Lack of cooperation & Jerks

What is it with people running off during missions and quests (I do Prophecies PvE).

Although I haven't been playing this game that long (a week before Christmas) I figure it's pretty much a given that when you're out questing or on a mission with other people that after a large skirmish you wait for people to regen before running off to the next skirmish. Am I wrong? I can understand that if you've been playing the game with a group of people with whom you're familiar that such a thing as checking in wouldn't be necessary, but when you're with a pug, shouldn't that be the thing to do? And as a side, the mini map is a very handy tool but very few people use it.

Another thing I wish people would remember: Not everyone playing this game is running their hundredth character through the missions and quests. There are people like me where this is new and cool and I want to see the mission cutscenes dammit! They're nicely done, it's fun to watch and it tells pieces of the story. Just be patient for Gods sake. I had a player during the Frostgate mission yell at me for watching the cutscenes and then proceeds for the rest of the mission to call me names and act like a misogynist jerk.

So, is there any protocol I'm missing here or am I just unfortunate to deal with people who don't get it? I'm starting to dread cooperative missions. Just for the record, I have hooked up with a few good groups for missions/quests but it's becoming a rarity.

I've said it before, and I've said it again.

If you add a shortcut, it doesn't become an option, it becomes the only option.

"Skip" the cutscene is a prime example.

Ive met people who've beaten the game but don't know the story.

Pathetic really. People assume everyone should and has to skip the cutscene all the time.

So report him and put him on ignore.

That's the one big thing about this game I don't like: there are about 50,000 immature jerks, and only 8 slots on your ignore list...

When you join tell them you are new to the game and playing for the first time through and that you would liek to watch all cutscenes.

Left click on your energy bar when you need to regen--your group will see you're low and most recognize its a request to regen. Watch your cut scenes all you want--I have run my hundredth character through every mission and I still watch them. Some like them, some not, but you're entitled to watch once you put in the effort to complete the mission imo.

P.S.: if there are more than 2 people in yoyur group, no one knows who didn't skip unless you tell them. :P

PUGs can be very frustrating. My advice would be to join a friendly guild where people will take the time to regen after battle, and don't mind that you want to watch a cut scene, and even take breaks during long missions.

Yea, im afraid you just witnessed one of the creme de la creme of GW.... but dont worry.

Ive had many good PUGs to compare to a few which made me think of either crying for the loss of future humanitys inteligence or laugh at the amount of stupidity which can be condensed and refined into one body.

I usually watch the cutscenes unless im in a hurry myself. If anyone asks afterwards I say I skipped with the rest.... if im feeling particualrily evil Ill tell them at the end of the mission just before the final cutscene if someone is being a particularily big jerk about it.

You've answered your own question. Prophecies? PvE? The two combined make for unpleasant things like Mending Wammos waving an FDS around or rangers with Firestorm.

Lol...yep jerks all around. Get yourself Nightfall or EoTN, and use heroes or find a good Guild.

Welcome to the world of pugs.

It's tough out there as a new player. Unfortunately for you, the game has been out for 2+ years and yes, most folks are running their 100th character thru Frostgate. But that's no excuse to act like a jerk. If someone starts acting up and cussing me out for no good reason, I just leave. If they can't learn to control their temper and play nice with others, then they shouldn't be in a pug.

Watching the cutscenes for the 5th or 6th time can be annoying, but I understand of course about new players. If you really want to watch, go ahead. The team doesn't know who didn't skip unless you tell them. For me, I'll usually do a mission that I've never completed before with henchies only. 2 reasons:
1. I really like the cutscenes and want to watch them thru in peace for the first time.
2. I don't like to complete a mission I've never done with a group of "experts" that are on their 10th or 20th time thru it. The result is that my character sorta coasts along with the group and I never really learn the mission. I also find it annoying when a Level 20 joins my Level 5-8 group and basically runs the entire thing. I know some people love that, but I prefer to earn my rewards.

Find a good guild and make friends in the guild. They can help you out by answering a lot of the "stupid newbie questions" that you'll have for a while yet without making fun of you.

People leaving in the middle is also super annoying, but sometimes can be avoided with a good leader. The most common leavers are...
"mommy says I gotta get off the computer now. bye"
"OMG!!! ARE YOU GUYS COMPLETE MORONS??? I'M SUPER ELITE AND NOT WASTING MY TIME WITH YOU JERKS!!!111!!!!1337!!!! BYE!"
"oh, um...huh? how do you move again? what's a skillbar?...what does this key do? <click>"
"Sorry guys, didn't realize this mission would take longer than 1 hour. Bye"

A little pre-planning can weed out most of these before you leave town.

