Curse

Kaida the Heartless · Jun 19, 2007, 06:20 AM // 06:20

A current and ongoing problem in guildwars today seems to be the ability to find a decent "Pick up Group" or PuG. I think it's safe to say that we have all seen the "Pro" Ranger that you catch using Firestorm and Flare midbattle, or that "Experienced" Warrior who Leeroy's his way through a mission with Endure Pain active. We'll, I think it's about time we got a thread going to generate ideas to solve this problem.

This post is not trying to generate ideas to isolate new or inexperienced players!
This post is to generate ideas for better party creation for harder areas. Hard mode was added to the game for a reason! Any moderately-seasoned PvE'er knows that Easy Mode is... well, easy! You don't necessarily need to use the ideas in this thread for this mode since it is so easy. In fact, I expect that most of the GW population won't use them anyways. These suggestions are geared towards Hard Mode, the Elite Missions, and the Domain of Anguish!

This thread should be used to discuss possible ideas to help counter this problem. You can either contribute your own idea, comment (constructively) on someone else's, or both.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are my two suggestions:

"Team Builder" Format for Templates:
Some of us here may be familiar with the Guild Wars Build Creation Program, Team Builder. This program lines up 8 player slots and a list of skills, all at once. This way, you can see the builds of 8 entire people at the same time. Perhaps, as a new template function, this could be used to observe everone's build who has a slot in your party. Skills could be monitored by whole teams at once, eliminating the need to have everyone ping their bar and the hassle of clicking each template when you want to see that player's build.

Pros:
- No more sneaking in those Flares and Firestorms silly Ranger.
- Build synergy would increase amongst PuG players, even without ventrillo! This may help to break some of the "Cookie Cutter" builds that rampage outposts all around the guildwars continents.
- Party Leaders may begin to take on a more important role than just clicking the add/kick buttons.

Cons:
This may also reinforce "Cookie Cutter" builds that exists since it would be so easy to make sure people are bringing the skills to fit them.

Fixes:
None.

Comment and Rating System for Players:
This system would involve a window you can use to investigate the profile of a player. Some statistics should be able to be viewed, such as total experience, balthazar faction, or the like. There would also be a scroll window where players could view comments and rating scores of another player, submitted by other players. This way, you could take the word of other people who have played with this certain player, instead of taking the player's word itself. Short and simple, you could leave and view comments about other players to help everyone's general playing experience!

To keep the comments updated, limit the max to 15-20 comments total. To keep the storage space down, limit the number of lines a player can submit about another player to 3 lines.

Pros:
- The ability to check out "MrMendingWammo's" profile before you click the enter mission button. See if X Player is really as good as he is cracked up to be!

- Reputation! One thing I always thought was subtracting from Guildwars was the lack of recognition by other players!

Cons:
- People (griefers) may just run around trying to ruin another player's profile. This would be somewhat less effective if 10 comments say you are an excellent player, while 2 say you stink worse than moldy cheese.
- Some people (griefers) may just place certain ASCII images in the boxes instead of comments.
- "Buddy Bombing" someone's profile. This means that you would get a bunch of your friends to bash someone's profile, making them look bad.

Fixes (or Fixes Needed):
- Some method of "bad" post deletion may be needed. No, I'm not talking about the posts that say someone is an indecent player, I'm talking about the "other" ones.
- Anti-Buddy Bombing.

Stupid Shizno · Jun 19, 2007, 06:46 AM // 06:46

while the idea is great, there is a fix to this. and its the simple fact, dont pug and expect to do great. your trying to throw team oriented builds in a pug. your not only expecting mr wammo to have the proper elites capped, but also skills unlocked. how often do you find a pve necro who runs MM every day to have ward of melee unlocked so he can run SS/Warder or Tained Warder? yet a a warding necro is a wonderful utility class in a build.

this is why you run with guildies/heros. because it works. people tell me you you cant hero this or that....then i have them pay me to do it, when i would have done it free if they just didnt back talk and thought they knew better then me. heros are only as smart as their master, and well, anyone who brings firestorm and flare with power shot dosnt deserve to have heros in my group.

ichigo_panty · Jun 19, 2007, 06:48 AM // 06:48

I like the team builder idea.
This way, the leader know all the members skills bar and no one can sneak in firestorm, meteor shower on a monk.
Currently, we can only have 1 template screen up, it would be better to merge all party members skills bar onto a party skills template.

I suggest that the leader/members can give the full team build, allowing the party members to choose their roles. Once the skills bar is chosen, the template for that skill will be blacken out. This way, the leader can ensure that all party members are using the builds that the leader want. Of course, this will promote more cookie cutter and those poor memsers will never get a group.

The comment and rating system would be a bad idea. As you had suggested the con "buddy bombing". This will be hard to fix. The method of deleting the comments might be abused as well. People with bad comments will try to get rid of it with the excuse "flamed unknowingly". This will be a difficult system to handle and i do not recommend it to be use.

Stupid Shizno · Jun 19, 2007, 07:29 AM // 07:29

you still dont see what your asking of from the gw people.

your asking them to run a specific build, made by the leader. what if the leader is a retard and wants a cookie cutter wamo build to "Tank" not understanding a warrior does far more use in a normal mission as a damage dealer with a utility skill and a monk protting him?

this just promotes mindless gaming. if you want this, go with a guild. i pug on my monk when im bored and cant get my friends on to HA, and its fun watching stupid people try to do a mission. like last night i helped an alliance guy out do bonus for abbadons mouth, and the other monk was running out of energy before i even was at 35/40. so i told him how to manage his energy and he laughed at me saying hes doing all the work. i guess he forgot ZB, sig of devotion and GoLE make you keep energy.

the point is, doing this will never work, you wont find a necro that wants to run a mixed support build, its either MM, SS, or BIP nothing else in a pug. all the leader will be doing is sitting in a mission for hours trying to fill up his party with his own build he thinks is better then anything. if you want this, just pug DoA with the fotm.

