You know what annoys me a little?

That it's such a rarity to even have enough people for one group to run The Deep, and when I finally do get in the group, it falls apart. After the release of GWEN the place seems deserted compared to what it used to be. I could get into group after group in the past, and usually good groups, but now it's a complete waste of time because even if you do get a group, it ends up falling apart.

However I'm not seeing all that many groups for places like Slaver's Exile or DoA either (not that I really miss DoA). It seems the community is still doing a bit of UW and FoW though, but it is in ursanway groups half the time, which is kind of annoying.

I just think the deep was a cool place to play a couple times a week, kinda miss it.

Are people just soloing stuff all the time now? It's kind of lame when you see a bunch of people doing regular quests and missions in parties of 8 and there's rarely one other social being wanting to group up for fun. I mean this is an online RPG right? What's the point when you just quest, do missions, and farm titles by yourself all the time?

I think you are over exaggerating about ursanway.

Also...

Guild Groups >>>>> PuGs

- That's what PUGs do. They fall apart.

- Would you prefer that people didn't PUG at all, like in The Deep you mentioned? I personally haven't been there, but I read on Wiki it's full of some annoying environment effects.

- People farm titles alone and when they finally realize it's a waste of time without other people, they give up and move to other games. Thankfully Ursan Blessing has renewed some life to PUGing, since now anyone can be more competent than party of henchmen and losing one or two along the way no longer cripples the rest of party.

You haven't noticed the massive decrease of people doing end-game content like The Deep? And also DoA? I mean I'm working on Slaver's Exile too, but there's not even many people doing that one. I try going for dungeons in GWEN, but there's not all that many groups for those. Maybe my guild just isn't big enough, but it would be nice as there are so many dungeons in the game, that people would bust out their hero/henchy bubble and play in groups for a change. Maybe there's just not enough people playing to support the dungeons? I feel connected when my guild is active and we do some hunting, but trying to communicate with the outside world in GWs is like yelling down a long dark tunnel.

PuGing is dead.

With the advent of heroes they pretty much eliminated a lot of Pugging. Though it was possible at least before Nightfall to beat the story up to the final battle with henchies even. It was a lot harder though. Also, just because a game is an "online" game doesn't mean that everyone has to be "social". That's rather just the independent minds thinking everyone should play like them to think just because a game is online it means grouping. THat's always been an issue with lots of other mmorpgs and The Blizzard guys saw it and that's why WOW is so popular and even GWs for the small population it has it is still the most popular thing about the game. The CHOICE to solo or group, not be forced to because some independent person thinks everyone who plays online should HAVE to group. Them old fashioned days are gone. People who love to solo can still be social without having to group with independent people who think if you play online you have to or should group. So, mainly if you can't find enough people to group with you either learn to play solo or goto one of those OLD online games where people were forced to group like Everquest or DAOC or Ascherons Call. GWs doesn't make anyone be forced to group except in a few choice areas and that's the way it should be and that's the way most people like it now.

I haven't been in the deep for months. Last time I was there it was dead so I lost interest. I suppose I'm in the wong place to post for pugz but give me a yell and I'll run!

IGN Nephilim Firefly

qft

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The problem is, even if people wanted to play with others, who are they going to do it with (in the case of PuGs)? As of now, even those players are forced to H/H or play with people they already know, since it's nearly impossible to get a group in a timely fashion. For this to change, something major must be introduced into the game (just as heroes drastically altered gameplay). Linksys beat me to the idea for a worldwide party search. :P

It should give 5k(NM)/10(HM)k faction upon finalization.

More people would go there.

I find myself amusing to pug. Sometimes you get a nice once... sometimes you enter a wipefest, XD.

I understand that having the choice not to group up is nice to have, because not every single thing in the game is going to have enough people to fill in the gaps. However, the choice TO group is fading, or actually gone, for many. I'm thinking they may have noticed that there wouldn't be enough people to support all the missions and quests in the game, so they added heroes just in case so people can still go through all of the content.

Whether or not the convenience of having heroes is nice to have, the world of GWs feels less deep, and more artificial, where it was originally a game designed for people to group together more. They changed an aspect of the game so drastically with this feature. Prophesy was amazing, NF was amazing too, but heroes are too powerful. The good players can use them to the effect of making the game very easy and boring. I played through GWEN with just heroes and henchies, I know how to solo, beat the entire game just by myself, but did I enjoy it near as much as Prophesy? Hell no. Most the time I was either flagging my heroes out of AoE or spamming them to attack a target. It wasn't hard, just tedious and boring.

