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PuGs Good or Bad?
Plus_One
Member Posts: 47
I follow the SWTOR boards a lot and have noticed an interesting trend.
Some people really really HATE PuGs.
My primary game history is from FFXI and City of Heroes/Villains. In both of those game PuGs were the primary way I progressed. I had a guild in FFXI but it was just a few RL friends and a couple others we met through PuGs and liked enough to invite into out group. I'd say 90% of my activity in both games was through PuGs and I never had a problem. Granted the short time I tried WoW I had a dismal PuG experience with that LFD abomination, lol, but not enough for me to forever hate and despise the idea that i might have to join a PuG at some point in my gaming future.
I look forward to PuGs in every new game I try because I enjoy meeting new players. I feel that If I stick to only the players I know in my small guild I completely miss out on the entire rest of the server. I also find the idea of only running content with well-rehearsed Pre-mades who can grind out a mission in their sleep to be kind fo dull. I enjoy the excitement of having to adapt to the unexpected.
I'd love to get a deeper understandoing of the total venomous hatred of Pugs that I have recently seen.
Please, take the poll and if you would explain your answer. If you love PuGs tell us why, if you hate them, please tell us Why?
Comments
I've had some great pug's but in general I prefer to group with guild mates.
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I have extremely low PuG tolerance.
Most randoms may as well be bots, they never talk or communicate even when completely necessary.
always pre-made group in MMO! :]
OH YEAH, so to answer your question: it depends on the person.
It's bad for someone who wants long-term friendships.
It's good for people who don't want the burdens of long-term friendships.
But bottom line, it's usefull for those quests/bosses that requires a team but you don't have one ATM.
I'm a conversationalist type person.
I'm chatty in my PuGs. Always crackin jokes and such. I hate those silent rungroups.
I have a very high PUG tolerance I guess. For me, it's mostly about the amount of time it takes to actually get to doing something. Before there were any Looking For Group tools, putting a PUG together could take what felt like forever. With LFG tools becoming standard, putting PUGs together is mostly quick and painless. The groups, in general aren't any better or worse than your Guild groups. Most of the time it's faster to go with a PUG.
So, I'll go with my guild, if there's a group available, but if they aren't ready to go, I'm going to PUG away at whatever there is to do.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I love PuG's, it's a chance to play and meet with new people. I hate getting into a guild and feeling like I need to be dedicated or assosciated with a group of players.
PuGs being good or bad depends on the game. For games like Alien Swarm where afew games will put you in AT LEAST the minimum required skill to play the game without holding people back too much.
But on MMOs that let people solo easy mode then occasionally give them grouping, it will be very hard for first timers to get the grasp because of how the single player aspect is.
Now if the game allows grouping starting at a low level and makes it easy enough to join and such, then of course people will be used to working with others and know how to play.
In City of heroes, groups are a very normal thing from beginning to end. So you wont really find a lot of bad players. There are also 8 people in the group so 1 or2 bad players wont ruin everything.
However if you look at other games that are so very single player in the levelling part and suddenly drop groups like in WoW, then of course you will see bad players.
Imo pugs arent bad. If its akin to city of heroes.
Gameslike Champions and such where everyone is mostly focused on soloing will mean tht team content will get people going in who dont know what to do.
I remember champions online and when people were doing instances, it was "run in kill as much till you get killed" and such. It was soooo...Awkward! I still pugged though o.o My ex and I were always teamed so that was 2 people who werent noobs... Because we were handling the most important parts, we were pretty much noob proof.
Edit :
I like pugs as long as they dont kill my gaming expeience. Theres nothing worse than a bunch of pug members doing extremely silly stuff like leroying. For fun, yes thats ok. I actually dont mind 1 or 2 leroys as long as it comes with warnings or something. But if its just a d00d who thinks hes the most ausum d00d ever and get us kille too much, iz going to get kicked!
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That's my take on it.
I like to think of my entire server as my community. I never understood why someone would completely isolate themselves to just their 20 guildies. I understand that in PuGs there;s the chance to run into a bad apple from time to time and that's why any intelligently designed game will give us a good Blacklist. I'd rather kick the one or two bad people out of my server community than isolate myself from the potential thousands of fun people just to avoid the couple.
I have an extremely low guild tolerance, so I like to pug. It lets me be social without committing to being friendly to a specific group of people who, in all likelihood, I'll want to gank a few days later.
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You may just have more luck than me.
I look for long-term friendships in MMO's where we experience everything together.
When I try to PuG and socialize, all I'll get is a "lol" .__.
never again.
I knoe! I crack jokes n stuff but I guess Im too immature or somefing for ppl >.<
But I remember making a 30 minute speech on how moogles are awesome and how they should be in ff14 in game in the middle of that quest place with the crystals.