If you want some ingame help, contact "The Scarlet Raven" or "The Amethyst Mage" ingame. I won't run you thru missions or give you free stuff. I believe you should earn them yourself. (You'll feel better later), but I'm willing to answer questions and join you on a mission.

One possible reason why people are rushing are time limits in missions. That is why people might want you to skip the cutscene. Such things should be discussed before entering mission. However, most missions in Tyria are bonus based and can be done at a slow pace. Unfortunately, since many pugs lack battlefield awareness, they may run away without noticing your location. Also pugs may be insensitive to your interest in the storyline.

The experience you described is one of the reasons some people prefer Tachikoma over a pug. One solution for your situation is to find a good active guild that can help you with your adventures.

Mmmm....don't give a s**t about them and watch as many cutscenes as you want? That's what I used to do

Watching a cut scene is something that I too enjoy doing and continue to do, however you always have that person/s that like to get through the mish ASAP. Just ignore them and don’t let it bother you. Your playing in a cooperative mission, cut scenes are part of the game and if you want to watch them so be it.

As far as the continuity among other players as a team? You will find good PUG's and bad PUG's. Some go into a mission rushing like banchee thinking they can just go in sword swinging the monk will keep them alive with ZERO mana. Pinging your energy can slow things down. Ping it until its annoying and maybe someone will notice and slow down. I cant tell you how many times a mission has failed for me when someone goes in like a bat outta hell only to have an entire party wipe.

Im glad to see there are new players to the game such as yourself. We were all noobs at one point in time, unfortunately today, a majority of the players GW’s think they are pretty good when the cold reality is the majority really blows at the game mechanics, the story line and a true understanding of how to play the game. Keep it up and don’t let foolish players like this discourage you.

Fal, you're not doing anything wrong. You are, unfortunately, just ending up with the Eric Cartmans of the gaming world.

I've been playing for over a year now and even though I know my way around places, quests, and missions, there's nothing that aggrivates me more than a party that will not take 10 seconds to rest (assuming we're not working on a time limit masters), or stick together, or rush through things.

If I do end up in a Party of random human players and I see things being rushed to the point where even my energy gaining skills can't keep up with the rushing, I'll often speak up politely with something like "Sorry guys, but do you think we could pause here for 10 seconds just to get my energy back up?" More often than not the other players will say "Sure!". I just want to make sure I'm as effective as I can be and having a full, or close to full energy bar helps that.

As for the cut scenes, if you haven't seen them, continue watching them. If someone gets mad, shrug your shoulders. I know that might sound just as rude, but not everyone has been playing for 1 and 2 years. Again, you watching them is not wrong in any way.

Or overall, just find me to party with you I don't even rush when I'm just hero and hencie a quest, or mission. And the cutscenes can make great screenshots or wallaper. I am a screenie addict.

Watch the cutscenes, period.

I don't know where you are in the game, but by the time you get to Thunderhead Keep, you will have met almost all the types of people that play this game. You will encounter the so called 'Experts'. The ones that want you to ping your skill bar and use only the skills they tell you. The first timer like you. The helpful ones, the silent ones, and I don't know how they do it, but those that chat up a storm right through the battles.

PuGs are interesting, fun, and can be a pain in ths @$$. Learn to be tolerant or like someone above said, skip ahead a couple of chapters to get help with the first one.

you had a great point at the begginging here. People have deved from it a tad, but yeah, thats why I liked the earlier, IE first year and a half of this game the best.. No one left once you got a good group. You could do half the game together if people had time. Now people leave if you go w/mo .. its not ahorrible build, depending, but man the bad rep. LOL

Yeah just watch the cutscenes and enjoy them. It doesn't matter what people say because they aren't a waste of time. Deep down they know this too, because whether they watch them as well, or use the time for a snack and/or bathroom break, the time still wasn't wasted. :P

The whole not skipping cutscenes is a part of PvE that everyone goes through (I know I had a lot of fun pissing people off not skipping scenes, back when minions died during them). Also, there are always going to be morons in GW, learn to ignore them.

another thing nicer about earlier in this game. Everyone A, hadnt seen them yet, or B, hadnt seen them 10 times over yet..

I also enjoy reading, playing games, Long walks on the beach, and Spending time with my 4 children, working for a living, and doin it wid da ol lady. OK OK im way outaline now.. /ban

I'm not exactly sure how they would know that you were the one watching the cutscene.

I'll skip cutscene if I've seen it already and don't want to see it again. But if someone isn't skipping the cutscene, I consider that a fridge run.

