Do people never bother grouping together anymore?

It's near impossible to get a group of people together to go questing in the new area. There's TONS of people, but they all just care about going with henchmen/heroes. Across 9+ districts, using the party search gets 1, maybe 2 responses. I'd rather take the chance and play with a lousy PuG that at least may stir up some decent conversation, than play with the AI all the time.

I definitely don't PuG anymore. If I play with someone, it's someone from the alliance, because I'm sick and tired of idiots who think it's a good idea to run a "MM dervish".

maybe you just smell funny?

Currently, I've been hero/henching, and here is my explaination as to why. I tend to do a lot of wall hugging, or take random breaks in the middle of a map. I can't ask others to accomodate my slow/eradic play, so I go alone. I do try to PuG the Master quests though. That makes them easy to handle.

I do agree though, playing with PuGs can be fun occassionally, to break the monotonity. Too many people have bad experiences in PuGs though. Lets face facts, there are a lot of lousy players out there, and usually they are the ones looking for help (cause they actually need it, not cause they want people to chat/have fun with).

Mack

I just don't really know anyone. Also, some of us are older (early 30's) and would feel odd playing with the younger crowd. While I don't mind any particular build, people are also VERY critical of others, and make fun of just about any build someone makes that they don't agree with (note the "idiot making an MM dervish" comment). It's a game. Let them make what they want, it's not the end of the world if they make something they enjoy but you don't like.

People will group for the harder dungeons, that will be it I expect.

I'd rather play with AI that I know will not seriously mess up or leave then play with the pugs, who usually suck, have ragequitters, etc.

To be honest, theres no point in pugs. All the good players are either with guildies, friends, or henchies.

There was no hard dungeons thus far. Hopefully they have some elite dungeons.

As of NF most good players stopped playing with PUGs because they hate losing all the time due to horrible PUG players. Of course people who don't have to don't bother grouping together, it's not worth the frustration. I see that trend continuing.

Today I joined some PUGs just because Heroes have a hard time dodging the insta-death snowballs in the defend the Eye of the North Master quest. The amount of basic common sense I had to dictate to them about our party composition and everything else was beyond belief. Ie: These guys were sticking in their new EOTN heroes with default crap skillbars and no gear. Putting in 4 of the same class in the party and just one monk, who was setup as a 55. etc. etc....the list of ridiculousness goes on and on.

After rmuch telling them what to do and finally turning the party I wasn't even charge of from horrible shape into good shape, I ended up still taking 3 of my Heroes and we ended up winning, after which everyone told me "thanks for your leadership." That PUG experience reminded me once again why I usually never pugged since NF came out. Not worth the time, energy, or aggravation. Heroes and hench have always been 100 000x better than PUGs. Now that Hench have some good skillbars, even moreso than ever. Even less reason than ever to PUG. Thank God. Amen!

I got a job I need done in a team build, I call my guildies.

If it gets the job done faster, great for everyone; if not, why waste their time?

As for randoms - even Alesia is smarter than 90% of the player base. Not all players suck, but the vast majority do, so why take the risk?

It's not, but it does take away from my enjoyment of the game. Thus, I play with heroes, instead of being in a PuG with the risk of having lousy builds and complaining about how things would be easier if the ele wasn't pulling and getting killed every time.

Eh, it's a game. I have played MUDs for years, I own and run a mud that's been around for going on 12 years now. It's all about just having fun, IMO. That's how I look at GW. It doesn't define who I am, who the other person is, etc. Just like in RL, some people are lacking in certain skills, etc. More of a challenge. I just wish the GW players recognized this more. I see a lot of "STUPID NOOB!" answers over general chat. Someone called me a gaming newb when I am anything but lol. That's how it goes I guess. That's also another reason I don't go with groups. Never know when the person you're with is going to be upset with your build and get nasty with you. It's also why I haven't given up my all but dead guild (my other guildies all have stopped playing) for another one. I mean, let's face it, the online gaming community has ALWAYS been an elitist community, even toward itself.

