I have a strong suggestion, you who are wise enough to come to the forums seeking help.

Back at launch, we didn't ask others to play for us on anything. We worked through problems on our own, or collaborated on strategies in general chat. We did not ask for someone to fight for us, but rather how to improve. As a result, the players at launch are some of the top in the game now. Coincidence? Not a chance.

Critical thinking is the primary reason these players are now where they are. So when you need help on a quest, I recommend not asking for someone to help you on it or to do it for you, but to give you advice. How to overcome the mechanics, how to play your class better, how to improve your stats.

Many of the new players of the game do not think. They don't work through these problems. As a result, a lot of new players ask for help on solo quests. This is not good. It pretty much says 'I give up, someone do it for me'. Bioware, 99.9999% of the time, is not going to release an unbeatable fight. If you're a new player, it's a pretty good bet that someone before you has beaten the fight. That means that something you're doing is wrong. Instead of striving to fix it, you ask someone to beat the fight for you, or with you. This is a problem. This logic seems overly simple yet is true: if you do not seek to improve, you will not improve.

Asking for someone to fight for you or with you shows that you do not care enough to fix the problem. Ever wonder why most group finder groups don't finish without a wipe? Ever wonder why most guilds when they are missing an operations team member or two will rather not run at all than pick someone from general chat? The community as a whole is fairly unskilled in a relatively easy game.

There's one way to fix this, and one way only. Exercise critical thinking. Ask how to beat a boss, not for someone else to do it for you. This is how it was at launch. Those players are now some of the best. Follow in their footsteps, and someday you will be too.

I follow the same philosophy when i'm at work and it carrys over into how i play and do my hobbies. If i dont know the answer to the problem i figure out how to find the answer, i dont ask someone what the answer is. Even when i was at work training people...i didnt simply tell them how to do the job. I showed them how to do something, but i also explained how they get there.

But regarding your OP? We arent talking about a job, we are talking about a game. I do agree with what you said that people need to think instead of asking for handouts or carrys. But i only try to convince people i know, guildies or i will speak up when people saying content X needs to be nerfed cause they cant do it (even though i could). I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince some random person, or random people browsing the forums, on how i think they should play. I dont do it because they are allowed to play however they want, just like i am allowed to play how i want. If they are a rocket scientist or heart surgeon during the day, but when playing a game they want to turn their brain off thats fine with me. But once their gameplay starts to affect mine, that is when i'll speak up. Until then, they can derp it up as much as they want and i'll keep steamrolling stuff.

EDIT: another reason i dont bother trying to tell other people to 'think' is simply because they dont care. Why would i want to waste my time with somebody like that? They dont care enough to improve their own gameplay, they likely arent going to care enough about what advice i have for them. Unless someone shows first they they are willing to listen to suggestions in which case i will help them out. Otherwise i will just assume that the person is just like most others and that they dont like being told what to do or what to think.

I have a strong suggestion, you who are wise enough to come to the forums seeking help.

 

Back at launch, we didn't ask others to play for us on anything. We worked through problems on our own, or collaborated on strategies in general chat. We did not ask for someone to fight for us, but rather how to improve. As a result, the players at launch are some of the top in the game now. Coincidence? Not a chance.

Yeah, I've heard of those days. A friend of mine played at launch. She said it took her hours to kill one boss. And if you think that's fun, sure, feel free to do it. I know people who want to get things like that themselves, maybe to proof that they can.

Critical thinking is the primary reason these players are now where they are. So when you need help on a quest, I recommend not asking for someone to help you on it or to do it for you, but to give you advice. How to overcome the mechanics, how to play your class better, how to improve your stats.

I actually had some troubles a few months ago, with the Archon. I asked tips for it in general chat for 3 times and made a thread to the forums as well. What I got was either "l2p"-answers, or I was told to do something I had done since try number one.

The community seem to have changed since launch, then. You don't seem to get that useful advises anymore, especially not from general chat.

