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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide for RuneScape       >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering            >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Raid Mechanics

Leadership and Party Management Exploring the Floor

Some RuneScape players do dungeons in teams because they find them more fun; others only endure team dungeons because they get more XP this way. The reason why so many players fall into the latter category is that so many players are awful teammates. If I knew I could reliably get onto teams with players who were considerate and actually acted like a team, I know I’d enjoy it much more. Unfortunately, this is a lot harder than it should be.

There are many ways that someone can be a bad team player, but they all usually boil down to two core problems: ignorance and selfishness. Sometimes people are bad teammates because they don’t know any other way, and sometimes they are bad teammates because they simply don’t care. The former is easier to solve than the latter, and that’s what this page is about: it will tell you how to be a good, considerate team member. As for those who are just selfish, even they can sometimes be persuaded to think more about the team and less about just themselves.

Working as a team of considerate players isn’t just something you should do in order to be nice. A team is not the same as five players sharing a floor; proper teamwork pays off by saving everyone time and hassle. It also means that you will develop a reputation as someone that others want on their team for later dungeon raids.

Just as some leaders don’t think it matters that they are the leader, some team members also don’t seem to care about this either. They will either not pay attention to requests or instructions from the leader, or deliberately ignore them. The worst players in this regard are ones who decide that even though they aren’t the leader of the team, they are going to act like it anyway. They run off to do rooms on their own, they start barking orders that contradict what the leader said, and so on.

Having more than one person try to lead a party causes massive confusion and wastes time and resources. If you aren’t the party leader, you don’t have any business trying to act like the leader, unless that person is clearly not doing the job. If you think you know better how to lead a floor than the guy who is doing it, great: start your own party. Don’t try to take over someone else’s.

You should try to keep up with the pace that the leader and other team members have set, based on the stated objectives for the floor. Going much slower or much faster than the rest of the team will quickly irritate your teammates.

Again, many players are not doing team floors because they find them fun; they are doing them to get more XP in less time. If you agree to join a team where the leader has clearly stated that they are “rushing” the floor, then you should expect that everyone will want to stay focused on getting the floor fully explored and the boss killed as quickly as possible. This is not the place to spend time seeing if you can mage monsters with high magic defence or goofing around growing herbs and making potions.

Conversely, some teams enter a floor with a more casual approach. They may want to clear out all or most of the floor to maximize XP bonuses, or even engage in cross-training of other skills. If you only want to rush through a floor, don’t go into a dungeon with those people and then tell them to “hurry up”.

This is somewhat related to the prior two points. Again, you are doing a dungeon as a team, not as independent players, and so you should try to work as a team, not all run off in different directions.

Some players like splitting up their teams, thinking that by having players do things in parallel they can get the floor done faster. My experience has been just the opposite. Usually when this is done, players get stuck: they don’t have the right key; or they run into a skill door that only some other player has the level for; or they find a challenge that requires all 5 players. They end up wasting more time than if everyone had just stayed together.

The same thing happens in combat. If you take five players and put them into five different rooms in a 5:5 dungeon, they will each be lucky to clear the room without dying, much less clear it quickly. But if all five players do one room at a time, they can get the job done safely, speedily, and with plenty of food leftover for the boss.

There are some exceptions to this rule of thumb, of course. For example, it can sometimes make sense to have one player go back to the starting room to make a potion or do something else needed for the team, and then return. The person managing keys may occasionally travel to a distant locked door to open it, perhaps using a gatestone, saving the rest of the team the hassle. And when you are doing a rush floor with five players on a low difficulty setting, having players go to different rooms simultaneously can be more efficient.

But most of the time, a team works better as a team.

All resources in Daemonheim are limited, and that means they must be shared. There’s nothing more annoying than selfish players who try to hog all of the resources to themselves, especially food. Take what you need, and maybe a little more in case you need it later. But don’t try to grab absolutely everything and leave nothing for your teammates.

I am often amazed at how oblivious some players are to the fact that there are other people on the team who also need healing. I was recently on a team where some guy would just jump on every food pile and try to grab everything he could. At one point I spied his inventory and saw that between his backpack and his familiar, he had over 40 salve eels; the rest of the team combined probably didn’t have that many. He insisted that he only picked up food that nobody else wanted, and that he “wasn’t a selfish player”; he was lying on both counts.

I always summon a beast of burden on large floors, and I do fill it up with food when I can; but only after everyone else has a shot at the drop piles. And I then offer that food to players when it’s time to fight the boss, or even use it on them during regular combat (see below).

When fighting multiple monsters in a room, wait until all of the monsters are killed before trying to grab drops, unless you are low on food and need it immediately. It’s really annoying to be trying to clear a room while some selfish twit is running around collecting up all the goodies while you’re getting beat up.

Going into a dungeon with a team means you are committing yourself to as much as an hour or more to finish the floor. Don’t join a team unless you have a reasonable expectation of being able to stay focused on what you’re doing.

The unexpected does happen, of course, and if someone needs to go AFK for a minute or two, try to be understanding. But every player should make an effort not to mess up his or her teammates. I once did a floor where the leader disappeared for 5 minutes almost as soon as the floor started, because (as he later told us) “his mom wanted him”. Then he kept telling us as we did the floor that his “mom was angry” and so forth. Sorry pal, but nobody really cares: don’t start a 5-man large floor when you should be cleaning your room or mowing the lawn or whatever else it is your mom wants. :)

Everyone brings different abilities to the table; volunteer to make use of yours. If you’re maxed out in non-combat skills, offer to be the “tool person”. If you’re particularly good at keeping track of things, you’d be a good keymaster. High-level summoners should make beasts of burden to collect extra food for the boss. Players with maxed combat and good armor should volunteer to tank fights. And so on.

Nothing makes you more popular on a team than going out of your way to help others. Even small gestures can make a big difference in how people view you and treat you in return.

Some of the little things I often do in parties:

• Offer to make body armor for a player not wearing any.
  
  
• Tell players to inform me if they need to be cured of poison (because I always carry runes for these spells).
  
  
• Point out useful “quick” resources that I can’t exploit myself and that others may miss (like level 90 locked chests).
  
  
• Offer to drop food for players at the boss.
  
  
• Call out when I see a key that the keymaster might miss because it’s hard to see, or just pick it up and give it to him/her later.
  
  
• Make potions for players when necessary.
  
  
• Use food on players in combat who are being targeted by nasty monsters and may be running low on food, to heal them automatically.

The last point is a particularly good way to make friends and influence people. :) A lot of players don’t even realize that you can do this; it’s a nifty feature. And no matter how much food you carry around, nobody will accuse you of being selfish when you are so obviously not being selfish.

Most players follow a fairly predictable pattern of opening doors, killing monsters, picking up food and then moving on to the next door. You can be helpful to your team by doing some smart things that most others don’t think of.

For example, I always make myself magic combat runes so I can cast Fire Surge a few dozen times. Most players melee and that is very ineffective on high-level forgotten warriors; my spells often cut the time needed in such fights by 75%.

I also always collect grimy herbs, especially high-level ones, which nearly everyone seems to leave on the floor. This often comes in handy when someone needs a skill boost for whatever reason.

Leadership and Party Management Exploring the Floor