Titles: Did it kill PUGing in Guild Wars?

I don't disagree with that, but my point was without those titles those same people wouldn't be playing GW at all hence still not pugging. Titles didn't stop pugging, that "died" with the release of heroes. And lets face it everything in the game is anti-pug not just heroes. Its far more effective to play solo or with a guild/friend(s). Titles only gave the "top-end" players an easy way to discriminate, though it should be pointed out discrimination existed long before titles came out.

Before Factions I joined plenty of UW/FoW groups that would ask me a question about some skill or strategy used in the area. Wrong answer = no invite. Others would discriminate based on class, and still others would get into the zone see the skills being used and ragequit then spend the next 30 minutes to an hour spamming in ToA "Player XXX is a noob don't run with them." Hell I even joined groups that required you spam your /fame emote, the theory being someone good at pvp would be good at pve too. Ironic as most people with high fame just ran IWAY groups to get it.

Also, the only times people "needed" to group up is for missions/end-game content. Nobody was ever looking for pugs to farm zones before or after titles. It was always about solo farming often 55 monks and on occasion they'd need a SS/SV to help out. Since 95% of the titles have nothing to do with missions or end game content I'm going to guess they don't have that much effect on pugging. Not to mention the 5% of titles that do have to do with missions/end game are usually completion and would if anything inspire teamwork to complete them. At least they would if heroes weren't smarter than the vast majority of players. Back to heroes...

Zaishen quests are probably the main thing designed within the game keeping grouping with new people alive. The better people pugging are people who have a broad base of experience in this game and/or other games. However, I would not credit the current game design with helping produce more people like this; the current system is producing very uninformed players in end game that have to be taught basics. While grouping with people is certainly more efficient than playing with AI when you can form a group in decent time, most players are learning that title design encourages soloing more than grouping because the fastest farming groups are the most discriminatory.

I will acknowledge that my previous grouping habits were not ruined by titles, but by real life time constraints and preferences, and there is nothing the game can design to change that. But there are more than a few things that harm the random grouping scene and make casual groupers less likely to pug in the future (aside from those already mentioned in previous posts):

1) It should be obvious that at least part of the aspect of failed grouping is entirely social. Guilds don't meet all social needs, and people who don't grow/level together don't really mesh together. Which is important, because the most effective pugging system I've followed involved taking a few people I knew from friend's list and then filling out the rest of the party. Guilds are for reliability; pugs are for variety. 7 spots with complete randoms makes everything far more turbulent, while permanently sticking with a large core group makes the game into a job. But I'm in my mid twenties and started with how the game was originally played in Prophecies. I wouldn't prefer to group with the child who started with Factions to play as an invincible ninja, or the 40 year old who started with Nightfall and wants AI to beat all content.

2) Skill power gaps have done tremendous damage to the 'predicted success rates' of random groups. Players already in the know are the ones running the strongest templates and synergies together, not the players who need to use overpowered skills the most. As a result of this, it creates a huge efficiency gap between the newbs running their own builds and getting stuck in groups of mostly newbs, and the farmers running cookie cutter and excluding the people who need to learn from better players.

3) You have people who may know what they are doing with a weaker build, but the pug often has a micromanager who turns them into a cookie cutter that ends up causing the groups failure. Resto rits converted to Signet of Spirits or vice versa do not use the same spirit positioning. Minions masters does not play like Curse nuker or Blood Support character. Can you even make someone who's been doing DPS as a less effective spec into a good tank or healer? I personally enjoy the role versatility of a single class, but that is clearly not the opinion among the people who only want full tanks, full healers, and full nukers. Inflexibility wasn't as common in pugs years ago.

4) People who don't know game mechanics or tactics are blowing up otherwise competent groups, because there is no adequate social screening to prevent teams from becoming reliant on bad players doing the most important roles (like the typical MMO gear discrimination, which isn't good enough but still works better). There are monks that spam Heal Party or don't use their elites; Casters who break apart aoe packs by hovering around the pull and then precede to run into the backline despite the fact that mobs are faster than them and often aggro onto the monks while using daze or interrupts; Tanks not properly using defensive skills because they are so used to playing with consumables. Most social proof is buyable or farmable, so the average pug might be the stereotypical 'account buyer'.

5) Skills are so powerful that there are few good excuses for failure, which makes the atmosphere of the game less favorable for admissions of weakness. Most groups with half-knowledgeable players completely disband after the first obviously bad wipe, instead of discussing anything. Of course, the people who rage quit aren't great players and likely can't correct a failure, but they are typically what you get in powerful pug roles: permas, healers, imbas, etc. They have low tolerance because they know they can get groups easily.

I would say that pugs died for two reasons:
1. PUG's almost always sucked. If you had to pug, you pretty much knew that you were in for heartache and aggravation.
2. The introduction of heroes meant that players could, for the most part, build a team that had the exact skills they wanted. Heroes meant that you didn't have to rely on some yutz stranger who was just as likely to afk, taking advantage of the group, as they were to ragequit because they didn't get some drop.

I will never look back at pugs with anything that even remotely resembles positive thoughts. I will continue to H/H when i play or team up with individuals who I know in my alliance. My days of "DPS W LFG M+B" are long gone and will never return and I kiss aNet's feet for introducing heroes to the game, enabling me to do so.

There is only one reason PuG's are bad.

The general attitude and expectations of the GW community and players.

Period.

so I joined a pug yesterday to farm me some Cloth of the Brotherhood. Party leader was spamming "GLF dmg for Cloth farm, have healers 7/8", so I jumped in with my mesmer thinking this might even be fun. A couple of minutes later I'm defending the left side when a warrior dies on the right side. Same warrior then shouts in team chat "OMG SUCKY MONKS!!", after which one monk leaves, then second monks leaves, then I leave. And that's what killed puging.

in b4 cool story bro

Apparently your attitude and expectations were wrong.

Indeed. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Yes, silly me for assuming that random ppl could handle a simple challenge mission in a 5 year old game. Mea culpa

Agreed.

12charage.

i actually think titles and stones saved pugging, before no one would form UWsc with pugs and with intro to stones, ppl know what they are getting into. People would form a unranked HA group you know the level of failure is high and vise versa for a UWsc group. The more req a group has, the high the success rate.