What to do about griefing on the Knight Bus?
IJustWantToFly
Posts: 3 ✭✭
Long time player, first time poster here. I've played quite a few Knight Bus battles in low and high chambers and have seen a wide range of good, great, and not so great behavior, but was finally driven to ask the question after something I experienced this morning.
In a Dark 5 lobby, we quickly gathered two magizoologists, two professors, and an auror, all showing level 4 runes. Three of us hit the join button. There was a long pause while one of the professors and the auror had not joined. Finally, with plenty of time still on the clock, the professor joined. Five more seconds passed, and just as I had gotten suspicious enough to be reaching to cancel my join, the four non-aurors found themselves dumped into a Dark 5 with no auror. You can guess how well the battle proceeded from there.
It's good practice to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. But some time has passed and I still haven't come up with any other plausible explanation for what happened, besides intentional griefing. Is there a place to report a player for griefing? I do have their in-game name.
Comments
Honestly I don’t see this particular scenario as being one to report. If this were me (professor) and I saw only one auror, I personally would have backed out in D5. I like at least two aurors at that level to pass focus quickly. I would just chalk this up to that particular person not liking the particular balance of professions, for whatever reason. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to that. Was it unfortunate for the rest of you? Absolutely. Was it malicious or intentional? Probably not.
As a side note, if I see there is only one of a certain profession, I don’t hit join until that one person does first. Because in your case you only had one auror show up, so if they don’t join, you’re all out of luck, as you saw.
Also, I’m not familiar with the term “griefing.”
Mr. Sci Guy, I respectfully disagree with this case being justifiable, and here's why.
I have yet to fail a knight bus Dark 5 with only one of any one of the professions, whether A, M or P. It's near routine. Even one each of two professions and triplets of the third profession, WITH an unfavorable mix of enemies, is still possible without potion usage if the two solo classes make good decisions and get good support. Not ideal, but I've been there more than once and it isn't awful. Most players in Knight Bus Dark 5 know what they're doing pretty well. If there is only one of whatever profession, take a look at the mix of foes and see if the solo profession will be under a lot of pressure to defeat a lot of foes, and if so, adjust accordingly by supporting that player with an immediate shield charm, hexing their targets, and extra attention from the magizoologists. (Don't always go proficiency charm first blindly in every situation, sometimes a shield charm or two first can be absolutely key to getting past that first and most important wave of foes.)
Let's say that you disagree with the above, now let's talk about lobby behavior. Don't click join if you don't like the team. If you're the only one who doesn't like the team of five, and the other four players are all okay with it, you have a few options. One is, quickly leave before the other four all hit join. Another is, if you're too late and the other four all hit join, then you can take advantage of the remaining time on the clock to just sit there and wait for one of them to realize you're not onboard and unjoin. It can be a difficult choice if lobby time is running down. Once I joined a Dark 5 with only four (balanced professions) players because the other three had all hit join and with three seconds in the lobby, I didn't want to ditch them. The four of us won with two minutes to spare, without using any potions.
None of those scenarios are what happened to me this morning. With a good forty seconds or so on the lobby clock, and just five seconds after the fourth other player joined, the only auror ditched us. If they had waited even a second longer it would have been okay because I had just gotten suspicious enough to be reaching for the cancel button. The game even gave me the sound effect of me clicking the cancel button, but then a split second later the four of us were in the battle because we were ditched so quickly. What else am I supposed to think about that person?
I will be following your advice regarding not clicking join until the solo profession does first. Up until now I have only been doing that if the solo profession is showing a level 1 rune. Today's person was showing a level 4 rune, which I took as a sign that they were more serious.
'Griefing' means to perform actions in a co-op game that are deliberately detrimental to other players' gaming experiences, for the laughs.
@IJustWantToFly i understand what you are saying. So today I was on the hunt for a probity probe so I played with some discord members and after they had to leave I decided to try a few more rounds for Forest 4 for the probity probe. So not a lot of people want to do that level it seems as I would sit and wait and wait then finally got a team together and what happened? I got an important phone call I had been waiting for a week so I had to cancel out of that battle. There were like 30 seconds left. So real life things do happen.
I am not making excuses for this person but who knows what happened on their end. Now if you see this person doing that repeatedly then I would understand the griefing! Which I kind of like that adjective!!
Hopefully that made sense.
@IJustWantToFly I totally get what you are saying and not disagree with any of it.
Im not saying it’s not possible to win D5 with any of the mixtures you have mentioned. In fact I’ve done it numerous times. I’m just saying it’s one thing many people probably look for and use as a deciding factor as to whether or not they want to join.
In your specific case that you described, should that person have waited a little bit longer to clue you all in that they might be hesitant? Yes.
Are there things about the Knight Bus that can be and should be improved? Absolutely. Number one being invite codes for friends to link up. Another being an indication before you enter a chamber that there are 15 seconds or less on the timer (like a color change to the title). Another being the issue you are describing, such as if that last player decides to back out, adding a temporary 10 sec timer to allow the other four to decide one last time if they want to play. I could go on and on.
😉
Since the Forum apparently doesn't like philosophical aphorisms, I'll rephrase it in a more "family friendly" way:
Griefing would be more like a groupentering a battle, then kicking you just before the last foe goes down so you don't get any loot . Or Ninja looting. (obviously you can't do this)
I think most of the problem is that you can't communicate. You can't send a message saying 'sorry guys I really don't have enough energy to burn' or 'I was really wanting a solo lobby'. All you can really do is use the 2 minute timer to your advantage and bail at 1 minute if the group doesn't suit you. Yes, you will get dumped into battles at the last minute occasionally , but that's the risk of PUGs, only way around that is to play with an organised group.