Solution to dungeon Quitting & Ninjas.

[Tziva]

It's rude.
It means waiting for new people, taking everything from a minute to ten or even twenty minutes depending on which role you need to fill and what time of day it is.
It interrupts play, forces you to adapt to a new player's style, and sometimes occurs during very bad circumstances - such as bosses or mob packs.
It can cause certain frustration if the new fellow who joins pops in for 1 minute and gets the best loot from the final boss when the rest of the party has been there for 30 minutes. This is subjective and obviously isn't the fault of the new player, but it can cause some frustration that would be avoided if the original party remained intact.
It makes ninja looting easy, as you can roll on the item and then just leave the group the following second, not having to hear anyone whine at you or face any moral consequences. If you can't see your victim, it's easier to be a villain, as it were.

As far as it's being rude, that's begging the question. I'm asking why it seems rude, because it just seems like an emotional response with no real reason behind it to me. I fully understand people think it is rude, but I don't really understand why it is worth being offended.

The next two just seem like hyperbole. How often do you really wait "ten to twenty minutes" in a dungeon without being able to continue? How often do you have to "adapt to a new player's style"? I have queued hundreds, maybe thousands, of times since LFD was implemented and I don't think I've ever had a group held hostage that long and I don't think I've ever had a group where we had to actual build some kind of cohesive actual teamwork in a five man that would be disrupted by having to replace one player. Most runs, people don't even talk to eat other and those spots could be filled with random players or bots and could cycle in and out at every pack and it wouldn't make a bit of functional difference.

I don't really get the third point. People get "rewarded" for exactly what they participate in. You beat the final boss? You get loot from the final boss. You beat four bosses? You get loot from four bosses. You beat only the first boss, then leave? You only get loot from the first boss, and not completionary gold/points.

And I just disagree with the final point. The anonymity is what causes this, not the ability to leave. You'll never see those people again and they don't know you. And it's arguable whether rolling on offspec loot is "ninja"ing anyway.

We can agree to disagree on the issue, but I really think that the people who are offended by people leaving halfway through the dungeon need to think long and hard about how much this "problem" really affects them and if it is really worth implementing punitive measures.

Even if the group doesn't care, what about that replacement warlock who finds himself in a group right AFTER the boss that he needed loot from?

If you queue for a specific dungeon because you're trying for a particular piece of loot, this doesn't happen. You only get new instances. The only people that will come in are people who are queuing randomly, which means they probably need loot from a lot of places or, more likely the older the expansion, are queueing just for the points, in which case they benefit from a shorter run.

Or the healer that leaves after a boss right as the tank pulls the next group of mobs, resulting in a wipe?

I said in my very first reply that people leaving mid-fight is a different issue. And that is something that can be countered by forcing people to wait until the fight ends, rather than taking away their loot or offering bribes.

[Fateq]

Yeah....I'm not staying in a dungeon when what I want drops off the first or second boss.

[Deleted]

My thoughts, in response to yours.

Dude, what on earth is hard to program in checking that you left the group 5 minutes after you got an item ?
Need to leave for some random reason ? => you left the group, nothing else matters which btw is a design call and has nothing to do with the implementation.
Code lines breaking ? do you actually believe they have a huge monolithic lump of procedural code that has to be rewritten everytime something new enters the system ?

Same thing for that buff, most of the things you describe are design choices being insanely easy to program.

However on point 3 your completely right, quantifying genuine benefit is nigh impossible.

[davesurfer]

Solution #1 sounds as a good plan, the penalty could be discussed for sure. Not sure you should get a reward just because you finnish the dungeon though. It should be mandatory, if you leave (not if you dc i guess) then banned for say 5 hours and indeed remove looted items.

Ok so ninjas pull the Cat 5 cord, now what?

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 11:29 AM ----------

Yeah....I'm not staying in a dungeon when what I want drops off the first or second boss.

i always stay, but really who cares if you drop. It takes like 30 seconds to get a replacement, so I don't get upset

[rampage335]

Don't ninja

[TheWindWalker]

only 2 476 items the rest being 450-463 and I was able to que for LFR.

That's three weeks of VP capping. More than likely it's Klaxxi. Do you honestly, and I mean cut the trolling here, do you honestly believe there's nothing wrong with taking off-spec gear from those who legitimately need it for their main-spec and are using a couple of slots that you can currently buy with VP as a justification for doing so? Really?

