What Is It About PUGs / Randoms?

Ch4mpTW · November 2017

What is it about said groups where for whatever the reason, 90% of the time they truly have no clue WTF is going on. Whether it be them attempting to do a veteran dungeon while fully spec’d for PvP, or just refusing to follow the mechanics at hand. And then proceeding with behaving and looking clueless when others get annoyed with them.

Look. I get it. Everyone was a beginner too. Everyone. But, when someone asks you in the beginning if you know what you’re doing? You say, “No.” if you truly do not understand. And from there, you ABSORB the knowledge which is being shared to you. Thus allowing you to put said knowledge into practice. You don’t sit there, and lie. And proceed with doing things your own way. Why? Because you end-you wasting everyone else’s time who wants to get things done. And ultimately, you make people like me who prefer to solo content as is not even want to bother trying to play with others. Let alone try to educate you about the task at hand.

Also, can we please discuss the overall quality of players nowadays as a whole? The vast majority of PUGs struggle hard with Direfrost Keep, yet have 500+ champion points. Why is this? This includes of course those at max champion points. Why the hell is this? Yet, they can spam LFG in zone chat and mention their champion points as if that is supposed to be an indicator of their skill level.

As is, PUGs on PS4-NA struggle incredibly hard with: CoA2, CoH2, Direfrost Keep, Selene’s Web, SotH dungeons, HotR dungeons, IC dungeons, and even Tempest Island. Where the hell did all these bad players come from? And it’s not even the fact that they just suck at basics, but they then proceed to catch an attitude when you try to help them out in a kind and friendly manner. Or, they just simply tune you out and ignore you.

And for all of those who say I’m being a toxic elitist, go do a PUG of NAS as that is what’s “hot” and trending currently. Watch as someone carefully explains the mechanics, but people disregard them and die to the same things over and over and over again. You can explain to them how not to stack when the final boss is raining down lightning, but they’ll do it anyway. You can explain them how the boss leaps at: 90%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. And to stay clear of the center of the arena when around those percentages. Yet, 3-7 people will get destroyed all because they refused to pay attention to what the boss’ HP was at. Or even better, you can tell them to destroy the Protectors when they spawn. And of course, you’ll see again 3-5 people still attacking the boss. Even though a Protector is up, and rather can see clear as day that they are doing no damage to the boss.

I’m disappointed in you, ESO community. I’m disappointed strongly. I don’t know if it’s because most of the people who would be out PvP’ing are calling themselves doing PvE. Or if most of the decent crowd has up and quit, leaving behind people who truly just have an extremely hard time comprehending what is taught. Or hell, maybe some people just flat out don’t care. Why? Because they are too busy vaping in the mic, and coughing into the mic. All the while believing that saying, “Chill dude... It’s just a game...” will make things okay. I don’t know at this point. All I do know is that I’m incredibly irritated and frustrated with the community yet again, and yet again will be focusing on strictly solo’ing content. Not about to waste more of my time on stoners and people who refuse to grasp the basics of things being taught. All the while appearing to show little to no signs of common sense. /EndRant

AzraelKrieg · November 2017

tl;dr. Lower your expectations when you PUG a dungeon. That might help

Liley · November 2017

I met a lot of randoms who thought they knew everything and were decent players, when in fact they were not.

Plus I think a lot of beginners are afraid to tell that they don't know mechanics, which only makes it worse. Maybe they think they'll get kicked out of group or something. So they just play along in the hope to get carried through.

I guess most of them play for themself without having a nice guild where they can ask questions. No one wants to be a bad player, but a lot of people just want to play their "style" and think it's cool without knowing how the game really works.

Zer0oo · November 2017

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

tl;dr. Lower your expectations when you PUG a dungeon. That might help

You really not to lower it extrem hard. Expect nothing from them and be positive surprised if they are not completely useless. And the pugs did get even worse after morrowind and that by a large margin.

Dr_Ganknstein · November 2017

Heard the best thing from our PuG group leader yesterday...."Kill the tanks first".

Ch4mpTW · November 2017

Liley wrote: »

I met a lot of randoms who thought they knew everything and were decent players, when in fact they were not.

Plus I think a lot of beginners are afraid to tell that they don't know mechanics, which only makes it worse. Maybe they think they'll get kicked out of group or something. So they just play along in the hope to get carried through.

