My last two PuG experiences...

Suffering from a little burnout after running 3 toons through NF, I took the advice that many of you gave to consider joining PuG's for my next toon to break up the monotony. It was a good suggestion in theory. Since I know the missions, I could help the community a little.

My first PuG was Consolate Docks. A lvl 18 Dervish invited me. I was the third member, the other was a freaking lvl 11 Necro. No biggie, this mission is easy. He proceeds to add two more players, a paragon and an ele, both lvl 20's. Not bad. He adds in a lvl 18 Dunk, then starts the mission with six people. Everyone is screaming wait, add heroes, add hench whatever. I have no idea what he was thinking. I left that group and henched it.

At the Crossroads, I decided I'd try again. This time I built my own group. We had a strong team zoned in and started moving. One of the guys didn't move. We waited and waited. We asked what was up. A couple of minutes later he types, "Go ahead I'll catch up, but I need to eat real quick."

WTF? He just joined 2 minutes earlier and he didn't know he had to eat? He wanted a free ride, it was obvious. I resigned and gave up on PuGs for the night.

Unfortunately, this is all too often my experience with groups. It hasn't really changed, and if anything its getting worse. I really don't see the point in even trying. I don't need them to do the missions, and they end up wasting so much of my time.

I just had to vent.

I had the same burnout feeling as you from NF, so now I am playing through Prophecies with pugs. From my experience the pugs over there are much better than the ones in NF. It could be because some of them are just easier, but there seem to be less idiots as well.

It's a shame your experiences were so bad; I won't say every pug I've been in is good (that would just be a bare-faced lie), but I've often grouped with good people in Elona.
I really enjoyed pugging Nightfall with my mesmer after having pretty much hero-henched the whole thing with my warrior.
Sure, I had to stop myself from biting occasionally when some basement Napoleon with no clue about the mission would start bossing everyone around, but overall it was enjoyable.

Although I will say that if you find it hard getting monks, if someone has good hero ones to offer, take them up on it.
Oftentimes you'll find that hero monks are better than PUG ones anyway.
It's quite hilarious to have a monk join a group then immediately demand that all hero monks be removed, otherwise they'll leave; and yes, I see this happen frequently. It's like they're scared that the heroes will show them up or something.
If I'm the leader of such a group, chances are that the monk will get kicked before any heroes
People who are rude and demanding probably aren't going to change their colours once the mission starts. So why bother putting up with them in the first place if you don't have to?

Pugging will on occasion test your patience. But it is still worth it IMO, just to have a break from routine and predictability.

Trying to 6-man Consulate Docks with random under-levelled teammates actually sounds like fun to me. I'd at least have to wake up and have my head in the game.

Yea, PUG's can get on your nerves sometimes, but I guess it depends on how you look at it. As long as you can still laugh about it, even when things don't go right, I think it's still fun. Personally, I feel doing missions with henchies/heroes is a bit monotonous.

Edited by Arkantos: Inappropriate image

Given the choice between a PUG and hero/hench... I don't understand why anyone would choose pugs.

Guild > Both though.

You get good groups and bad groups of PUGs. Bad PUGs are often more frequent.

It could be worse, the last PUG I was in the token afker got a green, came to pick it up immediately then went back to afking.

I agree the bad PickupGroups outnumber the good -- but they are still nice for variety

I hate when 1 person drops, other people start quitting too


least heroes dont AFK or Quit on you

So you're one of those impatient types. It's a good thing you stay out of PuG's. People who bail drive me crazy more than bad leaders.

Depends on my mood, but I could see myself giving it a try just for kicks. Most likely I would've asked everyone to /resign and taken charge of forming the group myself.

If you're an experienced player at all (played the game more than 50 hours?) why would you join an obvious newbie leader's group anyway? Form your own PuG.

Because we purchased an multiplayer online game? :dunno:

I've found the skill level for typical PUGs has really dropped. It seems that most who want/need a PUG now suck so badly they can't do anything without resorting to someone carrying them. These are people that typically say heroes suck, when in reality the only reason for heroes to suck is the person that controlling them does too.

