Who/what is to blame for PUG numbers dropping?

I personally dont believe or have noticed PUG numbers dropping, but by reading most threads recently, alot of you do.

Most threads in the last few weeks seem to deteriate into an arguement about PUGs and how there are fewer of them. The they start blaming certain aspect of the game;

The introduction of Heroes.
The party search feature.
The use of AI and henches.
The campaigns thinning the player numbers out.
The use of websites like guildwiki to find generic builds.
Not using "proper" builds, or more accurately the builds which they want you to use.

Basically blaming everyone and everything except themselves or the real course of the problem.

I say the real course of the problem, but its really just my opinion obviously. An opinion that I have seen a few posters agree with though.

The reason I believe PUGs numbers may be dropping, or the reason why people are resorting to using henches/heroes is because of the attitudes of playing inside the PUGs.

From my personal experience and the experience of others, the vast majority of PUGs are nothing more then immature, thoughtless, anti-social idiots.

(Im not suggesting that 100% of PUGs are bad. The odd few are fine, but rare. And im not anti-PUG. I have used them now and again to do hard missions or exploration.)

Examples;

You enter a PUG and you asked do you a certain skill. If not your kicked without a single word.
You enter a PUG and within 2 seconds, and no talking, they start the mission while your setting skills.
You enter a PUG and no one talks to anyone.
You enter a PUG and the entire time is spent arguing about which way to go and how to do the mission.
You enter a PUG and someone wants to be trigger-happy and kill everything in sight despite you drawing "no-go" lines all over the map.
You enter a PUG and you may be the leader, and you give directions which no one follows.
You enter a PUG as a Necro and ask the other Necro is their an MM, and they say no. Once inside the mission, they start using your corpses.

The list could go on. While alot of those may contribute, to one degree or another, I dont believe they are the main reason.

The popularity and use of PUGs is falling due to the people inside them. The lack of communication or patience, the elite and "I know better" atittudes. But people would rather blame the heroes and henches just because they offer an effective alternative.

Ther is also the "show-off" factor. Alot of people want to play in PUGs to show off weapons, and armor and to kill alot of stuff to look good. They then blame someone else when it goes wrong. They dislike heroes and henches because if anything goes wrong, they have no one to blame but themselves.

We need to stop blaming everything else and stop winging that people dont use PUGs, especially when the main reason are the people in them and their attitudes.

Unfortunately I dont see it being fixed because most people who play guildwars are probably males between 13-25. Most of which are teenagers who play online games because they havent learnt how to socialise probably and they find it easier to talk to people online. Meaning they dont have to look people in the face and feel the consiquences if their rude to them. I would bet that most rude players in GWs, wouldnt speak the same way to you face-to-face down the pub.

But as for the 20+ players. There isnt any excuse for them to act that way, unless they never grow out of the teenage anx, but thats just sad. If your an older, more mature player and you behave in the way Ive described, then you have no right to complain if PUG numbers are falling.

Dont blame heroes, or other new systems in the game. Grow up and accept responsibilty for how you behave.

Any players who come into the game and experience harrassment in PUGs are going to instantly dislike using them and resort to AI. Its not rock science. Its no different to being jumped on down a certain path when you walk home. Your going to avoid that same ruite from then on if its really bad.

[edit]

Some have made comments along the lines of...TEAMWORK

"You should do as your told in a pug and change your skills and builds to help the team, because its team work."

Which in a way is partly true. But only if your "asked" politely. If its suggested that you change your build and the leader goes on to explain why and gives you the chance to learn then thats ok. Chances are you'l agree and learn a valuable lesson about that mission or quest for future reference.

There are also times when (for instance) you might be an MM, but in this particular mission, no bodies exist. So the leader "suggests" changing and explains why. So you go degen or alternative instead.

It only takes politeness and communication.

But Ive rarely seen that. My experience is that you enter a PUG and they say *bluntly* demand a skill change. If you ask why, or say no, or you cant. Then your most likely kicked. There also times when a conversation can be going on and there is a slight disagreement and your just randomly kicked with no explanation.

