A Simple Way to Make Pugging More Attractive

Here's the breakdown:

Heroway (always all of the following):
- Max armor
- UAS
- 200 attribute points
- Sup, or at least major vigor, with other runes to improve the build
- Proven, working class build
- Sinergetic team build between at least 4 characters of the team
- Following orders to the dot
- Paying attention 100% of the time (minus the lag)
- Balanced team (protection, defense, healing, condition and hex removal, spike damage, aoe damage, interrupts, shutdown, ...)

PUGs (Always at least one of the following):
- Non-max armor
- Only 10 skills available
- No attribute quests done
- Not level 20
- No health runes, preferably with 2 or 3 superior runes
- Non-synergetic builds
- Inability of team play
- Useless builds
- AFKers, leavers, griefers, "I don't give a $%$# about this anyway"-type

No, players aren't anti-social. They just have a limited ammount of patience. Why should I try doing venta cemetary twice, because someone thinks it's funny to trigger the artillery fire? Why should I have to do gate of pain 10 times, because nobody wants to bring a prot monk and warder? Why should I be stuck at THK for two days because someone thinks it's best to split teams rather than camp the king?

I know what works for me with a whole string of Protector titles to prove it. I don't bother proving it though. I know what works for me, and have zero intent on arguing or debating over it. I like to have an effective, no hassle way of completing missions and capping skills. PUGs are simply not effective, nor hassle free, and they take too long to set up.

It's not that heroes are a problem. PUGs are ineffective, and sub-par. You can get a superb PUG on 1 every 30 tries. But why not settle for a "great" (not superb) hero team every single time?

This isn't about social attitudes or egoistic behaviour, but simply practicality. Heroes are much more practical. If you don't care about that, then PUGs are still the way to go.

I agree with the basic principle behind the OP's suggestion, but I don't think it would be practical; While it sounds nice to reward people for making the effort to group with other players, that just ends up creating an even worse mindset than what we commonly have right now. Instead of "Heros are better than 99% of players because I have complete control over them and they don't talk to me", we'd have "I need to team with people to make more money and get more drops"...which would make things even -worse-.

How? Because then people wouldn't even be grouping up for the purpose of completing a mission or quest; You could still use hero/hench. No, people would be teaming up in order to get richer. It would make the PuG situation even worse...I could see more quitters than there currently are, in fact. "'Monk Heals U picks up the Ruby Stilletos' 'Monk Heals U has left the game.'" (made up the player-name and the item name). Yes, we'd see people leaving once they got whatever they determined to be "enough". We'd see people grouping -only- to "farm" a mission or area, then leaving once they got what they wanted.

This would further push people away from PuGging. We don't need another reason for people to dislike PuGs, do we?

I agree that there are ALOT of idiots, self-rightous elitists, selfish jerks, and immature griefers out there...but there -are- people out there who are worth finding.

Sure, you could join a guild, get enough friends so that you never have to look at another player again...is that really such a good thing? What about people who don't have that yet?

I'm not advocating the removal or dumbing down of heros (Please Anet no, don't make them even stupider than they allready are, please!); Honestly, I don't know what can be done to solve the problem, since the problem isn't really with the game at all...and there's not really much Anet can do, in my eyes.

Sure, they could implement in-game things to encourage grouping...but then people would be grouping because of whatever reward there would be, not because they wanted to play with other people.

Sadly, I don't think there's anything that can be done about this. Elitists will be elitists and will forever scream that they can solo everything and anything with heros and henchies and say things like "I have three protector titles to prove how good I am at playing by myself!". Griefers will always be griefers. Arrogant players will always be as such. And a small amount of unskilled players will never improve.

Heros or not, it was inevitable that the community would end up this way. It's the way of all MMOGs. You have your "golden era", the first year, maybe a bit longer, before it starts to break down as more and more immature players join, which encourage arrogant "vets" to become even more arrogant and elitist.

As for me? I'll continue to prefer PuGs, even if they're not the most "efficient" way of doing things. I'd rather have good and bad experiences with other players to remember than mediocre and boring hero/hench experiences. To each their own. There isn't anything you can do to encourage players to change what they enjoy.

Man oh man.

Guildies FTW.

/not signed.

I play with PUGs. I play with Heros/Henchies. I also do a bit of solo farming.

I enjoy all three methods and shouldn't be penalized for using any of them. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The "PUGs suck" idea is an overblown load of garbage. I play a lot with PUGs and have had my share of problems, but they're very few and far between.