I guess most of them play for themself without having a nice guild where they can ask questions. No one wants to be a bad player, but a lot of people just want to play their "style" and think it's cool without knowing how the game really works.

Interesting analysis, although I don’t quite follow that logic. In every last end-game PvE guild I was in, I would ALWAYS ask that the mechanics be reviewed to me or repeated when something was gone over that seemed new or fresh.

For example, I didn’t quite understand the logic of lots of people bringing lightning staves when going on the right side / top group for HRC. So, I spoke-up and asked about it. And thus, it was explained to me.

Same thing regarding MoL. When MoL was fresh and hot, I had the mechanics of doing the back explained to me every single time I ran it. Why? Because I didn’t want to be in a situation where as I’m in a group, and they need someone who can run back. And no one knows where to look, and what to do.

The same can be said for chaining with a DK in MoL. I constantly had chaining explained to me over and over and over again. And even though to this day I am a mediocre chainer at best, I still always have someone go over it just to be certain of where I should position the adds I pull. Why? Because I don’t want the group to wipe to my ignorance. I don’t want to waste people’s time. It’s called being considerate of others.

I have no idea why someone would find asking questions as something to be uncool or embarrassing. In fact, I find it more embarrassing to have someone waste a soul gem on me. And stop doing their rotations, all because I claimed I understood something when I didn’t. I would find that to be absolutely humiliating. Plus, it would make me look like a fraud and a liar. Plus an inconsiderate jerk, because I’m eating people’s time.

Runschei · November 2017

I don't understand why people pug veteran dungeons at all. For normal dungeons it's ok simply because I can solo most dungeons, and dragging 1-3 along with me shouldn't be any problems unless the 3 manages to really mess up and refuses to read chat no matter the five different languages I write in.

Ch4mpTW · November 2017

Runschei wrote: »

I don't understand why people pug veteran dungeons at all. For normal dungeons it's ok simply because I can solo most dungeons, and dragging 1-3 along with me shouldn't be any problems unless the 3 manages to really mess up and refuses to read chat no matter the five different languages I write in.

After wiping 3x in Veteran Direfrost an hour or so ago, and spending almost 4 hours (3hrs. and 53minutes) in VAS last night / this morning? I don’t plan on joining a PUG for any (normal or veteran) trial or veteran dungeon very long time. And I do mean a VERY long time.

AzraelKrieg · November 2017

You have all those titles in your signature yet for some reason you still insist on PUG'ing content? I'm thinking that you don't actually have them at all.

Zer0oo · November 2017

Runschei wrote: »

I don't understand why people pug veteran dungeons at all. For normal dungeons it's ok simply because I can solo most dungeons, and dragging 1-3 along with me shouldn't be any problems unless the 3 manages to really mess up and refuses to read chat no matter the five different languages I write in.

Because it is actually fun sometimes and it can be kinda boring if you can easy steamroll these dungeons with friends.

Liley · November 2017

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Liley wrote: »

I met a lot of randoms who thought they knew everything and were decent players, when in fact they were not.

Plus I think a lot of beginners are afraid to tell that they don't know mechanics, which only makes it worse. Maybe they think they'll get kicked out of group or something. So they just play along in the hope to get carried through.

I guess most of them play for themself without having a nice guild where they can ask questions. No one wants to be a bad player, but a lot of people just want to play their "style" and think it's cool without knowing how the game really works.

Interesting analysis, although I don’t quite follow that logic. In every last end-game PvE guild I was in, I would ALWAYS ask that the mechanics be reviewed to me or repeated when something was gone over that seemed new or fresh.

For example, I didn’t quite understand the logic of lots of people bringing lightning staves when going on the right side / top group for HRC. So, I spoke-up and asked about it. And thus, it was explained to me.

Same thing regarding MoL. When MoL was fresh and hot, I had the mechanics of doing the back explained to me every single time I ran it. Why? Because I didn’t want to be in a situation where as I’m in a group, and they need someone who can run back. And no one knows where to look, and what to do.

The same can be said for chaining with a DK in MoL. I constantly had chaining explained to me over and over and over again. And even though to this day I am a mediocre chainer at best, I still always have someone go over it just to be certain of where I should position the adds I pull. Why? Because I don’t want the group to wipe to my ignorance. I don’t want to waste people’s time. It’s called being considerate of others.

