A Question of Etiquette

I think a lot of newer players don't understand how bad dying is.  When they lose badly they chalk it up to an "overpowered" Demigod on the other team. 

You need to point out to them that ANY Demigod that is five levels above them with money to buy much better equipment is going to mop the floor with them.

I stopped whining after the Erebus Nerf since it was indeed impossible to kill him as a Rook player. Even though Sedna drives me nuts >_<.

And as for telling your teammate.....theres goood firm ways to tell your teammate to knock it off without being a complete I AM MORE LEEETZAZZZ THEN YOU ARE!. I would simply say something like...Uh Dude, concentrate on flag capping instead of feedng them k? Avoid them if you can.

Or something like, dude, please be more careful and stop doing that.

Theres nothing rude or demeaning about the truth of the matter. As long as you just say it as it is and don't embellish it with insults.

Players that don't listen to teammates are just bad...  I don't see what point there is to go into a battle and just keep dying.

Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. ;)  So I guess these new players are all insane?

I can definitely take honest, straight to the point instructions. It's in the middle of a competitive match so I wouldn't expect lengthy, politically correct suggestions. A simple "careful next time" would suffice.

That said, there are many levels in between and people get ticked off by different levels depending on their personality and mood at that time.

Frame it as a suggestion.

I've played enough that I now find myself partnered, occasionally, with people I am better than. If they're doing something egregious, I don't say "capture flags" but rather, "I suggest we focus on capturing flags." For the most part, my partners comply. I think they appreciate the advice--they're new, and lost.

I think this is one of those pains that playing random custom games is always gonna suffer from. New players have no idea that you should 1. NEVER DIE. EVER. 2. Killing DG's is secondary to winning , the flags aren't just aesthetic. 3. DONT DIE.

It is hard for new players though, I just hate it how a single feeder on the team can equal a complete loss.

Some new players jsut don't get it, it can be a 2v1 and they are at 50% hp and they still insist on going in.

I usually start really nciely with "Careful man" or "We can't let them get too much money"

I have had instances where I went as far as "I think you should run away at around 50% hp since they are much more powerful currently"

I think a good rule of thumb is to stay nice, if you are losing, whatever, no need to cuss out a noob because that won't change anything, just enjoy the game and play it out.

I don't care who you are. If you walk up to the enemy 5 times in a row, into the same massive minion shitstorm, and die five times, and start complaining how you're underlevelled, I will chew you out. I don't give a shit about etiquitte at that point. If you're stupid, you will be repremanded for it.

It is true that running into a shit ton of enemies makes you an idiot, but who's palce is it to repremand them? My only gripe with new players is that maybe there sould be a minimum number of hours played or something before they are allowed in the Pantheon. I hate getting paired with idiots in a Pantheon match.

Opponents are this way as well.  It seems like if you a new player or dominate them for a game they will instantly claim your demigod is so OP.  Literally the only demigod who hasn't gotten the OP claim from any of the games I've played has been Torch Bearer.  I literally had an opponent scream in chat saying, "THIS IS STUPID SINGLE PLAYER HARD MODE WAS SO MUCH EASIER"

If I suggest multiple times that you take a different route. Perhaps even try killing creeps, or maybe even learning how to retreat, and you ignore that, despite the fact that you fail multiple times, then you deserve it.

Fair enough.

this came up in one of my games tonight. a very inexperienced player died twice in a row in the first 6 minutes of the game. i said "there's no shame in retreating" and he got the message, started playing more conservatively. he still wasn't very effective but at least he wasnt feeding kills anymore. 

Rather than looking for some clever way to tell your teammates that they suck, shouldn't you be looking for a way to help them?

It is in all of our interests to train as large a pool of quality players as we can. This will make for much better gaming down the line.

There are ways to nudge new players toward a certain goal without insulting or berating them. A lot of new players don't really have much of a handle yet on the game. They want to do the right thing, but they just don't quite know what that is. It is up to the more experienced player to help them along.

And I'd say at some point, direct them over to this forum for after the game.

n00bs don't read forums. Newbs too. Trying to determine the difference between the two is quite nearly impossible unless you are experienced with the player in question.

I played a game where a teamate of mine, a Sedna, fed each member of the other team a kill almost immediately. Our team yelled at him, but after that he somehow got his act together and started kicking ass. No more deaths from him, and we actually won the game. My guess? It was an expert who wanted to make the game more difficult for himself. I really have no idea what happened there, though.

All good suggestions.

Perhaps if you have 10 deaths or more in a game (don't scoff - I've seen much worse) you should receive some kind of message from the server - and perhaps bannishment into some kind of remedial league. Not for very long, mind you - just until you could go, say, 3 games in a row without more than 5 deaths.

In any case, different league levels is an idea that makes sense, and perhaps this shoul be determined by your individual stats, rather than just winning or losing which can be a matter of getting lucky or unlucky in who you get as teammates.

Online video game players are more sensitive than 14-year old girls

there's no easy way to tell them, 90% they'll react at any hint of criticism despite the fact that they are 0-5 and severely underleveled.

The only way to go about it is to boost them up on some other aspect, like say "hey your flag capping has been great, you should try and maneuver around to flags that they aren't holding and cap them".

Naz

Naturally, constructive pointers are the way to go; though when in battle (it's an arena, after all), it can be a little difficult to spell out pointers in a fashion that aren't prone to being misread as rude. "Push here?", "Let's team up!" are easy to understand, but "Don't buy priests." is much more misleading - I am after all intending to say something along the lines of "For future reference, it's generally considered a bad idea to buy priests early, as they feed the enemy with XP.". I'm thinking of assigning the priest memo to a macro, but some of the errors done by new players are much less generic.

I don't know how many players actually read the forums, but I guess that's a good pointer too.

I however doubt that yelling at a team mate would accomplish anything in said game; if they don't listen to reason the won't listen to anger issues either.