Div · Jun 19, 2007, 07:42 AM // 07:42

I like the idea of being able to see the total/character age and experience of the other player, just to get a gauge on how long he's been playing the character and how much he's done with it. Not the greatest assessment, but a person with 800 hours and 4 mil exp is on average more knowledgeable about their class than someone with 70 hours and 200k experience...

Granted, of course there will be people who have played 2000+ hours and still suck, but on average the player who plays for a longer period of time will be more experienced.

Maybe something like this can be implemented for balthazar's faction in PvP, but that's another story.

This won't necessarily lead to "experience discrimination" but more of a way to be more cautious and helpful to the lesser experienced ones.

Kaida the Heartless · Jun 20, 2007, 01:56 AM // 01:56

The whole reason I created this thread was because I never pug. I am playing a MMORPG and my communication with other human players is minimal, and its on purpose. I thought this was... slighty odd.

So, I know pugging is dangerous, but I am trying to take some steps towards making the game more friendly when you are playing with anonymous players.

A possible fix for the absence of certain skills on players would be to add a "teach skill" feature. Perhaps any party member could teach any other party member a skill they already know (unlocked on thier account?). This way, between 8 players, most of the skills you need should be covered! Problems with this arise when players may receive skills too early through a campaign.

Also consider that the skills dont have to be as tightly linked as they need to be in a gvg environment. I know several builds I could lay out that only require a general character type, not necessarily a bar of 8 specific skills.

If MrMending wants to set up a bad character, than I don't have to play in his party. There will be others in the district I could choose to join instead. Suppose this system was in place the "other night". The monk may have listened to your suggestions, since you have a profile with "great job monking" comments and 5 million experience. You also could have looked at his bar before you entered the mission and offered advice. Some people wont take advice, you are right. But if a "/rank" in Halls means so much without the system in place, then what would a profile mean if it were?

I still can't find a fix for the "buddy bombing" problem.

Diddy bow · Jun 20, 2007, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Hm both sound like they would turn whats left of pve pugs into HA. As in youd be left with no one to pug with because they didnt fit you.

Just dont like the sound of number 1 much. "play this or dont play" is how i imagine this rather than giving such a player advice on what youd like him to play. Although an easier way to give people a build youd like them to play would be nice

I think to make the comment thing work , a person could only leave a comment entering a mission with the person, thus preventing "buddy bombing". (completing a mission would mean you coundnt leave comments about levers). Although it goes against the fell of guild wars that nothing is definite, it would be a mark you could never remove, again i dont paticually like it. Person A says that person B thinks he is a bad team player so person B says person A is a F**king noob that need to go suck a.. you see where im going

.

kazjun · Jun 20, 2007, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Well, being able to see everyone's skillbars, as long as everyone can see everyone else's skillbar is a good idea. But I think it'd get more use in gvg and pvp then for pve pugs. I don't reckon you find a pug where at least 2-3 people absolutely can't do without skills x and y, even if the rest of the party asks them to. But this can also be unfair. In pvp, asking someone to have a skill is as simple as running to the nearest priest of balth and unlocking. In pve, especially if they're new or on their first play through, the skill may be in areas they simply can't reach yet. Potentially excluding new players is unfair and bad for the game in general.

As for HM pugs, don't reckon you'll ever be excluded. There are simply not enough people doing HM, that if you find a pug I don't think they'll ever turn you down. The only exception is if they're running a guildgroup/friends, and are waiting around for the others to turn up. But that's not really a pug. As for the elite farms, it's generally expected you know the builds needed, else you'll just get kicked. Nasty, yes, but just wiki the thing first. The elite farms aren't really newbie friendly.

I don't like the comment idea. There's too many ways that could be exploited, for good and bad. Plus it'd be a lot of work and server space if anet had to store everyone's comments and ratings.

the_jos · Jun 20, 2007, 06:00 AM // 06:00

I don't see a reason for a change of PuG in DoA and Deep.
Don't have enough experience with Urgoz's.
DoA requires fixed builds and you can look at someone's LB rank to see if they have some experience on the character.
Deep: most PuGs play Steel Wall.
That's a fixed build with some exceptions, but it's not that hard to introduce a new player, most professions are not that hard to play there. If you have some experience, you know what tanks are ok and which are not.

HM is different.
You can take a peek at someone's title to see how experienced they might be. PvP titles usually mean someone knows how to play in a competitive area.
Maxed single character skills means they have invested time /gold in the character, though some are easier to obtain than others.
Don't look too much at what you consider perfect builds, but let a player explain why (s)he's running the build.

The thing I would like in GW is a system where I can state 'I am available for HM missions X,Y,Z' and then do something else till more players are available for a mission (some kind of notification screen). I'm working on my Elites for example, but don't mind breaking of a cap run when I can help with a HM mission. Or just cap the elite fast when it's near and then join.
Being in an outpost waiting and waiting more is no fun.

ratnacage1979 · Jun 23, 2007, 05:48 PM // 17:48

the showing of a chars age/xp doesnt really prove too much. If I have 8 chars, it doenst mean that i necessarily play them all equally, and just because I have one that has 2mil xp and one with only 500k xp doesnt mean my lower xp char is less good or that i have less knowledge of that class. it just means ive played more with the higher xp char. it becomes a moot point