I believe this is a remarkably astute observation, one that I think ANet has understood. Griefing, or any sort of intolerance for newer players is not something effectively policed withough strong community support, and ANet realizes that a system needs to be in place for those players that enjoy solo play, but at the same time may enjoy the dynamics of 'leading' others; thus the hero.

Perhaps an over-looked piece to this debate is the subtle difference between immature or younger players and 'new' players to the GW universe? Immature players, whether new to the game or experienced high level characters, will impact the ability of a mature newer player to find a coheisive and successful group.

As a newer player I actually appreciate the existence of henchmen and heroes because it gives me the opportunity and flexibility to look for a group or mix/match/solo play a mission or quest if the company present is less than desirable.

And again, I don't think we can state enough that guilds exist, in part, to assist each other. If your guild doesn't do that, perhaps it's time to find another?

Making PuGs more attractive can be done with rewards.
But, the reward should not go up with the number of humans, but with the skills those people use.
So a 'cookiecutter' SF ele build generates 'normal' drops and a non-standard water ele gets 'normal+20%' drops (so a 100 gold drop will become a 120 one).
The more non-cookiecutter players are in the team, the more rewarding the drops will get. Heroes will generate 'normal' drops.
This will increase gold drops with a maximum of normal + 160% if the whole team is non-cookiecutter.

The cookie-cutter builds could probably be determined with statistical analysis, so when new ones hit the general GW community those get lower drops within a couple of days.

This should give PvE players some reward for thinking about builds and could probably cause less people to be kicked because they don't have the right build.

I can just imagine:
- new player (necro) joins group and pings skills
- group leader says: "You are running MM build, please change to blood or curses (not SS) or non-MM death."
- new player does not want to change, so gets kicked
- new player in local chat: "OMG, I just got kicked because I'm MM"

I will tell you what the problems with pugs today is that they are forced into doing mission they would rather skip.This is early into the game all they want to do especially with thier 2 or 3rd char. is to cap elites and just beat the game.There are those who don't care about the story line of the game just getting what they want.When it came to Prophecies you could go from ascalon right to Sacntum Cay get all 3 desert mission done ascend and get to Dragons Lair and be off in Droks or you could get a run to Droks.This what most want and are very use to in GW.I would suggest that it is high time that Anet Unlock the gates or make a different way to skip most of the missions in Factions for now.I wouldn't mind getting some capping some elites for my 2nd account in Factions but I hate the thought of doing missions over agian.

I don't work well with Henchies and the same could said with Heros as i prefer a human team anyday.I would have to say the reason most are avoiding grouping is because you can't skip the missions unlike Tyria which in Elona I thought you would be the same.I guess when pugging most don't trust of have a lot of faith in one another as we all Humans not machines.It would be nice if others thought of it that way and possibly when playing alone and struggling through missions can get very depressing for some or most which may hide it.

To play a multiplayer game?

Again, I think this suggestion should not be made to penalize players that enjoy heroes, such as yourself. I think that providing incentives to encourage PuG play (especially to overcome some of the frustrations that you've noted above) is an excellent idea....the key is balancing them to make single player PvEers not view them as penalties.

It's not an exclusively multiplayer game, even the box says it can be played single player. It's a selling point, and an important one IMO.

I didn't say they were pugs. I said they were human groups. I can tell you that every all human group I'm ever in will blow heroes out of the water. Why should people who use heroes have to pay for the privelege of using ai that is substandard to what they could get out of people.

Providing a benefit for only one method of playing is equivilent to denying the second method the same benefit. You are still trying to penalise them for having a different value system to your own.

And pugs are like getting a $2 hooker. I would say that my group of guildes teamspeak and 0-6 heroes will be a darn sight more fulfilling than anything you could hope to get out of random strangers. I don't know anyone that plays completely solo using all hero/hench, I'd say they're still in minority. Heroes have allowed people to stop having to bring $2 hookers into their "fulfilling relationships" to get past a mission, and now you want to penalise them for that?

My response was to his question "why in the world would you play with something less efficient?"

I was in no way disputing that GW can be played single player. However, I think that GW can do more things to encourage multiplayer play, so that players that want to participate in that arena have the ability to do so.

That is absoultely incorrect. Viewing a benefit one person receives as harming someone else is a very narrow view, IMO.

For example, cars that carry 3-4 people can travel in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane on the freeway. Are people that travel in the mainlanes penalized because they chose to drive alone? IMO, the answer is no - it is just the people that decided to travel with others received a "perk" or "incentive" for doing so. Providing incentives for playing with others, IMO, is no different, as long as you aren't taking something away from those that play single player.