Many of the new players of the game do not think. They don't work through these problems. As a result, a lot of new players ask for help on solo quests. This is not good. It pretty much says 'I give up, someone do it for me'. Bioware, 99.9999% of the time, is not going to release an unbeatable fight. If you're a new player, it's a pretty good bet that someone before you has beaten the fight. That means that something you're doing is wrong. Instead of striving to fix it, you ask someone to beat the fight for you, or with you. This is a problem. This logic seems overly simple yet is true: if you do not seek to improve, you will not improve.

Yes, there is something wrong. However, there might be several things that can be wrong, and not all of them are related to the skill of the player. Person failing the fight might actually be better at playing his character than the person who didn't fail. If a guy who knows all his abilities and knows how to use them is underleveled, undergeared, is using dps companion with dps character, haven't geared his companion etc etc etc, he might fail the fight, while overleveled, overgeared tank with a overgeared healer companion might succeed in it by spamming his basic attack. Be overleveled and overgeared enough, and everything will be easy.

Also, if you can pinpoint the problem to something like undergeared, underleveled, undergeared companion etc, there really isn't much to learn after you realize it. If the problem seems to be that your healer companion just can't keep you up long enough thanks to horrible gear, it saves some money to ask a friend to heal you through the fight.

Asking for someone to fight for you or with you shows that you do not care enough to fix the problem.

Yeah, this is true. Some people just want to see how the story goes, instead of dying over and over again. It's frustrating, and it's not fun, and some people just play this game (or any game) to have fun, not to be good at it.

Ever wonder why most group finder groups don't finish without a wipe?

Mine do. Though I do admit I do more sms than hms. With hms, it's usually so that either the group wipes 0 times or the group wipes 20 times.

Ever wonder why most guilds when they are missing an operations team member or two will rather not run at all than pick someone from general chat? The community as a whole is fairly unskilled in a relatively easy game.

Tbh, I've never found this to be somehow especially easy game, but sure, it's not impossible. The problem is, if they are a little unskilled and happy that way, why should they change? So your guild could invite them to do a hm ops with you, even though they might not have any interest in doing that?

There's one way to fix this, and one way only. Exercise critical thinking. Ask how to beat a boss, not for someone else to do it for you. This is how it was at launch. Those players are now some of the best. Follow in their footsteps, and someday you will be too.

The last 3 sentences sum up the whole thread, imo. If you want to be as good as the greatest, no, don't take shortcuts. If you just want the boss fight to over after dying for hours, ask an experienced friend to help you with it. Usually that experienced friend can see what you are doing wrong and tell it to you after you have gotten the boss down, so you might not have that problem next time.

Anyway, imo is not wrong to ask for help, but the person helping could always think what kind of help is actually helpful. If you go there with an overleveled dps and burn down the boss in 5 seconds, it doesn't help anyone. I usually bring a tank or a healer and just keep the boss attacking me/just heal the person needing help, without actually "killing" the boss for him/her. This lets me to monitor how he/she is handling the boss, and after the fight I can tell him/her what he/she should do differently in the future.

I think with F2P we had a lot more kids join up. My theory being that grownups with jobs will tend to be more thoughtful and deliberate in their approach. Try, try and try again.

This theory goes back several years, and has proven true quite often. You can even tell in chat whether you are dealing with an adult or a kid. But at any rate, I say try to be helpful.

If you like this game, as I do, it's in our best interest to help guide newbies through the tough parts and not be too quick to yell "L2P" when someone asks a newbie question.

I've been questing on Hoth this weekend with my Operative. A Marauder asked in general chat to help with a quest. He was level 40 and kept on dying on a level 38 quest. Even when using Quinn.

So I've helped him out. But noticed right away that all he did was using his basic attacks. He was running around with full fury without using it. Didn't use his defensive cooldowns. Just jumped into a group and went Darth Vader mode. That works when your on the first planet in the game, but not later on. So I've ended up teaching him to use more then just his basic abilities. How to use his Berserk and Predation skills. And also to use stuff like Saber Ward and his interrupts.

Got a whisper from him later on. He thanked me. Things had gotten much easier for him.

I've been playing since launch. With a few months break before the Hutt expansion. I've had to learn everything the hard way. But I'm not the kind of person to go around and tell others to L2P. I prefer to teach when possible. Not everything of course, but enough to get them on their way. And let them discover the rest for themselves.

