Heres what I dont understand.

How is it that the longer the game goes on, the worse PUGs get?

the decline of PUGs seems to defy the law of averages, as more players have played for longer periods of time, so pugs should tend to improve.

I've only done pvp beyond comp and team arenas a little bit so this is mostly about pve groups. But to my mind that makes it even worse cause its not nearly as dynamic an environment, which means to me that more people should generally have an idea of whats goin on.... but that doesnt seem to be the case.

How can PUGs be actually declining in quality as the game goes on... it boggles my mind.

Um...Ive wondered this too sometimes..

Like how could one complete Hells Precipice and not understand priorty targets in the Titan missions?

The better players have found each other and started guilds. They then absorb competent players from small guilds until they have their own farming communities that don't need to pug very often.

While you'll see them in PUGs occasionally, it isn't something you can count on. Most players who have to rely on pickups to make it through missions are either:

1) New but competent players who haven't made the contacts to get absorbed by a guild yet;
2) 'Experienced' players who are incapable of learning from their failures and are doomed to repeat them;
3) Players with such bad attitudes that no one wants to group with them.

When the game first came out, (1) was a significantly larger segment of the population. Now those players spend more time with guildies and less time with pugs, leaving the pick up scene as the mess it is now.

Peace,
-CxE

They're making the game harder in ways not listed, little by little, in the updates.
This is to cull out the retards and RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOsticks, but the double effect is that the parties that have said retards and RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOsticks in them are given a greater challenge.

My conspiracy theory.

Don't forget that there are a lot of newer players out there that have taken shortcuts thru the game & as such they dont know as much as they should. So you end up with ppl in RoF(& whatnot) that may be lvl 20 in number but in all actuality they are more like lvl 10-15. They may have the armor & even the skills/spells but they dont have the expierence.

It's true. The ratio of good PUGS to bad PUGS is a decreasingly small number.

However, I feel, if people don't leave PUGs <At least on average 1-2 people I get in a PUG with ALWAYS disconnect <never the same people, I wouldn't accept the group then, until they explained why they left like an idiot> then we don't have a majority of the problems that make a "Good" into a "Bad"

Also, if the people in PUG's would listen to people with experience, I'm sure PUG's would benefit as a whole.

There's alot more reasons, but these are just two of em.

--The Shim

I can hit the nail on the head on this one. I have taken a break and havent played as regularly as i use to. Changes in skills, mob ai, etc is constant. People that take 2-3 weeks off wont be as good. Simple as that, and i can tell you, a LOT of people are not playing as regularly as they use too. Sometimes its time to move on, perhaps you will realize this and pick up another game till the expansion comes out.

Another reason could be that the missions at the start are very easy, so even if you're teamates make mistakes they aren't too noticable. As the game goes on and the missions start getting gradually harder, these mistakes start to get more and more apparent. Basically, it might not be that there are more noobs in the late missions of the game, but that you just notice them more.

You need to get better at this game. Sorry.

PvE has gotten increasingly easier.

What about people who have played since the begining but have busy lives and can't play often enough to meet guilds standards. Just because people don't have guilds, it doesn't mean they suck...Pretty sure I don't suck. I used to be in a couple guilds, but sometimes I'll be busy for like a month then have time to play again.

I think the thing is that many of the better, more serious players have realized that ANet is more focused on the casual player and have moved on to better games. I have done this myself. After completing the game with 6 characters over 2 accounts (the last two playing out of boredom), the game really has nothing else to offer, for me at least.

I don't like the PvP system. Unless you are a hardcore PvPer and keep on top of every FOTM build, you don't have a chance. Also, I don't like how the world is instanced, it makes for a very small-feeling game. I know this is why the game is free, but that still doesn't make up for that fact that it is just not up to the caliber of many other online role playing games.

I have nothing against Guild Wars, its great at what it does. But I think it's just not enough to satisfy a more serious online role playing gamer. I think this is why you are having this problem (I noticed the same thing, by the way). The Guild Wars crowd is a very immature group of players as a whole, compared to other MMOs. I think this is mostly because it does not charge a monthly fee, allowing any kid to pick up the game and play it.

I was shocked when I started playing WoW of how nice most people are. I have not been playing very long, but I have gotten my character to level 16, and I have still not met a rude or inconsiderate player yet. NOT ONE. In fact, I have met more generous, considerate players in the few days of playing WoW that I have ever met in Guild Wars. I'm not saying everyone in GW is immature, but I'm just making a generalization.

One more thing about grind. All RPGs need grind. You HAVE to have grind. RPGs are all about building your character and gaining experience. This takes grind and patience. Guild Wars specifically is marketed as having minimal grind. This makes a game where people are impatient and want everything without having to work for it. This is how runners became so popular. It's that fact that makes an immature crowd even worse at an online RPG. When a group is not even patient enough to do a 30 minute mission, you know there is a problem.

The game is geared toward the more casual crowd. The PvE/RPG side of the game is also very much hindered by the PvP aspect of the game. It is these facts that have pushed me towards other games, and I think there are many other like me.

