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Before anybody gets the idea that this is a plea for somebody to powerlevel me--that's the last thing I want. But it's a situation that was pushed on me under false pretenses (well, not so much false pretenses as not letting me know at the outset that it was what was up), and the guy who did it gave me grief because I don't want him PL'ing me all the way to Ace.

The situation, I get an offer to go up into the wild black yonder with somebody I know, says he's gonna do a mission. I know he's higher level than I am, I make sure he knows it; I think, 'Great, I can fight alongside and learn from somebody who's been at this longer than I have!' I believe my words to him were, "Cool, I might get killed doing it, but if it happens it happens. At least maybe a 2-2-2-2 pilot could be of some use to you hopefully "

His answer: "well, you won't be doing much fighting, but you'll get a huge XP bonus "

Huh? <--my thought. As I said, there was no talk about what my role would be, just 'get in your ship and come with us!' pretty much.

I go along, find out there'll be an Ace along with us, and I'm like, 'Wow, could really learn something from him!' Before we go up, I tell them truthfully it's my first time teaming up with anybody in space, never got the opportunity before, ask if they have any pointers...no response, dead air. We go up there, find the first bad guys: "stop here, chess" with me about eight hundred meters from the Rebels. I do so (won't say what was in my mind, the censors wouldn't like it), wind up watching them fight from a distance...then hear, "we disabled two of them for you chess, kill them". Gee, thanks, throw the little girl a bone after you big strong men do all the MANLY work...

It continued in that vein: "stay here with the transport chess" was next. I finally jumped into a battle, got wasted (committed suicide really), gave an insincere "Sorry guys, chalk that one up to experience," often my code words for "That totally sucked and I'll sure never be stupid enough to do THAT again!" and went back down to the ground. Didn't learn a frickin' thing, how could I when the battles were all happening hundreds of meters away.

Last night, I told the guy who invited me up to that fiasco that I was going into space for awhile, only planning on doing duties for XP...and he immediately wanted to go on my missions with me. I told him flat-out that if it was as a partnership, sure, if it was him doing the missions FOR me while I hung back and twiddled my thumbs, no bloody way. That did it, for almost an hour I get paragraph-long tells from him, talking about how it sucked to do missions in JTL, how I needed somebody to help, didn't call me names but came close to it, said at one point that for his tier 4 mission he was overjoyed to sit back as a passenger in somebody else's ship and let them do all the work, and that if I didn't ride somebody else's contrails all the way up (not in those words, but that was the jist of it) that he hoped I was happy staying at tier 2 forever. At one point he compared it to a Jedi master with a padawan...I don't have the special edition ESB DVD, but somehow I don't recall from the movie Yoda ever chopping off anybody's arms and legs, then saying to Luke, "Kill him now you can, and get full XP, yes, heeheehee."

Never once did I say I didn't want to team up, I'm not some mad soloist, the most wonderful times I've had playing SWG (aside from that one I outlined above) have been when I was teamed up with others, it's a rush. I love it when I can contribute to my team and feel like we all did great! There's a big difference between being a useful member of a team and what happened that day, I was not made to feel useful, that was no partnership, that was them carrying me along as baggage.

Am I in the wrong here? Should I sit back and take it, decide that having somebody disable everything for me so I can deliver the death blow is the only way to go? I hope not, I don't think I can do that, I want to pay my dues, team up with people who also want to pay their dues. At any rate I think there has to be a better way--there are Aces in this game, who could've powerlevelled the first one of those? Wouldn't some soon-to-be Aces have to have teamed up in a full partnership, got through the missions together?

Thanks for y'all's time, sorry for the long post, I'll admit it was part venting I would really like to know what everybody thinks about this, all the same.

Message Edited by Rolfie on 03-31-2005 08:13 AM

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Kryxal wrote:

Find somebody about your level and fly with them. If one takes missions, you can both get the XP by both hitting a target, and they die faster that way. Barring that, you could likely help with targets, but let the higher-level people aggro them. Last option would be for them to cripple and you play clean-up WHILE there are still targets to deal with ... often, disabling is a good option for the first few ships anyway, and you need to finish them before long or you don't get anything from them.

