A Simple Way to Make Pugging More Attractive

Let's be honest: GW is not that great of a single player game.

I liked pugging as little as the next guy back in the day, but it was nice to have at least the option. Sometimes you just want to chat with new people while taking down a quest, or killing the Lich for the 1337th time.

And even things like the Monk Strike in THK, though obnoxious, added to the immersion value and made other players a significant part of the game.

Pugging is now, currently, almost impossible. Better players, myself included, now hero their way through the game at breakneck pace, leaving the poor dumb masses, like my younger brother, stranded in the early areas without hope. Previously, better players would put up with pugs because the henches were too low level, or too poorly built to guarantee success. Now it is our fellow humans who are the liability, as it is likely that the fellow begging for a pug is someone who can no longer find others to carry him through the game.

This needs to be fixed because, as I said at the top, this is not all that great of a single player game.

The simplest way to do so would be to bugger with drops, and to inform players that this has indeed occurred.

This may be confusing and counterintuitive to those who believe that killing stuff in an area shows more skill, and deserves greater reward. I say, bully for you, but stuff it.

1) Gold drops grant the stated amount of the drop to all players, and is not split amongst them. As in, a drop of 80g grants everyone in the party 80g.

2) The drop rate of everything increases for each player with every additional player in the party. Therefore, a player alone has the worst possible drop rate, and players in a group, despite being in a group, have a better chance of drops individually.

Example: Moe the Burrito Monster will drop a Burrito 1% of the time for each party member in a party of size one, but 10% of the time for each party member in a party size of eight. It is also possible that everyone in the party gets a Burrito on a single run (although the odds of that actually occurring in said scenario are .1^8)

3) The quality of drops improve with each player added to the group.

Example: If a single player entered an instance and killed everything, he would get maybe one gold item. If a group of eight players entered an instance and killed everything, they would get maybe two gold items each.

4) Heroes would negatively affect drop rate, so that a person alone gets better drops than a person with heroes.

My proposal is that players should benefit monetarily from grouping, and should be forced to pay a premium for playing alone, or with henches. It would still be possible to solo farm, although it would probably go out of fashion due to the low drop rate.

Could this be abused? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Yes. Do I consider the benefits worth the agency risks? Yes. Measures such as the ones I proposed above would increase both the quality and quantity of groups, as many players would probably decide that a higher rate of drops compensates them for time lost in gathering and prepping a pug.

In any event, these ideas fully utilize substitution effect to change aggregate behavior, and should result in an overall shift towards the desired behavior.

/unsigned
People play how they want to and shouldn't be disadvantaged for doing so.

i disagree with your entire argument. I think that basically what you're suggesting is to try and force players to play with other people because of the prospect of getting more items. And this is basically discrimination against players who actually prefer to play by themselves. I am one of them, and I keep seeing all these posts on why we should be forced to play in groups with real people. If so many of you agree on this, what the hell is the problem?

If they added this in, I think there'd be a huge outcry from all the people who do prefer to play alone, because you're basically discriminating against a certain group, who prefers a certain gaming style. So in other words, don't.

There is currently discrimination against grouping. Your arguments are in favor of punishing the many to preserve the interests of the few.

This is simple Pareto Efficiency. The many who benefit would be more than capable of compensating whatever few there are who have genuinely lost out.

In no way am I demanding the punishment of solo-ers. You would still be allowed to repeat the same banal routes ad nauseum with the same stale builds as often as you like. You would simply be asked to do it more frequently, rather than less. Surely this is a benefit for those who enjoy this style of play?

/notsigned

saying goodbye to PUGs was a happy day in my life

Well to put it simply. Guild Wars is now an RPG with titles where you can show off your grinding titles in Ouposts with other people who play. I appreciate what yuor trying to do but Guild Wars isnt on the up its on the down. Heroes should of neve been introduced they promote solo play to team play in PvE and titles promote grind but dont give any benifit to the player and are not enjoyable to grind for all you get is the chance to say "omg noob i have PKM hahaha you see that? people KNOW me!!! haha brb going to text my mum tell her how leet i am im 26!!!"

Nice effort but sadly GW is now an RPG with title and outposts to show them off in.

