Where are the PUGS? (in nightfall)

So, I played the first GW and it was one of my most favorite games. Life got busy and I stopped playing for a while. I come back this weekend and purchased the newest version of GW and I see this new feature called "Heroes". I am thinking 'what a great idea' as the henchmen were terrible in the first GW. Well, fast forward a few days in the game, I can't get people to play with me. Everyone is using heroes. I joined a Guild, but they are not on or doing their own thing and do not have time to help me with the ton of quests I have to do to get to the next mission.

Heroes has ruined the game for me. I have never disliked an 'upgrade' so much as I do now. Why even have online play at all.

This is making me seriously consider playing WoW (which I have yet to try). Does that have more team play and interaction?

Get a friend with heroes that you can regularly play with. Makes all the difference. 2 human players and 6 heroes is very effective and very fun.
PUGs are still out there, but a lot of them are shockingly bad these days.

As for WoW, don't pick that up if you're looking to get into PUGs.
Grouping there only tends to happen with high level content (from about level 45 upwards).
Up until that point, it's a very solitary experience.
And also, you'll very, very rarely be fighting more than 1 monster at a time in WoW. If you DO start a fight with a group of monsters, chances are you'll get your ass handed to you.
Even when you start grouping, it's still best to stick to one target at a time.

Well, why would other people want to play with you? Nothing personal, it's just how one must approach the issue to understand why people dislike forming PUGs, and why Heroes arrives as a solution, not a problem.

(added clarification: people were complaining about PUGs way before heroes arrived. Heroes arrived as a solution to the problem and the result was that the PUGs just couldn't keep up. A human is an unknown and can turn out to be very bad.)

PuGs are dead.... for me at least. The retardness probablilty is too high to bother. Play as an ele, put 2 SF heroes and a MM with virulence and everything dies in under 5 seconds.

Yeah, why would i want to play with you? or even bother.... my heros are my team,dont need or want anyone else.Now only if the devs would raise the hero cap to 5 atleast and make them use pvp weapons or dont let them take the drops.Why the hell should i give them my weapons and they still take the loot.

The solution to your dilema lies in your guild I'm afraid. These days people that want to play with AI do so and those that want to play with people play with thier guildmates.

Might want to get facts right before claiming something like this ...
You'll have plenty of opportunities to co-op with other players right from the beginning - (thanks to low level dungeons and group quests) - but you can also avoid all that and solo, whatever feels best for you.

To the disappearing of PUG's dilemma,
I'm personally hoping that coming hard mode will bring PUG's back to the game like they once were, would be nice to have areas where you actually have to play with other players, you know.. socialize a little bit...It can be surprisingly fun.

PUG's are alive usually around the weekend times.

Last weekend I gave it a shot just to see and it cured me from it real quick.

First PUG I went out to do Gate of Desolation, I only needed it for bonus but once the mission was started it fell on deaf ears and they just went for the mission skipping the bonus entirely.

Second PUG was Tahnnakai Temple...5 mins into the mission half of the group had died at least twice. Then the warrior says "we're doing well'' and they ended up being famous last words...It actually made me laugh. The warrior btw ony had endure pain and one sword attack and a mix of minion and blood skills...I still don't understand his tactic....

Third and last was Nundu Bay....we never got to playing the mission since the team leader could not be convinced that we needed monks and so I left before they went in and henched it.

Now as a note to the OP. Henchies have improved a lot since the hero update. I am glad that I can go out and do the missions with just one or two friends/guildies and fill up with heroes and/or henchies.

During the weekdays it's hard to find people and during the weekend all the idiots are out it seems.

Hard mode should sift out a lot of those idiots although I'm sure there will be those nagging to be taken along to get the guardian title and what not by riding along on the strength of others.

GW has evolved [or devolved depending on your opinion] into a single player game with large "chat rooms" to trade and hang out in [ie. most major outposts with all the spam in local chat].

The occasional pugs are still around but they're all a crap shoot. If you want to do missions successfully with other real people, your best bet is with friends you've met in game or guildies.

Just the way i like it.

QFT. Definitely smthing wrong with ur guild. Think about it.

GW is an online game. You are *meant* to team up with other people. I can see the reason behind heroes, and I myself thought it would be a great idea. But then you seen everyone in the outposts, all with an 8 above their heads. No-one looking for a group because they didn't need one. Then you see people talking in local chat, proud that they finished the game with heroes and hench. I would certainly not be proud of the fact that I had no friends...

At least with PvP, you need to team up with three other real people, but if I wasn't into PvP I wouldn't be playing this game at all.