By the way, since you're at 2-2-2-2, you don't need XP right now. Tier 3 boxes are gained by just doing the missions, and the higher level gear will put you more on a level with them.

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Wayell, saying I was flying for XP wasn't quite correct anyway. I went flying for the experience, yes, but mine, not my character's, every time I fly I get a little better controlling my ship. Tier 2's and even 3's that took me forever to destroy, with the same ship, no modifications since then, a few days ago I know how to destroy now. I know the tier 3 boxes are gotten by missions, not XP, but the one at the joystick still needs training

Really, I've got no problem with working with higher level people either--emphasis on WITH, why I went and hoped to learn something from that jaunt. And was so upset when it turned out to be so totally different from what I wanted it to be. I'm gonna think twice from now on when somebody higher level than me invites me to go flying with them, I readily admit that.

/addignore is your friend, use it, love it.

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Rolfie wrote:

Sure you can back seat for someone and get lots of XP and make it all the way to the top.

But what have you learned? What real experience have you gained?

My daughter is 14 loves the game but was totaly intimidated by JTL. So she backseated for me for a while. She discovered she liked being a gunner.

I reminded her there was more to flying than just backseating for me.

So I outfitted a dunelizard for her, and rode shotgun in my Krayt. When we ran her missions I flew along and winged for her. I did not do the missions but I helped her out.

As she gained real experience and game expereince she found it was more fun. She is now a Tier 4 pilot 4443 on her way to Master.

Instead of power gaming her way to the top she has taken a slower and for her a much more enjoyable approach.

Her goal was to have a YT, but she found out the dunelizard was more to her liking. I have let her fly a Krayt, A AWing, and X Wing on my Alt and she always go back to her dunelizard.

So find someone you enjoying flying with who is more than happy to help when you need it, and will be more than happy to let you fly as you want.

Message Edited by Rolfie on 03-31-2005 08:13 AM

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THERE'S the kinda attitude toward this that I want! Kudos to you and your daughter, that's exactly how I feel. Real experience is gained by doing, not being carried all the way to the top. Sure it'll take a little longer, but I firmly believe the journey is every bit as important, if not more important, than the destination.

Not that I'm not going to play 'gunner girl' on a friend's ship when she makes Ace sometimes, just for the fun and experience of doing that She's up higher in the tiers so I'm sure she'll make it before I do. And I'll likely take her up sometimes as MY gunner when I reach Ace and have my multiplayer ship--she's neutral pilot while I'm Imperial, so it'll be two different ships to play with. It might take me longer to get there than somebody who was powerleveled all the way, but at least I'll know I deserve the rank.

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TomedNor wrote:
/addignore is your friend, use it, love it.

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Mmm, no, really rather work this out with him. He's been a friend for just about all of my two months playing, I'd rather not let a difference of opinion here ruin that. Heck, he's fun to team up with in the ground game, I just may not go flying with him again 'til we're both Aces. Try'n powerlevel me NOW, if you can...

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chessdemon wrote:

said at one point that for his tier 4 mission he was overjoyed to sit back as a passenger in somebody else's ship and let them do all the work,

At one point he compared it to a Jedi master with a padawan...

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He jumped in the back of a masters ship to get his tier 4 mission done, yet thinks he can teach you something? A previous experience with him already showed that all he taught is stay here at the safe spot whilehe does the work. And you're wondering if you're in the wrong? I do hope that question was rethorical.

If I'm helping out on missions people need to have failed them, they need to tell me where they failed and then I lighten the load at those spots. I don't leave them a swarm of space debris. I also ask if they're using droid programs and watch the way they fly and maybe give a few pointers (for those reading that I've helped and didn't do this, I'm not always in the right mood or with plenty of times on my hands). I certainly won't put people in the backseat and do there mission for them, not even for xp.

JTL is about your reallife ability to control your ship, nothing in those boxes you get is going to make you fly better. Actual combat experience does.

That just leaves me to say that that person certainly has the ego of a pilot, but I have doubts about his skill. And there'snothing wrong with wanting to solo your own missions, I soloed all of mine 'cept one and working on my 8th badge now. It's not willing to help out others that lack time, skill or equipment to solo that's the problem.

