pick-up-group
Latest
Breakfast Topic: Do you still PUG?
The idea of playing in a PUG -- or a random pick up group -- was once a painful one. You might spend ages in chat trying to find random players willing to join you for a dungeon only to get stuck spending hours trying to successfully navigate the dungeon... or even longer if you were unlucky enough to be trying to run Blackrock Depths. Grouping could be painful, which meant you tended to stick with guildmates or friends for dungeon runs that wouldn't leave you wanting to tear your hair out. Of course, in today's game, the dungeon finder and raid finder make getting groups together a simple task, and dungeon running itself has been streamlined to make it easier for random groups to succeed. With these changes, it's gotten a lot easier to run a random dungeon, and so some of the stigma around PUGs seems to have faded -- or perhaps just transferred to LFRs. For today's discussion, I'm wondering: do you play WoW in random groups? Or do you rather stick with guildmates and friends?
Breakfast Topic: Do you PUG?
I have a love/hate relationship with pugging. I'll have a mediocre to wonderful time, random after random, and then one horrific experience makes me quit PUGs for months. I have a thick skin for writing on the internet ... er, let me rephrase that. I now have a thick skin for writing on the internet for over five years. But playing with pick up groups for the same amount of time still hasn't toughened me up. Battlegrounds? No problem. I'm not sure why. The language and verbal attacks are often much worse there, and I know that's why many people stay away. But I guess it's more impersonal there and much more common. Maybe that's why I can handle it so easily. It is definitely much more personal in a 5-man group. That's certain. It's not "you all suck," but "you suck, Laurel." If I'm really not doing well, there are better ways to tell me, obviously. More often, however, the blamer is the one with the problem. "Learn to heal!" -- says the rogue pulling the entire room while the tank is waiting for the casters to regen mana. "[expletive deleted]," he goes on to say. These experiences really bother me and I just can't deal for a while.
Breakfast Topic: Your evil, animatronic late-night pugging is back
Why hello, insomnia. Fancy seeing you around here again. It's been what, a week? I guess that's enough sleep. As is my wont, I tend to log onto WoW and do ridiculous things when I'm tired, like run Dungeon Finder groups over and over again. I don't need the points, as I usually cap valor just by raiding, and I don't need the gear. Sometimes I tank, sometimes I DPS. (I have yet to figure out how to queue my warrior as a healer.) I've figured out, to some extent, why I do this. I test out build ideas in PuGs. That prot spec with all the threat talents, or the other one that cherry picks for Second Wind and Blood Craze. (Yeah, I tanked with that one. It worked OK, but man, I missed Blood and Thunder.) My fury spec that has both SMF and TG for no good reason aside from switching between Gurthalak and Souldrinker every few minutes. (Gurth's way better, in case you were wondering.) I like killing things in video games. No real surprise there. I indulge my transmog jones. There's something about running Well of Eternity in tier 2, then going back and transmogging into level 40 greens and running it again. It amuses me. I get to feel like a superhero. Seriously, a lot of the time I get dropped into a run halfway through that's struggling on Azshara or Murozond, and I can just kind of go completely and utterly bonkers on said boss. Yes, one of the reasons we collect all this gear is so we can feel powerful. I don't go around posting meters or bragging; I often say very little aside from an occasional joke. Number 4 up there is the easiest one to be obnoxious about, so I try never to be that guy going on about how awesome his DPS is or pulling threat because he couldn't wait for the tank. Yeah, I could probably do more if I opened up sooner, but I don't feel like it's necessary. I'm there because it feels good to show up and help lift a group over obstacles, not to become an obstacle. I did enjoy the one group where everyone was very encouraging to see exactly what I could do, though. It was fun to just cut loose on Dawnslayer for once. How about y'all? Ever up at ungodly hours? If so, and you see that guy above, he might be me. (I change looks by the hour.) World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Global Chat: September 12-18, 2011
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! This week our readers had some things to say about both sides of the gaming fence: the development side and the player side. Follow along after the jump to see what we talked about and contribute your own thoughts!
Flameseeker Chronicles: The care and feeding of your PUG
As I joined the rest of you in anxiously awaiting the beginning of Asura Week, I thought over what to discuss in this week's Flameseeker Chronicles. Last week was the usual calm before the storm, so I was a little stuck for a topic. As is often the way, some quality time with Guild Wars and my alliance solved that problem! While I was playing last week, I was keeping an eye on a discussion in alliance chat regarding PUG groups and the frustration that some of my allies were experiencing at their virtual hands. It set me to thinking about the unusual situation PUGs find themselves in in Guild Wars, so follow along after the jump and let's talk about it!
