Bad PUG. Whose fault is it?

In real life it's much easier to identify children and idiots, so I don't have to hang around with them.

To the OP: What you're saying is a fallacy. I'm 1/8 of a team and therefor do not bear full responsibility for how good or bad a group is regardless of my own skills. I can compensate to a certain degree but a group mainly consisting of bad players is a bad PUG, which is not my fault and I will not take "false" responsibility for others poor skills/judgement.

i used to think it was funny when ppl whined at the monks when they died until i started using n/rt healers

Yes, it does. Play the game how you want and leave him alone to play it how he wants. He has his opinion, you have yours, stop acting like there are hard and fast rules about how to enjoy a video game.

And for the record: people with lousy attitudes make bad PUGs. That means most of GWG is part of the problem. Just because you're not a "n00b lol" doesn't mean you're not a jerk, and jerks and "n00bs" are equally annoying when they have crappy attitudes. You all ought to keep that in mind as you spout off trying to show just how enlightened you are in regards to a computer game.

It's amazing the difference that something as simple as designating a person for calling targets can make, assuming the rest of the team goes along to attack those called targets.

I can't count how many times during Norn runs this weekend I lost the rampage bonus because people just decided to attack whatever target was close to them rather than focus on quickly killing the called target to refresh the timer.

/wave
Hiyas everyone.
My name is Trub, and I'm a confessed aggro RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO.
Please forgive me, I just get soooooo wrapped up into killing chit, that I DON'T look at the crazed mob of red dots who's space I am backing into....Nor the cap locked warnings from my team mates in chat...
Don't hate me, because I'm still beautiful in my armor, laughing as I rez you..

You has rez??

I'm a (LONG) Bow Rit..of course I do!!

Oh yeah..forgive me for enraging critters in DoA with splinter barrage too...

The problem with pugs is that 95% of good players will not pug any given mission/quest. That leaves the other 5% of good players to try to pug with the 100% of decent or downright bad players.

Pugs usually aren't overly horrible. I would say at least 5 out of 6 pug players are decent. I actually haven't seen that many stereotypical w/mo healer, ranger with multiple preps, or assassin tanks in a while. I think most good players just have that one really bad group experience and then swear off pugging forever.

Furthermore, a lot of players are very overly demanding/controlling of the group. Yes, an echo ss necro may be the absolute most effective build for a part of the game, does that mean any necro who didn't get it through a tome and start running it at lvl 5 is a noob?

Really, if you are a decent player and you have the ability to convince the group to follow you and listen to what the better methods are for certain areas, you still will have 99% success with pugs. PvE really isn't that hard.

Its prolly the fact that more and more people find friends, guilds and alliances to join up with and give up on pugs like most of the GW world has done.

all the people who can not find friends online,or just plain suck at the game and will never get better still pug.

so today most pugs are 8 bad players who all hate each other because they all think it is the other person who is the bad player.
its a very simple answer to your question.

My opinion:
Group Leader

1. for picking bad players (who has the right skills and will listen to the leader)
2. for not leading the group correctly

It depends largely on how the PUG "fails." If you get a group set up of about 4 warriors and 4 monks I'd blame the party leader for putting together such an unbalanced group. If it's say in the Eternal Grove mission and nobody's doing their thing I'd say it's a group failure (best kind since everyone's blamed.) If some idiot goes and aggroes twelve groups of monsters than I'd put the blame on that asshole.

I put the blame on the party leader who was bad enough to invite that asshole

We once met a Level 13 guildie into Snake Dance on a capping run. He was warned repeatedly to hang back until the major threats in each group were taken out, and not only did he not hang back, he repeatedly ran ahead and got himself killed.

He doesn't come along on that sort of thing anymore...

Good Post OP.


Jesus, when I think of all the 1-timers I monked through the deep (there was a point where I would pug thru it 3 or more times in a day)... and the Zodiacs they got for it... I miss the old pre-kanaxai chest/HM days of 9-Man Deep.

I found a good tactic to be: (keep in mind VD has just been changed last month)

good - "Onis use Vipers Defense, so DONT attack them or they teleport around the warriors"
bad - "DONT WAND ONI NUB!"

