Days of PUGS Gone ?

I'm a true PuG monk,

Haven't done a single mission in prophecies without real players
Haven't done a single mission in factions without real players
Haven't done a single mission so far in nightfall without real players

All of these were PuGs. And no matter how bad some of these were I will never ever do a mission with henchies or heroes. It's just sooo boring, this game is a MORPG, multiplayer. If I can't find a party for the mission I'll just do some RA, FoW or take a break from GW. I'll come back the next day and check again. I spend 6 days waiting for a party in the Harvest Temple mission from factions, never even thought about doing it with henchies.

Even if all the henchies were just like the ultimate team build and played good but not perfect so that it still was a challenge. I wouldn't dream of doing anything but random quests with them.

Aye. QFT.
I took my second account, the one i couldn't get Nightfall for and switched it to America. There are actually people in the districts and some of them even talk :O
Euro is a ghost server, it seems everyone hates each other and is to the point of ignoring everyone else. Apart from my GF and a few guildies now and then i wasn't able to play with other human players no matter how hard i tried (even on my monk). The most i could get (after a week or two after the release) were teams with max one other player on it. And that seems to be the new PUG.
It's perfectly reasonable, PUGs are often a Nightmare but heck, i play an onlinegame. For a single player game Nightfall has nowhere near enough good content to keep up with the powerhouses in the SP Realm. Sorry.

Antheus, your entire post resonates!

Personally, I do NOT show my skillbar although I may voluntarilly tell the team I'm bringing certain skills I think particularly useful or unusual. Why do I not? Two reasons, actually. 1) I don't run 'cookie cutters' but I have worked out skill sets that work best for me and seem to be every bit as effective at getting the job done and 2) I haven't figured out how to toggle the skillset (no, no, don't tell me, I want to stay blissful in my ignorance !)

People should not feel forced to bring certain skills or they can't be part of a PuG. My NF ranger is just that, NF only and as such does not have Winter. (Sure I could go to LA and buy it and may yet.) So when she PuGed for Rilohn Refuge (she'd already reached the Boss with just heros/henches before falling), she told the group she didn't have Winter, and neither did anyone else. Instead of ranting at her, the group reassessed skills, talked strategy, etc. and decided to give it a go anyhow. Guess what.......our group clinched Masters with very little difficulty because we played together with strong teamwork!

As long as there are people who approach things like that group (and I've met several now, thank the gods!), PuGs will still exist.

I am casual player, dont like the grind/solo-farm/heroway'ing thing, and i have no problems with finding PuGs. And thats in the EU-districts...

It might be because i'm a conformist, as i only play very PuG-friendly characters (W/M/N,sometimes ranger or ele) with PuG-builds, or it just might be my luck.

I play with a skillset that suits my style and/or whims but rarely get any complains... But when i do its usually from someone named "I pwnz noobz" or some such name, if u know what i mean.

As an of course i follow MOST of Antehus guidelines, not all but most, and if all PUGGERS did it that way the game would, more often that not, become much more enjoyable.

Being a stupid hick Dane myself, I also often go to other districts, and either advertise for a group or see if anyone is, just because its always fun to play with the frogs, krauts, spicks or just plain mad euro-dudes!

(anyone offended by the national slurs should disregard the nicknames for other europeans, they are used in a friendly, loving way as we are all stupid, n00b europeans!!)

Have fun, PuG-up and GO PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS!!

/regards,

The St00pid n00b Dane

I've just finished Nightfall, not only without ever grouping with another human being but also without even typing anything into the chat window.

The only thing that makes me wonder, is why this game still requires internet connection to play...

Touche'

We had a 20+ page thread on this very subject, but this is the crux of what I find wrong with heroes.

The game is simply gravitating (PvE-wise, at least) to a single-player game.

Whether that is the fault of PuGs or the fact that heroes aggravate that problem is up to debate, but the end effect is what you're noticing above.

That's not a good thing for Guild Wars, IMO, which is meant to be a multiplayer game at heart.

Multi-player = playing with other people. I don't understand people who buy a multi-player game so they can solo it.