Lost Pages of Taborea: The poor, lonely looking-for-group tool
Karen's recent article about RIFT's new looking-for-group tool got me thinking about Runes of Magic's own LFG tool. It seems like such a nifty function, but it hardly ever gets used in RoM. It's such an interesting tool that I'm happy to see in the game, but it also seems to be better on paper than in practice. Part of the reason might be that it's slightly clumsy to use for the first time, which I'll get to a little later. LFG tools are one of those things that a lot of players ask for nowadays, but they only ever seem to be used minimally unless the devs attach incentives. Let's turn caps-lock off, stop shouting in world chat, and take a closer look at RoM's LFG tool.
EVE Evolved: Incursion in progress
In a blaze of fire and glory, Sansha Kuvakei's fleet clashed with players in a major offensive in Yulai. Although his AI-controlled Sansha battleships numbered in the hundreds, the sheer force of capsuleer defense initiatives was brought down on Kuvakei's fleet like a hammer. With the Sansha ships under heavy fire, the fleet opened additional wormholes to call in reinforcements. Amidst the busy buzz of lasers scorching hulls, capsuleers hurling missiles, and CONCORD rescue operations, space itself warped as several massive Sansha supercarriers emerged from the incoming wormholes. Sansha Kuvakei played his biggest and most fearsome card as a show of the incredible forces he now commands. And capsuleers burned them to ashes in defiance. Since the battle in Yulai, Sansha's Nation has begun launching full-scale occupations of constellations across New Eden. Many players dove straight into the fray without adequate preparation, and Sansha's forces were not forgiving. While most NPC pirate ships found in EVE Online are weak with a very basic AI, the new Sansha ships are both smart and deadly. They use everything from ECM and energy neutralisers to stealth bomber technology and logistic support. Thousands of player ships were destroyed in the first day of fighting as people worked out, through a system of trial and error, how best to tackle EVE's latest supervillain. As the dust settled, I began to get a solid impression of how well the feature is working and whether it really is the breath of fresh air EVE's PvE has been sorely lacking all these years. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give my first impressions of the Sansha incursions in an attempt to demystify some of the discussion surrounding them and share some basic tips for getting involved.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Grouping basics
This week, I've been thinking a lot about Runes of Magic's ability to cater to players with different MMO backgrounds. Many players may never have played a subscription game from the West, while others may never have experienced the different mechanics found in Eastern F2P MMOs. What you get is a banquet of food and all the guests aren't sure of the proper etiquette or rules or when it's time to eat. If we stick with a food analogy, the group feature would be a main dish. Lots of F2P MMOs have been imported from the East, and they don't handle grouping in quite the same way as Western subscription-based games. In fact, the ideas of raiding, pick-up-groups, and instances that can be found in almost any Western MMO, don't exist in most F2P games. This article takes a look at some specifics of grouping in RoM, including the recruitment board, experience debt, looking for a group, and etiquette.
The cynic's guide to World of Warcraft
We tend to be very careful while composing articles here at WoW Insider. We're always mindful that not everyone plays the game in the same way, or has the same experience on different servers or factions, but every so often a certain madness seizes us and we feel the urge to ... tell the truth. In that vein, I am pleased (sort of) to present The Cynic's Guide to World of Warcraft. This article owes a heavy debt to Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary. If you want to see a real master at work, read that.
The Daily Quest: Dungeon finder tips and tricks
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Because of dungeon finder, we're all PUGging a lot more these days -- for better and for worse. Let's just say that if today's TDQ covered horrible tales from the dungeon finder, it would be ten times as long, at the very least. But fortunately for all of us, WoW-bloggers around the world have some great advice to offer on how to improve your PUG experience. Panzercow discusses heroic PUG tanking. Too Many Annas walks you through how to be successful in a PUG. Can Tank, Will Travel talks about tanking irritants (many of which seem PUG-related). World of Warcraft Philosophized offers advice for dungeon speed runs and wonders if the dungeon finder should put people of similar gear levels together. And -- a bit older than the rest of the posts here, but still worth reading if you're interested in the topic -- our very first guest post covered tips for DPS running heroics.
