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People can't take advice
Quirhid
Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
Recently I've noticed that when you give people advice in multiplayer games their immediate response is usually very negative or even hostile. Some people clearly don't want any advice when they play. None. Few of my friends play Rift and they've somewhat complained that when they're trying to give advice to people what build best suits the group at any given time, they are met with hostility and rage quits.
I've noticed this behavior most recently in Shogun 2: Total War's multiplayer too. My friend and I tested some of the game mechanics and noticed that any buffs or debuffs to unit's speed do not work, retainer, skill or otherwise. They just don't work. I thought that it is easy enough to believe since the game has oh so many bugs and broken multiplayer anyways. But when I got into a match where my opponent was using these debuffs/buffs and told him this, he called me a troll.
In World of Tanks when you tell them how they should play their tank's strengths rather than doing what they do, the usual response comes out: F U! Normally I wouldn't care what they do, but when whole teams success is resting on their effort, I have to say something.
I don't know if the advice is taken wrong but I see a pattern here since my firends get the same response when they give advice.
What do you think?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Comments
I do the same thing ( in league of legends) but to be honest i'm starting to think we're doing something wrong.
We don't have the right to tell others how to play,and even if we are right, 99% of them don't give a shit about what we say anyway,especially in a mmo like rift
Just let them learn the hard way. :'|
Don't know what to put here, honestly.
Nobody likes unsolicited advice, anywhere. Try walking up to someone on the street who is doing something that you have experience in, and cold-calling them with a tip. You'll probably get a similar response.
Depends on the approach. If you're talking about the stuff and you tell them "My friend plays a Class B, he likes to build it like this <blank> when he does <whatever>." That's a suggestion, it even gives them a chance to say why they pick what they did for the same task.
However if you "cold call" people on stuff...IE they have no association with you and you start telling them what they should do with their char.....you've just told them how to play before you ever saw them struggle. There's a chance they know more than you about the game and choose to just play it the way they do because they feel it's a difficult way to play and they want to be able to say they did that before it was fixed/addressed/whatever.
Too many chiefs and not enough indians. Everyone is a professional.
I actually have the opposite happen more often but I guess it depends where you live.
The only think you can do is to sugar coat your suggestion (not making it sound like a demand), get others to agree with you, and back up your info by pointing them to the forums or something. If they accept, great, if not then move on.
It's better to reach out your hand to someone who's reaching out to begin with than to risk reaching out yours first just to have it slapped away.
Kinda like how I hate when others try to take the "error" out of my "trial". When half the fun is trying in the first place. When I truly get stuck, only then do I seek help.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
If you've never practiced coaching or leadership skills; then yeah you're probably getting a negative response because you're doing it wrong.
Ever play a multiplayer game and see everyone respond magically to that 'one' person who turns things around for a victory? I see it from time to time.
There's ways to practice those skills and oddly humans are much more preprogrammed to do some things socially than they'd like to admit. If you want to lead people; you can't be passive aggressive about it either. Your tips or suggestions probably sound more snide than helpful. In text that's how people generally read advice. Word your sageful insight towards the game or the situation and not AT people is the best place to start.
From there I think natural talent has a role.
Most people just don't take criticism very well. Especially when they didn't ask for it.
Always read the small print.
I've heard that phrasing used once before at a job by a guy who was holding up everyone else and repeatedly doing dangerous stuff to himself and others. I decided he was the reason they made machines as idiot proof as possible because he could have used the machine he was in control of to kill half of us in the day if we didn't use the safety features it had to stop it.
I guess we can be thankful that similarly ignorant people in games...worst they can do to you is get themselves killed or end up on your ignore list.
I understand where youre coming from.
I feel the same way when Im in a battle ground, or a scenario, or a warfront, or a faction warfare gang.
But do YOU understand where THEY'RE coming from?
Let me put it the best and simpelist way I can think of - until you pay for their subscription, keep your advice to yourself.
Or maybe another way to think about it, and this is how I deal with it. Is I can change my gameplay on the fly and support (ahm, carry) the weaker player. And honestly if youre so good (or your friends are) that you can tell people how they're playing wrong and how they should be playing, you should be 'leet enough to compensate too.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
I was in a Rift warfront last night, and this message pops up in party chat: "I can't believe anyone would think it's a good idea to go for Vault right off the bat when we are shorthanded." Sadly, that's the type of "advice" I most often see--no strategizing with their team upfront, just passive-agressive whining after the fact. So it's no wonder people aren't very receptive. As for builds and using abilities, you can't assume everyone has your playstyle.
Now I'll make a comment or give advice if I see during a match, especially in The Codex, that people dont understand the mechanics.
And just so you Rift players know- In Codex all you need to win the map is to hold the flag at The Codex and just one other. Or if the other side has The Codex you need to hold all three of the other flags.
hint- **its easier to hold 2 flags than 3 flags that are spread out across the map**
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Most of the time I have seen people give their advice whether it is warranted or not the reason the person tends to be hostile is because the way the person provides the advice is by insulting the player and intially being hostile themselves.
Not always, there are a few times I can think of where a player is honestly trying to be helpful or knowledgeable in their remarks and ends up getting flamed without reason. Not very often though.
I have to say most of the time the "advice" has been unnecessary, insulting, and on more than a few occasions either downright wrong or simply a matter of personal preference.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
This. You might do it with good intentions but usually it is a very sensitive matter. You need to sugarcoat it and make sure you don't insult the other person which can be particularly difficult as you don't know the person, you can't see the person (you can't get a feel for what type of person they are), you don't even know where they are from. If they are from a different nation, their culture may be very different to yours.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Have you ever tried to give advice to people between the ages of 14-24...they know everything already.
