My Faith Restored in the PUG

I have not necessarily been a big fan od PUGs. Generally I find the people in them to be bossy, idiotic, and inept, but last night I had a really great PUG experience and I may actually give PUG's a chance from now on. I was trying to do Abbadon's Gate mission so I could get my armor, I made a killing off a sweet trade but that's another story entirely, needless to say I had no luck hero henching it. Most of the pugs I got were just plain bad until I saw this one lone monk asking for more people. Well I joined the group and everyone seemed really laid back and relaxed. The monk who formed the group pulled in some more people and we ended up with a really odd assortment of folks, so odd that the leader actually said," If we actually beat this I'll die." Well not only did we beat it we got masters. Not one person died, not even once. It was incredible, the most perfect abbadon run I've ever seen done and it was with a PUG.

The moral of this story? Sometimes you find a diamond in the dung heap and to all the PUG haters, like I was, be skeptical, be wary, but give them a chance, you might just find a great group.

It's true. My friend and I were asking for anyone who wanted to do Vizuhna mission with us. In the end we had a group with the most unlikely bunch. Mesmer as the main healer, an Elementalist tank, and such.
We kept wondering if we wouldn't be able to pass each part as we got to them based on our past experiences. We all cheered in the end when we passed the whole mission with an expert rank.
/cheer!
I read a blurb of a moderator once saying that you don't need to have the best players or the best combination of professions to do well in missions, you just need a group that doesn't give up and can communicate effectively.

In my experience, most odd builds and/or combinations is generally indicative of an experience player. Experience players, I find, are usually more amicable during the course of a mission.

I have great times with PUGs. But yes, beware of one full of cookie-cutter builds. The players have not learned to think for themselves and when their build doesn't work they get angry and quit.

My all-time favorite PUG was with my mesmer in the Maguuma Jungle. Group ended up with no tanks, so my mesmer used Physical Resistance and played tank. We completed two quests before group broke up.

I'll pug just about anytime, however i find if someone is complaining or whinning before your team is ready to go it is best to find a new group. If everyone gets along and is happy the group will do well.

I am always up for giving PUGS a chance, and many times I actually enjoy working with complete strangers. The other evening however, I did happen to get a little frustrated. I have been through NF now with a lot of characters (which have already been through Prophecies and Factions) and there I was on my Ele trying to finish things up by doing Gates of Pain. Because it was pretty late, not many of my guildies or alliance members were on, so I said heck..I'll give a PUG the green light. The first group I encountered was a fairly new group, many players of which didn't know what to do on the mission and what not. So there I was, being the leader, which is cool and fine by me. Because of the monk shortcoming, one of the guys was keen on bringing HIS monks. So he pinged there build and of course it was a build that he had been using most of the game rather than switching some skills around to reflect the mission. I told him that he should take off remove hex and add a condition removal because of all the burning in that mission. I told him that if he has Blessed light, words of comfort, and mending touch, they work wonders on this mission. He said "yeah, I got those" and so we started the mission and noticed he his hero was still WoH. Something is wrong when your party gets wiped out during mob 1. This was also the group that Pablo Picasso was in.. aka....a person that draws all over the radar.

So....I left that group and joined another. Again, I mentioned the same thing which this group had some monks in it. They didn't have those skills, but I was up for giving it a try. Well, this time, we got past the first mob and had two of the Tortureweb Dryders left to go before being defeated. Obviously, people don't know how to get out of the way of a Meteor Shower or to spread out when SF is on you! And then to top that off, people don't know when to retreat and regroup.

I eventually got a guildie on and we took our monks and everything went smooth. I'm not complaining about PUGs, but I think the reason that peopel complain about them so much is the lack of communication. Rather than saying "Go Go GOOOOOOOOOOO" at the beginning, the group should go over strategies. This isn't to say that it will prevent those less inexperienced people from not following directions, but it could potentially make groups more organized. I have got to say that my good experiences with PUGs have far outweighed the bad experiences and no matter what happens, I'll never leave it out as an option, but I'm always going to consider my guildies and alliance members first and foremost because I know their style of playing.

PuG's are Very bipolar for me. In most cases I am the leader because I join a group of 4 scrubs who don't know the mission at all and still spam "GLF more M+B" so I have to shephard these people. Most of the time they are cooperative but I've had 2 instances where I wanted to punch someone in a PuG in the face.

