Pet Peev- Being Prepared

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Moonlandergames
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Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Moonlandergames » Mon May 18, 2020 6:49 pm

(Note: This is not to shame any player or character and is only venting about situations that I've face through multiple characters on my good two-three thousand of hours or so of playing)

Nothing has grinded my gears more then running into a situation in which things are made more difficult or impossible just because some people haven't done the lightest amount of preparation for material/items needed to actually function. This can stem from understandable requests such as asking for buffs/wards, which I will say is fine to ask every once or awhile to save coin or to provide a certain aspect that is hard for your character to get. (IE, Arcane user asking for a divine only buff like Freedom of Movement).

But I've run into situation where some characters lack even the bare minimum and every outing with them you know you will have to use a good amount of spell slots or your own prepared potions and bandages because they couldn't be bothered to even gather a few bull strength potions and bandages to allow their low strength to move around or heal. Carrying around a extra lens because you know for damn sure the guy/gal inst going to have one despite knowing the area you are going to would favor leaving by teleportation.

Sure potions, bandages, and lens cost coin I know... I spend a good amount of my coin on them as well. But having to more or less "Pay some else character's bills" because they have not taken any time to collect things themselves drives me up the wall.

I know this is a situation that could probably should probably be dealt with in character to let them know or even to show them how to be prepared. But it has been a situation that has made even the most nicest and patient characters of mine at risk of going off on someone in frustration because of it.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Nitro » Mon May 18, 2020 7:26 pm

The solution is easy. Someone refuses to bring their own bandages repeatedly? Let them die. Someone refuses to bring their own low-effort buffs repeatedly? Let them eat the extra damage that comes from it. Someone refuses to bring a lens repeatedly? Leave them there when you lens out.

It sounds harsh, but sometimes people need to learn the hard way. And some people will take advantage of you if they learn that you will let them.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by xanrael » Mon May 18, 2020 7:42 pm

I've run into a lot of new Arelith players recently that were not aware of portal lenses. My PC will loan them a lens with the explanation that they will hand me one back when we return. Then I will then lead them to the cheapest lens seller in that settlement. Same thing for certain potions etc so my PC isn't losing any coin and there is an IC reason to inform them where to get these goods at a reasonable price. Most start packing these items for future runs.

Then there are the players I know have been here for years that are woefully unprepared and I wonder if Fugue is their most visited zone on the server. I tend to try to be group looter in those situations and adjust their share accordingly or else flat out ask before we start "Does everyone have a lens? No, well go purchase one then." Checking your gear before you leave is an unexciting but true to life part of setting out on a dangerous journey so seems like an IC consideration to me.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Drowboy » Mon May 18, 2020 7:55 pm

It's like y'all have never played an mmo healer. No supplies? Dead. Mouths off? Dead. Bad pull? Dead. Rogue catches aggro? Dead.

Death is weakness leaving the party.
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon May 18, 2020 8:06 pm

Drowboy wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 7:55 pm
It's like y'all have never played an mmo healer. No supplies? Dead. Mouths off? Dead. Bad pull? Dead. Rogue catches aggro? Dead.

Death is weakness leaving the party.
Surely this response depends on your character though?

A drow fighter I could tottaly see taking that approach.

A LG cleric of Illmater however, less so.
This too shall pass.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Drowboy » Mon May 18, 2020 8:09 pm

My experiences as a healer in eso, wow, gw1, and ff14 are why I can't play LG healers here. My teaching by bloodbath instincts are too strong.
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Exordius » Mon May 18, 2020 8:21 pm

Lenses dont work 50% of the time. Almost every time i have bought a lense before going to places like Hell or the Abyss when i went to use it nothing happened thus leaving me stranded so i dont waste my coin on them and wont until that bug has been fixed for good.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Itikar » Mon May 18, 2020 8:27 pm

Well, I will just say that as a new Arelith player I quickly learned to have always at least two lenses with me. :P

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Exordius » Mon May 18, 2020 8:30 pm

Lol i tried that too one time... both failed to work haha.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Halibutthead » Mon May 18, 2020 8:36 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 8:06 pm

Surely this response depends on your character though?

A drow fighter I could tottaly see taking that approach.

