last wintersday, I went to offer my unused CCSs to people in Ascalon City, only to have this guy who said he was a newbie to cancel the trade several times, when I whisped him I just wanted to offer free CCSs but he ignored me, only to whisp me back a while after that I was an "ass". It takes some cool to ignore this reaction and continue doing what you were doing before, rather than simply forget about giving stuff (I agree that giving advices is a much more important thing to do, but stuff helps too and it's always nice).

Hmmmm. In our Guild we always tell new recruits it's okay to ask for help and ask questions, but there is to be no begging or our Guild leader will kick you from the guild. It seems to work.

I don't mind people asking for help or if they ask questions in chats because that's one reason you belong to a guild. When you're new, a lot of missions and just plain getting around can be hard if you don't understand builds, have lousy armor and a crap weapon. People might forget that once they've played for a bit and run around with beefed up heroes. On the other hand we do get spammed in alliance chat for things. "Anyone have an ambrace?", was one recent request, and "anyone have a white dye I can have?. LOL. Always is the same people asking over and over, and others get indignant if they can't find people to help them the moment they ask for it. The Guild Wars world does reflect the real world in its own little way.

I often find myself stopping mid-quest in an outpost to answer someone's question I saw pop up. I give information, and often.

That's it. They get nothing else from me other than information and time. I've been jaded by idiots and raving lunatics who want something for nothing.

I've been in both YaRR and LaZy because I wanted to figure out why they're so big.
I left about two hours later after joining either.
Can you guess why?
Hint: Its the same problem this guy has.

this topic has made me want to create an account just to reply so im going to say an answer that sums up almost everything you guys have been saying except for the money beggers and such

while reading my uncle johns bathroom reader (i know it sounds odd :P) i saw this footnote on the bottom of the page from the chinese philosopher Conficious:"Fish for a man once,feed him for a day.Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

feel free to reply

The trouble is that a) there is not one hungry man, there is a seemingly endless number of them, b) a good number of the people who know how to fish taught themselves to do it with the tools available, and aren't terribly keen on dragging someone else along who doesn't at least attempt to do the same, and c) why should I care if random person #34134238837 doesn't know how to fish?

That said, I'll give information, fast price checks, and general advice to people who ask for it in allchat, unless they're spamming - in which case they don't get anything - or if they don't listen to me the first time and keep asking, in which case they get yelled at once or twice and then ignored.

Thats a quote that he said, your supposed to look at it like its a non-linear guideline to life.A)Even if their are a seemingly endless number of them how about you help one of them and tell them to pay it foward and help of one their lost friends and so on and so fourth and soon enough that seemingly endless number does have a end.

B)IF you know how to "fish" and are not keen on dragging someone in to teach them why not just ask them to attempt it, and if they fail you will help them.(then again there are those fakers that never attempted it and then u ask them whats hard about the quest or mission after they "attempted" it they won't know then u tell them to buzz off.)

C)Its a quote.

I have a friend who was asking for help while I had a 3 winning streak in Rb racing.
Told her I was busy... then she started spamming: Are you done yet?
It's kind of annoying and plus she was bribing me, which totally pissed me off. When I was done, I just logged off.

I only help people who actually know patience is a virtue.

I generally don't help people with missions unless they have failed them repeatedly and are truly stuck. A few missions I will make an exception because something like Eternal Grove its obvious you need someone to tend the other gate for masters. I consider these type missions reasonable requests. But a person can generally just get a PUG and in HM the PUG's are really quite good.

I have np giving information and sometimes I run across people stranded in a town and don't know what to do next. I will take this person and ask them what is the last quest they have in their log and help them figure out where they need to go next. Sometimes I will run them back to what they have skipped. I recently met some one stranded in Zos Shivros Channel gave them a run to Cavalon and helped them get the proper quests to move forward. But I generally can't be bothered to redo content I've done 500 times over and over again for the sake of being "helpful".

I view helping people with low level missions as mutually beneficial; while helping them i reset my drops and get better loot

/agree

If too many people ask me for help in a day, I'll let them know that's why I won't help anybody else for the rest of the day. If they insist on being annoying I'll just rage at them until they shut up or end up on my Ignore list. Doesn't happen often though.

~Tru

In general, I don't offer help with materials, gold or items.
This does not mean I don't give any away, just that I do this because I like to and not because others asked for them.

However, the kind of help I offer is to play with random people once in a while.
Just tagging along, chatting a little and making small comments on how to do stuff. Once in a while asking people about why they made certain choices in builds, though if they don't want to ping them it's ok with me when I lead.
However, and that's something else, I only tag along with people around my own level when possible.
I used to help with level 20's, but it gives the impression that stuff is easy, when it's not when you are level 5 and have a limited skillset.
It limits the learning experience for completely new players. Or somewhat unexperienced players.
So they have to deal with my ~level 14 ele and monk on my second account.
I bring the game and profession experience but they still need to work active with me to get things done.

Now to something specific:
I think many people who call others noobs are unable to distinguish between people who are new, those who don't communicate well enough or those who don't learn. The last would be the 'noob' and there ain't that many around in low and midlevel gameplay. Many of those players are willing to learn but don't have anyone to bring them to the next level.