[potaco]

I don't really get the third point. People get "rewarded" for exactly what they participate in. You beat the final boss? You get loot from the final boss. You beat four bosses? You get loot from four bosses. You beat only the first boss, then leave? You only get loot from the first boss, and not completionary gold/points.

While this point remains true for initial bosses, there's a certain amount of effort implied in getting to the final boss. Even if the last boss doesn't drop "better" loot than the previous bosses, the intention is that you spent the time working your way through the instance to get to him. If I queue up to get the agi leather legs from Raigonn in Gate of the Setting Sun and spend an hour getting to the last boss, only to have a DPS leave and another DPS join that wins the legs, it's frustrating. Would I still be frustrated when a DPS that has been there the entire time wins it over me? Sure, but at least they "earned" it by progressing through the instance.

I wouldn't suggest changing that part of the loot distribution, though, as there is no reason to punish someone for getting thrown in an incomplete instance. It's a crapshoot as to whether that would be good or bad for the person queueing (depending on if they were trying to get certain items, just JP/VP, complete a quest, etc). It would make more sense to try to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

If you queue for a specific dungeon because you're trying for a particular piece of loot, this doesn't happen. You only get new instances. The only people that will come in are people who are queuing randomly, which means they probably need loot from a lot of places or, more likely the older the expansion, are queueing just for the points, in which case they benefit from a shorter run.

Again, this is a fair point... but only once a day. If you find yourself getting the loot you want from your first run of each heroic, consider yourself extremely lucky. The only way to run the same heroic more than once a day is by queueing up for randoms. You make some wild assumptions (anyone queueing for heroics needs gear from lots of places or just wants JP/VP). That's simply not always going to be the case.

For those of us stuck farming randoms for a few specific upgrades, it's a pain. First, you're thrown in a random instance. If you're shooting for one specific dungeon, your odds are pretty low. Second, you could get thrown into a partially completed instance with the boss you need loot from already dead. Third, if you do get into the right instance and kill the right boss, there's no guarantee that your loot will drop. Finally, even if it does drop, there's no guarantee you will win the roll.

I'm OK with RNG. I understand "why" it's used. However, the "throwing people into partially complete instances" should not be part of the standard queue. If there are indeed people looking for gear from many places or just farming points, give them the option to "also include dungeons in progress" when they're queueing. It could even be a bit similar to the tank/healer bonuses (i.e. a small bonus to those that want to do it without needlessly hindering those that don't).

[SherbertLand]

Why should people be forced to spend upwards to an hour with a terrible group even if they don't need anything from the dungeon? That's a terrible mechanic.

[Djaye]

Solution #1 sounds as a good plan, the penalty could be discussed for sure. Not sure you should get a reward just because you finnish the dungeon though. It should be mandatory, if you leave (not if you dc i guess) then banned for say 5 hours and indeed remove looted items.

this would be an amazing way to drop your subscriptions numbers and alienate thousands of players to want to leave the game in droves. You dont see the issue from any perspective but your own, which is one of blizz's largest problems with its player base. so your solution is if someone chooses or has to leave a dungeon group (i say has to, cuz irl issues have forced me to leave dozens of groups, trying have kids!) they get banned and loose the loot that they have earned elsewhere for doing so.

This would lead to a population the size of rift or swtor in about 6 months. poorly thought out posts like this really do showcase how dimwitted the player base is and my heart goes out to the blizz developers that have to sort through dribble like this.

[Jacob6875]

#1 is stupid. I never leave 5 mans if the item I want actually drops only when what I want doesn't. Since there is no penalty for quitting if you never won an item this doesn't address anything. Also a guaranteed epic for running 10 heroics a day? That would be a fun grind......

For #2 they could just implement the system in 5 mans that already exists in LFR. I wouldn't have an issue if they wanted to do this.

[Chaochamp]

Enough said. Sometimes rl issues pop up when in the middle of a dungeon, sometimes you only need something off the first boss...no reason someone should be penalized for freeing up a spot for someone else.

You say freeing up a spot for someone else.

I say selfish jackass who cares for nothing more than himself.

I like #1 the best. I feel the "reward" for staying is a bit much though.

[Theendgamelv3]

You know what really grinds my gears?

The fact that after seven years of WoW, people can still leave dungeon groups right after they get their item, or ninja items that other people deserve more.

Solution #1 - Quitting Groups

If a group doesn't consist only of you and people from your friend list or guild, then the game will check for the first person to click 'Leave group' within 5 minutes of getting a superior or epic item and before the dungeon has finished. That person will lose the item he just looted as he quits the group.

