Something really has to be done with other people joining your battles. It is really becoming frustrating and ruining gameplay for me right now
Now I know some people will accidentally get pulled into your battles and I understand that. But when I see some standing nearby waiting til I'm nearly finished fighting or nearly dead and then they enter the fight just to stay one round, pull in an additional enemy and then flee, I get soooo aggravated that it will often stop me from playing for the rest of the night.
Which is what happened tonight, not once, not twice, but 5 times within 10 battles I had people join late, pull in more enemies and then flee. I ended up dying 3 of those times.
I'm now regularly dropping markers so when I eventually die I don't have to walk all the way back.
I understand the game is geared toward team play..but that is also the problem. Unless I'm in a group of 4 that are on-line at the time, there's always a chance someone can enter my battle. I find myself seeking the less crowded servers and only fighting when I don't see anyone near me, and I think that is exactly opposite of what it should be.
Please make an option, so I can stop people that are not in my group or friends list from joining fights that I don't want them in. Typically only my daughter and I play in the group and that's the way I want it. I do not want other people joining unless it's one of the Instances where a 4 person team is more important.
If I have too many more nights like tonight, I'll probably stop playing and unsubscribe, it just stops being fun when this happens
After thinking on this some more, I came up with an idea that hopefully makes everyone happy.
Having a setting in the options menu really doesn't work. I'm sure many people wouldn't like to constantly enter the menu screen to change this setting depending on battle situations.
So how about a card for this ? I really only object to players joining the battle after several rounds go by. The first few rounds I don't mind. So if we had a 0-2 pip spell for this, I could still use it the early rounds or not at all.
This way I have the most flexibility in determining who and when people join my battle. Maybe have it as a reward for completing Sunken City. I think many players would like this card but in order to get it, especially at lower levels, you'll need to be part of a group to get.
So players would see what the benefits of teamwork are like before getting the card, and thus would have a better feel as to if and when they would use this card.
Someone else mentioned a pop-up dialogue coming up when someone wanted join. Something along the lines of, "Allow X wizard to join battle?" Then you could control who can come into your battles.
I can see potential abuse of this option, so maybe it could be for a certain level and above? Lower level players in WC and Krok wouldn't need it as much as those in the tougher areas.
I completely agree with the OP. Nothing makes me more angry then when people just jump in. Having this just happen to me myself 2 x on one relm and 1 so far on a different relm. I enjoy playing with the group I have set up. The duel team I have set up works great and really makes things hard when others join in when not wanted. I have had spell traps broke, people joining and pulling in another monster then fleeing, sitting there charging pips waiting for you to be defeat then taking out the monster to STEAL YOUR EXP...etc. I have lost alot of exp from this. I try to take out the monsters first before they can so the don't get credit. Sometimes I am waiting to charge a spell like for healing, I pass or use 0 pip spell, then BAM the attack and take out the monster...battle over and I am stuck with low health.
People please ask before entering if you have text chat. KI please but a chat drop down "May I join your battle" so people without text chat can ask.
The easiest solution would be teachng people to politely ask. A menu chat option would also be good. Perhaps a user organized effort to document an "Informal Code of Conduct" would also be of use.
Once your in battle and you initiated it then it's your battle others need to ask to join. Common courtesy and grown up rule of thumb.
I tell those on my friends list to ask before they even port so not to add more aggro to my battle.
They have no idea if i'm low on health or on my last mob or my build of traps and they port in and blow them with a wand spell LOL.. or for the quest and boom they pop in unannounced and add another 10 to 15 min to the battle :(
A option to allow others to enter your battle would be sufficient when they try to enter the combat circle they should get a pop up saying "Would you like to join this Battle?"
Then the active player gets a small pop up do you want to allow "Joe Blow" to assist you in this battle o Yes o No
A player always has his friends list who can port in on him, if he needs help but at the same time not to inconvience those who are finished or don't need the extra 5 plus rounds to go by before you get to turn in a quest and level .. (where the real xp is) Just my experience from playing MMO's
LOL another point more players more mobs more xp and coin rank 6 + only giving squat for coin please easily over 150g per battle
If you want to encourage group play then let it pay off.