...and please remove my name from the 2nd quote - I didn't post that.

I'm against penalizing hero users, but PuG incentives are fine. My Nightfall campaign was extremely successful, yet extremely lonely!

Dammit, Jetdoc, stop stealing my masturbation quotes!


Heroes and improved Henchies are in the game, it's highly unlikely ANet will nerf or delete them. The cow is outta the barn.

The issue of whether Heroes/improved Henchies have negatively impacted player interaction is only debatable as to the degree of the impact.

My personal view is that player grouping has declined for a number of reasons. NPC group members are only in part to blame.

The biggest reason player grouping has diminished is largely due to the paper thin playerbase spread out over 3 campaigns and instanced content.

Add Heroes/Imp. Henchies to that mix and you start tilting the scales.

Teamwork between players has generally suffered a perceived decline in quality that may be the result of a significant percentage of people relying on NPC group members. Game play with NPC's is entirely different than grouping with other players.

Having more players running on top each other would increase success and failures of PuG's across the board and be a positive development.

Bottom line: more opportunity to group with other players is a good thing.

If you would look up my posts from around NF release, you'd see I defended PUGs till last.

Then I didn't bother anymore, spent around 100k per character to equip heroes, and moved on.

I, for one, play the game for diverse content. PvE, PvP, timed missions, loot, masters, titles, you name, I dabble in everything.

As such, I seek optimal way. If humans are optimal, I'll go with that. For DoA, I'd never even remotely consider requesting heroes or henchies be made available. I never tried bringing heroes into UW/FoW, although I understand it's quite doable, even with 4 person teams. SF-way into HA? No thanks. Actually, one thing I never tried was Hero battles, since I think that's just lame excuse for PvP.

But for everything else, PUGs (not all human players) have become suboptimal by a wide margin. Not just a random fluke, but unfortunately consistently.

Why play multiplayer? I wouldn't enter high-end missions without max armor. I wouldn't go pvping with level 18 character. And same applies to PUGs. They are suboptimal.

But if you do have a group of players who is consistent and available, then they'll usually outperform heroes.

But asking to play with anyone who happens to pop up in my current instance is totally unrelated to the fact this is multiplayer game.

The better question here would be: How to improve the skill level and attitude of players - although this is mostly futile task, everyone plays the way they want. And so do I.

hi jet

having been in the i have nobody heading that way to group with and get the perk of the fast lane except on rare occasions i can tell you this about the south bay curve in LA.

the difference between 15 miles of stop and go traffic for most of us and the *PERK* of 45-55 MPH all the way is the difference between a trip of 20-25 minutes for some and a trip of over 2 hours for me and the others.

bottom line is that an advantage for some puts them ahead of the others who do not have the same advantage.

putting some ahead of the rest is indeed a penalty to the left behind people no matter how nicely you word it.

An answer that I would suggest:

The use of Heroes/Henchies does not make for good team players.

Now that we have new players coming into the game, perhaps even new to online gaming, they may not learn how to be effective group players.

Henchies used to be fairly problematic and a challenge to use when the game was released, that's not the case now. So, even for people who don't own Nightfall, they may rarely group with other players.

There are exceptions to everything, but i think my answer reflects a general trend.

These are very different beasts. In the case of vehicles, the car with multiple people is providing benefits for the comunity in lower congestion and emmissions. What you are suggesting is more analagous to subsidising the petrol costs of people that drive yellow cars, hence penalising every one else.

Done... soz.

okay here's something I would like to hear from the pro-PuG players

I bet some of you didn't think that most of the players that use heroes and henchmen a lot also play with their guildmates exclusively too

now here's the scenerio and question: heroes and henchmen are removed from the game. those people who used them always now only strictly play with their guild and still never ever play with PuGs. there is still a lack of PuGs not caused by heroes and hench anymore, as some pro-PuG players think that way, but the lack of PuGs is caused by players who play exclusively with their guildmates.

now here's the question will you still complain and try to force those guild-only players to play with PuGs when there is a lack of them? since they don't use heroes and henchmen anymore just guildmates now.

Well, no one is suggesting removing Heroes/Henchies, but the answer to your question:

People would be even more motivated to join and build stronger guilds and community.

But, of the Guilds I have been privy to after Nightfall release there was a general decline in guild groups.

This may have been a spike event because people needed to level Heroes and get them skills, etc. But, I am sure there has been a lasting impact of some kind.

Additionally, it has always been a challenge for guilds having to build cohesion within the chaptered and instanced spread of Guild Wars, Heroes don't make the job any easier.