I think with F2P we had a lot more kids join up. My theory being that grownups with jobs will tend to be more thoughtful and deliberate in their approach. Try, try and try again.

This theory goes back several years, and has proven true quite often. You can even tell in chat whether you are dealing with an adult or a kid. But at any rate, I say try to be helpful.

If you like this game, as I do, it's in our best interest to help guide newbies through the tough parts and not be too quick to yell "L2P" when someone asks a newbie question.

I've been questing on Hoth this weekend with my Operative. A Marauder asked in general chat to help with a quest. He was level 40 and kept on dying on a level 38 quest. Even when using Quinn.

 

So I've helped him out. But noticed right away that all he did was using his basic attacks. He was running around with full fury without using it. Didn't use his defensive cooldowns. Just jumped into a group and went Darth Vader mode. That works when your on the first planet in the game, but not later on. So I've ended up teaching him to use more then just his basic abilities. How to use his Berserk and Predation skills. And also to use stuff like Saber Ward and his interrupts.

 

Got a whisper from him later on. He thanked me. Things had gotten much easier for him.

 

I've been playing since launch. With a few months break before the Hutt expansion. I've had to learn everything the hard way. But I'm not the kind of person to go around and tell others to L2P. I prefer to teach when possible. Not everything of course, but enough to get them on their way. And let them discover the rest for themselves.

Both along the same lines. Double-agree. The 'L2P' thing definitely doesn't help anyone. One of the main things to remember, though, is that the forums aren't the same as ingame. The rules aren't the same. The community isn't the same. Ingame people are going to be ***holes no matter what you do or say. I blame F2P (as JacksonMo touched on. Not every F2Per is a lazy whining kid, but the population of those increased tenfold with the launch of F2P). On the forums it's different. If you're a jerk, you're going to get called on it. Thus, of all the places to ask legit questions, this is it. You could ask in this thread I suppose but to be honest I'd make your own thread or post in a relevant thread (for fine-tuning DPS, probably your server's top dps parse thread, etc). If you ask how to beat a fight and someone tells you to L2P know that they're the problem, not you.

I only give hints regarding quests.

As a story player, I often even refuse to help within other class quests.

Fleet is a little different case.

There I at least say in which Sector a thing can be found.

Personally, this "lack of thinking" is to me just a symptome of something going on in terms of society. Think big.

Op what u seem to forget, is that of those who played at launch, prob 95% was already experienced at playing mmo's & therefore had a general idea of what they were doing. But u have a lot of ppl (myself included) who'd never played any mmo before swtor. I remember during the beta I couldn't get anyone to group with me because I was a "noob", & could barely get a straight answer to a question without getting a smart azz answer (like l2p or figure it out) It was because of this I didn't sub at launch. I'd been told that MMO's encouraged teamwork & helping ppl out, but all I saw was elitism & arrogance. It was like I was in college taking trig for the first time...I had no idea what I was doing, but couldn't get any help. I'm a console gamer mainly & when I play online on consoles its with friends & we help each other. The egotism I encountered (& still see) is amazing. That being said, if someone ask a question in gen chat, if I know the answer I'll tell em. If they ask for help, I'll help em & at the same time give em advice & tips on making their playing easier & more fun. I found a guild that thinks like I do, & I've definitely grown as a player since I joined. Maybe if more ppl adopted a similar attitude then you'd have a lot more players who were good in their roles & thus you'd have fewer wipes.

#each one teach one...

Op what u seem to forget, is that of those who played at launch, prob 95% was already experienced at playing mmo's & therefore had a general idea of what they were doing.

I fear that SWTOR was

Designed For Veterans By Veterans

And Not For Newbies !!!1111eleven

to put it rather cynically.

And it's of course ALWAYS the Veterans who QQ by ranting that "everything has become sooooo easy !!!111eleven"

If someone asks me for help I'm gonna help 'em, elite crowd be damned. So what if they don't care enough to fix the problem? It's only a computer game. It's not important and it doesn't matter. And it is meant to be fun, something I think the majority of people on these forums seem to have forgotten. Ooh, SWTOR is such serious business! Take it seriously! Stop trying to enjoy yourself and go and do your homework!