1. The Wilds- I picked up 5 new guys and we went in, 2 rangers, a rit, 2 healers and me. Once we went in though I knew we were gonna have problems because one particular R/Mo was a stubborn ignorant leader who only knew how to run to things and kill them. As soon as we get onto the bonus path the rambo splits off calling us noobs taht don't know where the bonus is. He dies, we start the bonus and revive him. Well after that the dude became completly and willingly useless; he wouldn't attack and would just stay in the back doing nothing to contribute. I couldn't stand for this, so once we get to a mob of 5 centaurs I willingly lured a warrior to go and kill said ranger. Since the monks hated this guy too we just left him for dead as all 5 of us completed the mission and bonus while the guy kept spamming "rez pls".

Dragon's Lair- Mojave Mango Juice helped me with this mission, though I really wish I diddn't bother after we had a group of 4 wars and a dervish. To make things worse, one warrior was an utteer @$$hat; he would insult anyone that talked in the chat and constantly flamed Mango and me just because we politely asked him to quiet down and just do the mission. As if things couldn't get worse, the dude screwed over Mango's and a Necromancer's cap as he just blitzed the teleporter during the cap. Sadly we couldn't leave the lozer for dead since every teleport cutscene would revive him.

Mango and me should've ragequit that mission. -_-

After a couple months of playing solo with my heroes, I did miss the random oddities of PUGs. I just didn't want to go back to doing easy missions, repeatedly, before success. So, I improvised.

I start a group with the my heroes and a hench monk and take it from there. This way, I know that at least half the team has solid builds and I know a monk will always be there. PLUS, I can, once again, experience the random oddities of the PUG.

In general, there has been a good response.

I've generally had pretty good luck with PUGs. I'm a patient easy-going person though, and I really don't get that upset if we fail the mission. Oh well, that's life, I'll try it again tomorrow night. Overall though, I've found that about 75% of my PUGs will complete the mission just fine.

I get upset with folks that can't follow simple common sense directions. I understand that you may not have done this mission before and I also understand that you might be a new player who just isn't very skilled yet playing the game. I have patience with these folks. The ones I can't stand are.....

1. Leechers and quitters. As soon as you warp into the mission, they go AFK, or in the case of one ranger on our 3 man UW trapping group, as soon as we warp in he said his Dad told him he has to get off the computer now. Bye. If you don't have time to finish a mission, don't start it.

2. The Level 6 Warrior who doesn't understand why you won't accept him for the Viznuah Square mission. "But, but, but I'm a GOOD player!!!!!!" Sorry, I expect a minimum level for certain missions and if you're not there yet you obviously skipped portions of the game and got a run straight to the mission town.

3. The level 13 ranger that did end up joining that Viznuah Square mission. (It wasn't my decision to reject him or I probably would have). I happened to be playing a ranger as well and as soon as the opening mob of afflicted started attacking this guy took the opportunity to whisper to me..."Cool bow and armor! Can I buy your bow and do you have extra armor I can buy?" I was too busy shooting monsters to answer so he kept it up.
"Answer me, I want to buy your bow"
"Sell me extra armor"
"Answer me"
"Are you there??"
<opens trade window>
<I shut trade window>
"I need armor. Trade me!!!!"
<opens trade window>
<I shut trade window>
"I have money. I'll pay you 5k for your armor!"
<opens trade window>
<I shut trade window>
When the mob finally dies I answer him in open chat not to try to trade in the middle of a fight and oh btw, you CAN'T TRADE ARMOR!!!!!!!!

4. The Mo/W who joined our "GLF Monk for FOW" group. Monks are in short supply here and we really needed a healer. We asked for his build and he said he was a healer. He didn't ping his skills. Actually this may have even been before the skill pinging was implemented. Once we warped into the fissure I noticed that he was carrying a Fiery Dragon Sword. He also pinged "I'm wielding a Fiery Dragon Sword of Fortitude and a Shadow Shield"
Not a good sign.
We engage the first group and of course the first guy into the fray was our trusty monk and his precious FDS. Turns out he had all warrior skills on his bar + healing breeze. But, because he is a monk with healing breeze he insisted that he was indeed a healer!

I know a lot of you are saying to yourself, these people are exactly why I hate PUGs! You are going to find all types in PUGs. If you're the leader you can weed out the bad ones just by asking a few questions before you start. If you're not the leader then get to know the leader before starting. Find out what he expects from the team. If you are the type who needs to finish the mission + bonus/masters and will get mad if you don't then I recommend that you should be the leader and make sure your teammates have the same lofty goals.

The trick to finding a good PUG is finding people with the same mindset as you. If you want masters, advertise for folks who also need masters. If you just want to explore the area and have fun then advertise for a "fun laidback group". I did that in Urgoz last weekend and had a very good time.