Use brute force, Luke
Usually, I am the 'perfectionist tank' in a run. I want things to go perfectly: I want to never lose aggro, I want the DPS to all attack the proper target, I want the healer to, well, okay, I mostly just want the healer to heal us, I'm not looking for anything fancy there. As long as a healer seems to be casting healing spells I'm willing to cut her or him a lot of slack, especially in dungeons like Halls of Reflection where people often die through not moving out of giant, inky pools of blackness on the floor that they stand in as if they were instead duck ponds full of adorable baby ducklings. There are no ducklings in the fetid wells of corruption, guys. Last night, however, I had a sort of small revelation. First and foremost, I was stressing myself way the heck out over a pick up group with four folks I was likely never to see again. Secondly, the faster you go in a PuG, the less likely perfection is to be attainable, and if four people want speed and one guy wants flawless, you'll get very fast flaws. So that meant I've come up with an entirely new tanking philosophy for the new five mans, and an entirely new way to gear for them. I'd talk about both.
More dungeon finder tips
Like many of you, I've been spending the last few days happily hitting up the new dungeon finder over and over again. The rewards are pretty amazing for the time involved, and the whole system is usually pretty painless. I've picked up a few tips and tricks along the way, on top of what was covered in Saturday's post by Mike Schramm, and here's what I have to share. If your dungeon pops and then gives you the dreaded "additional instances cannot be launched," you can try again by simply selecting "teleport to dungeon" from the DF menu on your minimap (the eye icon). If you have a full group (of guildies, say) and want to do a particular instance, you can use the DF to queue up for just that instance, and thereby gain the ability to teleport straight there. Sure beats flying.
Patch 3.3: Raid Browser Guide
While dungeons are going for that new-fangled cross-realm fad, the raid system is staying old school by keeping raiding local to your own realm. However, that isn't to say they're behind the times. Patch 3.3 brings a fresh look for the looking for raid tool called the Raid Browser. While we have covered it in its infancy on the PTR, we figured another look wouldn't hurt. So, I present to you, the new and improved World of Warcraft Raid Browser (now with more usefulness). %Gallery-79819% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Patch 3.3: The Dungeon Finder Guide
Patch 3.3 is here and the old looking for group interface is now gone. The old heroic dailies? Gone. The reputation dungeon daily? Gone. The achievements for doing all of those dailies are now Feats of Strength, because if you didn't have them before, you'll never have them now. In their place, we get the ability to queue for dungeons in much the same way that you normally queue for battlegrounds. We get the ability to almost instantaneously have our group put together and be teleported directly inside the instance. For those of you who just recently hit 80, there is no crazy GearScore requirements (thank the Earth Mother), no insane dps requirement, and no achievement checking. It removes all of those things that really stink about trying to find a group to get gear from heroics. Let's take a better look at this new feature.
Patch 3.3 PTR: New Looking for Raid interface
As some of you have seen, we've been covering the new Looking of Group interface coming in patch 3.3. It is going to allow cross-realm queuing for dungeons as well as providing a new interface for your heroic dungeon dailies. As some of you have noticed, this new system does not appear to currently support raid groups. After some digging, we were able to pull up the new raid queue interface and take a look at it.
Patch 3.3 PTR: New LFG interface
In the latest build of the PTR, Blizzard has included the new Looking for Group interface they've got in the works. As they had announced in at BlizzCon, the recent fix for the "Additional Instances" errors that were plaguing us a few months ago also adds the ability for them to allow cross-realm LFG. A new feature usually means a new interface and the trend proves true. It incorporates a lot of the long asked for features as well as removes several older features from the panel. They've taken the current system that allows you to select your available roles (healer, tank, or dps) as well as select if you're willing to lead the instance. One thing that should help out is the ability to earn emblems as well as gold for doing just a completely random pug each day. While some of you might be groaning at this thought, they are willing to reimburse you for the inconvenience with 68G for completing a random level 80 heroic. This money scales based on how much of your party is random and how much is premade. The less random your party is the lower the cash return. It's still early in the PTR and several features, like the ability to use the LFG panel to look for a raid, don't appear to be completely finished yet. I've included a gallery of what the new interface looks like thus far. %Gallery-76169% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Forum post of the day: Sorting out the BADS
Hi everyone, after a short hiatus for guild building and soul searching I'm back to writing on the WoW Insider team. Despite growth in my guild I still find myself picking up folks for heroics and some raids. I've had some good experiences and some terrible ones. Abberforth of Shadow Council offered up a "Basic Assumption and Discernment System. this handy, though tongue-in-cheek guide to selecting members for a PUG. He uses simple assumptions in a players initial presentation of self to determine if a player is a good candidate for invitation. These guidlines warn players to be cautious of Elves, Death Knights, and folks with untypable or unintelligible names. Remember that this guide is for amusement only. There are several other factors that go into good PUG players- like do they run into Nexus when you invite them for Occulus?