I was always attracted to the Deep and the reason being I could get into groups and feel like I was immersed in the world. The rest of the game I just drag some AI powerhouses around with me. The idea that everyone "owns" a Dunkoro is also a design flaw. I'm not saying that the game is bad, it's just that they made a mistake imo.

We never needed heroes, the game was just fine. We also didn't need HM. I mean a game that used to be based on skills and teamwork has changed. Much of the content they worked hard to develop has lost it's atmosphere.

1. The game is reaching 3 years old. People's interests drift to other things. Now that GW:EN is out, we are 99% sure that there WILL be no actual new content for the game.

2. Heroes made a big shift in the PUGging department. Now you don't have to wait around because there isn't a human monk or whatever party member you need. It's much easier and practical now to just play with Heroes/Henchmen.

3. The end game missions are rather difficult. You need organization, teamwork, and knowledge to pass through some of these missions. People get frustrated over something they think should be easy, so they give up trying to do it with other people.

It's sad that the player community has gone downhill like this. I certainly remember playing Prophecies and PUGging. A lot of times, it was fun, and I met a few good people that way. But, most places are a ghost town now. It's sad.

Heroes only really killed PuGs for the endgame areas that you couldn't take the henchmen to. Players who H/H everything now are the same people that just played through the game solo with henchmen before. There were requests that we get to customize the henchmen; heroes were born.

The fact is there is just too much to do nowadays so everyone is spread out. Elite missions, hard mode, dungeons, title grinds, TA, RA, HvH, GvG, HA, AB, FA... did I miss anything?

Guild Grp ---- Forms UrsanWay = GG

Maybe the Devs were looking to the future with the release of the Heros. They saw a shift in the population when they released Factions. They also knew there would be a similar or bigger shift with the release of Nightfall. With GW2 somewhere on the horizon, and the Devs being smart enough to know that not everyone is going to run out and get GW2 upon release, added the heros to help those of us not making the immediate jump. If you think everyone is spread kind of thin now, just wait and see how thin it will be six months into GW2.






edit; corrected spelling

I just have to point out that the very fact that people are complaining about heroes ruining PuGs is solid proof that only a minority must want to PuG.

Obviously, so many players want to play alone with heroes that it's effecting the minority's ability to find human company.

That means, to me, that the majority of players must be quite happy with this change, and the unhappy minority are the ones taking the time out of their unhappiness to complain.

The last thing I want out of a game is to be forced to do anything I don't want to do, and that includes socializing.

And Perkunas, I suspect you're 100% correct about Anet's thoughts. Heroes make up for the community becoming to thinly spread, over three or four games.

This might just be me, but if I were the developers, I think it would be an awesome idea to do something that will get people to want to group up with other players more, and use heroes or henchies less, which is all the game needs to keep it fresh until GW2 hits. One idea could be the more players are in your party, you are rewarded, just to give people the incentive to group together again.

There could be lots of things to help. I was thinking depending on the number of actual players are in your group when you gain experience, you get points towards leveling up a new xp bar called "Settlement". The xp could be simply translated by multiplying the amount of regular xp you get by how many players are in your party -1. There couple possibly a bonus when you actually gain a level with people in your party.

However instead of a repetitive grind, it's based on teaming up with other GW's players for a specific goal, in each campaign, such as "Lion's Arch Settlement". Each time you level up your Settlement, you get to talk with an Settlement rep in LA for Tyria, Kaineng Center for Factions, and Kamadan for Nightfall, and the Eye of the North for GWEN. If you are alone, you don't get any settlement. However the more people are in your party, the more settlement you gain, and this will lead to rewards.

Now as far as the rewards for settlement, it can count towards a title and each level of the title requires a certain amount xp. However there needs to be a reward for every level, so you can talk with a settlement rep to get your reward, and give players instant gratification. These rewards could be unlocking for example the first level an superior identification kit, the second a superior salvage kit, the third a lockpick, etc, until you reach the max level, which could unlock the ability to purchase new elite armors, weapons, or even the choice of taking presents, which can contain new minipets. However each time you level up your Settlement for that particular capital, after the max level, you get a key to a chest for that capital, which could contain 5 lockpicks or something.

EDIT: Places like UW, and FoW obviously wouldn't count, as people could just get runs to UW/FoW and level up that way, avoiding the actual games content. Only rewards from actual missions, quests, dungeons in gwen, and HM Vanquishing/Missions or just killing stuff.