Jade oni fight and you win a "mug" for your home.. pffft I want real usuable loot haha sell that stuff or give them house quest for items like that but I want named heavy gear for taking on a big boss alone and get a payoff out of it.. so I can sell or give to someone :)) GL
Would be nice if the Dev's would acknowledge this thread.. I am tired of playing with little kids who don't know the game or any strategy for that matter and ruin the game play for adults.. IE those of us grown up's who actually play would love to keep the kiddies out of our battles since they haven't got a clue. I have some kids who I play with, but they are battle tested and know the mechanics of the game.
Adults fund this project and the more the merrier .. It wont actually take away from the gameplay but having a battle option to either allow others to join or close the battle for requests only is a very intelligent thing to do and should be very easy to incorporate into the system
I agree that this can be annoying, but taking in the big picture, it is a rather minor annoyance. After all, this is an MMO, and if I didn't want other players getting in and changing the balance of power (for better or worse) sometimes, I'd toss a disk in the old PS2 and go that route. I am much more frustrated by getting pulled into battles I'm trying to avoid when I'm on my way somewhere. I once got into four fights before I could get off a piece of roof somewhere in Marleybone. Not the roof as a whole, just one little square of it. Now THAT's frustrating!
I play with my family as well, and this has been an issue in the past where friends of my children would port in on battles way above their level, add mobs, score loot and disappear directly after without typing a single word.
The best solution IMO would be an option setting to allow / disallow people to join your ring. An addition of a color to the ring would indicate to those passing by if the ring is open for joining or closed by player option. (ex light green ring for open, light red for closed).
This would save people the business of requesting to join, since it is someone difficult for those with filters to communicate their needs.
They already have an option for disallowing friend ports so it would make sense to take the privacy option one step further and allow/disallow ring joins.
i agree. this act is rude and should not be tolerated. i believe that KI should do something to fix this. also, my friends and i have a rule, do not port without asking, that way, if you are low on health in a battle, and somebody ports to you freely, you might end up in commons with one health because they bring another monster. so then, it really agrivates me when someone joins your battle without asking, even if they dont flee.
Yea, as I started before its a pain. Now that I have two accounts and play them at the same time, I am not able to turn off port to friend. I just turn off the friends option once I have set my two wizards up.
But, I still have problems with others just entering the battle. I have my spells setup to play off the other wizard. I might be casting 0 pip spells to set a heal spell or a higher pip attack spell and hate it being ruined by some joining.
If the player that joins has text chat open, I just say "Please ask before joining a battle if the person has text chat open". Sometimes they are nice and say ok and sometimes they are rude about it.
I love it if I am able to cast my spells and take the Mobs out before they can cast. That way they don't get the exp. Not sure if that effects(affects) quest credit or not though.
Over all I just sigh and carry on or change relms if they keep it up. But it would be great to have the option to lock them out.
Would be nice if the Dev's would acknowledge this thread.. I am tired of playing with little kids who don't know the game or any strategy for that matter and ruin the game play for adults.. IE those of us grown up's who actually play would love to keep the kiddies out of our battles since they haven't got a clue. I have some kids who I play with, but they are battle tested and know the mechanics of the game.
Adults fund this project and the more the merrier .. It wont actually take away from the gameplay but having a battle option to either allow others to join or close the battle for requests only is a very intelligent thing to do and should be very easy to incorporate into the system
Actually, even though adults fund this game, it was and is developed as a SAFE alternative for kids. The fact that adults (such as me :D) adore it was a happy surprise to the publishers. I don't think this argument will sway them.
Besides the issue of who the game was really meant for, lets get into the mechanics. The game makes you fight in the middle of the road. On any server, but especially crowded ones, that means only a limited number of fights at a time in any given area. With the idea of limiting people to not be able to join, that means it is possible that ALL of those limited slots will be used up by non-social gamers tired of sharing with kids. This leads to lines of people waiting to start a fight, and maybe some very polite kids out there are missing out on fun while waiting to finish that one last Lost Soul for a quest. I don't think KI is going to implement this and start losing business because ALL people, not just kids, would be affected, and disaffected, by having to wait their turn.
What you are demanding would totally change game mechanics. Too many people on servers unable to fight because of crowding. I personally think the way they came up with was a brilliant balance between the issue of crowding and making it easy enough for kids to enjoy.
As a long time hard core gamer, and a parent, I would like to say that this IS a kids game made for kids. Don't like sharing? This is one of the few MMO's made for the kiddies. There are tons more out there for adults. Pick one and play without the aggravation of immature people, or put up with it and politely try to teach them better manners if they have text chat. If they don't, not much you can do.