Warhammer: Where are all the gank groups?
You will commonly find gank groups in many PvP games. Gank groups are simply organized, pre-made groups, usually formed by members of the same guild that work extremely well together. Usually, a gank group will destroy a pick-up group (PuG) and zerg because they employ smarter tactics, keep cooler heads, and communicate more effectively.Gank groups were very common back when I played Dark Age of Camelot from 2001-2004. These 8-man special-ops teams would sweep in at high speed, disable as many enemies as they could with crowd control, and then quickly pick off targets one or two at a time. Most PuGs and zerglings would panic, which made the job that much easier.The true challenge would come when your gank group met an enemy gank group in the open field. The outcome would come down to a combination of skill, gear, timing, communication, ability timers (realm and master level), and even luck. Taking part in a gank group vs. gank group skirmish was probably the most adrenaline-inducing MMO experience I have had in an MMO and one I have been searching for in every new PvP MMO I try.
Warhammer: Where are all the gank groups (part 2)?
I'm sure many players are applauding the fact that Mythic has systematically eradicated gank groups from the RvR experience in WAR, however, it is saddening for many others. Gank groups were the elite of the elite in DAOC, and whether you liked them or not (or died to them or not), they played a huge part in the RvR scene. Put aside for a moment all the crashing cities and fortresses, overpowered crowd control abilities, class balance issues, and general bugs and performance problems in WAR. Does it not seem that for a game that was supposed to take RvR to the next level, it actually seems to have devolved it? If the holy trinity of class-balance is healing, tanking, and DPSing, it is my humble opinion that the holy trinity of RvR is the zerg, PuG, and gank group. I'm simply left wondering, where have all the gank groups gone? The previous paragraphs illustrate what is hindering gank groups from gaining traction in WAR. With a few minor shifts in design, I believe it is possible to reunite the RvR trinity. Step one is to overhaul crowd control. Every class should not have an arsenal of debilitating CC abilities like they currently do because combat becomes less about strategy and more about button-mashing CC when many players gather together. Step two is to place fewer rewards on objectives and more rewards on player kills. Step three will arrive with Land of the Dead if properly implemented. Hopefully, the zergs and PuGs fight over the main RvR campaign and there will be incentives for gank groups to do well in Nehekhara. Either way, the dual-endgame focus should split up the zergs substantially. The final step lies with the players. Mythic can only guide us so far and unless more guilds are willing to organize 6-12-man gank groups, they simply won't happen in WAR. A PR push from Mythic might help but the best chance for this to blossom will come when a few pioneering guilds take up the mantle and own it. Open challenges on server forums are highly encouraged! << Where are all the gank groups?
Anti-Aliased: Yu rack disriprine
A few nights ago, I was in one of the worst pick-up groups I have ever seen. It was World of Warcraft, we were in Halls of Lightning, and we had opened up with a dramatic wipe on the first boss. (He wasn't even in his powered mode, which surprised me.)Valiantly, we tried the battle again, but found the same effect. Everyone looked like they had enough gear -- I had done that boss with "worse" people backing me up. Of course, while I was pondering that, the squabbling had already begun in the party. Priest blames hunter, hunter blames mage, mage blames paladin, then the paladin stops pondering why we were failing, realizes people were blaming her, and becomes flustered that someone would actually blame her for the wipe. Meanwhile, the rogue sat in stealth and went afk. Perfect party dynamics.Before long I found myself outside of Halls of Lightning again, sitting on the steps in my pristine holy plate armor. I held up a sign that said, "Will tank 4 food," while I kept up hopes that another party would take me in. (Note: Apparently Game Informer used "Will tank 4 food" in their latest magazine, which just read 5 minutes ago, well after this article was completed. Scary.)Party dynamics seem to be on the decline, but why? Pick-up groups were always a scary prospect, but lately they seem to have become something entirely more nightmarish. What the heck has changed?