A LG cleric of Illmater however, less so.
well, if we accept that there are disadvantages to playing an evil character, maybe we can accept that there are disadvantages to playing a good character? :D

seriously, though, i feel your pain. handle it IG, though. let them know that they're "bloody adventurers, and they need to be prepared to pull their own weight if someone's going to be putting their life on the line." no reason to make it video gamey. ask them what they're thinking going into a dangerous place where they can get killed, and not even bothering to bring some basic supplies!

then, promptly forgive them, and hope they do better next time

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Anime Sword Fighter » Mon May 18, 2020 8:58 pm

Halibutthead wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 8:36 pm

seriously, though, i feel your pain. handle it IG, though. let them know that they're "bloody adventurers, and they need to be prepared to pull their own weight if someone's going to be putting their life on the line." no reason to make it video gamey. ask them what they're thinking going into a dangerous place where they can get killed, and not even bothering to bring some basic supplies!
I agree. Be mean IC if they are being stupid and running into danger. IRL if you watch someone you're with run and basically almost get themself killed, most wouldn't take it calmly and be like "LOL HERE'S SOME IBUPROFEN!" There's a whole range of emotions including (but not limited to) anger, grief, confusion, etc. If I watched someone try to fight a bear bare-handed you bet your Snuggybear I'd yell at them for being dumb once they're out of danger.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Moonlandergames » Mon May 18, 2020 9:38 pm

Halibutthead wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 8:36 pm
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 8:06 pm

Surely this response depends on your character though?

A drow fighter I could tottaly see taking that approach.

A LG cleric of Illmater however, less so.
well, if we accept that there are disadvantages to playing an evil character, maybe we can accept that there are disadvantages to playing a good character? :D

seriously, though, i feel your pain. handle it IG, though. let them know that they're "bloody adventurers, and they need to be prepared to pull their own weight if someone's going to be putting their life on the line." no reason to make it video gamey. ask them what they're thinking going into a dangerous place where they can get killed, and not even bothering to bring some basic supplies!

then, promptly forgive them, and hope they do better next time
Yeah I know to take it In character, it is why I sought not to shame any specific person with this post. Just a vent of something I see sometimes.
Last edited by Moonlandergames on Mon May 18, 2020 9:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Royal Blood » Mon May 18, 2020 9:38 pm

After informing her Killian to be prepared Ravares took them on an outing. All but -one- had a lense with them. She offered him a lense, then immediately took it back as he went to grab it and said.

"Next time you'll be prepared. Aluve."

And left him in the middle of a tunnel on the surface with no way back but to go out onto the surface alone.


As a Drow you can be a lot more savage justifiably IC :3. But yeah i'd just bring it up IC and address it however your character might. Though, sometimes people are just unprepared or lack the funds to be so, maybe they just bought a nice hat or something!
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Gouge Away » Mon May 18, 2020 10:32 pm

Some people in groups want to rush to wherever you're going and don't give anyone else time to prepare or will leave them behind if they do. I don't think it's always about negligence. A lot of times.. yeah, but not always.

I also think many experienced players are used to doing the same grind spots they know well over and over and overestimate their abilities when actually going somewhere challenging. Finding regular parties that are actually going to challenging places is a pretty rare occasion, I find. I can get in groups that are overstuffed with people and aren't a challenge at all no matter where you go but a traditional D&D party of 4 or 5 members testing their abilities to the limits? That's like a once every couple of months thing if I'm lucky.

Anyway maybe some of these parties should set aside ten minutes for everyone to RP preparations beforehand and go over a list of needed items and strategy together like any sane adventurers about to go somewhere deadly actually would? I think the culture of impatient veterans and rushing to whatever is next is as much to blame on Arelith as anything.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by The Rambling Midget » Mon May 18, 2020 10:42 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 8:06 pm
Drowboy wrote:
Mon May 18, 2020 7:55 pm
It's like y'all have never played an mmo healer. No supplies? Dead. Mouths off? Dead. Bad pull? Dead. Rogue catches aggro? Dead.

Death is weakness leaving the party.
Surely this response depends on your character though?

A drow fighter I could tottaly see taking that approach.

A LG cleric of Illmater however, less so.
Let them die, and RP feeling bad about it. It's a character exposition opportunity.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by DangerDolphin » Mon May 18, 2020 11:20 pm

It may be in character for a drunken wis 8 barbarian to not be prepared. The player may also be a newbie. Or lazy.

If they're a newbie it's your job to educate them. If they continually fail to improve you can adventure with someone else.

Alternatively, do the collecting or ask for extra pay for supplying the healing kits etc. I think you'll find most people just want to get to the action and aren't maliciously plotting to save 1000 gold on healing kits. These same people shouldn't care much if you take an extra 1-3k for healing them with kits the whole way through.