I think it's important that we don't harshly judge people our first time grouping with them.
I've had my good days and bad. Sometimes I'm just not paying attention in RA or in PVE because I have other things on my mind, and I'm trying to divert my attention somehow by sitting in front of the game. Other days I've just played to pass time before going out and I start to get impatient when I'm close to leaving the house, yet want to finish up something.
I'm not always like that, but it's happened and I'm sure I'm not the only person who has had days like that.
In the end, it's just a game, so we always have to remember that if we are grouped with people who might be having a bad day we should keep it civil and try not to criticize each other too harshly.
When I'm having a bad day, my actions might not be so apparently 'off' to me, but might be really apparent to others I'm playing with. Being told off might be a bad way to point out that I should be paying more attention, rather than asking me to pay attention or ask if I'm having a bad day. People skills are very important in playing online games.

I always choose a PUG over Heros/Henchies. If no PUG is available I'll go one of the alternate routes (guilies/heros/henchies). I actually enjoy PUGs because I enjoy helping people through one means or another. It gives me the opportunity to meet new people, make new friends, and occassionaly let loose my awesome power of persuasion on some unsuspecting player so I can recruit them.

If anyone ever needs a spot filled in a PUG, circumstances permitting, pm me.

QFT.

In many of my recent pugs, if someone dies early I think to myself, "Oh noes! We're doomed!" However, if the group keeps a sense of humor about it, I find that we actually do quite well and finish the mission.

An atmosphere of mutual respect and willingness to change builds/skills goes a long way towards this.

A recent FoW pug had me (rit) and a monk as healers. I load in and die before I can react due to bad aggro or bad spawn. A few of the group survived the mob and rez us. Then we find out that the monk is a 55. So once he dies he doesn't get rezzed. Some thought about quitting but we said let's see how far we can go. We actually got quite far for having only 1 healer (mes had healing breeze, others had self-heals). So far that once we died most of us didn't have time for a 2nd try.

With the introduction of heroes I now will only PUG with my monk. Over the past two+ years I've mastered using AI henchmen/heroes in my parties and the chance of me finding a more efficient PUG than my typical heroway set-ups are slim. However, I use PUGs as a way to hone my monking skills and it's really quite amazing how good healing/protection can carry a team. I get satisfaction knowing that I helped people that'd probably have little chance without my help through tough missions. Lucky for them I'm not one of those scamming monks that demand money. My "services" cost nothing at all.

I was trying to find a PUG to do Captured Son in Factions. I end up getting into a group made of 3 assassins and 3 rangers. I was sure that we don't have a chance but there was no one else available so we gave it a try.

Surprisingly we made it and with only a couple of deaths.

Playing Factions had started restoring my faith in pugs. I did more things with pugs then I had ever done. Then Nightfall came out and it was the same old story, different chapter. However, last night I was trying to get Dzagonur Bastion done. Had been trying for days with one stupid pug after another. I saw a guy saying for 1k he could guarantee mission completion, so I thought, what the heck. Right away, there was an idiot saying, gogogogo. I told the party leader that I'd give him 1k to kick the guy......seriously and then upped it to 2k. He didn't but we passed anyway because everyone did what he told them to. So basically, a pug can work if a) someone knows what they're doing and b) everyone does as they are told.

Speaking as a parent, I've done that to my daughter. Sometimes the kid has done something that puts them in a world of trouble. You don't care what they are doing or who they are doing it with, they need to get off now. There are other times, when it's just time to get off and I'll say, save and quit as soon as your done with that part.

It could be that it was put together by a Monk.I have put together some fine groups that got along.Then agian anyone can put together fine group that can get along with one another and don't forget the fun part of the game.Don't forget online gaming is about haveing fun not get angry or upset.

The ratio of me getting good and fun PUGs are 5/1, usually. And yeah, keeping a sense of humor about it and not getting mad at all works wonders.

Odd builds aren't the problem, it's the lack of team cohesion and synergy in PUGs that becomes a problem.

Other than that, while the SF Eles + MM/SS will get you through PUG reliably, they are, for most part, suboptimal. But getting alternate team build in PUG is a lesson in futility.

Yup, sometimes you get a great pug, other times you get a stinking heap. Either way, they at least keep the game from getting boring.

I've been defending PUGs for a long time on these boards. I've spent a lot of time doing Missions with my Mesmer and I rarely get into a bad group with her.

After all of the "PUGs suck" comments I see on the guru, I decided that I'm going to see if I can figure out what these people are talking about. I've got a Dervish, Warrior, and Ranger I'm taking through Nightfall with PUGs. I'm keeping track of all the good & bad that comes from it. I've just now got to the point where teamwork is needed to get masters on them -(Moddock Crevice Masters for starters). It'll be interesting to see how things go from this point on.