I don't have a large guild, so I have henched a lot of quests over three chapters. I have henched exploration and skill capping. I have henched chest running. So I accomplished all my goals so far, but it tends to be very boring.

I've had to hench some missions due to bad schedule. Just beating the mission did not compare to beating it with a group of players. A first time through masters with a slightly off-balance group is the best fun in the game.
I think it's the thrill of beating the odds.

I've had "leet" warriors tell my ranger to do the pulling as they don't use a bow. I've been asked when my mesmer is going to start doing something. I've played with MMs who forgot to reset their attributes (learned to always ask if this has been done after a skills reset by any prof) and ran with level 5 minions.

I've forgotten my rez sig and didn't get kicked when we had to restart. I've been told I'm a great interrupter (just average) or tank (yes). I've taught numerous players the value of having a mesmer in your group. I've learned new skill combos. I've met a wide variety of people.

Do it all with henchmen? I would miss the fun and the agony.

I agree, but why would Anet crush solo farming then?

They are crushing solo-farming in an effort to repair the GW economy. Whether their approach is actually effective is questionable. Either way, it has nothing to do with PvE being single- or multi-player.

My own theory is that as players become better and more experienced, they are less inclined to PuG. They have already developed most of the skills they need to succeed in the game, and having already done mission X on lots of other characters, they are more likely to just want to finish the mission as fast as possible on their new character and move on. I believe people in stable guilds and/or with big flists are less likely to PuG as well, since they already have a solid network of people to play and socialize with. In short, the longer you have played, the more likely it is that the negative sides of PuGing will outweigh the positives. At that point, people either hero-hench/guild/friend-team, or they quit.

The idea of learning from PuG experiences is somewhat dubious, considering that many good players simply aren't available as part of the PuG player pool. Solid learning is primarily going to come from using your brain and figuring it out on your own, or reading fansites for information.

I've had those same 'leet' warriors tell me (as ranger) to pull -- then they run ahead and aggro as I'm trying to do just that!

I've been in groups where a warrior is trying a new weapon/different build and finds out they've forgotten to reset their attributes and are running around trying to use axe skills with a sword (or whatever) doing about 2 dmg . On the flipside of that, I've been trying to reset my own skills (usually from MM to Curses) when the party leader gets froggy and launches the mission (after I've said to please hold).

Oh, and one of my favorites: my monk was asked once if she was actually doing anything. At the time, the group was working together like a well-oiled machine and I was bored (no heals really needed). So, in response, I teased that no, I was bored silly since no one was getting hurt. I'd forgotten to not tempt fate that way! Next thing I know, we're swamped, I'm up to my ears with hurt comrades and throwing out heals like mad -- and we succeeded without death against the odds .

Please, oh please, don't take my PuGs away!

My experience is different. In beginning, I did nothing but henchies.

But the more I learned, the more classes I played, the pvp, high-end missions, the more I realized how noobish the AI really is. It makes the stupidest mistakes: using enchants with mesmer heavy enemies, not running from melee or running too much from melee, not knowing they can tank with PS, yet tanking without any protection, and so on.

It's when you learn more advanced concepts that you realize henchies are simply stupid. The only reason heroes work, is because at present, they allow for some, almost overpowered builds (2 SF nukers and a paragon battery or similar).

It's not really that henchie AI has improved, but they just got access to so many good skills, topped with runes and excellent weapons.

But then again, a wammo with mending is still just that, no matter what runes he has or whether he's wearing FoW. That is what heroes truly are. But yes, they work well for most part, but IMHO require too much micromanagement in more difficult cases.

I have always maintained that the AI is terrible. Part of the challenge of using heroes is figuring out the builds that they will ****up the least.

The sad part is that most GW players are worse. Nevermind heroes, I would much rather have Devona than any of the PuG warriors I've ever played with. Case in point: take a look at guru's warrior forums. There are people who take Defy Pain as their elite skill. Devona, at least, is smart enough not to do that.

Heroes and henchmen work well because they are predictable. Their success or failure depends entirely on the skill of the controlling player(s). Therefore, the better the player you are, the more beneficial it is to you (from a practical standpoint) to not PuG. I know how to beat anything with hero-hench. The random people in town LFG might not. And that is the crux of the issue.