Now the most difficult one to spot is the bad communicator. And it's hard when playing PuG.
Let me give an example. When I play warrior I need to gain adrenaline to get things done. I know this from experience, so when I play monk I'm always trying to be aware of blind on warriors (or other physicals). Many are just busy attacking without realising they are blinded. And if they do realise, they might ping but it's still my job to remove it. Same with hexes.
The moment I go into an area as monk without condition and hex removers knowing that my physicals would suffer it's my mistake, not theirs if they can't hit.
But now the situation changes. Instead of blind the warrior is facing a target with Aegis or Guardian on it. The warrior can't help that he's missing 50% of the time. Only thing he can do is switch target (if possible, with Aegis on all opponents) to keep building adrenaline and wait for the spell to wear off. Of for a mid-liner to remove it.
Now who's task is it to spot and call a skill like guardian when playing PuG?

The same with builds. I've seen very inventive builds that were absolutely worthless in certain situations. But they helped players get to that point, so they were working once. Doesn't mean someone isn't willing to learn, it's more likely that he will think the build is ok at first and look for other causes for failure. Because, you know, it worked before....
Without someone pointing the weak spot in the build he will keep failing for a while.

Now to the point where I've seen people called noob and stuff like that a lot.
The higher end of PvE, people who have access to elite areas and hard mode.
I've seen a lot of them who truely think they know everything, only their way works and everyone who thinks different is a noob.
Oh, and I see it once in a while in RA or other unorganised PvP-ish stuff.
People don't appreciate the effect of learning by failure anymore, they think everything is about winning and winning only.
PvX every build, because we know they win. Everything else isn't proven, so it doesn't win.
It's actually those kind of players who are closest to noobs and they tend to call others noob more often than most other players.

Now I need to be honest.
I don't like to play with relatively new players all the time.
I'm getting annoyed after a while of constant flow of questions about runes, traders, prices, can you help me with Great Wall, I don't know how to... and that kind of stuff.
I'm more like, well, go figure it out, click every npc you see, read what skills say. You can ask for help when you can't do Great Wall, but first tell what you did try and what worked and what didn't.
Or, something I tend to say at my work a lot... Go figure it out. We have a test environment, try stuff. You can't really break things by trying.
If you still can't figure things out, we can look at what you did and why it didn't work out the way you intended.
The same is true for GW. It's a game, you can't break things (well, can, but then you are hacking). And maybe you'll even invent the next annoying PvX build someday

There was a person exactly like the topic creator in the guild I used to be in.. similar sounding guild as well.. Gave away ToPK greens and stuff.. was a ( having a mental block, thing below leader, not just a member).

I wonder what guild it was..

i am very lucky that i am in a guild and alliance where players ask everytime they log on (a bit of exegeration, but they do ask) if anyone wanted help and also announces when there will have activities, eg: clearing cof or going to strat first mission before duncan or vanquishing xx area. hehehe but i don't go along because of my lag issue, since it will slow down everyone else and also all my character has level 20 heros. What i am saying is, promote this type of relationship in your guild/alliance instead of fostering answering to a single request. just a thought.

How i help other player:
go to low level area with my rodgort's invocation, take newbies across 2-3 mission easy even if they leech i know i could get out of those mission within half an hour... why not, if I can make one player happy everyday :P~

I've seen the same thing happen in my alliance lots of times.
After getting tired of it, the leaders + officers in my alliance decided we'd add some alliance rules:

- do NOT spam for help in the a-chat.
- If you need help, you can ask nicely, but don't expect people to jump at your aid.
- If you help others, they will help you.
- The more you play with others, the more they will be inclined to help.
- Try something first, and if you fail, thén ask for help.

I always just state what I'm going to do, and people are free to join. I rarely need to ask for help anymore.
We also never give stuff away to new members. I had that backfire on me twice (guild-hoppers). I only help those I have gotten to know. It works.

Reading this thread made me realise why DVDF insists on a pretty rigorous recruitment policy.

Nice that there are still people out there willing to help.

Once new players get free stuff and free help from people, they will be inclined to do it again as its the easy way out. So who is responsible for these so called "beggers"? Its a blurred line between helping a newbie and creating a parasite, and everyone has their own views.

Been through this cycle many times, and what I do now is:
1) When someone asks for help, I'll give advice. Its free and often the most useful.
2) I never help with easy missions. If they fail, it only means they haven't learnt enough. If they can't get past Minister Cho's Estate, what makes them think they can do later missions?
3) I help with Hard missions (in a new player's perspective) for new players. Along the mission I will include tips and comments and observations (like what to watch out, where to pull, what not to do). At the end of the mission, I'll get the player to tell me what he/she has learned in this mission. If he/she can't tell me anything, he/she will be on my begger/leech list and ignored for life.
4) I do not give handouts. Handouts create parasites. If they want something bad, I'll set a goal for them and it'll be a reward.
5) I do not run new players to towns. They need to know how to get around.

As for max armor for newbies, they do not need it. You do not need max armor on newbie island. So you think that termite can 1 hit you on your noob armor? The game is made such that you upgrade your armor progressively and you acquire the gold and mats needed along the way. If you want to jump right into max armor, pay for it yourself. I played through prophecies and my first max armor set was collected from trading with NPCs the collectable drops i get from killing mobs. Total cost? 0 gold.

Generally, its the attitude that is the most important. If a new player is not willing to spend time to learn, that player is not worth the time. I'll just ignore that player or kick him when he/she goes over the line. I rather have lesser beggers in my guilds and leave space for players that are willing to learn and play the game.

Don't help blindly. You're harming them by turning them into parasites. Its hard for them to change once they get the taste of "free" stuffs.