/signed

PUGing is much more fun than playing with henchmen, but it's often too hard to find enough players to form a good party for a mission. If they'd add these changes it would probably make it much easier to find enough players for missions.=D

There is no discrimination currently - You receive exactly the same benefits for grouping people as you do for using henchies. Your proposal institues exactly what you profess to remove.

I don't think you read the post. At no point did I say that PUGs should be the only option.

What I did say was that players should incur an economic loss for choosing to play with AI companions only, and an economic benefit for playing with human players.

I am suggesting that Anet reward players for putting up with one another. How is this at all at odds with your desire to not pug?

Maybe there should be some points for playing with players and you can obtain something for those points. Something valuable so you are motivated to do so. You know there must be motivation but you can not force people to do so. I think this will do a improvement in player grouping. Something like faction points but you can buy something for that.

Okay, perhaps my last post was a slight exaggeration. I guess that soloers do have slightly more of an advantage in terms of drops. But that's the whole point in solo farming. It certainly shouldn't be changed to something on the scale of 2 gold drops for each member of a party when soloers only get 1. That's 16 times more gold drops for parties, and that's just a ridiculous amount.

Also, I think that heroes were one of the best things to be added to the game. I can now have a minion master while my brother isn't around, an interrupt ranger whose reaction is much better than any real person could have. I completely agree with rohera, that PUGing is now a completely optional aspect, and i think the game is much better for it. As for the titles, I think they are a good thing to aim for. Those of us who don't like farming all the time when we've finished the game, or doing the elite missions over and over, have titles to complete.

Finally, through all the threads related to this, there are a significant number of people who say that heroes are crap, PUGing forced/made shinier in some way. Why don't you start a thread to gather all people who like PUGing, instead of constantly trying to think up ways to make soloers prefer PUGs?

I'm going to call BS on this statement.

Currently, I can choose PUG or hero.

If PUG then I have to deal with the idiocy of my compatriots, their lack of unlocks, and their far slower reaction time.

If Hero, I get to use the fact that I am UAS/UAX to my advantage in crafting a team of high powered, organized, and incredibly responsive allies.

As is obvious to anyone who has ever played the game, the risk of mission failure due to pugs is far higher than the risk of mission failure due to hero-way due to these very factors.

I am asking that there be compensation for that risk, as is only logical.

I threw those numbers out there at random, so why waste time attacking them?

As is obvious, I am _not_ demanding the removal of heroes or the elimination of solo farm.

I simply ask that people who pug be compensated for the higher risk of mission failure due to pugging, and be rewarded for seeking out community in an online game.

WOOT

Ok i just got the best idea for making people PUG in missions that is:

Masters reward/Mission bonus can only be achieved in a party containing more than 50% human players.

Are you honestly trying to say that AI are better than people? Go observer mode and count how many heroway guilds are in gvg. If ai is so much moe effective than humans why aren't they used more in the highest levels of the game?

Even thought I would like it if Pugging would get an increased award, I'm afraid this isn't the best way to do it.

Instead of solo farm we would have Guild farm. Eight players who know exactly what they do form up and slaughter the enemies. This would net them even more than a solo farmer. I fear for great exploitation.

I think getting pugging back on the map might happen with the introduction of Hard Mode. A good idea would be to make it impossible to do hard mode with henchies (mind you, henchies nog heroes). This would force people to at least play with one other person while not forcing them to have to wait for 8 players to simultaniously be in the same district and sharing the same aim.

I am tired of repeating myself for you over and over, so I'm just going to make this simple.

I did not indicate at any point that PvE = GvG, or any other form of PvP.

Nor did I indicate that Heros are superior to r9+ UAS/UAX humans who are coordinated through vent/ts.

What I did indicate was this:

Which means exactly what it says, and nothing more.

I covered this issue in my OP. In fact, I put it at the end to increase the likelihood of it being read, since most people skip the middle.

To expand on this, even if people do decide to farm in groups of 8 instead of solo, this has the advantage of getting them to play together. More importantly, it is more difficult to arrange for 8 people to gather together in one place for an event than it is for one person to decide to do something and do it.

While there might still be a net gain, I doubt it will be a large one.