As for buffs, a caster can do it for free. Making a mundane use 10 different wands to get a weaker/shorter version of a buff you provide isn't particularly optimal for the party. Again, you might be a destructive Evoker IC who doesn't want to use those kind of spells, but that's up to you.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Tue May 19, 2020 12:50 am

If I'm in a party with a straight caster and they aren't giving at least some buffs to the fighters they better have some awesome fireworks to make things easier, or I'm going to start to question why they are even there. Its easy to be dismissive of those warriors when your summon is steamrolling everything in the first two thirds of the leveling process, but eventually you are going to need those warriors for late game content. That being said, all of this is an ic thing. Your character doesn't want to hand out buffs? Play it that way. Just be ready for the ic reactions its going to get.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by RedGiant » Tue May 19, 2020 12:59 am

Alternatively, play a healer path with epic focus transmutation.
I give all party member one free extended regen and a nice glowing portal at the end.
All for the low, low price of 'my pick of the loot' + 'more than my fair share' of the gold.


My work here is done.


But seriously, there are many great strategies to make sure you and other are enjoying yourself. If you're not, there are a lot of RP-enhancing ideas already in this thread, to include my clearly NOT LG healer idea.
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by NPC Logger Number 2 » Tue May 19, 2020 4:26 am

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 12:50 am
If I'm in a party with a straight caster and they aren't giving at least some buffs to the fighters they better have some awesome fireworks to make things easier, or I'm going to start to question why they are even there. Its easy to be dismissive of those warriors when your summon is steamrolling everything in the first two thirds of the leveling process, but eventually you are going to need those warriors for late game content. That being said, all of this is an ic thing. Your character doesn't want to hand out buffs? Play it that way. Just be ready for the ic reactions its going to get.
I appreciate caster players who go out of their way to give everyone wards but I do not expect it as a given. I'm on my third caster and I've never been the buff machine in the party. Selfish as it sounds, there are better uses of spell slots, and wands/scrolls aren't free. I do end up using all my healing kits on others and giving away a lot of portal lenses however. So on the topic of suffering because of other players/characters not being prepared, I can definitely relate.
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Algol » Tue May 19, 2020 8:45 am

Okay so as a wizard if I were buffing a str build and had to buff them bare minumum I'd cast:

1) Mage Armour
2) Bulls STR
3) Cats grace (if their dex is below 12)
4) Extended Imp invis depending on where I'm

That's just 4 spell slots you need to bring for one person... It's not -that- bad imo. I see a lot of casters casting spells like stone-skin on the frontline before the run starts which is a waste in my opnion.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Tue May 19, 2020 9:13 am

...While I acknowledge the point that it's no fun to be taken advantage of, a member of your party asking for buffs you don't have to spend money on while you're there isn't taking advantage. Lenses, sure, healing kits, sure. I feel you. I carry extra food, water, lenses, and kits because people rarely carry enough. I scold them IC as I have to start passing things out.

But buffs? If these irritate you, I can't help but wonder if you've forgotten that Arelith isn't a single player game.

Unless you're a True Flame, there is very little you can do for your party that is more effective than buffing your party's fighter like he's an elder elemental- a moderately built one will usually do better than the elemental, too, with a modicum of healing. Improved invis, stoneskin, protection from energy, mage armor, haste, greater magic weapon if you're fighting enemies with DR, keen edge for everything else that isn't crit immune, mind blank, mass haste, etc. Protection from spells is pretty darn invaluable in certain areas, too. Death ward and freedom if you're a cleric, to be sure, and armor buffs (give your tank +4AC over their adamantine armor and shield).

I just named about thirteen spells that you arguably aren't going to get a better effect from your slots for than stacking defensively onto a single tank target/boosting your whole party with. In most cases, the effects will last longer coming from you, and every extra round/turn/hour of effect multiplicatively extends the use of those slots over shorter-term, more instant damaging casts of other spells.

And you still have about 60-70 spell slots or more to demolish the rest of your enemies.

When it comes to buffs, I feel your frustrations are a product of an atmosphere that is progressively and intentionally more focused towards "muh solo time is limited." I don't begrudge these players- in fact I sympathize, having only one day a week off- their limited play-time, but if you want to be part of a party at all your playstyle can and should shift to being more tolerant of team-oriented play (like dropping that chain lightning for an extra mass haste, or a finger of death for protection from spells). Unless it's wildly out of character for them to do so, but then why be in a party?

This is not to say I think you need to be someone else's coin pouch/pack mule for them, but if you're playing a caster and you're getting upset that people want buffs, maybe try a True Flame, so that you don't have to cope with that particular party role that frustrates you?
Algol wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 8:45 am
That's just 4 spell slots you need to bring for one person... It's not -that- bad imo. I see a lot of casters casting spells like stone-skin on the frontline before the run starts which is a waste in my opnion.
Stoneskin is an extra 150 HP for your tank. In terms of numbers, at caster level 15, you would have to hit at least three monsters with a cast of ice storm to have the potential to do 30d6 damage, which on average would do 115 damage rather than 150, and ice storm isn't party friendly. Improved invisibility will save your tank more health on top of this, saving everyone in your party (including you) from spending healing kits on the tank. At level 30, you need to hit two monsters with an ice storm to do the same amount of average damage, and you still need to not nuke your own party while doing it.