Edit (02Sep09): Last night, what you describe did happen to me. Someone deliberately joined my battle, watched me die, then when I asked him politely not to do things like that anymore, it is rude, he laughed and told his companion (who couldn't read what he said, only had menu chat) "It's just you and me now, *****." This makes it seem as he did it to others. I would mark this behavior down in any other game as "griefing" and would like KI to acknowledge such behavior as reportable. However, I am marking it down as just the normal rude behavior you are going to get in ANY massively multi-player game. I can also see how they might not want people to report it, as it is hard to prove they did it, and MANY innocent players including myself have been drawn accidently into someone else's fight. I really don't think they can do anything about this, short of making fights not joinable, and as I said before, this doesn't seem reasonable either given the game numbers.
While I agree that people joining in on battles especially late in the battle and the ever annoying fleeing afterwards can be a problem in some cases. my remedy for it personally it just what this user suggested.
I typically look for a realm that is "perfect" or "normal" and play in that realm they tend to be less crowded making for less a chance of someone joining in on a battle. Granted it might not be an end all be all solution as I have seen almost all realms crowded or higher at times. but it's a good temporary without having to complicate the game further with a new card, or menu option.
I have to agree this is a game for kids. I play also though with my two daughters, both under the age of 10. They do understand the game mechanics and know how to setup npc for kills and so forth. I do however, think that something should be done about allowing others into your battles. Over the past few weeks it has gotten really bad with people joining a battle just to pull other npc's into it then fleeing. That happens to myself and my kids every night at least 3 or 4 times. We do switch to less crowded realms, but it happens there also.
Bottom line, it's most likely adults who foot the bill for the kids to play the game. Even if I didn't play also, I still pay for it and if it's being ruined by others, "Just because they can" and KI turns a blind eye to it, then I will unsubscribe. Not going to pay for a game that is being ruined by others and we shouldn't have to switch to another realm to enjoy the game. I know I'm not alone on this as I have talked to many who are fed up with it.
This post has been very informative for me. I am new to gaming, and not a kid (maybe at heart) and not much of a strategist either. Unlike my kids, I find it difficult to catch on quickly to game etiquette. So this has been helpful. I am not a player who watches on the sidelines till 2 or 3 rounds are done, however if I am not in a rush somewhere I have popped in to help someone out. I never considered that it would be rude. The reason I did this is because I've been asked a couple of times, so I thought it was just a helpful thing to do! Now I know!! I will ask before I join in a battle from now on. I have also been pulled into a battle inadvertantly and I know that is not what you are speaking of. I agree with the ideas of teaching proper game etiquette, or having to ask before you join a battle are good ideas. Thanks for the info everyone! But don't forget that some of us aren't kids, and just simply don't know better!!
Now I know some people will accidentally get pulled into your battles and I understand that. But when I see some standing nearby waiting til I'm nearly finished fighting or nearly dead and then they enter the fight just to stay one round, pull in an additional enemy and then flee, . Please make an option, so I can stop people that are not in my group or friends list from joining fights that I don't want them in. .Robb0730
I join this dicussion as both an offender and a victim. I am adult woman over 50 who joined this game to enjoy a MPG and still be safe from Rude/Crude behavior.
You need to give better explainations of the Battle Screen, I used to change my spells whenever the change button appeared... I messed up other peoples spells because I did not know where to look to check what spells others had cast... I have ported to friends in a battle because I did not know they were in one. Maybe this could be included in the message about their location. "Your Friend is in a battle right now...
I am a Healer and I have joined battles only to heal/support the dying Fighter and then ended up with the best prize in a school I can't use. There should be a direct correlation between the extent of health/mana you expended and what school you are and the loot/prize you receive. I received a quest item that I did not need after a gauntlet I was invited to because I did not know not to touch it. Could there be an opportunity at the end of a battle for the players to voluntarily exchange prizes? It could function just like the Trading Cards Screen. And recently I was a victim of the "join and flee" gang, in Krok. That should be reportable but require a pattern of repeated offenses, not on the same victim. I have inadvertently left a battle when our local net did its almost daily hiccup.