Hmmm, gonna have to disagree on that one.

How many other games have you played. Most other games are grind grind grind with little or no reward.

Matrix online: Grind or cheat your way to 50 then have nothing to do

City of Heroes (pre Villians): insanely long grind to 50 or PL for a couple weeks to it. Then have nothing to do except kill AVs, pick on new people, or gather badges (lame)

Final Fantasy: Grind to 75 for an eternity and become a prick because you have nothing better to do because of the lame pvp and even lamer camping for items

EQ: never played it...probably the same

Lineage 2: Mind numbing grind, with rare castle sieges to look forward to....or you can just go around pk'ing everyone



Now this is just my opinion but I think everyone can agree. I've played all of these and have the highest or close to it levels in all of them.

Now on the other hand you have guild wars where the whole point of the game is the end game material. There is tons of crap to do and way more in my opinion than any other game.

And no offense but I noticed your join date is Oct 2005, I don't see how you could have formed an opinion in 1 month

I went through all the missions twice to unlock 4 professions worth of skills for PvP. During my newbie stages, I had to make a choice:

1) Join a PvE-oriented guild so that I can do all these missions over and over again with guildmates.
2) Join a PvP-oriented guild so that I can play my favorite aspect of Guild Wars with guildmates, while leaving me to go PuG missions.

PvE doesn't have much replayability to me, farming gets really boring, and in fact there's not much of interest to even farm for. Therefore, I figured that joining a PvE guild would be a waste of time. I went for a PvP guild, and decided that I could survive through 2 rounds of PuG'ing. It worked. I'm pretty much done with PvE, except for a few skill caps I may choose to get.

So to answer the OP, many of the PvE players just went through the missions quickly to unlock skills for PvP, then never returned to PvE again. This segment of players has great experience but isn't available to PuG.

You bet it is. My friend lost anywhere between 6 months to a year of his life from EQ (or so he told me), and I don't think he even reached level 65. Even then, you do the occasional raid at level 65 (maybe the level cap was increased too, who knows).

Guild Wars, on the other hand, makes reaching your peak in power a part of the continuing story. Reaching your peak in power doesn't leave you wanting what isn't there, since about 1/3 of the game is still there for you to finish. You've got the Southern Shiverpeaks, Fire Islands, Sorrow's Furnace, the Titan Quests, Fissure of Woe, and the Underworld. Not to mention that once you're done all this, you'll have two professions worth of skills unlocked to make a PvP character. Do this whole thing again with a different primary and secondary profession, and you've got a huge variety of possible PvP builds at your disposal.

Never a dull moment once you reach the cap in GW.

This can be said about Guild Wars' PvP. Instead of grinding away for a number beside your name, you're gaining more experience with every passing PvP battle. You're not just building up a fictional avatar, you're building up your own skill and coordination with a team, and the knowledge of how builds work. If you play it often enough with a good guild, you'll find it quite dynamic and fun to tweak your builds, strategies, and compete for the Hall of Heroes and ladder rankings.

An alternative: their guild is small and usually not on when they are on. *raises hand*

I don't consider myself a great player, but I do think I'm at least competent, I listen to instructions and follow them, and I'm not a leaver. Too bad most people I've played with can't say the same.

what crack you smokin? PVE hasn't gotten any easier since AI update, only harder to compensate for. Please pass that killer bud you be smoking up! =)

<Read any of the posts containing the update and why it's good/bad and you'll have evidence>

--The Shim

Omg Kthxbye makes a valid point, I suppose (though I have never tried out other MMORPGs). My answer would be similar to that of Loch: pvp is the best aspect of this game. Not all like it (which means that the game will probably start to bore them sooner or later), but will still have gotten their money's worth (after all, some games for the same price are completed in 10 to 20 hours, and still become big hits. GW will certainly last for longer than that).

However, the pvp-part is where GW shines. Though it can be a bit hard to get into (it really helps if you have a good guild). And some will not like it much in any case. Tastes are not same for everyone after all.

Well in that case I guess I can see your point.

I guess the only thing i can tell you is have fun looking for another game. And holy crap, that's another great thing. It's free! So if you wanna take a break it doesn't matter and you don't force yourself to play just because you are paying for it

Well, that's just when I joined this forum. I've actually been playing since the November 2004 BWEs when I preordered. Like I said, I do like the game, I just think it's more casual-player oriented, and doesn't have much more to offer me since I'm really not into PvP. I'm more than satisfied though, I can't remember a game that I've played on a regular basis for a whole year. Definitely worth the 50 bucks, IMO.

I agree with Ensign's idea. Pick up Groups are horrible these days because most of the decent players have more than likely had chance to get into a Guilds or otherwise build a circle of friends that spare them from constantly subjecting themselves to the suck that is PuGs.

It's not that all people who don't have in game connections are horrible people who either can't get friends or scrubs who can't land a Guild.

However, being a lone wolf tends to result in you playing with mostly jerks and idiots.

I'm in a guild with just me and my friend Becky, I can second that vote. I pug all the time, and I can't say that I enjoy it in particular. (the people I meet)