I really haven't seen the greatest level of maturity in the 30+ age bracket either.
...and I'm in that age range. Granted in a lot of other areas that logic seems to apply more often than not but in the world of online gaming it sure as hell doesn't. Some of the larger freakouts and perverted behavior I've witnessed has been from the older crowd.
About the only set trend I've seen amongst a lot of younger players is the need to act like a complete jackass at times on vent and chat channels.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Just to be clear, ppl giving advice dont always know what they're talking about. They like to think they do however, and this has sometimes been a problem for me personally. I've been healing in mmo's for about 8 years, I'm very good at it. You cant tell ofc, I could be one of these know-it-alls I'm complaining about in this very post, but ye
Been in lots of guilds, read lots of guides. There's always some smart*ss pointing to this and that fotm-spec with reference to whatever uber guide. I remember lots of times in WoW guilds ppl point to elitist jerks for example without even doing a single bit of math themselfs, and guildmembers of say Paragon or whatever. "Oh look XXX is using this build, its clearly divine" No, he's just a good player with a certain style, he's not a numbercruncher and other builds are in fact better. Lots of times these guides and hardcore raiders are just flat out wrong. They arent in lets say Paragon again coz they are the number one numbercruncher in the world. Its because they have LOADS of playtime, AND they have a decent build which they put to good use. Key here is how you execute it. You can be the specwiz of all time and it doesnt matter if you cant put it to good use. Oh look its a another rant lol. Nvm
I believe that the purpose of this thread is to offer the original poster advice on how to better offer unsolicited advice to other people, and see if the original poster takes the advice.
Very good post. I also think advice would be more positively received if people asked first if the person wanted their help. Since tone, physical presence and facial expression aren't present in text, some written display of intent helps to let the person know you are looking to be helpful and not to school them on how wrong/newbie/gimped/etc they are.
"How did you do against that [mobname]? Was it a PITA?" Something like that allows the other player to engage in a non-confrontational matter. They may reply that they were just trying out a new weapon or damage type, or maybe that they were goofing around. They may also reply that the thing was kicking their ass, which is a perfect invitation for some advice from a more knowledgeable player.
The entire conversation could be shortened even by something as simple as "Saw you fighting X. That thing used to toss me a beating until I found out that his knockdown isn't overpowered, I just didn't have a decent counter for it." Empathy and indirect advice on one combination presented more as a conversation than as giving advice.
There's also the matter of speaking the same language as the person you are addressing. If they appear to be versed in text-ese, present your advice to them in that manner. If they appear to use that archaic 20th Century dialect (full sentences, capitalization and punctuation) then even the most crude of attempts to show some command of the language one is using can go a long way toward getting a message positively received.
Not everyone is looking for advice and not everyone really cares if they aren't doing something the most optimal way. Obviously that presents a problem in team-oriented content, so if one's goal in presenting their advice to better optimize the team, it's in their best interest to choose the most effective path to have their advice heeded or at least positively received.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I don't know... in GW (where gave advice aswell) I played in one of the most prestigious guilds and come to think of it... people took my advice better then.
And while I was a NCO in the army, ofcourse people took my advice (cause if they didn't they were in a world of hurt).
In WoT, I can be the toughest tank and top scorer in the match and people still flip you off. Not to mention in the Shogun example I was twice the level than the guy who I was trying to direct. I'd get it if they just didn't see me as an authority figure, but even if they could, they don't care. They just don't want any advice. No matter how badly they are doing.
Sure I can sugarcoat it, and my friends could too, no doubt. But after a while when its your 1011th guy your trying to direct into right way, it gets kinda frustrating. You lose the patience to it. And still you have to do it because your teams success is on the line. So you leave the "softening" out.
I have no problem taking advice myself. None at all. But people in Rift still argue against you when you show them from a DPS tracking program how bad their original build is. These guys would refuse to change their DPS builds when the tracking shows them doing about the same amount of damage as the group's tank for god's sake.
I'm just amazed how lost people are and how badly they take advice. What in human nature causes people to act like this most of the time? I haven't seen "thanks but no thanks", not once. It is nearly always hostile.
One thing I don't do is say "told you so" when they eventually do something wrong. That would wrong on my part.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I agree with you, and giving advice is fine. Clearly, the player(s) who went for Vault instead of Codex didn't understand the strategy. But posting a condescending comment in chat is not the way to help.
The language bit is definitely true. Long conversations in the chat are tedious to write and tedious to read. And everyone gets written text a bit differently. Depends on your culture etc. However I'm pretty sure I could convice most people to my point of view on voice chat, but usually people refuse to use it and in the case of random matches, it is not an option. From my voice, they could hear that I mean good. And it gives me an opportunity to immediately check my listener's understanding and correct myself if need be.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
It usually depends on how you give advices. A friendly and helpful advice is usually not pissing anyone off. But many people tend to be whiny or rude.
If someone ask me if I don't consider trying build X because it probably will increase my effectivness in the group I listen and think it through. If someone on the other hand explain to me that both me and my build suck I tend to think hes an asshat who just like whining.
The key here is advicing and helping people, not ordering them.
I am not saying that you do this of course but at least me don't mind getting advices, but I get somewhat annoyed when people ordering me around (particularly when they are wrong).
I been playing MMOs since '96 and often discuss with people about improving builds and noone ever asked me to FO... Maybe I am very lucky and you are unlucky.
The advice I would give you is read how to win friends and influence people, it might help you understand why other people are hostile to your advice. In the end it mostly comes down to the fact that unless we are seeking advice or we are put into a state that we will accept the advice, human beings are very hostile to criticism. Here is the points from how to win friends and influence people:
Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.