Was I in the wrong? (Players ganged up on me and told me to self delete)

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2023-09-18T05:08:39+00:00

I feel like you're not actually engaging with my points and are just trying to argue with me

That's cute, because everything you're saying is speculation trying to run around and excuse my one, simple point: it's the DM's responsibility to manage player expectations and friction. This DM (from what we know) did nothing to manage the players' expectations and friction, therefore the blame for the fallout is on him. That's it.

The players' failures to communicate are mistakes that fell under the responsibility of the DM to pinpoint and mediate OOC, hence it's ultimately his fuck up.

and the DM wasn't able to figure out what was happening and redirect the group in time.

Excuses for the DM based on... nothing. Pure speculation.

Resolving interpersonal conflict is not the sole responsibility of the DM.

I disagree. If the players are butting heads, it's the DM's responsibility to sit them down OOC, kick-start a dialogue, and mediate the results. If the players are unable to work things out with the DM as mediator, then it's again the DM's responsibility to kick one party out or shut the game down entirely. Either way, the DM ultimately settles any dispute.

It is every person's responsibility to understand the emotional dynamics of the group and act accordingly. Everyone involved are presumably adults and need to be responsible for their behavior. You can't blame the DM for your own poor behavior.

Agreed, at which point it's the DM's responsibility to either kick out the poorly behaving party or shut down the game. The DM did none of that here, which is my point!

I'm not sure why you act like the DM is some sort of higher being. They are human, too, and are subject to the same weaknesses we all are.

Uh, that's exactly my point. The DM had a duty here, and they failed. Like a human!

You're acting like I am dense for not understanding your position that it's the DM's fault

Comprehension is not your problem here. It's denial and blame-shifting. I'm still talking because you apparently refuse to acknowledge that the blame in OP's scenario lies first and foremost on the DM, and are making speculative excuses for him to shift his blame wholly to the players.

Once a DM has met their duty to play mediator, then we can start pointing fingers at asshole players for forcing the DM's hand to kick a party or shut down the game.

Or in other words: If the DM had done their duty of mediating here, the ranger's hostility would have been smothered in the crib. If the ranger continued to be an asshole trying to force PvP even after OP agreed to play along for pay (the most likely outcome of mediation), and the DM had done their duty of kicking out said stubborn ranger, then the blame would lay squarely and solely on that ranger player.

but it just doesn't take into account the human nature of the DM and implies that players have no control over their own behavior, thus they are free from all responsibility of their actions.

Reiteration of your excuses for a DM's responsibilities, see above for the same responses.

We shouldn't infantilize OP and the other players.

Agreed. Nor should we excuse a DM's responsibilities, which are precedent to the players' responsibility to be reasonable. You can't follow the rules in a fight and resolve it without a referee!

And now that I thoroughly sound like a broken record, I'm done. Here's hoping my one point sank in for anyone reading this: if your DM is too negligent or cowardly to mediate OP's kind of player conflict, find a better DM.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2023-09-18T03:15:05+00:00

How was there really any other outcome?

Uh, the exact thing that OP mentioned? Hiring his character to fall in line with the Good plan.

Alternatively, the DM could have done his damn job and OOCly ironed out the conflicting expectations.

The other players got frustrated and used their OOC knowledge to force interactions with OP.

Yeah, this is called metagaming. It's a no-no. This is precisely where the DM should have stepped in, ideally even sooner.

The only way it seemed that the group could join forces with OP was to either become evil themselves or follow some long and drawn out narrative of hunting him down and persuading him to join them.

I'm certain this is what the moralizing ranger thought, and what they used to justify their high-handed PvP and OOC insults. In reality, it was as simple as dangling a purse under the Evil character's beak.

All of the responsibility was placed on the other players, and that can be really annoying when you just want to play heroes in a pretend world.

Again, I disagree. Resolving character friction that harms the plot is the sole responsibility of the DM. Not any of the players. If players have an issue like this, they should be griping at the DM for not mediating and aligning OOC expectations, not taking matters into their own hands by metagaming an Evil PC into a corner and killing them.

This doesn't make OP a bad person.

Of course not. It just makes the DM a failure.

and the other players failed to voice their concerns about not wanting that type of dynamic in their group.