EDIT: Then again, I also doubted that anyone would dance the Macarena.

No there isn't, join a guild and your mission success rate jumps 150% at least (estimate based on guild cohesiveness and organization that guilding brings to groups, the figure then rises another 100% or so if Vent/TS usage comes into play)

(and yes, I pulled the figures out of my ass, but the general idea is sound!)

Join, a Guild! Fight the good Fight! Your Country needs you!

Then allow me to quote your line



This whole argument sounds to me like you are upset that all the other children don't want to play with "your little brother" and you want teacher to make them sit in detention until they do.

read MY post, where did i say that PUGs should be the only option? i didn't.

and no, i don't believe pugging OR heroway should be penalized OR rewarded for any reason whatsoever. like someone else said, that would lead to massive abuse anyway.

i mainly play in the wee hours of the morning when NOBODY is online, and heroes were a blessing to me. i'd rather play with my heroes/hench than go with the random assortment people found scattered throughout the continents at 4am. why should i be punished for that? and why should i be rewarded for taking a bunch of random people with me? the only reward i'm after is completing the mission and getting bonus/masters, and i'm not interested in being rewarded simply for tolerating others' potential inadequacies.

"took us an hour to beat the mission, but i got this gold sword to show for it!" XD

I don't think you should force someone to play with other people if they don't want to. It should be their own choice that they play with heroes/henches or other people, not that they were forced to do one or the other.

Again, I agree with rohara. I actually play in the middle of the day when I get the chance to, but since I live in Australia there is barely anyone online. So I too thought heroes were a huge blessing. But even when I play at times when it's busy, I usually take heroes on a mission, and if I fail a few times, I'll go join a PUG. It's simply that I prefer it. There's no idiots aggroing everything in sight, no idiots calling you a noob if you make one tiny mistake, and you get all the loot. I don't see why it's such a big deal if people don't want to join a group full of strangers when they're better off on their own. It's not like anyone actually talks when you're in a group, you just want to finish the mission as soon as possible.

And if you really want to PUG, ask people in your guild/alliance if they wanna help out. There's bound to be someone who will, unless you're in a guild with less than 10 people.

Now, with regards to my suggestion in the other post, no one commented on it, so I'm assuming you didn't like the idea. If I'm wrong, then take my advice and set up a group of people you know like to PUG. If you didn't like the idea, stop complaining about people wanting to solo!

Not really my Original Idea. Try adding a title that show how much did play with other players.Like a runner title showing how many people did you travel with in Explorable Area.Another Title which improve when you complte misson as a leader for a major human team.

Game designers create the community and it the way it works. They have several tools for doing so. In Guild Wars the designers opted for an area design where no matter how many people you bring the monsters are always the same difficulty and have the same drops, this is a design which supports solo farming. When prophecies and factions were the only guild wars games the henchie AI was particulary bad, this design created a need for the community to team up together.

With Nightfall the game designers aparently decided that the basic design should change, instead of it promoting grouping (because the ai-replacement was just awful) they changed it into something which promotes going solo with hero/hench. They updated the henchies AI, and added heros. Call of the Torment is a skill which fits into this design as well, ai+player groups deal with it better then pure human groups.

For some heros might be bliss, but it's a turndown for just as many. How interesting can it be to do everything in the game for each of your characters in exactly the same way? With hero/hench it really doesn't matter what you play, as long as you bring the same combinations of heros you could even go round with an empty skillbar on all of your chars. Playing with heros just doesn't give the same level of accomplishment, there are thousands of people who can do it just as well with their own heroes. How many people do it just as well in a pug?

So, yes in my opinion Anet should design some game mechanic that actually promotes grouping with other players. I'm hoping "Hard mode" is just that and not just a mode that turns everything into DoA.

Guild Wars was a nice multiplayer game, for pure PvE it's a crappy single-player game atm. Glad I like both aspects of the game and heros were effectively removed from pvp.

Sorry but that entire sentence just annoys me, because your persuming that everyone who plays GWs plays it to PUG and play with others.

I actually find and have found that GWs has a very deep and enjoyable single player side to it. I've spent most of the last 2 years playing the game with AI and ive loved it.