Please have a little patience with other players and feel free to warn players not to join your battles. It should be on Menu Chat in Battle Mode. thank you for time
after reading the whole thread and thinking about it here is what I think, those who think it's funny to watch another player die, shame on you, go play somewhere else where you will die so I can watch on the sidelines and laugh.
I have been playing almost a full year, in that time I have made very few friends. Most of the players that do what this thread is about either are not paying attention or the game drags them in. I, for one say I'm sorry and try to play the best I can. You can not avoid all fights, or what kinda game would it be?
The idea of a button or way to stop others from joining your fight is not that great. I have a lower level wizard that does thier best to kill what is dragged in to the fight, and you want to keep ME out too? I can say I DO know how to fight and will share shields when I get them. So how will you know it's not me your keeping out? It would be next to impossible to do what you are suggesting.
Interesting thread indeed and I read all the posts. I tend to agree with the first poster and their frustration with players who just pop into your battle without asking. Been there and, in the beginning, done that. I ask now.
However, this game was designed for kids like it or not. KI must be pleased as punch that many of it's subscribers are now adults.
I have a solution. Depending on the number of players 18 and over compared to the minors playing the game, designate the proper percentage of realms "adults only". Minors would be unable to play the game in those realms. Adults however would still be able to play in any realm allowing them to play with their children for example.
That, in my opionion would solve a lot of problems not limited to the "battle intrusions".
Before I started playing Wizard101, I used to play Everquest, and I started that when I was 14. I didn't know all of the "etiquette" when I started and I really do not expect everyone to know all of them.
In Everquest, battles aren't staged out with enemy limits or player limits. Also, anyone who decided to just "jump in" and help without being in your group meant that someone won't be getting anything from the fight (no xp no loot no kill credit). Credit was given to the "team" that did the largest percent of the creatures remaining HP. Of course, this meant a section of the community thought it was just fine to come steal your kill, while you suffered. Another group of people took advantage of the "no limit" rule, and would intentionally get as many creatures chasing them (make a train), and then run it past the player who was fighting in an area they wanted or creature. then "ran away" so that all of the other creatures either went back for player 1 or would have to at least walk past them, and kill em anyway.
This game has turned these two very vicious past-times into a near impossibility with the battle ring. The biggest source of these were the rarity of some creatures, I spent nearly 4 months trying to kill one "boss" for a quest drop, and it only spawned once every 8 hours, did not guarantee it would drop my quest piece, and I also had to assemble enough people (at least 8 people around my level/gear) and get their and engage it first and pray that whoever came to check on it wouldn't train me and my team. Here in W101 there is no real benefit to joining a fight adding more monsters then running, as most creatures respawn within minutes of dieing and if you really need it that badly, you could help that person and still get credit/items.
All that aside, I don't generally like to solo, and since battles take so long as is, I do not appreciate a random person jumping into my fight unannounced. If that player happens to be a little slow with deciding attacks, but makes decent decisions thats one thing (decent meaning, you check to see what creatures already have traps on them or pay attention to the battle to know who did what that round) but when people jump in, take the full 30 seconds to make a decision, and then they decide to ruin my plans over and over again, its unbearable. Sometimes I would rather have a third or fourth creature to face alone from others joining and running, then someone who joins with absolutely no intention of helping til the last second for free items.
I like the idea of "restricting" who can join my fights, but there isn't a good way to really implement it without people turning a "fix" into an even worse exploit. Pop-ups mid fight asking if that person can join can prevent you from selecting your spells, and if the person is just being a jerk, when you deny them they will just run in again causing another pop up. Setting an option like the teleport to friend, sounds great, but when you really need or want help, having to toggle that option may get you killed anyways.
Now removing unwanted players can be a good route. No spell to eat up a turn, and who's to say that the person joining you decides that itd be funny to boot you or worse does it just so you do not get anything. The only fair way I can think of is having it as an option kind of like a "friend request" and only the player who started the battle (or in slot 1) can do it, and only under special circumstances. Those circumstances would be "PlayerX has entered your fight in the middle of a round and during that time you can remove them" or "during PlayerX's first round BEFORE all players have selected an action" and then the final circumstance would be "PlayerX has Passed more then 6 rounds in a row"
I have just found this thread and I too have had many, many frustrations to "friends" porting to me, finding out that I am fighting something way over them and they end up fleeing after they have brought in another foe.
The option that you can have people not port to you is helpful, but that does not help the ones that are passing by your battle and gets dragged in and then they flee also.
