Kaizen "leadership"

[Lyall]

You know when ANY leader makes a significant policy change to better their team there's going to be outspoken people whether it was the right decision or the wrong. As a leader, it's your job to assess risk versus reward for your team. Is losing a few disgruntled players worth the benefit of having a dedicated memberbase on the pearl ready to go in the long run? It probably depends largely on what kind of players they are. Chances are, leadership views these people as expendable to the cause- probably rightfully so if they aren't fully dedicated to the team's new goals. It sucks to be deemed expendable and perhaps that's where the animosity is really coming from here.

Just because they are low on membership doesn't mean that they forfeit the right to establish policy to accomplish goals that others may view as unattainable or far fetched. Don't like it? Play elsewhere. I think a few people here are assuming that because they aren't the Kaizen of old they shouldn't be allowed to put these kinds of policies in place...which is an unfair and naive way of viewing this situation.

Personally, I'd rather have 10 players who are 100% dedicated to my team and build the team from there than waste my time catering to people who want to be other places when my team needs them to be prepared to move on a target. This flame should be a flame on the way leadership went about establishing said policy change and shift focus away from the change itself, as I do believe change was warranted in this case based on what you've provided for a background here.

Should probably address this, too, since it makes some good points.

There is nothing wrong with establishing policy to tighten up some loose ends. There's nothing wrong with a leader changing some things that upset people, either. The problem is that Gains defended their action by saying "Well, I don't know, it's policy, I can't change it" which is ironic and shows Gains' character.

The leader made a statement about ENFORCING a rule that SHE CHANGED. Then she said "Well, I can't change it, it's policy." Tack on the fact that this new decree literally wouldn't change a thing about the shell outside of 3 people (who showed up to every event ANYWAY) and what you have is a targeted, intended statement that's clearly made simply to punish or drive out the people in question, namely myself, Ikari and Rampagesama.

If we were online, we were at the event. If we weren't online, we would come running for the event. This wasn't done to tighten anything up, or try to move the shell in a new direction. This was done in an attempt to get us out. When a leader says "This is a deadline, you have until then to comply or get out" you CANNOT make the next sentence "We can discuss it here." You have already put your foot down, you have already made it clear nothing will change.

Since the subject first came up, I STILL made it to every event on time. There was one week where I had a terrible set of events occur and I logged on but was AFK for most of the nights, but one bad week in a year of almost-perfect attendance is hardly something to make a fuss over.

It's not like there haven't been people not on shell at event times, too. We were always made the example of. During one Salvage run, a different leader sent the leader of our group tells demanding us to leave because a KB window opened up. Alberic was reprimanded for ALL of us, despite all of us being online at the time. When we exited salvage, we ran to the Dominion because it was clear we were in trouble. 7 Nightblades showed up to join people and their numbers doubled. A botshell claimed.

Better, though. A /sea all linkshell at the time showed a dozen or so people ALSO online, all on Kaizen. A pair of them were at their keys, doing fields of valor with someone else in the linkshell. It was whatever that scrubby mandau thief's name was and some other guys, names escape me now since he's been gone for months and months and months. No one else was yelled at, no one else got tells, no one else got called out to BD. JUST the Nightblades, and even then, ONLY through Alberic.

We were handled as a click since we got there, so if anyone made it clear we were a separate group, blame the leaders that refused to deal with us one-on-one and lumped us all in as "those NB people."

 

[Lyall]

@Deja, lots of stuff and don't wanna waste 30 minutes formatting:

Re: Limitless's leadership- We were shorthanded from the get-go, so if you're implying numbers dwindled because no one wanted to tough out a change-of-command, there's not a lot anyone can do about that.

Re: Kaizen's policy, the different bill of goods: You are correct, they were completely different sales pitches, but it doesn't mean they get to go back on their word overnight. Well, I guess they can, but they're scumbags for it.

Re: Rone leaving- Had nothing to do with us, Rone left because Ilana/Treg/Gains were refusing to listen to him. No one ran Rone out except for the leaders.

Re: Livvy avoiding us: Livvy is a too-proud stupid cunt with no reading comprehension skills.

 

[Lyall]

Re: JoL wipe. Yes, it was Gains' fault. That's the point of this flame. Gains is a terrible leader. She also didn't know Alberic had a ghorn for a couple months, if that shows you how in-touch with the group she was leading she was.

And I'm gonna take a random stab here: You're posting on behalf of TG and company because they're not allowed to, right? Given all of misinformation you've got going on up there? C'mon guys, deal with me directly, don't send friends to go and post shit for you.

 

[Dejavu]

No actually I called TG and asked him if he minded if I posted he told me "I’m not going to be able to stop you even if I did mind, so go for it," however that doesn’t mean that I am posting on his behalf

As for true not posting in this thread ... see post #23 in this thread

Gains over her head leading the shell, Sure I’m not gonna argue that

Ilana over his head leading the shell, He wouldn’t even argue that

I was in ventrilo the night that Rone quit Kaizen and was he screaming about Ilana and the other leaders… no not really he was having a bitchfit about NBers and how he finally couldn’t put up with you guys anymore and it was the last straw. You know one reason I know he wasn’t screaming about Ilana… because Ilana was in vent with us at the same time trying to tell him just to deal with it.

As for the calling Livvy a stupid cunt… I cant actually think of words to properly respond to that. Livvy is the best kind of person and if she is a "stupid cunt" towards you... you probably deserve it.

 

[Begen]

Yea im pretty sure Ramp was a member in Absoluteperfection but I don’t think he helped run it by any means. I love Ikari as a person but CK never really did anything either… infact if I remember right CK broke before they were even able to get down a prudence. From what I understand about that JOL is that they used the safest JOL strat possible and still managed to die. I agree tho the strategy was the problem… next time bring 30 people. That will fix it.

I don't think Ramp was ever in AbsolutePerfection, I think he helped lead Prowess? Or was at least apart of Prowess LS, however I might be confused with someone else. Anyways neither here nor there.

 

[Mai Ikari]

ITT: Person with second- and third-hand information tries to tell people who were there how their eyes and ears are wrong.

Can you, like, pretend that the people (formerly) in Kaizen might know what the hell they're talking about? That 4-7 people, out of 24, doesn't miraculously cause a wipe to something that can be killed with 10 people? That I, we, might have some fucking experience outside of Kirin? That the things we were told by the leadership were actually said? That some stupid, insulting, unwarranted things were said towards Lyall on the Kaizen forums with no real provocation by Livvy?

Lyall is the best kind of person and if he is "flaming" towards Kaizen... they probably deserve it.
Hey, look, I can use the friend defense too.

 

[Lyall]

What the hell? None of us did a damned thing the night Rone ragequit, wtf was he talking about? TG also posted in this thread addressing JESKA, not anything I said.

And Livvy? No, Livvy's an uppity bitch when she gets an idea in her head. I don't have access to the forums anymore to post screenshots, but when Kaizen asked for some ideas on how to move forward, I suggested we clean up the forums a bit. There are stickied threads from 2008 on the frontpage, and they're hard to navigate. I made the mistake of calling them "kind of cluttered" and Livvy misinterpreted that to mean I was calling the shell trash.

She then misread EVERY single thing I posted for the rest of the day, accused me of only being in the shell for gear, accused ALBY of only joining Kaizen to get Ghorn (she still runs on fridays, by the way) and was a complete and utter cunt over the whole deal, ending with a "Sorry, I overreacted" blanket statement and never commented on it again.

I sure deserved it for having some constructive criticism.

 

[Xalioniaf]

As for the calling Livvy a stupid cunt… I cant actually think of words to properly respond to that. Livvy is the best kind of person and if she is a "stupid cunt" towards you... you probably deserve it.

Lyall is the best kind of person and if he is "flaming" towards Kaizen... they probably deserve it.
Hey, look, I can use the friend defense too.

Get out friend defenses.

 

[Dejavu]

Eh he probably wasnt then all the taru blms seem to blend together over time. I know there was some taru blm with an R name when i first joined AP a few years ago... now i kinda wonder who that was.

 

[Arthur]

Yeah... Kisada fault as well for recruting all 7 of you guys almost blindly. Did he really just do it because he needed the numbers? Not saying you guys are bad but its pretty unfair+ not thinking of the future of the LS.

To the limitless thing, Dejavu speaks the truth on the monday and friday run thing, its totally different.

Monday group- low man but still does everything perfect with 0 arguements.
Friday group- Its usually stressful, people blaming each other for silly stuff and wipes. The merge helped alot but theres still the little drama between the shells its getting better though!
But this is something thats been going on since forever. Its not really people "blacksheeping" knightblade ls, its you guys being to connected to each other, that everyone else can't fit in well, not saying its a bad(trying not to sound negative..) thing but even in friday dynamis when you guys first joined, alot of people ended up leaving because of it. When ever theres something or someone makes a mistake you guys would pretty much attack/destory said person. Instead of just having 1 person simply correcting. I guess I might as well name examples but its happen to dreamingheart about gear choice, jaise like all the time when he complains or ask a question, me when i afked after killing yinyang on THF etc. Some people are quiet about it and left like sakura but thats just to let you know. It doesn't happen much anymore but thats how it was. I think you guys also used vent between the 7 of you guys? Only reason I can think of why someone would do something and then secs later then get a bunch of tells.

Also, i've been invited to kaizen many times before and after the salvage ban when I finally said yes, I was denied and finally found out why. My answers were "knightblade ls" and because I kinda was a little picky on doing sea at all again but thats understandable. So I assume the members get the choice of who joins and when you guys in the shell its pretty much 7 strikes out lol. Also my attendance in the monday group was brought up which I thought was odd because Friday is the one I miss more often due to having high points and stress.(Again, not now but before) Guess its because I leave early monday sometimes D= have a class tuesday mornings.
Just to have my side of the story.

 

[Mai Ikari]

Arthur, you're probably right that the NB being close-knit causes problems when trying to integrate into other groups.

But for fuck's sake, it's NIGHTBLADELS, there is no K. Night. Blade. Linkshell. Actually supposed to be NightBlades, but that name's never actually been broken and <a bunch of backstory with no relevance to the current conversation>. (Personally I don't care that much for the name, but the shell's had it longer than I've been the shellholder.)

 

[Anaeran]

Should probably address this, too, since it makes some good points.

There is nothing wrong with establishing policy to tighten up some loose ends. There's nothing wrong with a leader changing some things that upset people, either. The problem is that Gains defended their action by saying "Well, I don't know, it's policy, I can't change it" which is ironic and shows Gains' character.

The leader made a statement about ENFORCING a rule that SHE CHANGED. Then she said "Well, I can't change it, it's policy." Tack on the fact that this new decree literally wouldn't change a thing about the shell outside of 3 people (who showed up to every event ANYWAY) and what you have is a targeted, intended statement that's clearly made simply to punish or drive out the people in question, namely myself, Ikari and Rampagesama.

If we were online, we were at the event. If we weren't online, we would come running for the event. This wasn't done to tighten anything up, or try to move the shell in a new direction. This was done in an attempt to get us out. When a leader says "This is a deadline, you have until then to comply or get out" you CANNOT make the next sentence "We can discuss it here." You have already put your foot down, you have already made it clear nothing will change.

Since the subject first came up, I STILL made it to every event on time. There was one week where I had a terrible set of events occur and I logged on but was AFK for most of the nights, but one bad week in a year of almost-perfect attendance is hardly something to make a fuss over.

It's not like there haven't been people not on shell at event times, too. We were always made the example of. During one Salvage run, a different leader sent the leader of our group tells demanding us to leave because a KB window opened up. Alberic was reprimanded for ALL of us, despite all of us being online at the time. When we exited salvage, we ran to the Dominion because it was clear we were in trouble. 7 Nightblades showed up to join people and their numbers doubled. A botshell claimed.

Better, though. A /sea all linkshell at the time showed a dozen or so people ALSO online, all on Kaizen. A pair of them were at their keys, doing fields of valor with someone else in the linkshell. It was whatever that scrubby mandau thief's name was and some other guys, names escape me now since he's been gone for months and months and months. No one else was yelled at, no one else got tells, no one else got called out to BD. JUST the Nightblades, and even then, ONLY through Alberic.

We were handled as a click since we got there, so if anyone made it clear we were a separate group, blame the leaders that refused to deal with us one-on-one and lumped us all in as "those NB people."

I'm not saying you guys did anything wrong-- I don't know any of you and I don't know anybody left in Kaizen. I haven't played this game for what, 6 years now? My comments were mostly in regards to leadership in general and perhaps in defense of the decisions leaders have to make sometimes. When I suggested that people involved were expendable I only meant it in the eyes of that specific shell in regards to what they are trying to accomplish-- not as a negative reflection on your character or ability to play the game. Just so that's clear.

I will say that leadership in this case does appear to be incompetent. Unfortunately when that "clique" factor comes into play, decisions tend to be made based on generalizations rather than a case by case basis, which can cause more problems than it solves. I learned this the hard way over the years myself.

I'm really just a nerd who read this thread, became interested in the leadership aspects of the conflict and opened my big yap in response to some of the things that were mentioned. I have no stake either way beyond pure curiosity. /shrug

 

[Arthur]

Arthur, you're probably right that the NB being close-knit causes problems when trying to integrate into other groups.

But for fuck's sake, it's NIGHTBLADELS, there is no K. Night. Blade. Linkshell. Actually supposed to be NightBlades, but that name's never actually been broken and <a bunch of backstory with no relevance to the current conversation>. (Personally I don't care that much for the name, but the shell's had it longer than I've been the shellholder.)

Oops. Keep thinking of Knightblade the character. =/

 

[Dejavu]

ITT: Person with second- and third-hand information tries to tell people who were there how their eyes and ears are wrong.

Can you, like, pretend that the people (formerly) in Kaizen might know what the hell they're talking about? That 4-7 people, out of 24, doesn't miraculously cause a wipe to something that can be killed with 10 people? That I, we, might have some fucking experience outside of Kirin? That the things we were told by the leadership were actually said? That some stupid, insulting, unwarranted things were said towards Lyall on the Kaizen forums with no real provocation by Livvy?

Lyall is the best kind of person and if he is "flaming" towards Kaizen... they probably deserve it.
Hey, look, I can use the friend defense too.

Kaizen probably does deserve to get flamed… im not going to argue that one. They have probably 6-10 members in that shell anymore who know the difference between a dick and an asshole. Hence the reason I stated you guys needed to start crawling first. Kaizen has been on life support since well before the dupe bannings even occurred that’s the reason they took on all of you at once and they definitely deserve to be blamed for this for taking on all of you at once. This is the reason that shell mergers, which a 7 man recruit basically is, never work. For the last year Kaizen has basically been 2 shells. As for the Livvy thing … I cant see their forums so how the hell am I supposed to know but its calling her a stupid cunt warranted?

 

[Lyall]

@ Arthur
We used the Kaizen vent channel initially when we started to try and collaborate, but I don't use vent at all anymore for events. I know a few people do get on, but it's hardly the mob-mentality it might seem like.

As for your application, I recall a number of people mentioning you were sometimes abrasive to work with. The "Nightblades" weren't the ones to reject you, so whomever is telling you these things is omitting some pretty big details. I personally never voted one a member, seeing as how I was still treated like a new person after a year there. My opinion was never valued so I never offered it, especially after the situation with Livvy literally flaming my every response. Fun fact about that: No officer ever stepped in and told her to stop, she was completely unchecked while being a snobby bratty child to another member. You got denied, but it was hardly because the Nightblade People all descended and decreed you wouldn't be allowed.

Do we seem tight knit? Well, yeah. We are. I'm the youngest member of the shell in terms of time-spent and I've been here for two years. Did we all jump on Jaise because he was meleeing a charmed black mage? Yeah, because that's common sense to not beat up on charmed players in Dynamis. I know we come across as something of a hive-mind at times, but that's on account of us all having the same moral compass and general ideas on proper behavior. When someone does something we might find offensive or unsportsmanlike, we generally ALL feel that way. Do things get a bit tense during excitement? Yeah, but the vast majority of it is never personal.

People leaving the Friday runs because of a change of command is fine, but we bled people in a huge way all of a sudden. If we're responsible for that, we were never told. How can you expect a problem to be rectified if it is never named?

@Anaeran
Yeah, no offense was taken, just clarifying some of the points. You've been pretty unbiased in this conversation and I've enjoyed it, honestly.

 

[Lyall]

Kaizen probably does deserve to get flamed… im not going to argue that one. They have probably 6-10 members in that shell anymore who know the difference between a dick and an asshole. Hence the reason I stated you guys needed to start crawling first. Kaizen has been on life support since well before the dupe bannings even occurred that’s the reason they took on all of you at once and they definitely deserve to be blamed for this for taking on all of you at once. This is the reason that shell mergers, which a 7 man recruit basically is, never work. For the last year Kaizen has basically been 2 shells. As for the Livvy thing … I cant see their forums so how the hell am I supposed to know but its calling her a stupid cunt warranted?

Well, I told you what happened. There's not two sides to it. I'll break it down, and I'm not being sarcastic at you, just feel in a snarky mood.

Inability to understand what someone means when they say "This forum is cluttered, we should clean it up": Stupid
Following someone's posts and accusing them of being a gear whore, only in the game for gear, lazy, refusing to show up to events, refusing to acknowledge she was misunderstanding, and closing it off with an incredibly-curt "Sorry.": cunt

stupid + cunt = stupid cunt. Yes, warranted.

 

[rampagesama]

@ Dejavu: Yes, I was a leader in Prowess. I was a leader for my entire tenure there before I took a break from endgame. I was a leader in the short-lived Neptune before that, the sea/Limbus side of Serapis. Serapis, Sky LS that I was ALSO a leader in for a while, after having done sky for years with SephirothsArmy, SephisArmy, SereneEternity, and Serapis. I think I know a goddamn thing or two about leading sky and sea. To say otherwise about myself, or the rest of my linkshell for that matter, means you don't know SHIT about us, and you should keep your fucking mouth shut.

@ JoL: Kaizen still does JoL the hard way with 3 tanks. The reason they have to use 3? They stack their tanks in the same spot, so every one of them is eatting every AoE. You form a diamond out of JoL, 1 tank to the left, 1 tank to the right, and support equal distance from both tanks and only 1 tank has to eat AoEs, and your support can hit either tank. You say they are doing JoL the safe way? Clearly you don't have all the facts.

@ Limitlesss: When you've got people like Shaq that get what they want and get out (he was the leader/upgrader before Alberic, tri-boxed every friday Dynamis, was a horrible strategic when it came to trying to kill his own Animated Scythe to finish Apoc, he got the burden of leadership lifted off of him and vanished) what the hell do you expect us to do? Also, at having ~24 people on mondays? http://forum.ascension-kaizen.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4361 What is this? That is 13, not even close to 24.

 

[Lyall]

I'd like to take this time to thank all of the Kaizen members who are reading this post and not saying a word. I see we even have Meast out in the crowd! This is the most you've been associated with the shell since what, last January? Good to see you back!

We'll have a brief intermission, followed by dead silence from the guys who are accountable for this whole mess.

 

[Dejavu]

We'll have a brief intermission, followed by dead silence from the guys who are accountable for this whole mess.

You guys are hardly being silent

And ramp i already conceded that point about you being in AP when the first person said u were in prowess.

 

[Lyall]

Kaizen probably does deserve to get flamed… im not going to argue that one. They have probably 6-10 members in that shell anymore who know the difference between a dick and an asshole. Hence the reason I stated you guys needed to start crawling first. Kaizen has been on life support since well before the dupe bannings even occurred that’s the reason they took on all of you at once and they definitely deserve to be blamed for this for taking on all of you at once. This is the reason that shell mergers, which a 7 man recruit basically is, never work. For the last year Kaizen has basically been 2 shells. As for the Livvy thing … I cant see their forums so how the hell am I supposed to know but its calling her a stupid cunt warranted?

Sorry, what? Make up your mind, you're either saying it's their fault or ours. I'm not saying we're innocent, but it's on the leaders who were apparently aware there was a problem and chose to do nothing to combat it until it got so fucked up the only option was to force us out.