Its great when you do PUG in a good team, but it also has a rich single player side. Something which is a great selling point.

For that very simple ignorant statement im going to go with..

/notsigned

...and I havent even read your other points. PUG numbers are down for a very simple reason. The people in the PUGs are 60% of the time arrogant and up-their-own-ass.

It has nothing to do with adding more insentives to PUG, it has everything to do with weeding out immature attitudes in the game so you want to play with other humans.

/Notsigned

Guild Wars has a huge emphasis on choice, and penalizing someone just for that will do no good.

People don't do PUGs a whole lot anymore because, well, most people aren't too nice. The only good PUG times I remember were in Ascalon to the Shiverpeaks. Nowadays...I dunno. There's too much reliabilaty involved, and it can make Guild Wars very stressful for me. That's why I do Heros: I like to get farther in the game with assurance. (I also don't have a whole lot of time to play, so Heros make it fast).

However, I do understand the situation of people who have trouble finding groups. The only thing that can be done about it right now is pure kindness, which I aim to do. When I'm done with missions on Tyria, I plan on going back and helping people for fun, and because hey they need it. I hope others will follow.

On like 90% of the mmorpgs out there, you get some sort of bonus for being in a player party, such as exp bonus. No one has ever complained about it.

Why here on this forum people have the need to complain about everything, and come up with the worst arguments ever.

You guys like to play solo? Continue to do so. But whats the problem in giving a slight bonus for those who play in partys and with real players? Maybe a slight gold drop increase, a bigger chance in getting drops (5% more or something). Not a big advantage, but something to make people want to play together once again.

As it has been said, people on the beggining used to play PuGs because henchs sucked so bad (Tanker alesia + orion burning dead monsters). Nowadays its so much better to play with heroes instead of players that its only hurting the community as a whole.

This is exactly what I'm thinking, but I'm thinking it in a completely different way. If there are just as many people who hate heroes as love them, then why do we have to change the game to get people interested in PUGs? So there are LESS people playing PUGs because now the half that wants to play solo has an option to. And a very decent option to, as opposed to before Nightfall was released. There's different demographics to the game. Giving rewards to one particular one would be like this example:

Half the population likes hip hop, half the population doesn't. In fact, they absolutely hate it. The government decides that the half that prefers rock and alt rock should listen to more hip hop (don't ask me why, it's irrelevant to this analogy). So, to get people more interested in hip hop, they start giving out money at concerts. They also start trying to change the rock concerts into hip hop ones. So, basically, there's this entire group that all paid the same amount of money as each other, but for completely different things, but then, instead of just leaving them to enjoy their thing, there's a group that tries to force their thing on another group.... Okay, so it's a crap analogy, but it's late, and this one gets my point across just as well as one that would be all exciting and well-written.

I completely agree with freekedoutfish. I think there are aspects that do suit single player very well. I too have been playing AI since I started 10 months ago, with the exception of the later Factions missions, because they're just annoying. I just like soloing better. It's also true that a large amount of people who PUG are arrogant. Not all, but a lot. And this might be the reason that there's less and less people who like this style of play.

Henches and Heroes are not hurting the community in GWs in the slightest. They just happen to offer a much better alternative to PUGs which 90% of the time are frustrating.

Games such as WoW which dont offer an AI alternative actually have a huge down-fall due to that. Have you played WoW?

I've been playing it for about a month now and its a great game. Except for the fact that ive been playing it completely solo 90% of the time.

Not from lack of wisping people or standing 2 feet away from people asking them to help. Not from lack of standing there watching a party kill the boss I need and saying "can i please join you, I need him too".

I have solo'd that game because...

1) the starting areas were easy and
2) Most people DONT let you join them.

The result is you having to stand around for 10-15 minutes waiting for a boss to respawn because the morons before you wouldnt let you join them.

The result is you spend about 2 days not being able to do harder quests because you simple cant get a party together. There isnt always anyone around to even help you.

Im actually lonely in that game. As I said already. It isnt that people dont want to PUG, its the mentality of the humans in them. Either you join a PUG and get kicked because you dont have the "build" they want, or you join and have to endure bickering and arguing.