I have no idea why someone would find asking questions as something to be uncool or embarrassing. In fact, I find it more embarrassing to have someone waste a soul gem on me. And stop doing their rotations, all because I claimed I understood something when I didn’t. I would find that to be absolutely humiliating. Plus, it would make me look like a fraud and a liar. Plus an inconsiderate jerk, because I’m eating people’s time.

Well YOU think this way. Other people obviously do not.

vyndral13preub18_ESO · November 2017

I don’t mind. I think it is fun. A nice break if you will. When you pug, you get what you get. And you deal with it. That is the fun part. If you don’t like figuring out what other people are doing or adjusting your playstyle to cover for others who might not get it, then don’t pug.

And yes I get it, there might be a pug put together that can’t complete the dungeon it has found itself in. All you can do is try. And if after a couple tries you feel you can’t do it. Vote the weak link off and if it fails move on, or just skip the vote and move on yourself. There is nothing wrong with that, no need to rage in chat or come to the forums and rant. I mean you signed up for the pug. You knew what you were getting into. Now you are ranting about what you got into.

this is a universal problem with pugs across the board, in almost all games I have played. Games make most content so easy so everyone can complete it with out Learning much of anything, and then oddly people are surprised when then end up in a pug with someone who doesn’t know much of anything. It is one of the reasons I always laugh when people say they don’t want class change tokens because leveling is where people learn to play their class. Yeah right. It is where they learn to spam one attack over and over. That is about it.

Ch4mpTW · November 2017

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

I don’t mind. I think it is fun. A nice break if you will. When you pug, you get what you get. And you deal with it. That is the fun part. If you don’t like figuring out what other people are doing or adjusting your playstyle to cover for others who might not get it, then don’t pug.

And yes I get it, there might be a pug put together that can’t complete the dungeon it has found itself in. All you can do is try. And if after a couple tries you feel you can’t do it. Vote the weak link off and if it fails move on, or just skip the vote and move on yourself. There is nothing wrong with that, no need to rage in chat or come to the forums and rant. I mean you signed up for the pug. You knew what you were getting into. Now you are ranting about what you got into.

this is a universal problem with pugs across the board, in almost all games I have played. Games make most content so easy so everyone can complete it with out Learning much of anything, and then oddly people are surprised when then end up in a pug with someone who doesn’t know much of anything. It is one of the reasons I always laugh when people say they don’t want class change tokens because leveling is where people learn to play their class. Yeah right. It is where they learn to spam one attack over and over. That is about it.

I can agree with the later part of your post, but please. Allow me to elaborate on my initial post. There can be fun to be had in PUGs. Yes. I do agree. However, there is little to no fun about a group of people who truly refuse to acknowledge and comprehend the knowledge that is being given to them. It becomes a waste of everyone’s time at that point. As well as gold and soul gems.

Answer this for me, if you will please. What is so demanding about not standing in the lightning pool on the floor? There is a relatively large red indicator on the floor, plus visuals of said object. Common sense should dictate that, “Hey, if I step in this — there is a good chance I won’t have such a good time. So I best avoid it, or remove myself from it as quickly as possible (if by some chance I end-up in it.” And yet, what usually occurs is: *Loud vape sounds in mic followed by coughing.* “I need heals! Stronger heals, healers! This place is so damn hard. Ugh, can I get a “rez” please!? I have been here for a while now.” And so on.

And here is the kicker, m’kay? Here is the part that really annoys me. A lot of the time, the folks who behave so clueless and ignorant of the things at hand? Are usually people who have: High PvP ranks, are using the “Former Emperor” title, and proclaim so strongly that PvE is “easy mode” right and left in zone chats. I’ve come across a lot of: Prefects, generals, praetorians, etc. in NAS who truly exhibited newbie behavior. Now mind you, I’m fully aware that not everyone is cut out for PvE. Honestly. I understand. And that is perfectly okay. But what is not okay is that they have a high rank in PvP, and supposedly are a PvP “pro” or “elite”. Yet, they still stand in the red. They still don’t know when to interrupt or block something. They still don’t know when to CC-break. But oh, they can sure dodge roll like monkeys and jump all around in duels and in PvP skirmishes. They can do all that real well. When it comes to bursting down another player, and animation cancelling this and that skill? They’re the big man on campus.