If this guy needs my help to have fun, I don't mind helping. Better that than he become disillusioned with all the knockbacks and sneering, and give up the game in frustration.

It just warms my heart to see all these crackerjack experienced elite players stop by New Player Help to announce they aren't going to be giving any New Player Help and that new players just ought to think for themselves. After all, the old players didn't get any help, so the new players shouldn't expect any either. They're just being stupid and expecting everything to be handed to them.

As someone who did not even understand that the abilities on my bars were ABILITIES, not THINGS, I bow to your superior knowledge and expertise. However, the rest of what I have to say about your elitist attitude cannot be printed in a family-friendly forum and would get me banned. But since you're so smart and so experienced and so capable of critical thinking, I'm guessing you'll catch my drift.

Personally I usually just join a friendly guild when starting an MMO and just pester them with any questions I have. Though, usually i'll try suss things out on my own.

It might not the the nicest of things to say, though it's usually the people who don't have English as their first language that ask for help, but that's completely understandable. I don't mind giving people help so long as it's not something blatantly obvious.

People who don't know what to do in warzones, even though the loading screens tells you everything you need to know.

People who don't know what planetary commendations do, even though they tell you when you hover of them, stuff like that kind of annoys me

I think the OP and those agreeing with them are D-bags.

I'm leveling my 8th character now, and I frequently will get a whisper from someone: "Could you help me with a mission?"

I reply, "Most likely, can you link it in chat? Shift+Click it."

"{Soandso Quest I haven't done yet}"

"Sure, I'm just about to start that one. Meet you by the speeders."

Then I go over with them and absolutely destroy the mission. While laying waste to everything in my path, I watch the person I'm helping and invariably see some major mistakes they are making. Poor resource management, no synergy with ability use, or sometimes just really slow reactions to changes in the combat. Instead of being a D-bag, I'll offer them a few tips, and typically point them to Noxxic, which is great for rookies that don't know what they are doing. By the time they are "veterans" they'll understand what parts of Noxxic aren't really accurate. Then they might even come back here, and help other New Players.

It just warms my heart to see all these crackerjack experienced elite players stop by New Player Help to announce they aren't going to be giving any New Player Help and that new players just ought to think for themselves. After all, the old players didn't get any help, so the new players shouldn't expect any either. They're just being stupid and expecting everything to be handed to them.

 

As someone who did not even understand that the abilities on my bars were ABILITIES, not THINGS, I bow to your superior knowledge and expertise. However, the rest of what I have to say about your elitist attitude cannot be printed in a family-friendly forum and would get me banned. But since you're so smart and so experienced and so capable of critical thinking, I'm guessing you'll catch my drift.

Hit the nail (and OP) right on the head, buddy. This is the New Player Help forum; of all the things you could post in this forum, announcing to new players that you're sick of helping them (putting it nicely) is like the biggest jerk thing you could post. Don't come to this forum then.

It just warms my heart to see all these crackerjack experienced elite players stop by New Player Help to announce they aren't going to be giving any New Player Help and that new players just ought to think for themselves. After all, the old players didn't get any help, so the new players shouldn't expect any either. They're just being stupid and expecting everything to be handed to them.

 

As someone who did not even understand that the abilities on my bars were ABILITIES, not THINGS, I bow to your superior knowledge and expertise. However, the rest of what I have to say about your elitist attitude cannot be printed in a family-friendly forum and would get me banned. But since you're so smart and so experienced and so capable of critical thinking, I'm guessing you'll catch my drift.

Forums are the exception

Did you know that there is a rule on most new player forums, i think including this one, where you cant troll? When someone needs help and they come to the new player forums to get help, that shows me that they are interested in improving themselves. But it's different if you are here on the forums to say 'new player on harbinger server needs level 55 to help me kill act 1 boss, ohh and i'm only level 20'. There's a difference between asking in a new player forum for help and asking in general chat for someone to carry you.