Having played WoW for several weeks, I miss having the ability to use AI to back me up and feel like a team. I think if GWs had used this system from the start and we didnt have AI, then we would be in exactly the same situation.

The AI help in GWs is what sets the game apart from others. The game doesnt need huge insentives to join PUGs, we dont need rewards or benefits, we just need good manored, pleasant players.

And for the record, you say 90% of alternative MMOs offer benefits to PUGing. Such as what? Ive not seen any benefits to PUGing in WoW. You get less experience, you have to roll for rare drops.

Where is the insentive other then to complete a quest you otherwise couldnt?

Bzzt. First of all, it's actually a pretty enjoyable single player game and second of all, the choice is not between playing solo and PUGing. This fals dichotomy is a favorite of people that want to force us to PUG by hook or crook, but the simple fact is that playing with friends and guildies will always be superior to SP or PUGing by a wide margin. I've said it before and I'll say it again, just because people aren't playing with you doesn't mean they aren't playing together. Personally I came back to the game because heroes allow a few people to do high level stuff more easily by filling out the party with a superior alternative to henchmen. If I was in any way prevented or even disadvantaged by doing that I'd probably go find another game to play.

/agree with OP

Some method to encourage player interaction. Guild Wars is not a very good solo player game for the long haul.

Henchies had enough "weaknesses" that people didn't automatically use them. Heroes are are now an extension of the player character and customizable...that generally leaves PuG's in the dust.

Ask yourself what is good for the long term health of the game?

If you think a bunch of solo players that barely converse other than to sell things is good for the game, then Guild Wars doesn't have a very bright future.

There are already too many things going against community building with in the game:

-Campaigns spreading an already thin player base

-Heroes as a method to bypass player team building <team building was a stated core concept of the game>

-Instanced areas mean that players only cross path in outposts, this isn't a problem so much as a factor

-Poor in game trade functions relegating in-game chat to trade spam and smack talk


Sure, ANet can attract anti-social solo playing Hero loving players, but at the end of the day will that be enough to sell games?

And, yes, I use Heroes and hardly ever group.

People take the path of least resistance.

Oh ffs, its very simple, join a guild that has an active forum and voice comms...

Just because people play solo doesn't mean they are anti-social. They may just prefer to play solo while talking to their guild and friends at the same time. A lot of people play solo simply because they don't like playing with people they don't know, or people that will put them down if they make a mistake or are using a different build. It's simple as that. Give people a reason to join a group, a reason as in make them feel welcome, and maybe you'll solve the PUG deterioration issue.

People take the path that they are comfortable with. This may mean that they are quite comfortable playing with strangers, or it may mean they prefer to just play with friends, or solo and talk to friends. This is what I do. I'm not saying that I haven't made friends in game, but I only ever talk to someone who makes the effort to talk to me in a civil way. It's exactly the same in real life. I work on registers, and constantly ask people how they are, how they're enjoying their weekend, etc. If I have someone who just shrugs me off when I'm being polite, then I don't make the effort. It's the same in game. You have to make the effort of making people feel welcome, so they make the effort to play with other players.

Everyone needs to realize that PuG's are even WORSE now because of HEROES/improved Henchies.

Player interaction is a dynamic process:

-people learn teamwork skills when playing with other humans

-interconnectedness with others is a cornerstone of what online gaming is all about

-each adventure is truly unique when you play with other players, thus the game does not become a static experience

-player interaction creates better gamers because players can learn from other players and eventually improve their skills

It isn't that 50% of the players love heroes and the other 50% don't...nearly everyone loves playing with Heroes and it's destroying the in-game community.

ANet Devs made a mistake and a bad decision that is hurting the game. In many ways Heroes are like a short term solution with a longterm detrimental effect.


PuG's are now worse than ever because generally it is the least experienced and less skilled players that try to get into groups. So, now we have a self fulfilling predicament.

The thing about player interaction is that it requires a critical mass. A few "saints" out there that try to play the role of helping noobs or being nice in game won't cut it.

Using Heroes is akin to masturbation, everyone does it, but it's not the best long term way to find fulfillment.