I do think that it would be nice for players to have the option to lock their battle rings would be nice. Or if players do decide to port to their "friends" to have the common courtesy to tough out the battle since they did port to their friend.
Some things that would actually help and not really slight anyone:
I play Toontown by Disney and have for over 5 years. Features there that I really like are these following and they could be incorporated here and would solve many of the problems.
One, have the friends drop down, when highlight a friend, tell you what realm they are in, what neighborhood, and let you see their current stats, like how much life they had. For instance, if I just came on and wanted to see who was on or find someone to play with, I might click on Michael Moonlight in my friends menu. I would then open up a Michael Moonlight screen that would show me he is in Moo Shu in Unicorn, and show me he is at 500 life out of 1955. This would let me decide if I wanted to change servers, if I even wanted to go to Moo Shu, suggest he is in battle, and since I am life suggest that it might be a good thing if I did click in and join to heal, especially if he is not life. Then I could click and ask him if he wanted help or not.
Another thing that is just as important, or even more important: when transporting the wizards to each other, the game should put them out of battle range, but not necessarily in a safe zone either. In other words, I could be in battle in Moo Shu and Michael Moonlight decides to transport to me, whether he has looked at location and stats or not. It would put him down outside the circle of battle, far enough he would not be drawn into the battle inadvertently, but might put him down next to a different monster or even in a clear area BUT NOT IN MY BATTLE. He could always ask then to join, or not ask, but would have a choice as to whether to enter the battle or not. That way if all he wanted was transport to Moo Shu (lets say he had not earned his passport as yet to come on his own thru the spiral), he could just take off and do his own thing, never disrupting my battle or drawing extra monsters into my battle.
I really feel this would help a lot of the battle jumping. The reason this lack is so upsetting is that I do like to try to solo a lot in previous battles or even sometimes in new ones, even against high level bosses, but one night the same person jumped in my battles and would jump out because he would realize that was not where he wanted to be. I lost several battles this way that night (and other times as well), would go heal, collect mana, and come back to start the battle again, only to have him do it again. And I was in an instance which disrupted the whole time frame thing as I was on a limited schedule that night. Needless to say, I never finished that instance that night due to replay of the same battles over and over again because of his jumping and enemies he would draw in before leaving again.. That meant the next time I signed on, I had to start the instance all over again. I also took him off my friends list before I left for the night. I had even asked him to stop that. One battle he popped into and out of four times in the SAME battle (same from start to finish, not starting same one fresh). One battle wound up taking me almost an hour to finish and then I still lost. I battled like six or seven monsters in the same battle when I should have only had two!!!
This is the same reason I no longer transport to someone unless they ask me to, or if I ask them where they are or if they need help. If I do transport into a battle, I will stay and finish that battle in its entireity before going on my merry way.
IMHO, freely joining battles is one of this game's good attributes. To curb abuses, I suggest the following.
1. Replace player that left with a minion from their school. The level of the minion would mirror the level of the player. 2. The player wanting to join is placed in a holding ring. The existing players are given one round to call minions. If the minions take up all existing space, the new player is booted.
Someone else mentioned a pop-up dialogue coming up when someone wanted join. Something along the lines of, "Allow X wizard to join battle?" Then you could control who can come into your battles.
I can see potential abuse of this option, so maybe it could be for a certain level and above? Lower level players in WC and Krok wouldn't need it as much as those in the tougher areas.
I like this idea.
Today I used a treasure card dragonblade I got from bazaar a long time ago for a helephant combo. Me, a balance friend and his death friend had a bunch of traps set up, but then a low level wizard(no text chat) comes in, and wastes them with a frost beetle.
With low level players that can use text chat, I don't mind that much, because I can tell them what's going on, as long as they listen to us, and don't attack, but with menu chat low level players, I can't tell them what's going on, and all our hard work is wasted. So I think this idea should be in the game, or, maybe a little better, have the higher level players be able to summon a protection pox(pox that only puts on shields) or a damage pox(pox that only puts on blades and traps) for little to no pips. This way, other players can't join the fight and mess up combo attempts, and since their ther pox like in DS, the traps won't be wasted by them either.
The pox would be useful for players trying to defeat a certain enemy and not have the XP wasted by someone else, and it would be useful for players who like to make high damage combos with a bunch of blades and traps.