EDIT #2: Rhedd I just read your post. The thing is a lot people, when they dislike something, they just stop doing it. That's what I'm afraid of, a lot of new players may just be quitting, not thinking much about it, we are loosing players. You may think it's a minority, but there are people out there looking for groups, there's just not near as many as there used to be, because not everyone is still playing. My friends list has about 40 people or more on it, and most of them used to be active, now I see maybe 1 or 2 on at a time.

Not in my experience recently. I've been putting a character through the end missions in both Factions and Nightfall and have done them all in PUGs. Maybe I was just very lucky. I got into a PUG at Unwaking Waters and we stormed right through to the end in Imperial Sanctum. Similarly in Nightfall I did all the Realm of Torment stuff in a PUG. No quitters.

this is why having instanced areas are a very bad idea

I have to admit that, for quite I while I too stopped joining pugs - why bother when between my husband and I, we had all the heroes we could need? But... recently... I have "pugged up" just repeating a few of the more difficult, fun missions in the various campaigns. They aren't always great teams, but many have been recently - especially in hard mode. When they aren't, well, at least it's good for a giggle or two, right?

Edit: Just to add a little - since I'd gotten mildly bored, I've been taking my necro or monk (depending on my mood) to places and joining parties who seem to 1) be nice and 2) genuinely interested in completing the mission. Hate to see people standing around frustrated for lack of live players to team with!

You got that right. I've seen this before with sequels to other games where a 3rd of the population disappeared overnight and then the trickledown effect after that because there was nobody to play with. Star Wars Galaxies had 250,000 players before the NGE and it lost 150,000 players overnight because of it and the last time I went there the servers are so empty it's not even worth playing anymore. The only players left were dancing and playing musical instruments in the canteen and just using the game like an AOL chat server.

GW2 is going to really clean the population out when it is released and I'm pretty sure Anet/NCsoft are banking on this. That lots of people move from GW to GW2. Then of course there will only be handsful of people to group with in this GW. So, it's good there are heroes and henchies for those not making the move to GW2.

The problem with sequels and expansion areas is there's never really an influx of population to these in new players and thus people just spread out futher and futher away from one another going in different directions in these expansions. Everquest was very bad at doing that to its customers. It has 8 expansions now and if you were to start as a new player now you would find yourself all alone in the majority of the expansions and especially the origional one. Crushbone is always empty except for maybe 1 or 2 players. The commonlands, Guk, highhold pass, mistmoor and the list goes on into Kunark expansion and Vellious Expansion and the only reason people are still in the Luclin expansion is because that's where the bazaar is. Planes of Power deserted, LDON deserted and that's pretty much where I left the world. No new players, nobody in the first 5 expansions to group with and no real ability to SOLO the content. Talk about a forced grouping world that went downhill over the years.

There MUST be total solo content in these games so when worlds populations do fall or separate everyone can still play in them with heroes/henchies or some form of AI allies. Anet is just preparing the players that remain in GW for what's going to happen when GW2 comes out. You'll need dem heroes and henchies a LOT more after that.

A few thoughts on how you might reverse the trend of deserted elite missions:

Faction per kill and when completed in The Deep and Urgoz. With so many people title hunting, why should there be zero progress to a title by spending time in a Dungeon? I get Kurz or Lux faction by killing mobs and certain explorable areas. Why not in the Deep/Urgoz? I submitted a Sardalac suggestion about this a long time ago, but all elite dungeons should give some faction/reputation just for playing and a lot for finishing.

Urgoz: Kurzick
The Deep: Luxon
Sorrows Furnace: Deldrimor (if you own EotN)
Tombs/UW/FOW: dedicate victory to cause of your choice maybe?

Central area for grouping: Once you have reached the places you can access the elite area, you should be able to find parties in a centralized place. For example, in the Chantry of Secrets / Temple of Ages / Zin Ku Corridor, you should be able to for a group to reach Urgoz, the Deep, Sorrows, Tombs, DOA, etc., assuming all party members meet the minimum requirements for travel to one of those locations. This would add an incentive to get the other games as players would see grouping for areas to games they might not own yet.

Better drops for grouping This is somewhat controversial and would need to be done carefully, but you should have a better chance of getting certain rare drops depending upon the number of real people grouped in the party. I tried to put a suggestion in Sardalac exploring this idea, but it didn't go very far.

One way to do it would be to implement a "roll for special drop" system where players who have already gotten the drop are ineligible, but hench/heroes always roll for it. That way, there is a small increased chance of getting an item if you are grouped with experienced players. This would not apply to all drops, but only some rare drop at the very end.

