Patch 3.3.5: Changes to vote kick incoming
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 1st 2010 at 10:40PM
Zarhym hit the forums earlier this evening to announce a change coming to the dungeon finder in the upcoming Patch 3.3.5. For those who behave themselves, the cooldown for starting a vote to kick a player from your party will be removed. For those who kick players out of those parties more frequently, the cooldown will remain. The quote:
ZarhymWe have found that most players using the Dungeon Finder don't use the Vote Kick feature or abandon groups very often. For these players, we are removing the cooldown on voting to kick players from a dungeon party. In contrast, those players who tend to kick players or abandon groups more frequently will notice that the Vote Kick feature maintains its cooldown. The goal here is to make sure players who are generally patient can make use of the Vote Kick feature when they really need it, without giving a more powerful tool to those who try to kick others or abandon dungeon groups very frequently.
This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.
This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.
You might remember that they started tracking this sort of information as of patch 3.3.3. They have been tracking the number of times you kick, the number of times you are kicked, how often you've abandoned a party and a few other things. While this change is a new one, they have been collecting the data for some time. There's a Santa Claus is Coming to Town parody somewhere in here, but I'm not musical enough to pull it off. Help us out?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
zdave Jun 1st 2010 10:50PM
i am not imaginative enough to think of possibilities for abuse, but it seems like there is a gaping hole just waiting for something to fill it....giggity.
i guess maybe if somebody "needs" to be kicked because they're awful, nobody will want to do it to keep their stat low. just like surgeons who don't operate on people who will die during surgery.
JaneLame Jun 2nd 2010 5:57AM
A lot of people were already abusing the old system. Instances could be completed within less than the 15 mins it takes to votekick, so some just AFK-leeched.
A grand improvement is to add an anti-AFK mechanism like on battlegrounds.
Personally I've never seen anyone that got kicked due to low stats per-se. I have seen someone kicked because he joined the instance with 0 weapon skill and expected to level it during the run. I have seen a DPS with 0 gems and enchants getting kicked too. That's also leeching in my opinion, expecting others to do the real damage while you won't spend 20g on icewalker for your boots.
Hollow Leviathan Jun 2nd 2010 6:12AM
I only kick people who are either actively trying to make my run difficult, AKA griefing, or people who insist on playing so badly it amounts to the same thing. I've kicked a hunter only dpsing via their pet and a druid with 71 points in resto who insisted on using hurricane only after everything died.
I've still gotten cussed out for being a cold bitch for kicking these people. Seriously, I consider it griefing if you're doing sub200 dps and won't accept advice.
I hope Blizz keeps letting me make these judgment calls.
Rai Jun 2nd 2010 6:44AM
Scrubs fan much?
BAHill Jun 2nd 2010 2:35PM
Some sort of improvement needs to be made! I agree with JaneLame, a mechanism must be put in place to allow party members to kick AFK or D/C folks from the party on a shortened timer such as 2-3 minutes. You can complete an instance in the time it takes to allow you to kick a party member with the current 15 minute rule.
I recently had a run of Heroic Forge of Souls where a member D/C just before the initial pull, we couldn't boot him because we had to wait 15 minutes. As we were all over-geared we were able to 4-man the instance, but it would have went a lot faster had we been able to replace that DPS slot with someone who was participating in the instance.
I have initiated a vote to kick people if they are not keeping up be it healing, DPSing, or holding aggro while tanking. I am a pretty patient person and will whisper the individual and see if they have all their stuff configured correctly or if something is going on. After 2-3 wipes caused by this individual I do Vote to Kick! With that said, I have had folks enter a dungeon and say "I have never done this one" or "I am kind of new at this role, let me know how I can improve" and I will not kick them...everyone has to learn somehow! Generally folks who open with these type of statements are very receptive to input on how to improve.
Zim Jun 2nd 2010 2:38PM
Great! Now we can kick the XP leechers!
Many dps keep doing that! Amazing how people dont bother to help at all.
Maybe some kind of auto-kick afk player as well?