In addition to this, if a a player finishes an entire dungeon (since his or her time of joining the group), then that player receive a 10% chance of receiving a final bonus item appropriate to their class and specc, randomly selected from all current level dungeons. After a second dungeon, this will increase to 20%, and so on, until you're at 100% at which point you'll receive an epic item. This buff should have a 24 hour cooldown, so then you'll have to start working on it again, and perhaps it should also reset once you receive an epic item.


Solution #2 - Ninjas


When Blizzard level designers create a new dungeon, each item they implement as loot should be categorised as appropriate for agility users, tanks, dmg casters, and so on. As soon as an item drops from a boss, only people who can genuinely benefit from it will be allowed to roll. Once they've all selected greed or turned down the roll, anyone else may roll as well.


Thoughts?

You do realize with solution 1 that some people would just leave right after that grace period or would go afk til that time is up. Also some people just need to leave, not because of someone dying or a huge emergency, or maybe the power cuts out. Gonna be honest, while people dropping out after getting loot is somewhat of a problem, it doesn't happen THAT much in my experience. For me it isn't enough of a issue yet.

[SherbertLand]

You say freeing up a spot for someone else.

I say selfish jackass who cares for nothing more than himself.

I like #1 the best. I feel the "reward" for staying is a bit much though.

Because a system penalizing players for not playing with you isn't selfish?

[clevin]

#1 Grinding dungeons for gear takes time, I don't want it to take any longer than necessary, so I quit when I do/don't get something I'm chasing. I don't find 30 VP enough incentive to stay, I do my random for 60 daily but won't finish any others unless I need something off the last boss. They need a better end reward to justify time spent, random item is not worth it.

I, I, I. That's the issue with LFD. People don't view themselves as part of a group, it's about themselves, fuck the other people. One reason I run with guild groups is people like you and the fact is that LFD usually finds a replacement for someone who leaves so it's not even the inconvenience for me. It's dealing with people like you who play an MMO but view the rest of us as mere tools to get YOU something.

[Deleted]

There's evidently a clear divide here.

But what say we skip the punishment part for leaving, and increase the rewards for staying? I could be fine with the negative impact of 'quitters' if the rewards I reap in the end for staying are greater. They shouldn't earn more than me or progress more than me for being selfish pricks, end of story.

Yes, you will argue that there's nothing wrong in leaving if your item drops after the first boss. It is the most logical thing to do, because you might benefit more from it. But it's not the right thing to do, just like robbing a convenient store for quick money isn't the right thing to do. Blizzard simply fails to get that reasoning through with its bad mechanics right now, but hopefully this will change, and with it people will change.

Like I said earlier, the community mattered more in the past and served as law enforcer for Blizzard, as very few people wanted to be seen in a bad light by the community. There were even lists going around on some servers with ninjas, quitters, and other annoying people's names on them, and most people had many names on the /ignore list.

Now, the community doesn't exist outside the guild or the forum, and therefore new rules are needed to make people behave.

[clevin]

Incidentally, the OP's solution isn't really workable. It can be gamed and the reward for finishing a dungeon should be the loot and VP. Also, you know, the fun of playing. God, people view the game as a big machine that exists not to have fun, but to give them rewards.....

Want to incent people to finish? Do this... no loot drops until the end. Then the loot for each boss that you have killed drops and people can roll. Want to end the dungeon early? Take a vote, if 3 of the 5 people vote yes, the rolls pop up. Simple, done.

[DeadOwnz]

Well then stop making pvpers do pve for gear to pvp.

/thread

[Orangetai420]

The VP from finishing a dungeon should be the incentive to stay, it needs to be a little bit higher. Around 75 would do it methinks.

[Vvulf]

Almost none of the issues mentioned in the thread bother me. Leave if you did (or didn't) get what you came for. Roll need on anything the system allows you to (which includes DKs rolling on Agility Rings, lol).
The only thing that gets on my nerves is people who queue with a tank from their server just to get into a dungeon fast, and then the tank leaves...
But, the great part about being a hunter is, I will misdirect to the person from the realm the tank was from, and pull the nearby mobs on top of them. Dismiss pet / feign death, enjoy satisfaction. Too bad your tank buddy left, he could have saved you.

[juzalol]

So instead of ninjaing an item and then leaving the group they will go take
a crap or watch read MMO-champ forums for 5 minutes and then leave.

Brilliant!

Sometimes people ninja your stuff, sometimes they don't. Just deal with it.
We don't really need a loot police. Need if you need, if you win you win. If you
lose try again some other time.