I can remember being kicked from a PUG for absolutely no reason as an ele, only to then see the game PUG advertising for an ele/nuker...... which I am! I hadnt said anything wrong, or upset anyone and I obviously had the right build.

There have also been those who have said.... PROFESSIONS WHICH ARE NEVER USED

...some professions are less desired in PUGs then others. I.E Sins or Dervish (from what ive read). How are these professions to survive if they cant use heroes and henches?

You cant deny that in GWs, there are certain stigmas upon certain professions. A certain few you hardly see, or you dont want to see or people dont like to use or bring alot. I admit I personally dont like Sins because from experience they die easily and seem useless. But does that mean they should never get a chance in a PUG? ofcourse not. The user might be very skilled.

That either means people never create that profession or those who do, are singled out.

[example - update]

A perfect example of why to use AI over humans;

Tahnnakai Temple mission in factions. I think its fair to say thats its considered one of the more difficult missions (if you consider any hard). This week I needed to complete it for my Rit.

I've done it before several times with my ele and my ranger, so I knew what it was about. Ive got master on it before both times. But this time I figured ill play through factions with PUGs if possible....

...first pug we had 3 leavers after 5 minutes. We all left afterwards.

...second pug chucked me out because they had 6 players and only added me thinking I was a healer Rit, which Im not. I dont have any healing skills (due to lack of funding to get many skills and choosing dmg and protection ones).

...I then spent the rest of the day posting "Rit lfg for mission". No one accepted or invited.

I gave in and tried it with my hero MM and 6 henches. First try the NPCs died about 3/4 way round. Second try we breezed it with masters.

The moral of the story? I could have been stood there the rest of week trying to get a PUG and Im not optomistic that we would have got masters, let alone survived. Why? Most of Tahnnakai Temple was full of people spamming the chat channel with insults acting like 5 year olds. I didnt really want to PUG with people liable to being extremely immature and just leaving or being trigger happy.

And this isnt evidence of why PUGs just fail in so many ways?

Most of us that have been playing since the start would rather chew off a limb than take a group of unknowns. THANK YOU ANET FOR HEROES.

I wouldnt, would you enjoy Guild Wars as a singleplayer game?I spend a fair amount of time looking for a good PUG but when i find one its pretty fun,i do agree with the OP, attitudes have to chanche or noone will want to play in PUG's..wich by the way will also cost Guild Wars players, because i think many of you know better single player games..a multiplayer aspect is essential!

It's simple:

PUGs are usually not well coordinated. Even if a single leader is chosen and the members of the group actually do follow his directions, the problem of timing remains. This usually results in trouble with drawing enemies and focusing on targets.

With heroes and henchmen, in the current system, you may sacrifice efficiency (a coordinated PUG is vastly more efficient than hero/hench group) , but you gain in coordination.

There are some who would want to see henchies and heroes removed to FORCE players to PUG together for the reason that this is a multiplayer game and not a solo game. I say that's just stupid.

If the quality and attitudes of the average PUG doesnt improve, forcing people to group up together will only result in more frustration and hatred towards each other.

Also, people DO actually group up with other people. Most people by now have a steady list of friends and guildmates to group with. I doubt ANYONE is playing this game solo all the time.

There really is no solution to increasing the pool for PUG players. The way this game is set up in instances means that you can't just pick up a player that you run into while exploring areas like in other MMO's. PUGs really are inferior and only really used for the social aspect. Nothing can be done about this.

If you want to PUG, do so over Vent/TS. People are much less likely to be idiots when the party can actually yell at them. It's also overwhelmingly easier to determine everyone's build and what needs to be done.

TS was used widely at Proph. release because of the collector's edition, and it's dwindled off in PvE since. My guild uses Vent for everything they do from GvG to PvE, and it makes things run quite smoothly. Vent/TS won't save PUGs from being horrid, but they might begin to be tolerable for the people who find a lower opportunity cost using Heroes/Hench. Anet even talked about adding their own voice communication into the game, but I bet they dropped that idea long ago.

This problem only got worse soon after the golden age of prophecies (I.e. People were ACTUALLY SOCIAL).

Can't beat a PuG for some missions/quests.