I tried a PuG for that Defend The Eye quest. We tried 2 twice to make it work but it was an epic fail. Then I took heroes and henchies and beat it easily. I set Gwen up as a Trapper and it worked to perfection. *lol* Better NPC's have made it harder to PuG successfully. The only place I get good PuG's are in FoW. I'll be coming to GWG to find dungeon groups though. I just spent 2 hours drudging though a dungeon I couldn't rightly beat on my own.
Ah well...I'll know what to do tomorrow.

I normally take hero + hench out, or guildies and friends if I'm lonely and/or failing at a mission.

Most PuGs are pretty horrid. It's fun to join a random group for a mission and see if you can drag it through. but not usually. If I actually want to play the game, you and your riposte/healsig necro can go elsewhere, I'm not interested.

PuGs are stupid, throw rocks at them.
No, seriously. The IQ of a PuG is that of it's stupidest member, divided by the number of people in the PuG.

I appologise to anyone that may be offended by this, you are probably the exception to this theory. I know there are some wonderful players out there that enjoy PuGing, but they are grossly outnumbered by the [Insert Offensive Noun of Choice Here].

I see I'm still odd man out, IRT PuGs. I still Pug, and I still find that all the PuG hate to be largely unfounded.

I've pugged all the harder missions in GW:EN and many of the longer, more tediuous ones - All with good success and good behavior. I *have not,* however, bothered to fill every single PuG slot with a live body. A few key players, and fill the gaps with Heroes, and away we go... Works like a champ for me.

I don't care much for PUG'in, mostly because our player group has played so long together, we have voice chat (pro vent) and try our best to play together as much as we can. If your on the American Server, or I guess that doesn't matter anymore, your welcome to hook up with us. I play ALOT, so message me in game, and I'll give you our voice chat info. Even if you have no mic your welcome to just listen in. In game name: Ms Cobra

I'll have to try that sometime, just to see what's discussed

Don't get me wrong, gang, I understand the issues with Pug'ing. Again, 12 years of running a mud, I've met some STUPID players. I actually made a super character one time and beefed him up with my admin abilities to help them learn. We started simple. "Rescue me from lead (tanking) so that the group can last longer, and while other's fight, the clerics heal the ones that just got rescued." and I even gave them the order to rescue in. I said "Do NOT use the bash skill too much, warriors, as it has a coded in lag and might make you miss the rescue point". What do you think the first person did? Spam bashed about 20 times. The next in line didn't think "Hey, this guy's an idiot, I'll rescue the tank". So my super deluxe beefed up character with about 750 HP died and I had to redo it all. So yeah, I understand the pug issues, but for the most part, that's just that "few bad apples" syndrom the world has

Well for me it's simple. I'm busy most of the day, I play but I play for 5-10 mins, take 20 minute break, play for 5-10 mins take a 20 minute break. If I play with players it's late at night and even then it's just with a few friends. I beat all of prophecies up to second shiverpeaks mission with henchmen and rest with henchmen/hero's. I beat all but last 3 missions of factions with henchmen *had friend help me for last few* and beat all of NF with hero's/henchmen.

Some times it's tough....some time's it was hair pulling, but it beat the heck out of the few experieences I had when I tried to do a mission with a PUG. Way I looked at it was.

Spend a hour making a PUG and have half the players quit half way through repeating this 4-5 times wait alot of sitting around doing nothing. Or spend 5 hours or a few days with henchmen and eventually when they came out hero's and while I may try it more times, I'm doing something the whole time.

Heroes are better than the average random player, so the only time I'll party with random people is if I feel like hanging out with someone or want to help them with their mission or whatever.

Problem is, I don't particularily feel like hanging out or helping someone with their mission when the average random GW player is a complete tool who is unwilling to work as a team. Overextending sins and warriors, eles and necros tanking those 5 mobs I've crippled without moving, and rangers who think bad effect spirits only apply to enemies/good effect spirits only apply to party members. This have gotten *so* old that if they don't listen the first time I explain to them why they died/are getting us killed, I just leave.

It's just mind-boggling how many players boot up GW, ask to join a team, click that "accept" button, and completely and utterly ignore chat for the following 45 minutes.

Pretty much the only "live" players I party with these days are my friends. I completed nightfall with just 1 friend and heroes, and got master's reward on all normalmode factions missions with heroes/henches.