For example, suppose there was a drop that you could add to a weapon to allow you to dedicate that weapon to your hall of monuments. Call it the "Valor Dedication" insignia. There could be 11 unique Valor Dedication insignias. Any of the 11 could drop from the end boss. If another player had received, say Valor Dedication Insignia #9, he couldn't roll if #9 dropped increasing odds for everyone else. That's just the concept. I'm sure it could be improved.

QFT

It's a big problem MMO's are beginning to suffer from now - how to build up and maintain a decent playerbase when the market is essentially satiated. For years the MMO playerbase has been growing, and perhaps it still is, but with the current (huge) assortment of games out there to choose from, it's only natural some games will start to feel the squeeze as the increase in players starts to level out. As said before any game in which the playerbase drops below a certain level is essentially dead. It feels and looks empty, takes ages to get a group together for anything and neither of these things make it very appealing for new people to get into the game.

As a result people will not want to buy a game straight away after release as a part of the value (at least for the more socially minded people) will be in the quality of the playerbase, and there's always the risk that a game may never really take off. Also you don't want to get into a game too late, as with the current wide selection of games available the majority will never reach their intended shelf-life.

And then there's Guild Wars, set apart by it's free-to-play ideals of one purchase and you can play as long as you like. However soon it will be competing with it's own sequel, GW 2 and mostly for the same customers who enjoyed GW1. So depending on how many people make the jump to Guild Wars 2 and how many potential players did not buy GW1 but opted instead to wait for the release of GW2, you'll either see the playerbase being spread out more thinly over the two games, or you'll see a general abandonment of GW1 and possibly even a failure for GW2 to take off. It's all possible. One thing I do hold fairly likely though is that GW1 is going to get quiet. Though perhaps not so quiet as other monthly-payments MMO's, in part because of their free-to-play system. There's no added cost once you've invested in the game to quit and then come back later and play some more.

everyone is doing things with guildies or alliance membets so get some people from your guild or alliance to join you.

yes it is a online game but people find friends to play with. we all have fun in different ways.

no one pugs they use guildies come one man quit QQing about pug groups quit your current guild and join one with 50+ active members (no more grouping issuse) problem solved if you do not want to do this then y cry about it.

I don't believe there is any possible way to get solo players to PuG. I've met a few people and suspect there are many who are playing GW that have never played an MMO before. Myself included. GW opened a lot of doors to bring in new MMO players. These players have spend ALL of their game time, prior to GW, playing solo. From my point of view, I don't like playing with other people because I don't like having to rely on another persons ability (or inability) to play to reach a successful outcome. Increase rewards for PuGing won't make ANY differance at all. They'll still solo.

I've noticed others say that playing with h/h is boring. Everybody has a Koss, everybody has a Dunkoro. Well, play FFX and everybody has a Yuna, and a Wakka. Point being? Those who never played an MMO are quite used to playing with a party of AI. Granted in FFX you had control over your other chars but in many other RPGs, you don't. GW is no different.

The fact is, there is NO WAY to encourage group play. All that can be done is to add mechanics to the game that make it easier for such players to find each other.

You know what annoys me a little?

People who put something worthless in their thread title so that you have no idea what the thread they made is about.

One reason I dont like to PUG is I can go at my own pace, not someone elses..If i want to stop half way through and get a snack, I can, or go to the store I can and not worry about offending anyone. I have even got called into work while playing and was able to just leave myself dancing in a field and pick up where I left off when I got back. If I was in a group, I would have had to leave a group and start over when I got back.
I play guild wars because I like the game, not to socialize. I get enough people contact at work to last me a lifetime, but I still enjoy taking out my aggressions on a charr....but at my pace, not someone elses.
I know I have said in the past that I really dislike pugs, and I do, its because of the whiny brat that always seems to worm his way into the group.
and I really like to search every little nook and cranny of the area and with going alone, I dont have to worry about slowing the group.
As for the deep, urgoz, DoA...never really got into those areas, they didnt interest me, I occationally do a FOW run if the guild needs or wants a filler, but thats about it.
I really do prefer to play alone..personal choice.
Why not play a differant game thats totally solo?
Its not Guild Wars, thats why.

/agree on the socializing side of GW.

What I'd like to happen is Anet making all hero parties possible, as well as the introduction of a few more heroes. This would make Urgoz and the Deep possible without any other players. Especially as I have no intention currently of moving to GW2, but will still play GW occasionally.

Even if you do get people interested in PuGing , there is also the problem that some don't have the time to commit to large blocks of time in one sitting. (i.e. 4 hours straight to complete an elite area, or hours to complete a time consuming mission) Ultimately, they decide not to join.