New Players and Lotting

[Taruun]

Last night I was working on my Hume MNK/WAR, had gotten her up to lvl 5 leveling in South Gustaberg(also had my exp ring on). I started to fight a sapling and a kind RDM heals me while I fight, monster goes after him cause of the hate generated by curing me. He dies. I beat the sapling and rest up, telling him thanks for the curing and apologizing for his deathd. I had no provoke since I was lvl 5 >_<.

He asks me what lvl I was and I told him. He then replys "Then my death wasn't in vain" (or something along those lines). I smile to myself thinking oh he's so nice. He then comes back outside and weakens a monster, telling me "All yours." I defeat it and level up to 6.

I check him and he's the same level, 6.

He then proceeds to invite me to party. I accepted, thinking well now i can do toughs better and more exp, right? Besides I had been seeing a lot of players outside low level that had PT flag up and a few lowbies had grouped and started killing things.

Wrong.

He keeps attacking the decent challenge/easy monsters, even after I had said "Let's go for toughs." And every time a monster we killed dropped a crystal or item, he'd immediately lot on it. Every time.

I didn't think too much on it, said to myself well he's only level 6, no sub, so he might want them for money. Not to mention I only lotted on 1 item, grain seeds, which he outlotted me on.

We then proceed to kill a Goblin Weaver. I live, he dies. Not a big deal to me, except he was saying "That was wrong, I shouldn't have died." He had been nuking the monster quite a bit, and with me not having provoke, I can't do much except hit it to try to get hate back on me.

He homepoints, and I go to kill another monster on my own since he's taking a bit. Nice, 108 exp.

We then travel to Dangruf Wadi. We kill a lizard near the entrance and I level up again, much to his dismay. "WTF I die once and you have exp ring.. 75 more to go for me." And he's still lotting.


I'm silent at this point, kinda feeling like I want to play solo. We kill another lizard and a rabbit, and he levels. I tell him congrats, and he says "oh you too, i was rude earlier when you leveled, so sorry."

That made me feel a bit better.. but not much.

We stand on the geyser to reach the ledge and another player runs past us going the opposite way, followed by 3 goblins. We fight the worms that are off to the side since they had aggroed us, and then I tell him "OK, I have to go."
Him: NOW????
Me: Yes now. I have to get up early tomorrow.
Him: OK lets get out of here fast

He then gets aggroed by a IT Goblin and delvls. I run out and start to log off.

Right before I log, he /tells me "Frends?" and I said "ok.." but I hope I don't have this experience again. I'd rather solo.

Was I wrong in partying with him? Or should I have just told him "I want to solo"?

[Centurion]

Re: New Players and Lotting

in my experience teaming up at the lower levels can be fun, but that is usually with people that i am friends with.

as i am sure you are aware the other player may have been a newcomer and was not familiar with some of the technical aspects of party play, hate management, and things like that.
you could have taken the opportunity to inform the player that items will be randomly distributed even if noone lots on them.

i dont think you were 'wrong' to party with him, it may just be that each of you had different expections once you were together.

it sounds like things were civil for the most part, and who knows maybe making them a friend will help both of you in the long run.

hope that helps

[AngryUndead]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Well, you probably should have told him you wanted to play solo, but once you decided to party you could have been a bit more proactive in correcting his behavior. Not that his behavior is your fault or anything, but now he'll probably bother someone else with it (like me, *sweat*).

I've noticed the lotting behavior a good deal with new players. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you just let the loot go it pretty much does a /random for you, behind the scenes. I'm not sure how distributed loot works, but I'm pretty sure thats it. Curse WoW for that behavior.

Looks like you've collected a pet n00b though.

[Macht]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Well, you probably should have told him you wanted to play solo, but once you decided to party you could have been a bit more proactive in correcting his behavior. Not that his behavior is your fault or anything, but now he'll probably bother someone else with it (like me, *sweat*).

I've noticed the lotting behavior a good deal with new players. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you just let the loot go it pretty much does a /random for you, behind the scenes. I'm not sure how distributed loot works, but I'm pretty sure thats it. Curse WoW for that behavior.

Looks like you've collected a pet n00b though.

Yes well there are conditions were you will need to lot. For example when crossing zones, when you do that if all players leave the zone before the system distributes goods the items are lost. If all players except 1 zones then all goods are sent to that single player, this can be bad then if that remaining player leaves and an item was still in waiting distribution because his inventory was full.

As far as lotting go if any of you know this the original Pre-US was that you lotted as the items dropped being curtious to pass if you really don't need the item and another party member did. After the US release it was a majority of the US players around the Christmas rush that started demanding no player to lot on the items.

Take it as you like, can say it's the US players being lazy, trying to cheat a player out of items that would only be fair they get, or whatever else. Or you can just say it's noobish to lot on items, fact of the matter is the method of lotting and such was establish before the US Community.

Part of what attacked the lotting is a false unproven rumor that letting the system choose randomly that it would evenly distribute the drops to the party. This is totally false, lotting or waiting for the system will do the same thing. Just that there are more benefits to lotting then there are waiting.

[Taruun]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Looks like you've collected a pet n00b though.