Not one person responded. A few went lol and I seriously ran out of material because not a single person responded o.o
And in CO or WoW groups when I try to talk, most are like "focus or youll get us to wipe" n stuff like that o.O Im all like "wooow..its not that complicate!"
Groups I hate most are the ones that talk politics -.- omg thats sooooo annoying
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A lot depends on the game, and how much they do to try to make PUGs work. PUGs in WoW were an enormous pain, as Blizzard didn't do much to accommodate them, and actively tried to sabotage them in some areas. PUGs in Spiral Knights work pretty well, as you usually be in a functional group within a minute of logging on if so inclined.
The other problem is that a lot of games don't do much to accommodate groups that aren't PUGs, either. That's a different topic for a different time, though.
Depends some on what they say about politics. Unhinged rants about how Bush or Obama or whoever are destroying everything are no good. But you can have interesting conversations about things that aren't politically charged. For example, the story of David Davis being asked to choose the next US President, and declining to do so, sometimes merits a good retelling.
What games have you run into that in?
Games such as Fiesta, Maplestory, Dragonica.
I guess it's to be expected. Most people playing these games are drones hell-bent on reaching cap level.
I WOULD buy a game such as World of Warcraft, Aion, Lineage 2, Rift etc. But I hate subscriptions with a passion. I don't like being confined to an MMO because if I don't play it, I'm not getting my money's worth.
I can't seem to land a PUG where there isn't a DPS who wants to play Rambo, to show off how "good" s/he is.
Then we end up with pulls that are 3x what the group can handle, everyone struggles, and Rambo screams that TANK/HEALS can't do their jobs.
No thanks.
I am an altholic and tend to run pugs when there isn't a guild in play. Some of the most fun times I have had were running in pugs. Most of the good guilds I have joined where people in guilds whom I pugged with. It's a fun social thing.
That being said, that was in the past with the old mmorpg community. IF I was starting today, say in wow, trying to pug the experience likely wouldn't be as fun. Things change not always for the better.
ymmv
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Sounds like WoW, lol
Never had that problem in FFXI or CoH, but in McMMO that tends to happen.
I fear you may be right, that's one reason I wanted to start this thread. I'm very curious as to what happened that made PuGs Pariah to so many when they were once the most fun groups to be in.
In my oppinion, if you hate PUGs, you have little business playing an MMORPG. An MMORPG is a digital space designed to fascilitate social interaction between a vast array of individuals who otherwise wouldn't have any contact with one another. When you limit yourself to grouping only with your guild you limit the number of random individuals you come across hence you ruin the "massively" portion of the phrase massively mulitplayer online role playin game. Additionally, people tend to act as if joining a guild is a "cure all" for bad groups, when in reality, most of the bad players you meet in random groups are also in guilds, and even guild groups can sometimes go worse than PUGs when you end up grouping with less talented guild members.
historiclly, the quality of the PUG is inversely proportional to the popularity of the game. more popular the game is, the more idiots are in your PUG:D there are exceptions to this rule, but typically speaking, the rule applies:)
I'd have to say both really... I love PuGs and I hate em. I've been in some that resulted in me becoming member of a guild and/or starting long lasting online friendships and I've been in some, that made me log out afterwards because it was so exhausting and frustrating.
In my opinion the shift happened partly due to the change in MMORPGs design focus and their increased public acceptance as a normal game. In most MMORPGs I've played before WoW, it wasn't so much a question of Solo or PuG or Guild, because PuG was nearly all there was. You simply had to group if you wanted to get anything done in the game and often that meant you got a PuG, because noone in your guild had time or was online etc. . Grouping and with it "PuGing" was more the normal activity in the game, but that changed quite a bit with the focus on "everyone has to be able to reach maxlevel (during his lifetime) without other players" . Which has its good and its bad effects, but it hurt groupplay a lot imo, which resulted in lots of PuGs full of inexperienced players and players who just want to get it over with, so they can get back to their solo adventures.
BTW OP your knoe that your experience is quite skewed. FF11 and City of heroes are one of the very VERY limited number of games where you can actually progress in groups.
Edit :
Progress in groups without too much hassle
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I hate that the term "pug" has to exist in mmo's these days altogether. I miss the days where getting to know random/fellow mmo players was a large part of the mmorpg experience. Where did the sludge come from that turned the mmorpg scene into a sewer infested minigame that strongly favors nepotism and intolerance?
I think pugs are ok. You get to know new ppl (sometimes) and some might even stick around in my friendlist for a long time. Crossrealming however is just a huge chunk of fail. Nobody talks, nobody cares, everyone's an internet tough guy etc... ok not always but I've found it to be rule of thumb and not the exception.
Even though I usually enjoy pugging and the faster the queue pops the better, I have to say you're right about the quality of cross realm pugs. They do tend to have more players who won't talk and don't care about anything except getting their pixels and getting out. It's an argument for one server games like EVE, if nothing else.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein