Bad PUG. Whose fault is it?

Are you serious? lol must have been before my time. has to because I know THK post-nerf, and that's shit easy :P

My favorite PUG's are the one's that invite everybody in the district and hit 'Enter Mission' as soon as the party's full without even bothering to look at what professions they have in their team, despite everyone saying 'Maybe it would be an idea to have at least 1 monk'

I do like to PUG most missions but if i want masters for a title or feel that its a particularly 'tough' mission then H/H are the way forward.

Some of my best experiences in this game were with pugs, and some of my worst. Pugs are a mixed bag. If I'm inclined to pug some mission, I generally look for the one whose leader is polite, and doesn't spam local (humor is an added bonus). Upon joining, if other members greet you and politely ask about your build, then it's a pretty good bet that all the ingredients for a successful pug are there. I've joined some really bad pugs for a lark, and it's amazing how bad some can be. But generally, you can tell who the bad pugs are while they're forming (by the type of "leader" forming it). If even one member of the pug acts like an idiot, that pug is going to have to work at successfully completing the mission.
So in general, I agree that it's our fault for joining a bad pug. If you don't recognize the signs before you enter the mission, you only have yourself to blame.

Pugs fail when

1) There is no puller
2) The puller over pulls or noob rushes
3) The backline moves up to the puller too soon
4) The monks (or one of them) don't know what they are doing and heal too soon or too late, run out of energy etc.
5) People fail to realize when a wipe is inevitable and don't run away and break aggro to rez up (especially annoying in missions)
6) Some moron goes afk or leaves

These are the primary reasons pugs fail and mostly why H/H are better than pugs.

1) I pull
2) I'm not an idiot, if I overpull I let myself die well away from my H/H
3) Not usually an issue with h/h, since that's what flags are for.
4) My hero monks are bloody awesome, even if they don't have Seed of Life.
5) Flags solve this too
6) h/h don't leave



Regarding monks, the problem is often that they fail to communicate with each other on who is healing whom, and one bad monk can make all the monks in the group look bad.

It's Glenn Danzig's fault. He told me so.

PvE is easy. That is the understatement of the year. To expect someone in my PuG to C-space and hit numbers 1-8 is not expecting too much. To do what the leader says, such as letting him pull, is not expecting too much.

People in PuGs do not listen. This is the problem in GW.

See above.

See above the above.

You see, if people in GW actually listened to those who know what they're on about, PuGs would succeed. But they don't. Newbies listen, whereas noobs are stubborn twats. There are many noobs in GW, and few newbies.

If he told you in the flesh he was probably off tune, don't listen to him ^^
Danzig has always ben some cross-over between Jim Morrisson and Mr Floppy, don't trust him.

this is kind of a funny thread ya know? bottom line is there a pretty simple common sense rules to success in GW. thats why i like it. my life has enough unexpected oooops moments without playing a game full of them. as long as the pugs in question understand the basic mechanics of the game then everyones better off. i read every post in this thread and they ALL have one thing in common, they basically all say dont foul up the situation. do the simple things correctly and we all win. ya cant help if some smack-stick runs in the mob LEEROYYYYYY style. or that one guy the make a dash for a chest, or my favorite the guy that no matter how many times the team screams (IN CAPS) that you CAN NOT do this or that at this junction.....he does it anyways. and why is it always a warrior lmao. now now im not knockin war's my main char is a war. they just seem to have a bit of a god complex. but i digress!! just my thoughts after reading this entertaining yet useful thread.


Cronk

The problems I experience with pugs are the following...

Rage quitters or afkers...
Inexperienced people that aggro everything...
People who don't take suggestions well...
People who switch their skill bars before they go into the mission, then get defensive when you ask if they have "xxxxxxx" skill...
People who flame and attempt to control everything...
Offensive people...
Racist people...

Which all boils down to wasted time for me. Once I got over the concept of time management, I got very good at mmo-type games. I don't waste time attempting to get a group together.

Having said all that, not every pug I've ever been in is bad. I actually met a lot of good friends in pugs, however, they are few and far between that actual good people that you meet in pugs. In my experience, people that are really good generally stay within their guild and their close-knit social circle. They don't really jump into other groups unless it is for a specific reason, and even then, normally have a guild member or two with them.

Lastly, the following is how I normally approach pugs...

I join and ping my build (courtesy)
They say cool or k
I ask them to ping their builds...
I question why they have a monk going LoD...
They kick him and get an HB monk...
I ask if everyone has the time...
One guy says he has to go in fifteen minutes...
They kick him and get another player...
On guy quits automatically...
Followed by another...
I tell everyone I will get some guild members to go...
I hop on vent and ask...
Six players want to go...
I get two of them to come...
And off we go...

PUG's suck, they rage quit, overagro, go the wrong way, heros and hench follow your every command. You fail with heros and henchies, you can only blame yourself. You fail because PUG's ragequit 3/4 way through the mission, its just not worth the grief and ignore list isnt big enough.

Agreed on that. Thats why its important to discuss things prior to entering the mission/dungeon/whatever.
People tend not to pay attention to chat during fighting. Or maybe their chat windows are cluttered with guild/alliance chat, and they forgot to disable it.
But ive found that people do respond to the minimap drawing, and especially to the dinging sound when clickink on the minimap, during battle too. So its a sovable problem.

Because its a team. Yes the team has a leader and thats not you, but you still count.

Another thing i forgot is tolerance.
I see comments like 'expecting people to c+space is too much'...
That doesnt say anything about them really, but alot about you. If you have such an attitude, dont play MMO games.

GW has alowed itself the luxury of H/H.
I dont want to start another WoW vs GW thing, but just to say, wow doesnt have heroes or henchmen. People need to pug for dungeons. And the pugs work!
Imagine why.
My guess is thats because people realize they have no other alternative, so they do their best.

While GW players tend not to put much thought about their role in a team, because they know they always have H/H who dont complain. But thats kinda anti-social if you ask me, and, honestly, sad.

GW is free to play, there are a lot of retards playing the game, and the maturity level is atrocious on average. Putting the responsibility on the "team" sounds good in practice, however, you are as weak as your weakest link. Get a bad monk in your group that decides to stop healing or ragequit in the middle of a mission and your entire mission is shot. No one is to blame for it other than the monk, and you just wasted a ton of your time because of it. H/H never ragequit, they do as you say, and you always have the builds that you think is best. Understand?

Ideally, pugs would be great, however, they tend to fail a lot (not all the time), and it has everything to do with the people on the other side of the internet. The ones that can hide behind the fact that they can pull that kind of crap and get away with it without repercussion. Leechers, ragers, racists, afkers, nubs, noobs, and wannabe leaders... can all contribute to the cause of suck pugs...

Sometimes I wish Anet would charge a monthly and begin to improve on a few things... maybe then there would be new content, less retards, and better support. Until then, we have to deal with the kids and immaturity, inconsistency and erratic behavior that is GW.

But then, if things are so horrible, how come i have great experience with pugs? Yes, theres a leecher occasionally, a leaver and all that, but we make it, despite having 7/8 peeps, and it gives me great satisfaction that we have completed a dungeon with 7 people.

There was a few times when a monk left, but the few times that it did happen, it was provoked. IE the warr dies, but eventually gets ressed, but despite that he calls the monk a noob. The monk gets pi$$ed and leaves.
If people were nice, this wouldnt happen.

Have your healer's rage on you... or your primary tank.

Who's fault bad PUGs are is a totally moot point.

The important thing is, it's never worth the time or energy to make a good PUG, since Heroes/Henchies and/or friends can always make an infinitely better party in a very, very small fraction of the time.

Therefore, it never makes sense to bother making or joining a PUG. Who's fault bad PUGs are is not even worth considering, since even knowing who's fault it is still doesn't make it worth spending (wasting, really) the time/energy to make a good PUG.

But anyhow the answer is, the fault of bad PUGs is that the vast majority of players are terrible at playing the game.

The sad thing about this thread is that i can change the OP's title to "Why heroes and henches are better" and you wouldn't even feel anything is wrong with the OP's post, even with the changed title. Why would any sane person who is not masochistic, want to go through everything that the OP has described to "try" to make PUG's that don't fail? All of the points that the OP says that a PUG fails because of a lack of, heroes and henchies have them.

Expectation.
You know exactly what to expect from your heroes and henchies especially if you understand H/H behaviour and how to control them.

Organisation.
No need, they are H/H.

Leadership.
Well duh they are H/H, they do what you say.

Communication.
Double duh, H/H remember.

The only reason anyone should PUG is if they don't have friends, guildies/alliance members to go with, or they want to fool around and socialise outside of thier guild/alliance. Other than the socialising reason, if your goal is just to complete a normal quest/mission (elite missions excluded for obvious reasons), without failure and you choose a PUG, you are a masochist and any failure is rightly, your fault.

It's because those who can play the game well where the ones who carried pad PUG players through more difficult areas moved into guild or H/H play overtime. As time goes by more do this leaving the ratio of immature, moronic penis drawing wierdo's and decent players in favor of the wierdo's.

That comment makes no sense whatsoever. We now know you have a mesmer and can use the /laugh emote...want a cookie?

Because we are playing an MMO?

WoW pve is more complex than GW pve in many ways.

WoW also tends to filter the crap players straight out of the game more than GW does. WoW also has the advantage that you aren't limited to 8 skills, making PVE a different prospect for a group of adaptable, smart players. In GW, it's all about the pre-planning of team builds. One player bringing the wrong bar, or not playing it well, can significantly mess up a whole team very easily.

I used to pug a lot back when the only other option was henchmen. Pugs sucked then and they aren't any better, or worse, now.

And I'll say this one more time : GW is NOT an MMO, it's a CORPG.

I have plenty of patience for newbies who don't know or understand. But there is no way in hell I'm going to have any time at all for a mending/frenzy/heal sig Wammo vs Shiro at the end of a game. I'm sorry, but by that point you should know better.