... Meanwhile. they’re getting chumped by trial bosses on normal difficulty. And not even mechanically-heavy trials. Meanwhile, they can’t burn a boss for anything and are spamming bow light attacks and snipe. What happened to all of that situational awareness? What happened to all insanely high burst? What happened to all that fluid mobility, and hopping around everywhere? What happened to all that? What happened to being all tanky and defensive? Why is it that now all of a sudden they can barely stay up, and someone has to spend soul gem after soul gem getting them up. Isn’t it funny how that work?

vyndral13preub18_ESO · November 2017

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

I don’t mind. I think it is fun. A nice break if you will. When you pug, you get what you get. And you deal with it. That is the fun part. If you don’t like figuring out what other people are doing or adjusting your playstyle to cover for others who might not get it, then don’t pug.

And yes I get it, there might be a pug put together that can’t complete the dungeon it has found itself in. All you can do is try. And if after a couple tries you feel you can’t do it. Vote the weak link off and if it fails move on, or just skip the vote and move on yourself. There is nothing wrong with that, no need to rage in chat or come to the forums and rant. I mean you signed up for the pug. You knew what you were getting into. Now you are ranting about what you got into.

this is a universal problem with pugs across the board, in almost all games I have played. Games make most content so easy so everyone can complete it with out Learning much of anything, and then oddly people are surprised when then end up in a pug with someone who doesn’t know much of anything. It is one of the reasons I always laugh when people say they don’t want class change tokens because leveling is where people learn to play their class. Yeah right. It is where they learn to spam one attack over and over. That is about it.

I can agree with the later part of your post, but please. Allow me to elaborate on my initial post. There can be fun to be had in PUGs. Yes. I do agree. However, there is little to no fun about a group of people who truly refuse to acknowledge and comprehend the knowledge that is being given to them. It becomes a waste of everyone’s time at that point. As well as gold and soul gems.

Answer this for me, if you will please. What is so demanding about not standing in the lightning pool on the floor? There is a relatively large red indicator on the floor, plus visuals of said object. Common sense should dictate that, “Hey, if I step in this — there is a good chance I won’t have such a good time. So I best avoid it, or remove myself from it as quickly as possible (if by some chance I end-up in it.” And yet, what usually occurs is: *Loud vape sounds in mic followed by coughing.* “I need heals! Stronger heals, healers! This place is so damn hard. Ugh, can I get a “rez” please!? I have been here for a while now.” And so on.

And here is the kicker, m’kay? Here is the part that really annoys me. A lot of the time, the folks who behave so clueless and ignorant of the things at hand? Are usually people who have: High PvP ranks, are using the “Former Emperor” title, and proclaim so strongly that PvE is “easy mode” right and left in zone chats. I’ve come across a lot of: Prefects, generals, praetorians, etc. in NAS who truly exhibited newbie behavior. Now mind you, I’m fully aware that not everyone is cut out for PvE. Honestly. I understand. And that is perfectly okay. But what is not okay is that they have a high rank in PvP, and supposedly are a PvP “pro” or “elite”. Yet, they still stand in the red. They still don’t know when to interrupt or block something. They still don’t know when to CC-break. But oh, they can sure dodge roll like monkeys and jump all around in duels and in PvP skirmishes. They can do all that real well. When it comes to bursting down another player, and animation cancelling this and that skill? They’re the big man on campus.

... Meanwhile. they’re getting chumped by trial bosses on normal difficulty. And not even mechanically-heavy trials. Meanwhile, they can’t burn a boss for anything and are spamming bow light attacks and snipe. What happened to all of that situational awareness? What happened to all insanely high burst? What happened to all that fluid mobility, and hopping around everywhere? What happened to all that? What happened to being all tanky and defensive? Why is it that now all of a sudden they can barely stay up, and someone has to spend soul gem after soul gem getting them up. Isn’t it funny how that work?

I can certainly agree with a lot of that. I have done my fair share of yelling at the monitor when someone can’t be bothered to do something simple like stand in the giant glowing circle. Maybe I’m just old and jaded now. I don’t scream as much anymore I just move on. Some people don’t want to learn.