Now in game it's different. If you are underleveled asking for help with a specific boss a lot of people (myself included) will tell you to stop skipping side missions. You dont really want to ask in game what is the best spec/rotation/stat/whatever because there are trolls out there. And if i'm walking along and i see somebody doing a terrible job of killing a pack or a mob i'm not going to give them advice. Because 9 times out of 10 you will run into somebody that wont care what you have to say. Keep handing out advice to random people and you will see...you'll eventually run into that one person that will lash out at you.

What Jpryde said is pretty much the same conclusion i came too. What's funny is that i came to the same conclusion before i even read his post. The people who would benefit from the OP's advice the most are usually the same people who dont like to be told how to do things. And the people that would listen to the OP's advice are already thinking for themselves.

It just warms my heart to see all these crackerjack experienced elite players stop by New Player Help to announce they aren't going to be giving any New Player Help and that new players just ought to think for themselves. After all, the old players didn't get any help, so the new players shouldn't expect any either. They're just being stupid and expecting everything to be handed to them.

 

As someone who did not even understand that the abilities on my bars were ABILITIES, not THINGS, I bow to your superior knowledge and expertise. However, the rest of what I have to say about your elitist attitude cannot be printed in a family-friendly forum and would get me banned. But since you're so smart and so experienced and so capable of critical thinking, I'm guessing you'll catch my drift.

Hit the nail (and OP) right on the head, buddy. This is the New Player Help forum; of all the things you could post in this forum, announcing to new players that you're sick of helping them (putting it nicely) is like the biggest jerk thing you could post. Don't come to this forum then.

Maybe if you were smart enough to catch my "drift" you'd find it fairly obvious that I never once said or implied I don't help other players. Maybe if you actually took the time to read my OP on a full night's sleep you'd find it quite a rather sharp contrast to insolence. Don't put words in my mouth. If you're going to flat-out lie about my OP, I will report you for trolling and I will move on. This is a serious thread and you're immaturity is completely uncalled for.

Your drift comes off very patronizing, with the tone that if only new players would just listen to how damn smart you are, they might aspire to someday be as good as you. That's a really big brush you're painting this forum with. Any player coming to this forum is already trying to help themselves, and not the target audience you are "helping" by letting them know they don't think.

It's possible that when someone tells you, "If you would just think then you might be as good as me someday," you don't find it insulting. I'd be willing to place a sizable wager that you are in the minority with that reaction. You sound like an elitist jerk, and you decided to post this in the one place that someone asking for a level 55 to kill the Act I boss when they're 20 is not going to read.

Just accept that your post has no place here. Lecturing new players about how they should just THINK and then they wouldn't need YOUR help anymore is extremely insulting. I believe that if you would just think about that, you might be able to realize this for yourself.

Do u c wut I did thare?

P.S. I have never had a player ask me for help with a mission that they were too low level to realistically have. I think helping a level 25 with a level 28 mission on Tatooine is the worst I've seen, and I suggested he do some more FPs, space combat, warzones, and stop stealthing past everything.

I've played SWTOR for 4 or 5 months, as Preferred F2P until a few weeks ago when I subscribed. SWTOR is the first mmorpg I've played. I consider myself to be a noob with SWTOR, and mmorpgs in general.

This forum isn't the only resource for SWTOR information, but I think it is one of the best. However, this forum is "read only" for non-subscribers. I'm not addressing whether or not these forums should be open to non-subscribers. I'm just stating that making posts here in search of help with play is not an option for non-subscribers. In-game chat is the only quick, accessible option for asking questions of folks guaranteed to be currently active SWTOR players available to non-subscribers. Arguably, chat may not be an appropriate solution for those seeking help.

There have been times when I have my level 50 character gathering mats on a planet with missions for levels 20 to 24 (for example), and get a group invite from a level 22 character. I think that is an instance of "I give up; do it for me." I disagree that there's a strong certainty that when this happens, many such players are unwilling to think, to learn.

I don't think it's accurate to generalize that, "Many of the new players of the game do not think." When I was F2P, I spent many hours scouring this forum, and the web, for answers to questions about playing, and strategizing, with mixed success in finding answers. There were times when my frustration was so intense, I thought about asking someone with a character at a much higher level to "do it for me." I wasn't being lazy. It wasn't that I didn't exercise "critical thinking." I was very, very frustrated, and stymied in my search for answers.

