PUG rant

I'm still loving PUGs......for all their short commings.....meeting new cool ppl trumps their downfalls. I guess thats y I play this online game with tons of other ppl. If I didnt like meeting and playing this game with ppl I would simply play a single person game. Everyone basically met all the ppl they play with now via some sort of PUG so I don't really understand all the ill will.

Good PuGs come down to mutual respect and maturity.

What put me off it at high-end or in regards to Zaishen Quests is the expectation of perfection and the ease in which people criticise and belittle others.

I only tend to PuG with new players who aren't so jaded or dictating.

Unlike other MMORPGs, party members in GW have binary skill. They're either good, due to their build, or they're bad due to their build. There is no middle ground.

I had hoped ArenaNet would address profession bias through normalization (like what WotLK did in World of Warcraft), but I suppose that might be impossible given the current design There's just too many variables to ensure confidence of success in GW.

As a result, PuG leaders have to be Nazi's and make sure everything is good, otherwise hours of work might be wasted due to one person's incompetance. If you don't like it, don't PuG. If you still don't like it, don't play GW.

Side note: I'm shocked that ArenaNet hasn't enabled 7 heroes by now.

If your specifically looking to attain a certain goal or efficient run why PuG in the first place?

If your looking to rage on new players for not attaining your goal all be it people with bad builds, experimentalists, people just playing for the lol, etc, etc....go PuG.

Seriously.

It's the false expectations of serious players that more than not leads to bad PuG's in my experience.

I fully agree with game mechanics birthing this mentality.

I guess it depends on how you define good and bad.

If you define good as any build that will run successfully and has what the party needs and bad as one that doesn't then you would be right.

But my definition of a good build is one that is optimized for the situation at hand. This being my definition it leaves room medium builds which get the job done but aren't the best. Then bad builds that slow progress rather than help it.

And there is an array of builds out there for each pugging situation.

A lot of the time someone with a really good build and who is decently skilled at the game can make up for 2 or 3 players who aren't as good and don't have great builds.

But if you are doing something that doesn't really need to be pugged (see any main storyline mission) your probably going to end up dealing with a bunch of people who don't know how to knock whatever mission it is out normally. So if your skilled you're gonna have to pick up the slack and there's still no guarantees.

Now on the other hand if you're pugging something that does require a PuG or a guild to get done then you are going to run into a much wider skill range (between very bad and extremely good). In this situation it would be nicer if there were people there who were still willing to do some teaching and guiding...but there's usually not. So the expectation will be that you are good. And if you're not good this expectation forces you to pretend to be good. And then you're group will fail because they are relying on someone who's unreliable.

If we had a climate of people who are more willing to teach and people who were willing to admit they needed to learn we'd be better off. But no one is seriously promoting this agenda. so it's probably not gonna happen (Although in certain places I have come across people who have taught me things recently I doubt this is the norm).

Mhh, given that a player with an empty bar, 3 heroes and 4 henchies can c-space through hard-mode, and while, according to you, one 'bad' player is enough to fail PvE, which together means that the 3 heroes and 4 henchies > the 7 other human players from the PuG.

No need, you just made clear that 3 heroes + 4 henchies > 7 players


No, there's only good PuG's and bad PuGs, and the difference is not in character builds, but in the player mentality. Good PuGs cooperate, even when (some of) their players are not well skilled or inexperienced.

i don't think some people understand the concept of pugs. not knowing how good your team will work is half the fun!

"will this team work together fluidly and dominate?"
"will this group run in completely different directions while a 13-year old wammo runs in guns blazing?"
"will this mm stop spamming 'LOL' in team chat until i want to slit my wrists?"

WHO KNOWS!

I disagree with this. You can have an alright PuG by having one or two people doing most of the work and the rest kind of blindly dealing damage depending on the mission. Unless you're in hard mode and doing something difficult then this factor is almost diminished (although you can kind of have a discombobulated group of half decent players do fine with minimal communication in my experience.)

LOL this is exactly what I need to learn especially in JQ and RA and FA etc. Man I get so irritated. LOL Oh well.