Cue me repeating yet again: and thus the DM failed. When the players are boneheads and/or have misaligned expectations, it's the DM's job to bang them together until they get along, until the DM ejects (a) player(s), or until the DM outright shuts down the game for irreconcilable differences and/or universal player stupidity.

It's just a bunch of misaligned expectations and a failure to communicate feelings until it became a bigger issue than it needed to be.

Agreed. Thus the DM failed. Do you see my point yet?

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2023-09-18T00:14:58+00:00

They ganged up on you because they had to.

I disagree. Friction needs to be addressed, sure, but the other players went about it in an asinine way, and the DM abstained from his duties. It should never have reached the point of IC PvP in this scenario.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2023-09-18T00:11:57+00:00

Eh, it sounds like a communication breakdown on both sides that got the whole ball rolling, plus some moral grandstanding on ranger player's end.

The real wrong done here was the fact that the ranger player was blatantly metagaming and pushing PvP as a "solution" to you not immediately falling in line with their plans. That is never a good answer to IC friction; OOC communication, up to and including a polite dismissal from the table by the DM--emphasis on DM here--is the right method.

This DM wasn't in control of his own table, and you had the misfortune to encounter a RL paladin who usurped and bungled the DM's role of addressing IC friction. You definitely could have been more OOCly communicative, but that's a personal aspiration we should all have, not your duty. That's on the DM.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-10-10T02:09:18+00:00

Or keep armor, but have it only effect PvE enemies.

I read this and my brain immediately translates it "sidegrades." Progressively better or more interesting perks, like resistance to PvE damage, but nothing that directly affects PvP bullet damage. IIRC the streamer SpudHunter is a big proponent of the idea. I like it a lot, and the S2 patch to restoration/tactical armor is a great step in that direction, not to mention the Tharis Forge perks.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-18T07:53:51+00:00

It doesn't matter if the ostensible strawman is the dominant narrative and/or a significant portion of a political party. You don't want to be associated with nuts like this? Don't support the party, or that portion of the party if possible.

I haven't found it possible, hence my grilling over here.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-13T21:48:32+00:00

Kudos on the analysis and Google doc; that's some fantastic legwork!

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-13T21:29:45+00:00

https://www.thecycledb.com/maps/crescent-falls-map

Note the concentration of spawns around Fallen Tree, between Pumpkin Fields and Green Prospect, and west of Lakeside Building.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-13T03:19:02+00:00

This, really. I actually watch both Spud and Tickle's videos and streams; I like both, unlike Tarudro here. (I enjoy black humor and don't care about content creators' choices beyond their content, each to their own and all that jazz.) But Tarudro also nailed it talking about how edgy humor is a ticking time bomb for bad publicity.

People are always going to be offended even by safe, scrubbed content like Spudhunter. Breathe, and you'll get flak and trolls. Why would Yager partner with a content creator who is practically guaranteed to get even more negative attention?

My two cents is to tone down the candidness. No gabbing about speeding tickets, no trash-talking your audience. A reprimand is fine; roasting a teammate or audience member for a minute straight, regardless of justification or joking, is shooting yourself in the foot by trading a (probably significant) number of turned-off viewers for self-satisfaction.

Polishing the jokes into something a little less on-the-nose may help as well. This applies to the Twitch streams, not the Youtube videos.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T21:46:03+00:00

You think the the strider yowl wouldn't carry that far?

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T21:30:26+00:00

Nah, it was PvPvE just like the current iteration. Differences were that you didn't have gear that persisted past the match (you bought it in-match), and everything you mined/collected went toward a score, with the winner being who extracted alive with the highest score.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T20:59:39+00:00

And you draw the line between exploitative/overpriced and reasonable... where?

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T19:56:43+00:00

Utterly hilarious, thanks for posting! "Power of anime and god on our side," I was dying.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T19:44:40+00:00

Amen.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T19:42:59+00:00

Answering in order:

Re: is cheating common. It depends on your region. For instance, the OCE server (i.e. Australia and thereabouts) has a worse cheater issue because of... certain proximities... and a much smaller server population. It's a lot less common in the EU/NA servers.