The very fact that heroes and henchmen work well, actually proves that the game requires >>>ZERO<<< skill to play, at least in PvE.

Most Warcraft 3 players should have no trouble defeating up to 3 computer players at once. Why ? Because you can't teach AI to play Warcraft as well as a human.

Surely, some GW players are better than others. But that's only because they have more experience with the game and know how to create more effective builds. But creating builds is not skill, skill is how well you execute the build in combat and if a computer can do it just as well as a human then there's no real skill involved.

Compare these two statements:

I'm not exactly sure what you consider to be 'skill' if being experienced does not qualify.

This is Guild Wars, not Build Wars. Being able to make good builds doesn't make you a good player. It is necessary but *not* sufficient.

We can define "skill" as "something you can't learn from reading the forums". It's like learning to ride a bike, you can't learn it from reading about how it's done, you have to learn it by trial and error.

Knowledge of the game is all you need to succeed in games like Guild Wars, you have to know what kind of build will work and how to use it ingame. But this is not skill. Please don't tell me that one player can be better than the other just because he is better at pressing 8 buttons in a sequence.

I got really sick of real people. Not all of them, but one or two complete idiots drag a group down.

I was at the Gate of Madness with my monk. It took me HOURS to do it with real people. Warriors using Frenzy at Shiro, a Dervish without conviction and spammed pious assault when he had VITAL enchantments on him like Faithful Intervention, Protective Spirit, Aegis, Guardian and Healing Breeze. Well when I pointed it out to him, he kept doing it. I TRIED to explain to him what his mistake was. He said "Sry. Wnt do it agn". What did he do? Spammed it again. Now here's the beauty of it. Because he rejected all the healing that the monks gave him and the protections to stop him dying, it was the MONKS that were at fault. We all got sick of him and left, since he was the only non spell caster and we NEEDED him to go up against Shiro. With him rejecting Protective Spirit? No chance.

So we all left. A few of the competent ones from that group rejoined, including myself. To fill the spaces, I took a few of my guildies. I know their abilities and they are definitely very skilled, like myself. We did the mission without a SINGLE death. In fact, not even the pet died right up until Shiro. Something I couldn't accomplish with hench and heroes, but I could still easily finish the mission with hench and heroes too.

So basically, hench and heroes are great IF you know how to use them. I will admit, you will most likely get masters on nearly every mission first time if you know what you're doing. But I would easily choose a highly skilled group of humans over them any day. Only problem is, it's like a game of Russian Roulette, where 5 out of the 6 chambers are loaded.

You're presenting conflicting statements:
1) In your first post, you state that skill is how well you execute a build (which I agree with), but in this post you say that knowing how to use your build is not skill.

2) Learning to ride a bike, for instance, comes from experience, but from your first post you obviously don't think that experience results in skill - only more knowledge, which you claim is not related to skill.

Let's take your Warcraft 3 example. What is the difference between the "skilled" human player and the dumb AI in an RTS game? The AI is actually better at execution than the human player is, provided it knows what to do. It can control all of its units simultaneously, it doesn't need to scout, its attention is focused everywhere at once, etc. The problem with the AI is that it doesn't have as much knowledge of what to do against varying strategies - it doesn't know how to deal with certain rush tactics, base ganks, etc.

This is kinda funny, I was just thinking to myself yesterday that it might be fun to play through Nightfall with my monk only joining PUGs for missions. At least as a monk, you can totally get away with that.

I think though reading your post that I might try to make the commitment with one char to go through only in PUGs.

Continuing the Warcraft 3 example: everyone who has ever played this game knows that there isn't much difference in tactics used by the regular players and the top-of-the-ladder professionals. So, there has to be something that separates the "pros" from the newbs- skill.

That's the difference between Warcraft and Guild Wars- practice doesn't make you better. The only thing that separates the veteran from a newb is their knowledge of the game. As I've said before, an average battle.net player should have no problems defeating several computer players at once, while people who have just started playing will get owned while battling only one AI player. So, logically a "skilled" Guild Wars player should be able to achieve similar things, for example: he should be able to beat Ring of Fire mission with only 3 henchmen. Can he ?