Enjoy the cutscenes! No reason why you shouldn't and if you get one of the many many moaners in this game in your group griping about it, just do your best to ignore them...they'll grow up...someday.

they may not. I was once in a group for a fire island mission in prophecies, and we were 2 hours into it, and our ranger was being a bit.. mean.. I guess and got angry that all the good drops were for others, and saying cheeky things, and we were all saying cheeky things back.. so she pulled a few groups on us.. and bam 2 hrs down the drain.. I saw her a year later and grouped with her, only to have an hr long clear fow attempt sabatageod by her.

Fun stuff.

*missing gw sadly badly waaaaaly*

Sad but true I guess...sometimes once a jerk, always a jerk.

Just ignore the jerks or if they are too out of line report them as someone suggested earlier.

Some tips:

1. If you are group leader, always kick the guy yelling "Go go go go go!!!! Come on Go now.!!!!! Click Enter Mission NOW!!!!!!!" 99% of the time, this fellow will cause a lot of trouble later. No, I don't care if he is the only Monk in your party. As a monk he's useless.

2. You mentioned having to stop for energy regen. Ok, all teams need to stop occasionally for energy regen, however you find that you are constantly pinging "my energy is 3 of 45" then there may be something wrong with your build. Learn the fine art of energy management. Your bar shouldn't have 8 spells that cost 15 and 25 energy.

3. Don't trade with other players until you familiarize yourself with the going rates for items and the common scams out there. (There's a list of scams on Wiki's front page)

4. Wiki? You haven't found that yet? Here ya go. Wiki is your new best friend. gw.gamewikis.org

yeah sometimes it works that way :S

Have fun guys.. and watch out for the in build glitches in gw, you might slip in one, fall and break a bad habbit.

we all payed hard earned cash for the series of games,nobody,no matter how much abuse they shout at you can deny you the right to view something which is generally relative to the game

the 1337 wannabe players yelling go go go or other abuse after cutscenes really should know better,they were watching every cutscene once themselves

@ OP. play as you want and watch what you want.you bought the game and earned that right

People like the anonymity of the internet, and online games.
Basically, it gives them an excuse to act like jerks with no real reprucussions. They can justify it to themselves, since they don't see the person sitting behind the computer half a world away, only another random name in a virtual sea of people.
Anyway, cutting a short story shorter, on the internet, expect jerks.

Guild Wiki is definitely my friend. Being a somewhat experience gamer (just not in GW), I was reading Guild Wiki and Guild Guru even before I had fully installed Prophecies.

My build is okay, I guess. I'm still learning. I checked out the builds area of Guru and put together a build based on suggestions I saw. I'm playing a n/mo which I like better than my e/me. I'm not running out of energy, but I do like to exploit corpses and keep my little minion army at full capacity especially on missions with a lot of fighting. That spell takes a few seconds and it does the group good as the minions make great cannon fodder. I also don't ping constantly. If I'm low, I'll let my minions run in to fight while I regen.

The "GO GO GO" guy... I learned that one the hard way. Had to listen to him calling everyone 'idiots' and 'retards' for most the mission. And sure, I guess the ranger was being a bit of a retard, but when I explained to her what to do, she was very cooperative. Amazing what being nice can accomplish. Note: People don't listen to instructions when they begin with an insult. That's group leadership 101.

Welcome to Guild Wars. There have been tons of threads about the general PUG nasties in GW. Reading your OP is just proof that nothing has changed in the past 2.5 years. If you like playing with people, join a good guild. There are tons of guilds recruiting here on Guru all the time. Check em out.

Watch the cuts.. I've had to watch them all over again recently since i've been helping my GF thru but really, they're not that long. People just need to chill and stop being so selfish.

BTW: go go go power ranger guys = my favs.. I love to boot em!

Great advice. In addition to number 1, also kick anyone with an immature name as it's only a reflection of their play style. In time you'll be able to tell who is going to enhance your play experience and who to avoid for the sake of your sanity just by reading the first thing they say.

Pugs can be a lot more fun than hench/heroes when you know how to filter out the bad ones.

Truth is, I swear when people don't skip long scenes, but I don't mention it in team chat. When it's a particularly long scene at the end of a mission and someone doesn't skip I just close GW and start it again. Gives me time to go make a cup of tea and have a chat with the merchant and be ready to meet up with them when they finally arrive at the outpost.

Yes there is a protocol you are missing, and you have stated your own problem. You are playing with other people. Playing with other people, unless you have specific knowledge that they are good players (Ie: you have played with them before) is setting yourself up for total disaster and aggravation. Almost all the players who knew what they were doing stopped playing with other random strangers the very moment that Nightfall & Heroes came out. Random strangers will always, always always be horrible players on the whole. So if you want to avoid that, boycott them and use Heroes/Henchmen or friends exclusively in your party. You'll have a much less aggravating time that way.