First of all, I don't see how solofarming factors into this argument at all, since they're not around to do missions or quests in the first place, and aren't interested in grouping with anyone or anything. The change wouldn't make solofarmers PuG missions, it would make them join farming guilds.

Second, the fact that you feel the need to be "compensated" for playing with other people indicates that something is very wrong with the community, and I'm surprised you don't see it. I can almost remember a time when people played with each other because they wanted to, rather than because they got some kind of compensation. But maybe I just have a bad memory.

I don't think the thread topic is about solo farming either... This is about Missions and Quests and even general exploration.

And, I do believe things are very wrong with the in-game community. I don't advocate removing Heroes/improved Henchies from the game or dumbing them down. I do, however, believe that it may be time to nudge the player base back into playing with each other.

Unlike real world politicians, games devs can perform social engineering rather successfully because they are gods in a world of their own creation.

That's exactly my point. The problem isn't that people don't want to PUG (some people might not want to), but it's that the more players come into the game, the community gets diluted with arrogant idiots who make players not want to interract with other people while trying to complete a mission. This thread shouldn't be about compensation for PUGs losing player options, it should be about letting players know that just because there are a few bad apples, doesn't mean that they should give up on other players altogether.

Before heroes I would group with guildmembers or go whole group of henchies wherever possible, not because I'm an antisocial git, simply because after attempting missions over and over again with PUG's that failed because of lack of simple common sense I was ready to start hitting things.

Nowadays I don't have to PUG, I won't PUG, I hate it. As for as I can see the op's suggestion actually penalises those who chose to go along the route I have in manner of % drops etc, being reduced from the current rate, this I wouldn't be happy with at all.

By all means give the FULL human groups a carrot while in missions/quests but don't penalise me for not wanting to spend 8 hours of my life trying to pass one mission because of people incapable of aggro management.

So people should give up trying to be nice and help noob players with no experience, because it doesnt help in the long run?

Instead we should single out the noobs and not let them into PUGs because their inexperienced and wont contribute to the team?

If ive misunderstood then sorry, but thats how your statement reads.

How exactly does that attitude help towards the dwindling PUG numbers?

People quite simply wont take part in something if its not fun and they dont learn from it. If you say to someone that you wont help them, or you wont let them join you because their inexperienced, then it incourages resentment towards joining others.

Your started your post off by blaming AI for dropping PUG numbers, and then make a statement like that! And your honestly trying to say anti-social attitudes arent the main contributor to lacking PUGs?

I say we should do every little thing we can to incourage noob players to join PUGs. If that means going up to ever low level player and asking if they need help, then we should do it.

Instead of just not trying, because it wont "cut it"!

You kind of mangled that one. It's not that they should, so much as they most likely will fail because they are swimming against the current.

Heroes and inproved henchies are a tremendous success. But, I argue that it is a success that will make a failure of the game's future. Unless, ANet introduces a creative way to balance the situation.

My point is that the popularity of Heroes/improved Henchies has the overall effect of creating poorly skilled players in terms of team work.

Additionally, at present, the majority of players that seek other players to group with other players in the game tend to be less experienced, newer to the game, or under the archaic belief that Guild Wars is some kind of <gasp> multi-player game, etc. <hehe>

It's not an attitude, it's only an observation. It's about trends in human nature and interaction.

In simple terms, my suggestion is the equivalent of telling people to eat their vegetables instead of all that cotton candy...

The argument isn't about what people like, it's about what is best for the game longterm. You can rebut that if people like something that ensure the success of the game, I suggest that it's a temporary gain for a a long term loss.

The AI just speeds up the downward spiral and attracts a more "anti-social" player base, driving out players that prefer more of a social based experience.

And it appears you are missing my point, based on the quote above.

LOOK, I want an in-game community made up of helpful, interesting and skillful players.

But, we don't have that now.

We have a diluted, paper thin player base which generally avoids PuG-ings like the plague and it's only going to get worse if the Dev's don't "nudge" the pendulum the other way.

Point:

Everyone needs to realize that PuG's are even WORSE now because of HEROES/improved Henchies...because generally it is the least experienced and less skilled players that are trying to get into groups. So, now we have a self fulfilling predicament.
It isn't a sustainable situation.