Also-
Having the Send-To-Chat feature on skillbars nowadays means it is the responsibility of the party to actually look at it.

I have to agree with Ekelon. The party leader has to step up to the plate and take some small steps to help the group succeed. There are warning signs that this pug will not succeed. Ignore them at your peril.

1. You receive a random invite. You accept and notice 20 more people on the invite list. This pug has a leader with no management skills whatsoever. He justs wants 8 people. Any 8. And he wants to start now. He doesn't care if 8 Assassins join or 8 Eles. He'll take the first 8. This pug will fail.

2. If you are in an elite area and you know certain builds are required for success (or at least well thought out alternate builds to the standard cookie cutters) then I expect the leader to ask joiners to ping their builds. Don't just assume that the ranger who joined is packing Frozen Soil. Ask him. If you don't and you later find out he brought 7 monk healing skills and Barrage then you can blame the leader as well as the ranger.

3. The leader needs to make sure the team is all on the same page before starting. Do you need masters? Are you going for the bonus or skipping? If you're heading into the FOW then what are your goals? Do you want to clear? Are you only interested in opening up the forge? Is this strictly a chest run? If you want to clear then make up that's what the rest of the team intends too otherwise you risk losing half your team in an hour once they get bored.

For the most part, I get good pugs. The bad ones can usually be blamed on poor or non-existant leadership.

you win the thread.

TBH it's not so easy to spot the assholes and the good players. If you have knowledge on the area and if you get me an effective build for it, I'll automatically assume that you're not going to be out of my radar and blame the monks for not healing you. Yet, I've seen it happen; the most recent was yesterday, in fact.

I'm not about to start interviewing every PUG on their aggro habits and their personalities. Every now and then I'll ask if they're familiar with the area, though (especially when using effective tactics that aren't used a lot within PUGs).

And in every group, there's a guy who can't even understand a simple "don't move".

Now that ain't nice. How was the party leader supposed to know?

The thing is when most players possibly by today is because they got ran with their first char and on their account or they just didn't bother to learn that profession.

The OP is ftw .

Eugh... well... I try and PUG, I really do. Most of the time henchmen are a good substitute, but not even Lina can talk to you about your day (but she can give you a lovely smile, even when she resses in the middle of a mob of Ruby Djinns). However, my builds are unothodox. My first character was a water ele. I use mesmers almost always (NO-ONE has the authority to lecture me on my mesmer builds :P). Sadly, there are some people, like the jos, who are elitist. If I pinged my water ele build, my life expectancy in the party would decrease very rapidly.

My monk's favourite elite is Healer's Covenant. If I pinged that instead of Healer's Boon, people like him would /kick faster than I could say "hello, how are you?". Anyway, away from the rant, PUGs are nice when the people are friendly and NOT elitist. However, my mesmers would slap you if you called them "hawt" xP.

Hey Miska, I think one of my characters was in the PUG with you and you were right, it was great fun and very successful! Because we treated each other like teammates.

In one sense, the fault is always mine: I know what PUGs are like, and yet I joined one anyway.

In another sense, the reason the PUG failed can always be traced back to one of the following:

• 1. The Unprepared:
  The person missing the quest that causes a gate to be closed.
• 2. The Unequipped:
  The person without max armor/infusion in an area where it's required.
• 3. The Liar:
  The person who claims to be one thing, when in fact he is not. The crappy derv claiming to be an usran; the 55 monk claiming to be a heal monk; etc.
• 4. The Ignorant:
  • 4a. The person who thinks they know what they're doing, but does not, and as a result does something dumb that pooches the mission/quest.
  • 4b. The person who does not know what they're doing, but won't admit it so that I (and/or other knowledgeable party members) can help them, and as a result does something dumb that pooches the mission/quest.
  • 4c. The person who does not know what they're doing, receives instructions from a knowledgeable party member, but refuses to listen, and as a result does something dumb that pooches the mission/quest.
• 5. The Aggro-Happy:
  The person who cannot watch their aggro bubble/attacks and aggros extra mobs that the party can't handle, resulting in wipe.
• 6. The Incompetent:
  The person who simply cannot perform their role adequately. Most noticeable with monks, whose incompetency can lead to immediate failure, but it can happen with any player.