Folks who have posted to this thread (and many others) provide helpful responses to New Player Help threads, including a thread I started. As a noob, I appreciate all of you who are willing to help folks, like myself, learn about SWTOR. I do ask that the majority of new players, like myself, not be lumped together with those newbies who act like jerks.

What might be good idea is if experienced sub. players (Say they must have min 2 lvl 55 Characters and have been subscribing for at least 4 months and ofcoruse have been going online regular) put themselves forward if they want to for being online helpers. Add a new specific chat thread in game that is specific to assiting new players away from gen chat.

On the otherside of this players requesting help can rate the advisor that are offering help, so there would be some rating system in place and helpers below a certain rating level would be booted out of the helper group and players with good ratings would perhaps get a small monthly cartel coin amount as a reward, maybe limit the helper/teacher pool to say 50 experienced players max for each sever. With ones booted out for not getting any rating for a while replaced by others.

I would say only allow players asking for help to offer a good rating or no rating I.e a bad/unhelpful rating would be no rating in a sense. I suppose difficult to monitor I suppose by admins But I think if done well would be a good resource for new players and make new players fell more welcome as no doubt some gen chat remarks can really put new players off the game, before they have had chance to get into. Maybe I should really put this in the suggestion box I suppose.

@ NOTACTICS,

It's a good idea, but unless people are given moderator power within that chat channel it might not make that much of a difference cause newbies might still get trolled. EVE online actually has a dedicated rookie chat and help chat channels in game. Rookie chat is where you get put for 30 days when you open a new account, then after that it becomes unavailable. But you still have the option of joining the regular chat channel. Both of them are moderated by volunteer players and when they are around, they are pretty good at enforcing the rules. If people start to get out of hand they will hand out warnings, and if needed they will boot people and temp ban them from the help channels.

Your drift comes off very patronizing, with the tone that if only new players would just listen to how damn smart you are, they might aspire to someday be as good as you. That's a really big brush you're painting this forum with. Any player coming to this forum is already trying to help themselves, and not the target audience you are "helping" by letting them know they don't think.

 

It's possible that when someone tells you, "If you would just think then you might be as good as me someday," you don't find it insulting. I'd be willing to place a sizable wager that you are in the minority with that reaction. You sound like an elitist jerk, and you decided to post this in the one place that someone asking for a level 55 to kill the Act I boss when they're 20 is not going to read.

 

Just accept that your post has no place here. Lecturing new players about how they should just THINK and then they wouldn't need YOUR help anymore is extremely insulting. I believe that if you would just think about that, you might be able to realize this for yourself.

 

Do u c wut I did thare?

 

P.S. I have never had a player ask me for help with a mission that they were too low level to realistically have. I think helping a level 25 with a level 28 mission on Tatooine is the worst I've seen, and I suggested he do some more FPs, space combat, warzones, and stop stealthing past everything.

I don't believe I made myself clear here! Immaturity on this thread is completely uncalled for and entirely untolerated. If you actually cared enough to read my OP, you'd probably see that I encouraged players to ask for tips, not carries. I encouraged players to seek advice, to learn, instead of taking the easy path. It's clear to me that you have no intention of speaking the truth on this forum. As a result, the only thing you're getting from me is a report, a middle finger, and an ignore. Have a great day.

I don't believe I made myself clear here! Immaturity on this thread is completely uncalled for and entirely untolerated. If you actually cared enough to read my OP, you'd probably see that I encouraged players to ask for tips, not carries. I encouraged players to seek advice, to learn, instead of taking the easy path. It's clear to me that you have no intention of speaking the truth on this forum. As a result, the only thing you're getting from me is a report, a middle finger, and an ignore. Have a great day.

No, you tried to encourage and all that. You just didn't succeed very well. That post is very provocative. If I would read it & would "have to read it", I'd probably think "I'll keep asking to get carried just to annoy this guy". You don't mean to sound elitist, but I'm afraid you do. You also won't seem to respect any of the reasons (other than "being too lazy to think/care") people might ask for help. It can be very frustrating if you have tried to beat a fight for hours and would just like to i.e. continue your storyline, but you can't.