Heroes ftl


<<---------------------wohooo! Made it to Lions Arch merchant

1. yeah thats what I hate about pugs.... its especially horrendous in factions where you want to get masters and someone goes afk in the middle of the mission... or finish without masters then suddenly everyone has somewhere to be and can't come for another round...

2. Heh wonder if he was thinking of the cemetary mission... same general area and dont need monks on it...

3. unfortunately not. most of them probably already paid for runs thru all the missions and will be in hard mode just like the real players. Seems every single moron crappy player has a rich friend that gave them tons of gold...


edit: oh and for the original post... I agree. heroes and better henchmen have pretty much killed human groups, especially on missions that require interrupts. The good news is guild wars 2 will not have heroes or henchmen. the bad news is it's a lonely world until then.

I think PUGs are still around in prophecies and factions, its just nightfall where there seems to be a huge problem, but im not so sure its heroes' fault, the game is so large now that players are just very spread out, there might be a full teams worth of players but they are spread over more districts than you can access.

I think one of the major issues that may have caused this is the requirement to have a certain hero in your party to complete a mission, it means you cant possibly have a full human team, so the temptation is then to just carry on without any humans.

Heroway != no friends

If you divide the community into expert, average and bad players:

The expert players have a full set of heroes with green items and 'synergistic' builds with elite skills. The average players have some heroes with basic equipment and default skillsets. The bad players don't have any heroes.

Guess who are the ones hanging around looking for PUGs. :-)

It's almost as if any PUG you join is going to be made up of you plus bad players: Smiting Monks, Melee Necromancers and Rangers casting fire spells.

Like it's said above, two players and six heroes is pretty well the ultimate.

I do still play with PUGs from time-to-time. There are a few missions where you need to have human monks to heal NPC's. The other times, I do it for fun, and treat it as an educational experience (for everyone else).

The prevalence of running really does put some crap players on hard missions though.

I guess it's important to remember why this change was made. The game world is now massive, with more or less the same number of players diluted over three times the space. And just about every mission town was like 'GLF 2 monks, 6/8'. It was the major sucking point of the game. A-Net's slight error in making heroes so controllable/customisable is that an expert player's hero is better than most average players and certainly better than the people looking for PUGs.

Sad point about this is that people learning the game are finding it harder to progress.... so A-Net has more problems recruiting and retaining players. Bit of a catch 22 situation.

Maybe we need a title for someone that has done every mission in a campaign whilst in teams only of human players.

'Teamworker of Tyria' anyone? :-)

Dude just find a real pvE guild (wich is not hard, simply get to 1 of major cities and spam "lf pvE guild") and you ll be fine
if the core gameplay of guildwars was based on PUGs Id stop playing
a long time ago, the real fun pve: UW, Urgoz, FoW, DoA,.. do not allow henchies you know..

I don't use heros and hinchmen. I try to team alot but aside from pvp you really don't have to. Its made that way because its a CO not an MMO so basicly you really don't have to get involved with anyone to play this game. Now GW2 may be a different story since its going to be a MMO.

Read: Whatever has been posted in forums and on the wiki as the builds to use.

The problem is that everyone wants to tell everyone else what to do and what build to use. If there is non-compliance, either you are kicked or the group disbands.

There are good PUGs and good players looking for groups, you just need to be patient.

Where in lies the second problem...time restraints.
Casual gamers, such as myself, don't have the 20 - 60 minutes to put together an effective team, so heroes solve that problem.
Other players just don't want to wait around or deal with negotiating with others, so heroes solve that problem too.

The third problem is all on Anet...THE GAME IS TOO EASY!
That will change this coming weekend...but up to then (now) you can pretty much take a group of heroes, with decent skills, nothing over the top, and plow through the game, with no troubles. Cap what you want, get masters, so on and so on. This is true in all three chapters, while there is that handful of missions, where humans are needed, that is not nearly enough to generate a demand for PUGs.

All above statements are my opinions and contain little to no facts.
While they may be right on point...it is possible that what I said is the bigest load of cow dung known to man...take it for what it is worth.

If I just want to finish a mission as fast as possible/Masters, I take heroes/hench.
When I actually wanna have fun, I go with PUGs.

It's fun to meet & chat with random people while playing. If we don't make it through mission, fine. I hate it when elitists join PUGs and just whine about everything. Seriously, if you aren't willing to play with different kind of players, don't join PUGs.

We were doing Tahnnakai Temple, when our ranger noticed she forgot to change her attribute points before mission. Well, our douchebag monk says he wants everyone to resign and get rid of the ranger. He stopped and said he wouldn't heal us until we do so. I mean, seriously...

Met a hammer necro with retribution awhile ago in Dragon's Lair too.
He was a really friendly fella, but just wasn't a very good player.

My best GW experiences come from PUGs, so yay for them!