I've noticed this as well - this may be the result of more of the quality players preferring to play with heroes/henchmen than to participate in PuGs. It's starting to be a vicious cycle, unfortunately - hopefully the upcoming party matching system solves some of that and brings some of the quality players back into the fold.

Honestly what do people expect? Play most multiplayer game and you'll find the same thing. The internet isn't filled with l33t ninja players....


The "had to eat" is another issue though, the freeloading one. That excuse is one of the top excuses used by freeloaders. Since there's no votekick or any such mechanism to deal with it, people will abuse it. I read somewhere in a post that basically it's viewed as "unsportsmanlike" but not something to be banned over so meh...

Last night, I felt particularly friendly so I decided to pug the last two missions in Nightfall. The first group made it about 15 minutes in and then then someone appointed himself leader of the universe and started going off on the other teammates. He would give instructions to various people, but didn't specify who he was giving them to. "You go here and you stay back there." um... WHO? LOL Needless to say, the group disbanded quickly after that.

So I went back to the outpost and started spamming again. I tried to start a group, too, but it wasn't happening so I started hooking up the heros. A necro in bright green FoW jumped on with his heros and we kicked everything's ass. He hadn't done the missions before so he listened to my advice and we plowed through the two missions in about an hour. It was a good time.

PuG + Heroes + Luck = FTW

agreed, on nundu bay mission with my ranger, and someone literally said less than 5 minutes in, that their spaghetti was ready and they had to go, but would be back later... not only did he decide to leech, he had 2 heroes with him (monk and ele) leeching with him in a corner.

Actually there is a good reason why player monks dislike grouping with Hero monks. Like you accurately pointed out, a hero monk is going to be quicker on the draw when it comes to casting. No doubt about it as no human has reflexes that fast (although we are better at laying down protection in advance). The quick response time on the AI is the problem. You end up wasting a lot of energy healing the same target or worse wasting hex/condition removal as the AI beats you to it by a fraction of a second. The other problem is the build the hero is using may overlap in unproductive ways with your own or just be a poor build in general (if I see one more smite/heal hero monk I just might cry).

Generally its good practice to know what skills the other monk is bringing whether it be human or hero. If partnering with a hero monk, don't try to perform the same tasks (both heal monks for example) as this will only lead to frustration since you can't really coordinate properly with a hero.

That being said, at the same time it can be good-I find the hero monks are good at protecting, so I like it when the AI monks are protecting. Alternatively, they can take the hex and condition removers and I'll take another healing spell. Generally it's not the 'zomg ai monk!' thing it's just people don't communicate the skills the heros have to avoid overlap.

I had both good and bad experiences in PUGs. Just did the Grand Court of Sebelkeh mission with one and it was good, except for the monk who was a little slack with the healing. However, I've done groups in Factions and Proph that were horrible. AFKers, skill cappers, Leeroys, even had a guy on a UW run zone as soon as he got an ecto. Just part of the game, i guess...

I've been pugging the early missions of nightfall after I got my mesmer through with friends. There are bad pugs and good pugs. In mine at consulate docks the leader had added a dervish henchie while someone else in the group had lvl 20 heros, we asked him to kick the henchie dervish so a hero could be added, waited, waited, "I can't kick him :/", bless him, he didn't know how to kick someone.

We proceeded with the mission though, not a hard one, no real need for the heros, and got through ok (with bonus) even though at each bonus group the party would split up with two people ignoring the bonusgroup/pinging by us everytime. I would just say "Your healer is back here keeping this group alive, come here for healing", by the 3rd bonus group the entire group had caught on.

Keeping your cool, not raging against others really helps in pugs. I could've waited, stop with healing until they listened to me, but that is not my style.

P.S.
The dervish reminded me of myself when I was new, I had removed the trade button from the UI because I wasn't trading anyway. Then 2 months later I want to buy a fiery sword upgrade from a guildie.... took us 30 mins to find out why I couldn't trade