People and not talking/listening

I thought I'd post this because it's been bothering me through all the beta weekends so far. In most other MMO's, you group with someone, and you go hunt and get exp and there's not much talking involved (unless you want to). Guildwars on the other hand, has so much strategy involved, you have to talk to people. I have noticed in ABUNDANCE that people in groups do not respond to speech.

I happen to be a pretty good leader, I've done every major quest in the game at least twice, solved most of them myself, and gotten through some tough situations. I was on the quest right before Denravi (where you have to align the portals)...

oh btw if anyone reads this and has a foolproof strategy, please tell me. This is the toughest quest I have encountered in GW and I have not found a strategy at all. There are so many White Mantle, and they run so fast, and just keep coming, theres no real strategy. Usually if you stop and fight they either take all the portals or you get CREAMED.

Anyway's, the point is, someone in my group had sprint, and my strategy was to have two people waiting at the crystal, have one person sprint over to one holder, have the next person sprint to the other and win the quest. I had been asking the other warrior in the group forever for stuff, backup, questions about what weapon they had etc. Never an answer. We got to the part where you have to align the last gate and run in and do the final part, and when we were in the middle of planning, they just opened the gate and ran in, didn't even let us prepare. We all died. Afterwards, when we all spawn at the outpost, they go "Oh sorry I thought people were ready". This was after 15-20 minutes of SILENCE. I have run into this at least 5 times in the game so far. Now I know some people may not speak English as this is an international game, but every single one of these people showed in some way that they could understand what we were saying. Has anyone else run into this? It makes me want to just run around with henchman, or only group with people that I know (which isn't always easy to do). The funny thing is, I had one group for the quest where you have to kill all the Charr and let Rurik out of the gate, and he didn't utter a word the whole mission, but followed what I said. 2 of our group members died, and it was just he and I left, and we ended up killing like 20 Charr alone without him uttering a word. Afterwards he said "Sorry I've been playing for 20 hours and didn't feel like typing." Still a damn good player

The other thing... and I have no clue how to fix this except have a great guild/group of friends and go out and play, is that people do not listen. There are so many times where people run ahead into situations and screw things over. I had a monk the other day just run onto the platform where you fight Hablion and engage him. He got 5/6 group members killed and we almost had to redo the quest. I know I'm going to run into this in any game, but Guildwars it's just essential to take it slow and listen to people.

I wanted to see how others have dealt with this and what they have done to solve it (especially since you can't kick people out of a quest once they are in).

LOL

You sound like I felt during the first 'mission' after joining the academy .. no one spoke and I wondered if I was playing with real people or NPC's. I think part of the problem may be that it is kinda hard to move and type at the same time. Hence the plethora of people using VOIP (thats voice over IP) and whatever program they want to use with it. I kept asking people time after time if there was an auto run feature. They all said no. I found out late in the game that pressing forward twice on my arrowpad allowed me to move forward automatically. I was lucky enough to join a group of guys that are veterans within the game. They were great people and I just followed thier lead throughout all of the missions. All I can say is that its probably best to find one or two good people that know what they are doing and then get henchmen to fill the rest of the spots all up. Good luck in your future missions.

Ya im with ya there. Retarded warriors most of the time

I do know the mission your talking about and it does suck to no end lol. Need a good monk look me up, yo.

Sinfear

Regarding that particular quest - having one or two people to run the gems is optimal. Everyone else needs to be working together to slow down their gem carrier - that means snares, body blocking, the whole deal. You don't have to wipe out everyone, just get the gem down.

You're right that it's impossible if everyone is running around like a headless chicken, but it's perfectly doable even shorthanded with a real team.


The real question here is about forming your team, though. In my experience, the very best way to get a coordinated team is to talk in the outposts. Form your own teams, and don't just click and invite people by profession. Invite the people who actually ask for a party in the channel. Message people and ask if they want to join, don't just give 'em an invite. Does this give you the best players? Of course not. But it does select for people who are open to conversing with complete strangers. If you have a team of people willing to talk, then you can overcome your deficiencies in character and skill simply because you can actually coordinate.