Zim
xxxsnowflamexxx Jun 1st 2010 10:53PM
Oh shi-
Vogie Jun 1st 2010 11:15PM
That's right.
It's Eclipse. For Vote Kicking rights.
Henchwench Jun 1st 2010 10:59PM
Awesome. Would have been really nice to have been able to vote kick that hunter in Halls of Stone last night who entered the dungeon and said "btw i got no arrows" and proceeded to just walk around after us, despite being told multiple times he could easily port out and buy some.
I don't vote kick often, but that would have been a good place for it.
Pat Jun 2nd 2010 12:23AM
O.O You are kidding right? Some Hunter actually did that!?
TR Jun 2nd 2010 1:10AM
He must've been friends with/the alt of the tank I got last night who kept saying "afk for a sec" after every pull. Oh yeah, this was heroic VH so there was never enough time before or after combat for us to kick him. We kept yelling at him for it, then he ported out of the dungeon after the second boss, and lol'd us when we wiped on the next wave of trash. Good times.
Mehrik Jun 2nd 2010 2:40AM
Or the mage in my group who felt their wand was their best friend. Rotation equaled ice lance, ice lance, wand, wand, wand. Not for one pull -- for all of them. 80 dps at level 69. I'll normally leave each to their own, letting a person play their toon they way they see fit, unless they ask for advice, but this was too much. After confronting the mage, and making sure the rest of the group knew what she was doing, and getting no response at all, I had to give up. Sadly, the rest of the group really wasn't strong enough to carry the slack. Was I wrong to quit? It just seemed like in-your-face lack of effort.
JA Jun 2nd 2010 3:53AM
The 15 minutes wait time to initiate vote kick is a double edge sword. On one hand it's good to prevent all the GS-whores from automatically vote kicking people who are just starting out (maybe this won't be an issue anymore since with this update people will be reluctant to use vote kick without good reason?). However, sometime you get really unlucky and get stuck with the king of douchebags and really wish you could kick them (irl).
I got into a similar situation, but it's with an idle tank (you know the type I'm talking about - the kind of assholes that just sit around and do nothing after entering the instance because he knows you can't kick him or pull without him). Well, this punk made the mistake of moving away from the entrance (Utgarde Keep) and dance around to mock us, so I whispered our healer not to heal him. Then I activate Trick of the Trade on him and began using Fans of Knives on the mobs in hallway. Before he knows it, six vrykuls were beating him senseless and we all just laugh as he drop dead. It was the best heroic I ever been a part of.
vazhkatsi Jun 2nd 2010 3:02PM
or the tank and his 2 dps friends who decided to afk until they could kick the dk dps, "because they didnt like dks." i wanted to shoot someone after sitting there for 10 minutes trying to get them to start
ZombiePaul Jun 1st 2010 11:00PM
Win.
Lissanna Jun 1st 2010 11:01PM
He's making a list. He's checking it twice. Gonna find out whose been naughty or nice.
Ghostcrawler is coming to PUGs.
He sees when you are abusing vote kicks. He knows when you kick noobs. He knows when you've been kicked out of your groups, so be good for goodness sake!
Aticus Jun 1st 2010 11:03PM
They see you when you're looting.
They know when you've downed Eregos.
They know when you've been good or kicked.
So be good for you're own sake.
Cyanea Jun 1st 2010 11:02PM
Now all we need is the ability to vote kick a player more than once, and I'll be happy.
Yes Blizzard, sometimes the replacement sucks as bad as the person you're replacing.
WoWie Zowie Jun 1st 2010 11:03PM
i had a dk meleeing without weapons, and never said a word either so i couldn't put him on ignore. i tried to kick but got the error "you can't vote to kick for another 15 minutes"
so annoying. i'd rather have someone that will actually, you know, TRY. forcing a group to 4 man a dungeon is rude and not being able to kick that person is a real downer
Stan Jun 1st 2010 11:09PM
To ignore someone who won't talk all you have to do is type /ignore DouchebagX-server name.
It's not as easy, but it works and is worthwhile.