Just be patient this time through, then make a monk with unyeilding aura. Wait for someone to get out of line, intentionally let them die. Use unyeilding aura on them. They mouth off you remove enchantment and then /laugh. Then use it on him/her again. Rinse and repeat. This was priceless in my guild wars experience, that one (or many) dumb player who always runs in, I would wait till they got overzealous like the A.D.D. kid they are, then let them feel like they would have a chance at aggro, then kill said person who likes to not wait. Unyeilding aura=Anets noob control in pugs.

When people say 'plz skip', what that really means is "watch it entirely." In all honesty though, I feel sorry for the "new buyers" of guild wars, great game, poor experience because they are picking up so late that most of the enthusiasm and excitement is lost, you get stuck with the leftovers, rather than the main course.

Yeah unfortunately this game has been going on for 2+ years and you will have those guys/girls that just want to get it over with because they have rerolled their 100th character.

I don't know about protocols, but in any type of PUG or even a group of friends that I am in, I usually let everyone know if I am new to a mission. That lets them know I am not familiar with how things work and so on. It is also gonna let them know that the cutscenes are new to me so they shouldn't be "surprised" if I don't skip them.

My best advice: find a good guild. The people in it will help you through missions and are not gonna rail on you for being new and/or watching cutscenes, and it's more fun than PUGs.

For me, I just run the missions on my own (with henches) or with guildies. If I'm desperate, I'll PUG (some PUGs are just fine, as you say), but don't be surprised if there are jerks in PUGs. It just happens, sadly.

Yes, watch all the cutscenes you want. The game is correctly designed such that anyone has the right to watch the scenes that they paid for. You have the right to understand the storyline your first time through the game - this matters much more than a couple minutes of lost time for people.

The sort of person who gets angry at this is getting the unhappiness that they deserve for being so selfish.

You might find it less stressful to deny that you were the one that didn't skip, but that part is up to you.

Sorry, I have to disagree. I pug alot, almost everyday in fact. I enjoy teaming up with others.

Yep, i get some really bad groups, but I also get some good groups. Most of the time the team is average. Not too bad, not too good, but competent enough to complete the goal. It usually depends on the group leader.
- Is he experienced? Has he done the mission before?
- Does he know enough about the upcoming mission/quest to competently pick a good team or did he randomly invite everyone in town and goes with the first 7 people to join?
- What is the leader's character name? Don't expect "Captain Poopypants" to lead a good pug.
- Does he ask his team to ping their skill bars? Sometimes this is good. Sometimes bad. It depends on the difficulty of the area. Stay away from leaders that try to micro manage everyone's bar, but you should also be wary of leaders that don't care what you bring.

In the end, I don't mind the bad groups. Sure they can be frustrating at the time, but they sure do make for some entertaining stories later. Top 10 Signs You are in a Bad Pug

No you're not wrong. You just missed the good old days when PUGs were far, far more cordial than they are now. Most actually listened and took care on the things you mention - at least better than now. I used to love to PUG. You'd find the occasional failed group, or the occasional single annoying player that the rest of the group would help guide or bring in line, but since the release of heroes, those days are gone. I got 6 Protector titles in Factions and a number in Prophecies just playing in PUGs as I found it fun. Not sure I'd do that now, but alas, I join PUGs from time to time still as I miss the all-human parties and tire of hero maintenance.

Try joining a fairly sizable and active guild if you like all-human parties. You could keep trying PUGs, but they really arent what they used to be.

In this case, many people have seen most of the cutscenes too many times to count. When in a PUG I consider it polite to skip cutscenes. If its one I havent seen, I go back later with H/H in normal mode and see it myself if I want. Now I'm not one to give someone a hard time if they dont skip cutscenes, but you'll unfortunately find more of what you experienced if you dont skip cutscenes in a PUG. Again, its a different story in a guild.

Most people in PUGs now "dont get it." Can point to many reasons. It wasnt always as bad as it is now though. Nothing quite like a PUG when it works well. Have fun. Dont dread co-op things, but try pulling together friends for things PUGs arent succeeding at, or try a guild.

When you meet someone nice, add them to your friends list, keep in touch with ppl you have enjoyed playing with, soon you will have a massive friends list and you wont have to pug ever again. I have many many ppl on my list (and in my guild too) that I have been playing with for almost three years now, and I have not pugged since 2006.

Don't admit to not wanting to skip it. MAKE EVERYONE GUESS!

Add people to your friends list that are willing to pug with you.

If you do a mission with several good players from the same guild and they are nice people, ask about their guild and perhaps join.

Post the times you play here at guru and see if you can find others that play at the same time and that are willing to do missions with you.