You get some games where people just screw everything up, but you just roll with it. The biggest advantage of doing this pre-selection is that you can get a friendly group together, and just knock out several missions in a row. Everyone has had the bad PUG experience, and people appreciate the ones they get that actually work well, coordinate, discuss tactics. So select for that. The staging area isn't just to party up with anyone - it's to form teams, to select the right people to run with. When you aren't playing with people you know, it's easily the most important stage of the game, and I'd rather spend a couple more minutes there trying to find the right people than running an exercise in futility over and over again.

Make a bit of noise in the staging area, be selective of who you party with, and you'll have a much more rewarding PvE experience.

Peace,
-CxE

Voice over IP is the best tool one can use in these types of games. I seriously doubt that GW will implement this feature into their game unfortunately. Major guilds will be using programs such as Teamspeak, Ventrilo for voice communications, it makes coordinateing battles and target calling a breeze.

Hosting services for these VOIP can be obtained at http://www.osgrocks.com.

I agree with what is being said here. I also admit to making a few bone head mistakes, one of which got every body killed. This was my first GW beta and there is a learning curve, both for the game and for how to best use the char you have built.
Having said that, I am going to point out that one of the best groups i was in was cheerfully stubborn. It was the quest where Prince Rurik says at the beginning that the archers have us pinned down. There are 2 ways to proceed... the front gate or the back door. I had already done this quest with a previous char and knew about the back door. I started running for it and the other 3 said no we use the front door. So out the front door we went into a huge group of bad guys...with archers on a hill that had us pinned down. We died and restarted...I asked about the back door...we went out the front door and died gloriously. We restarted, and went out the front door.. 1 member actually survived the mess but didnt have a rez. We restarted, the group gathered around me and said..."about this back door...where is it?". We finished the quest.
Sometimes it is fun learning that you cant use a certain strategy. This is a game... if we get too caught up in winning every time we lose sight of that fact. I also acknowledge we learn from our mistakes, if we dont make any we dont learn much. WE do need to Talk things over before, during and after a mission...otherwise how can a group become a TEAM?

Not talking should really be separated from not listening. There are times when you tell people which way to go and what to do etc, they listen and proceed accordingly. So, I won't mind if they don't talk. I don't keep talking throughout missions too. Only at critical areas if I'm not in the mood for idle chat. Not listening on the other hand, well, will make you vomit blood on occasions. Its even worse when they talk crap after failing. Not listening and talking is a bad combination..

I never talk much either, but i use map pings, draw shortcuts, and type "wait."
Usually that goes well, unless some guy looks at the map and thinks "what you talking about, i don't see anything..." and goes ahead on his own, getting ambushed from all directions. But usually they'll take advice after such a thing.

It doesn't happen as often as in previous BWE's though, maybe it's because i've learned the missions and often take lead myself, and/or just had luck with good parties.

Hmm, that said though, this BWE i couldn't find a party able to complete "The Wilds," (there is this nice wipe place under a wooden bridge with centaurs, wind riders and jungle trolls wich got us every time) so i ran around it through the explorable areas. There weren't many people forming parties for that mission.

Ill admit Warriors are hasty and proud/cocky often. I often go way ahead, but Ill always wait near the mob for my group If someone doesnt listen, then theres not much to do but ignore em

Unfortunately it's impossible to make people listen, they will only listen if they want to. Of course, just because someone is yelling out orders doesn't mean that everyone should listen to that person either. I have noticed that whenever I am part of a good team we don't really need to talk that much--everyone knows their role and they do it. No questions, no complaints just do your job and we can get through this mission. If there is chatter then it's light-hearted stuff because we already know how to kill, so lets have fun too.

Now for PvP, a voice-chat is very nice, since you are in the heat of battle and typing stuff out isn't ideal. But then again, calling targets is one of the best forms of communication in game.