Looks that way... Maybe I should have told him what to do and whatnot, but most of the time, I usually just go with the flow. I'm not exactly a leader

I don't think it was that bad of an experience.. but not one I'd like to repeat soon.

[AngryUndead]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Oh, I believe in lotting on special need, but I think it is unfair to lot in most situations because I may miss it go by in the chat log and forget to do it myself.

The default behavior for me is no-lot. If I have a special need then I will state it, and lot. These sort of things should be discussed.

[Davitron3000]

Re: New Players and Lotting

You were not wrong to party with them. Next time if you feel like playing solo, just
be polite and let them know you just want to play solo. Shouldn't be a big deal.

If I were you I would make friends with them and let them lot stuff. Then later on
when you are leveling Monk you will have a Support job that owes you, example -
"Hey, we need a support job for our party, and do you remember when I let you lot
all of that stuff?"

[Taruun]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Oh, I believe in lotting on special need, but I think it is unfair to lot in most situations because I may miss it go by in the chat log and forget to do it myself.

The default behavior for me is no-lot. If I have a special need then I will state it, and lot. These sort of things should be discussed.

Right. I usually don't lot on things dropped in parties. And like I stated, the only thing I lotted on was the grain seeds, which I was collecting into a stack for gil. I let him have everything cause I figured he was new and wanted it for the gil, and that maybe once he lotted on enough, his inventory would be full and he wouldn't be able to lot anymore. Sadly it seemed like his inventory was bottomless..

[Macht]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Oh, I believe in lotting on special need, but I think it is unfair to lot in most situations because I may miss it go by in the chat log and forget to do it myself.

The default behavior for me is no-lot. If I have a special need then I will state it, and lot. These sort of things should be discussed.

That's were I have difficulty still, I made it a pretty solid habit to lot on items I needed. Then when that Christmas rush happened I had to try and break that habit, and still am working on it. My prefference is that I loved the method of lotting what you need and passing what you don't. I pass on magic scrolls, silks, webs, etc.. if a mage or crafter I know can use the items is in the party.

I usually make that as part of the introduction, I ask if there are any crafters and which they are working on. Outside of that it's impossible to miss an item if you've made it habit to check prompty after a mobs death. Mage or Melee has no bearing on that difficulty, it's a 2-4 sec. process just Hit F1, presh up twice, and enter.

Which is why I still love the quote, "Nothing reasonable is impossible, it's the unwilling that make it improbable".

[AngryUndead]

Re: New Players and Lotting

I usually don't worry about items in parties. I could care less if they get lotted on. I don't even know what to do with most of it, but I'll hold on to them if nobody else wants them.

I just expect those who want it to speak up. I get plenty of crystals, and don't end up with extra crap.

I have passed on various scrolls before though.

[Theyaden]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Personally it irritates me when I'm in an XP party and someone starts lotting on everything without a word. Had a pt in the dunes where I had been caught with pt lead when the originator left. Right after that one of the people in the pt starting lotting on all the crystals. After he did this I advised everyone through pt chat to lot on what was in the treasure and after that to please let everything fall to where the system assigns it. He protested that he needed the crystals for crafting as I and another mentioned others in the pt also have uses for those crystals. (Note there were 3 different types of crystals and he lotted all of them earth fire water if I remember rightly). Once the treasure was distributated and the lotter discovered he didn't get all the crystals he disbanded and went seeking for another pt. So if you prefer to lot please clear it with the pt 1st since it is not right to have some people lotting while others have the understanding they should not.
If the pt agrees on lotting then by all means but I personally prefer the spam free method in which every drop does not elicit 6 messages "lot results exc" Personally when allowing the stuff to drop I go in and pass items I don't want and let the system distribute whats left, Same odds as lotting, but without the 6 generations of spam per item.

[Taskmage]

Re: New Players and Lotting

I thought the no lotting "rule" in parties was simply because it was more work to lot than to just let the system do its random deal. Why slow the party down by giving everyone the distraction of checking the treasure pool every pull or two to make sure they've lotted on everything?

I really hate it when people say "I need them for crafting" or even "I need them for money." Everybody needs money. The people that don't craft need the crystals to sell to the people who do craft. It's rude to just assume that your needs are more important than everyone else's.

[Karinya]

Re: New Players and Lotting

This is true, but the no-lotting custom is arbitrary and counterintuitive - new players especially may not understand that even if nobody lots, someone will still get the item. They may assume that anyone who doesn't lot on the item, doesn't want it or doesn't care about it (which, in fact, used to be the usual custom, before the US PS2 release - any other old US PCers remember that?).

If someone is a genuinely new player and you haven't explained that custom to them, you don't really have any right to expect them to know it (any more than you can expect them to know hate control without either being told about it, or a lot more experience in party play to figure it out for themselves). Didn't it seem strange to you when *you* learned it?


P.S. People who are really bothered by lot spam should just turn it off in the chat filters menu, just like people who are really bothered by the "Someguy examines you." message.

[Matera]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Agreed... I'm not sure if he didn't know better, but he was greedy. Sorry, but you should've let him know.

[Sabaron]

Re: New Players and Lotting

Well, the manual suggests that "lotting" is standard in parties, so if they read it, SE would have given them the wrong impression of current customs. I'm not sure if the manual mentions that treasure will be auto-lotted if no one lots it :/