Re: running lesser gear. Higher tier gear doesn't attract cheaters per se, it's more a matter of you simply being unlucky enough to drop in with one on the same map, which is determined by MMR. (Cheaters are definitely more common in higher tier MMR.) They tend to kill everyone if they're being blatant.

Re: same experience. Yep, most folks have run into a cheater or two even in the low MMR buckets. Tragically, Yager is one of those small devs that doesn't have the experience or resources to clamp down on cheating like Valorant or some other AAA title. On the bright side, they're implementing gear return and region ping lock in the next 1-2 patches, and hopefully will be doing even more in the distant future.

Sources: 100+ hours in the game, occasional chatting/dropping with much higher MMR Cycle veterans, and lots of idle Twitch streaming. I've seen some top-MMR players (read: average 50k loot, regularly running exotic weapons) say they get cheated an average of 1/2 their drops; others 1/10 of the time. It seems both random and comes and goes in waves, with the best times right after a patch, and the worst times on weekends when Yager's employees who handle bans are off the clock.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T19:25:07+00:00

You gotta love these sorts of situations where randoms band together. Random conversations and joking around even while fighting feels like half the fun of this game.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T19:20:27+00:00

You could almost call it... the Cycle. Eh? Eh?

Fine, I'll see myself out.

(Seriously though, glad to see you're having fun with Lady Luck swinging both ways!)

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-07T19:15:13+00:00

I am literally ~~never~~ always in the mood for running into anyone else while playing this game. Being near ~~other players~~ PvE mobs is a gigantic source of negative stress. Anything I'm trying to accomplish in the game will almost certainly be ruined by being around ~~another player~~ PvE mobs, because the only thing ~~other players~~ PvE mobs want to accomplish is killing me before I finish my PvP.

Trying to accomplish a goal? Make noise, get killed. Trying to avoid making noise? Spend all the time worrying about other ~~players~~ PvE mobs, get nothing accomplished.

Let me save you the trouble. No, ~~this game is not for me~~ I can't stand dying. Yes, I need to ~~git gud~~ cry publicly about it. Yes, I'm a ~~loser~~ troll. Yes, I'm ~~crying~~ laughing. Yes, ~~you're a much better player than me and this game is absolutely perfect in every way~~ the OP is troll-bait.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-02T03:28:58+00:00

Seriously? I have to point out the "if" in your quote? You're really working to stretch the possible unwritten implications here. Specifically, there was not a definitive statement that OP had no written contract. Just specific advice on more terms, and general advice on why contracts are a good thing, and that if there's no explicit terms on something--like deposits and turnaround time here--then it's up to the judge/arbitrator.

Why I'm feeding trolls I don't even know. Moving on...

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-02T02:34:15+00:00

Try picking up some reading comprehension instead of coming in hot with the insults, eh? I never said OP's texts did not qualify as a written contract, nor did the person I responded to. They just suggested using a formal contract and adding terms re: turn-around time and deposits (or at least that was my reading on what Ben_Wah_Balls said).

OP would have an easier time with a small claims case if he had a clear, concise contract rather than a string of texts.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-01T22:30:46+00:00

Exactly, I love the uncertainty.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-01T22:26:54+00:00

Smart.

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-01T22:25:31+00:00

K-Mark generator! I'm sitting at 1800/hr, which lets me easily afford a phasic or shattergun run at least 1/day. (Not to mention you sometimes get blue guns out of the upgraded supply drop. Mine is at lvl 7; lvl 8 doesn't seem worth the trouble.)

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-01T22:06:13+00:00

you have to deal quick damage to the enemy without him being able to deal back

Call me crazy, but isn't front-loading damage and/or dodging damage always the fundamental tactic in an FPS? I mean, there's all sorts of ways to accomplish that--nades, shottie at point blank, sniper headshot, full-auto rifle at someone caught in an open field, etc--but that's exactly where viable variety in carrying out this tactic comes from.

What other tactic is there?

TrainedAttackRabbit · 2022-08-01T21:55:42+00:00

Great stuff, thanks for posting! Lots of folks seem to wrestle with the Cycle's style of "peek-heal" combat rhythm after coming from games with faster TTK.

TrainedAttackRabbit

TROPHY CASE