As far as that particular mission. Have ONE gem runner, this person MUST have sprint. Capture the first gem on the left then return. The remaining well balanced team with a good monk goes to work on the mantles, killing them. Now the runner captures all but one pedestal, focusing on capturing the one that the mantles just grabbed. As soon as it turns red, you turn it back to blue, but keep one white, preferrably the one to the immediate right. With this format you will win by killing all the mantle and you get all the loot too It helps to have a good team, a good healer and a runner that knows where the heck he is going.

An easier way to do it is at least 3 runners, with sprint, waiting in line at the gem-spawn and sprinting to pedestals immediately. That way is much easier but much less fun and less "lootiful".

Hope this helps!

LOL LOL ... OMG that is too funny .." so .... about this back door ...." enlighten us Obiwan heeee.... man that group musta been fun! Seriously though, I am betting that there were just quite a few total newbies (like me) in this BWE and the confusion overwhelmed the logic.

This one time I was in sage land hunting for bones dragons with 4 level 20 guys and a monk hench. We got to the part where the bone dragon was and there was a huge mob of undead. I've done this b4 in the last beta so I kno how to defeat them cuz if you run head first in there you'll most likely died (trust me I tried) .

So we get there and i'm like "wait, i have a plan" "Lure them out, spread them out" obviously no ones listens to me cuz i'm lv10 R/Mo. THey all ran ahead and died, morons. So then i'm like "you guys don't listen" and one of them was like " yea i heard something about a plan and lure". So I res one of them and then went to get the rest but got poisoned and died.

I just wanted to get the point out that lower leveled characters should not be ignored.

This other time I was at this other place, forgot the name, but it ws the mission where you have this eye folllowing you and you have to deliver it to loambust or something.

I was in the outpost looking for a group to join and no groups would let me join, they said I was to low a level . I was so pissed off , they were all lv20 guys and i was lv10.

Thats levelism, yea thats right, I made up a word. There all levelist. So anyways I took some henchmens and beat the mission and made it to the wilds. That felt good.

The thing is that GW does not have a very good communication system...

People have to look down at the chat window to know if anyone is saying anything...

If they make the words come up above our characters head, it would really help those people who is so busy fighting and forget to read to notice that his/her team is telling them something.

The most difficult is to make people read chat during middle of PvP chaos. People are so concentrated into their target that they forget about team work.

BTW... the best way to do this is probably train and tell your team mate before you enter the mission... tell them "PLEASE READ THE CHAT WINDOW" and force everyone of them to reply before entering the mission... then constantly remind them, it is like training dogs... thats what I did, come out pretty well.

I agree. GW is based on a group of different members working together as a team. I have found that issuing quick statements like "wait" means nothing when you are being attacked and need the team to regroup. Once a team is formed, they should have a simple VOIP hooked up like team chat.

yes i do agree i hate it when someone yells wait or stop and then that one person runs up ahead to try to be the hero and ends up dieing

I have had a fair share of the non-listeners.....but, lately I have just been grabbing at least one or two guildies to do stuff with, so there is at least someone that I know will talk etc etc.....sometimes it helps if you have a few people talking and joking around....lighten up the mood....but for some, sometimes one or two "I told you so"'s are all that is needed....

this last Beta, I actually did alot of just 'running' through the explorable areas to all the skill trainers....as a monk (or warrior) we could usually make it on the first or second try....I played next to no quests though.....maybe one or two, and it was by accident...lol

I was running through all the ascalon quests with me level 18 monk or something when old ascalon was re added. I took the whole front group with just my monk/ranger and my bird and healing hands + orison. some other moron team mates itook along still ran out after i told them not to and got pwned

My point over those non-listening players is that chat font on my 1280x1024 screen is small, even with the new feature implemented during last beta. When you are fully involved into action, you sometimes miss new lines appearing on the left. Moreover when you play as a monk, since your eyes are always focussing the right side of the screen to watch your teamates lifebar.

I found hard to follow the discussions when playing a healer.... I personnally missed some important cues from the leader sometimes.

Why not to HIGHLIGHT for 1/2 second a new line when it appears, glowing a few then shading, or a kind of 1/10 second LIGHTNING EFFECT on the right side of the screen to attrack people's attention on the chat?

Dont know if its a good idea, just wondering?