It's equally pleasing to see DoA banned henchies :3

I enjoy playing with others, but random pugs just generally don't work. Mostly I just end up playing in groups where half of the people are guildies whom I know, and the other half are random people we pick up. This way there's at least some chance of coordination and usually the random people catch on pretty quickly. I think that if more good players played in PUGs instead of playing with heroes, there'd be a better chance to get good groups.

Still, I've had my share of bad PUGs and tend to avoid joining them. For the beginning areas it's only normal that most people aren't used to the game, but later on I have a hard time understanding how some lvl 20 players can still act like idiots.

the fact that heros are here allows people to go back to old campiagns and finish off missions.

From my personal experience :

Thunderhead Keep success rate with PuGs : 0/6
Thunderhead Keep success rate with henchies : 3/3


I only pug with my Monk nowadays, as I find it sad to protec an AI.

The quoted post here sums it up perfectly.

Heros are the main reason, the game has become a lot easier to solo in with heros.

my success rate with pugs is good. id take a mismatched bunch of noobs anyday over a bunch of heros/hench that dont talk back, but they will use emotes! XD if it werent for the pugs id have quit playing guild wars a long time ago. hero monks are great tho since real players only make monks to stand around afk, or dance and run around town and not join groups and just tease the general populance with their presence. lmao

It's threads like these that destroys people confidence in PuG groups. Yes I've had bad pugs like everyone else but I've also Pug'd my way through FoW/UW without losing a single soul. I've PuG'd THK numerous times just for something to do and my success rate still stands at 100%.

People that don't PuG tend to be ones with an high opinion of themselves.

"Why are the number of PUG members dropping?"

For the same reason I said they would be more than a month ago - the game is 2 months old.

I rarely pug simply because of the stupidity of some of the players, and the sheer number of people that simply don't listen or pay attention. I'm not saying they have to do it my way, but they don't offer anything themselves.

A very good example is getting non-canthan chars into vizunah local, you can only do this with a pug. Shortly after Nightfall's release I wanted to get 3 new chars there. Non of the group even bothered to respond to me asking if we could take the faster route through bukdek. No, some even refused to believe such a route existed. Well alright sure I'll take the longer route since I have no choice really. People that have gone through the Undercity enough times will know there are 2 afflicted bosses closely together, a necro and a monk, every group got killed by the necro boss and his mob, this was after I suggested to not go past him but past the monk boss instead, again no one ever responded. On my last run I simply aggroed the group so we had to go through them.

Heroes were a breath of fresh air simply because they don't disagree and you can make your own groupbuilds. This is one of the major reasons pugs are dying. Hero/hench ftw

Let's put it this way.

Can you PUG from Docks to Realm of Torment in roughly 6 hours of gameplay? When you're a ritualist? On the first try?

Heroes can do it.

Try PUGging doing something with non-trinty classes (ritualist, assassin especially).

Equpment and builds matter, so does synergy among them. A PUG can work, if you're willing to spend 10-30 minutes coordinating before the mission, finding workarounds for missing skills, hoping that at least half of the group has done the mission at least once before, and that they have max armor.

But then again, there's plenty of warriors in end-game missions with 2 or 3 superior runes, MMs with less than 15 death magic entering an area with no corpses, monks that bring orison and heal party as main heals, and so on.

Once you outfit your heroes and balance their builds, they outperform PUG members in 98% of the cases. It's simple math: PUGs aren't worth it anymore.

And if they allowed heroes for FoW/UW/DoA, you'd soon realize, that even there, they would be a much better choice.

I still do PUGs - but I always do them with low expectations and do it for fun

if I want to complete a mission, I hench or team with guild


with unknowns you can get
- Leavers
- AFKers, who AFK as soon as mission starts
- people who join the group with sole purpose of annoying others
such as drawing boobs and penis images on the map
(used to see this in Prophecies alot )

2 months old?

The game is close to, if not over, 2 years old. Its been around a far while now, so its age has nothing to do with it. PUGs have deteriated because in those 2 years, PUG attitudes have progressively got worse to the point of unnacceptable.

The same AI that protects your when playing other characters?
Irony