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Washell wrote:

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chessdemon wrote:

said at one point that for his tier 4 mission he was overjoyed to sit back as a passenger in somebody else's ship and let them do all the work,

At one point he compared it to a Jedi master with a padawan...

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He jumped in the back of a masters ship to get his tier 4 mission done, yet thinks he can teach you something? A previous experience with him already showed that all he taught is stay here at the safe spot while he does the work. And you're wondering if you're in the wrong? I do hope that question was rethorical.

If I'm helping out on missions people need to have failed them, they need to tell me where they failed and then I lighten the load at those spots. I don't leave them a swarm of space debris. I also ask if they're using droid programs and watch the way they fly and maybe give a few pointers (for those reading that I've helped and didn't do this, I'm not always in the right mood or with plenty of times on my hands). I certainly won't put people in the backseat and do there mission for them, not even for xp.

JTL is about your reallife ability to control your ship, nothing in those boxes you get is going to make you fly better. Actual combat experience does.

That just leaves me to say that that person certainly has the ego of a pilot, but I have doubts about his skill. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to solo your own missions, I soloed all of mine 'cept one and working on my 8th badge now. It's not willing to help out others that lack time, skill or equipment to solo that's the problem.

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Good way to help, I think certainly. And yeah...the question was more or less rhetorical. More me wanting to know if others thought I was wrong in my attitude here. I don't really think I was in the wrong, but getting a feeling for what everyone else thought about this is important to me.

And if it turned out that everyone was saying 'You gotta powerlevel, that's the only way to do it!' there's a very real chance KnyghtFlyer would end up as that thing on my datapad that just sits there. I've got an ego too, I've certainly got pride, and relying on others to do everything for me is too big a blow to both of 'em.

Again, that's a big part of what pissed me off, I didn't learn a blessed thing. There's so much I NEED to learn and have no clue about--good example, droid programs! I've no clue how to use those!--and I thought a tier 4 and an Ace could teach me a lot. Not go, 'we disabled two of them for you, chess'...

When ever im asked to help on a mission , I lay down some rules if im assisting in a mission i state that the pilot im helping must do the mission, all im there for is to watch that he doesnt get overwhelmed or jumped by High lvl stray NPC's, basically i insure he does his combat without being over run.. i will thin out the enemy to his or her capacity, they still fight the mission and im just a saftey measure... then when it come to the crunch on the capitol ships i aid by drawing thier fire so the student can actually get a chance in doing some sort of damage to a cap ship by htem selves.

i Do this so that the student pilot learns combat and tactics and ill show them a few tricks to do when in combat , and let them do the tricks. I watch for deep trouble and basically keep them alive.... thats how i Help.

Internet's getting wonky, hopefully this won't double-post. I won't spam everybody quoting your post just in case Five virtual stars for you, Ghost-Raven, since I can't do the real thing anymore, I plan to rob from that practice thoroughly when I reach Ace Heck, even sooner if anybody wants my help prior to then.

Setting the ground rules is a fine practice in any teamup. The two best teamup situations I've been in thus far: before Krayt hunting, we went to a cantina and discussed what our roles would be, who'd need to do what, everybody knew exactly what they could do and we made a wonderful team. The other, before going up on a corvette, we discussed our roles, the objective, and so forth. Didn't beat it, blasted SBD's, but even the newb in the bunch (me) did well all the same. That's the kinda thing I tried to elicit before ever jumping in our ships...and got ignored, I didn't even know what the bloody mission was about, it was just 'Follow us.' Tcha.

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chessdemon wrote:

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TomedNor wrote:
/addignore is your friend, use it, love it.

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Mmm, no, really rather work this out with him. He's been a friend for just about all of my two months playing, I'd rather not let a difference of opinion here ruin that. Heck, he's fun to team up with in the ground game, I just may not go flying with him again 'til we're both Aces. Try'n powerlevel me NOW, if you can...

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Ah, I see, you didn't mention that before... yeah, should be able to work it out with him then