You could phantasmal killer, but at best if the monster fails both saves, that's one monster you've ended, while the tank could use that extra 150 HP and an improved invisibility to stand toe to toe with multiple groups of foes, as opposed to the two you might've just ended/feared.

Spell slot level per spell slot level, your party will almost always get more progress out of buffs than instant effects, except in emergencies - which is why you sit back on a few nuke/hard cc combinations and let your party do the rest of the work.
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by NPC Logger Number 2 » Tue May 19, 2020 12:04 pm

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 9:13 am
...While I acknowledge the point that it's no fun to be taken advantage of, a member of your party asking for buffs you don't have to spend money on while you're there isn't taking advantage. Lenses, sure, healing kits, sure. I feel you. I carry extra food, water, lenses, and kits because people rarely carry enough. I scold them IC as I have to start passing things out.

But buffs? If these irritate you, I can't help but wonder if you've forgotten that Arelith isn't a single player game.
This comes across as very entitled and demeaning to people who play casters. Not every caster is a ward bot. I like being able to solo content so that I don't have to worry about people leaving, going afk, dying, acting like loot goblins and running to the chest the moment my pixie unlocks it, etc. That last bit is the worst and seeing as we get no notifications when people take something from a chest we can't even properly call them out.

On topic, the thread is about being prepared. Wands, scrolls, and potions exist and are easily available. There are also plenty of mundane items that let you cast buffs once a day. If you're getting miffed because Sparky McFireblaster isn't using half his spellslots to make your character sparkly then maybe you are the one who should be better prepared. If you need wards to survive and you don't bring wards that is on you when you die.
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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by a shrouded figure » Tue May 19, 2020 12:17 pm

I too am a little confused by the buff thing. I’ve played full casters and full mundanes... if my healer is in a group with a pure level 30 barbarian- there’s no stronger spell I can memorize with 5-7 spell slots than a full accompany of wards for the barbarian. It basically is the difference between 5 Heals, not bad, and having an unstoppable juggernaught of doom as my “summon” for /hours/. How is this even debatable?

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Mustard » Tue May 19, 2020 12:26 pm

A Hasted Weapon master only takes a lvl 3 Slot from a Wizard, and does waaaay more damage than anything you can cast.

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Re: Pet Peev- Being Prepared

Post by Drowboy » Tue May 19, 2020 12:42 pm

NPC Logger Number 2 wrote:
Tue May 19, 2020 12:04 pm

This comes across as very entitled and demeaning to people who play casters. Not every caster is a ward bot. I like being able to solo content so that I don't have to worry about people leaving, going afk, dying, acting like loot goblins and running to the chest the moment my pixie unlocks it, etc. That last bit is the worst and seeing as we get no notifications when people take something from a chest we can't even properly call them out.

On topic, the thread is about being prepared. Wands, scrolls, and potions exist and are easily available. There are also plenty of mundane items that let you cast buffs once a day. If you're getting miffed because Sparky McFireblaster isn't using half his spellslots to make your character sparkly then maybe you are the one who should be better prepared. If you need wards to survive and you don't bring wards that is on you when you die.
Straight up what precisely are you bringing to the table to a party, as a caster, if not a few utility buffs? If the answer is summons, well, what you want to be doing is soloing. If the answer is 'purely offensive spells' and you aren't a trueflame, you're being wildly inefficient to the point of wasting everyone else's time, which I'd argue is far more entitled. (Summoning a pile of mummies to wreck everyone else's xp in a group is, also, a waste of everyone else's time.)

If your argument is 'being expected to help other players in a party is demeaning/entitled' what you want is a single player game. FF7R is apparently decent. If you insist on being dead weight, though, expect to not be -guarded, healed by other characters, raised on death, rescued from a rough spot, or brought back on the next trip, though. You've said the other-class equivalent of like. 'It's demeaning to be expected to use bard song, sneak attack/grenade enemies, click on rage,' etc. Wild. I gotta go thank my usual adventuring partners for knowing what they're doing.

Give me a list of spells that are more efficient and effective over a 2 hour dungeon run than a cast of mage armor, bulls/endurance, and extended II on the party tank bare minimum. I'll wait. Like, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face at that point. If you're in a party and you want it to go well/quickly/efficiently, the SINGLE best way to do that is to provide long-lasting 'real' (read: from a caster with good CL) buffs.

the effectiveness of summons should be drastically reduced until people learn how to play in parties again. they never should've become the be all leveling tool they are on 2/3rds of the classes here
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