On a side note I still refuse to tell people with 14k health or less to eat food. There is something really funny about watching them die over and over, even when it gets me booted as the healer.

tommalmm · November 2017

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Answer this for me, if you will please. What is so demanding about not standing in the lightning pool on the floor? There is a relatively large red indicator on the floor, plus visuals of said object. Common sense should dictate that, “Hey, if I step in this — there is a good chance I won’t have such a good time. So I best avoid it, or remove myself from it as quickly as possible (if by some chance I end-up in it.” And yet, what usually occurs is: *Loud vape sounds in mic followed by coughing.* “I need heals! Stronger heals, healers! This place is so damn hard. Ugh, can I get a “rez” please!? I have been here for a while now.” And so on.

The thing is most players can't concentrate at more than one thing. Keeping a somewhat consistent rotation absorbs them completely. Whenever they start watching their surroundings, their rotation falls apart. The general awareness comes with time and practice, but people actually need to have a will to do that. You can play for years and still suck.

I've been playing for roughly two years but I still remember times when I was like that. I was happy I could pull 25k dps on my magicka templar but I would die to every single mechanic possible.

This reminds me of recent nCOS run on PS4 EU, where I was on a lv30 healer (~420cp, I'm playing mostly on PC EU, where I'm waaaay over CP cap) and guys with ~600cp had no clue as to what the mechanics are (they were not bashing, later on veli they were moving when they were not supposed to, tank kept wandering off in opposite direction in catacombs, etc, thank god there was another decent player there - arizrain or something like that, because ressing solo on veli is a pita with an underdeveloped templar and no kagrenacs).

Ch4mpTW · November 2017

tommalmm wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Answer this for me, if you will please. What is so demanding about not standing in the lightning pool on the floor? There is a relatively large red indicator on the floor, plus visuals of said object. Common sense should dictate that, “Hey, if I step in this — there is a good chance I won’t have such a good time. So I best avoid it, or remove myself from it as quickly as possible (if by some chance I end-up in it.” And yet, what usually occurs is: *Loud vape sounds in mic followed by coughing.* “I need heals! Stronger heals, healers! This place is so damn hard. Ugh, can I get a “rez” please!? I have been here for a while now.” And so on.

The thing is most players can't concentrate at more than one thing. Keeping a somewhat consistent rotation absorbs them completely. Whenever they start watching their surroundings, their rotation falls apart. The general awareness comes with time and practice, but people actually need to have a will to do that. You can play for years and still suck.

I've been playing for roughly two years but I still remember times when I was like that. I was happy I could pull 25k dps on my magicka templar but I would die to every single mechanic possible.

This reminds me of recent nCOS run on PS4 EU, where I was on a lv30 healer (~420cp, I'm playing mostly on PC EU, where I'm waaaay over CP cap) and guys with ~600cp had no clue as to what the mechanics are (they were not bashing, later on veli they were moving when they were not supposed to, tank kept wandering off in opposite direction in catacombs, etc, thank god there was another decent player there - arizrain or something like that, because ressing solo on veli is a pita with an underdeveloped templar and no kagrenacs).

So then if raises this question: Why are so many people so absorbed with a DPS number, when the average person can’t pull said high DPS due to them failing to handle the mechanics in place? I have been in numerous guilds where there was a bare minimum of DPS someone had to achieve on either Bloodspawn or a Target Skeleton to be brought along for veteran trial runs. Yet often times than not, the people who scored the highest on said tests were usually folks who would constantly need to get resurrected. Those were the folks who got tunnel vision in the trial on only their rotations, and not on doing both rotations and mechanics at the same time. Meanwhile, the people who were often times cast aside and told to “get better DPS numbers” (usually only off by 2k or 3k from the goal) didn’t die nearly as much to the mechanics in place. They were more consistent.

tommalmm · November 2017

High DPS numbers are great, but people get too obsessed with them and forget that a dead DD doesn't even equal to zero DPS, but to much less than zero (another DD looses DPS to res them). Blocking would take one maybe two GCD + some stamina, which in a longer fight would mean like 50 DPS loss, you can usually get out of harms way while continuing your rotation without any loss... I don't know, as I wrote, I've been like that at the beginning, it just happens, you don't notice anything besides the boss and your skills going off. It comes with time and practice. Though people that got to cp300+ should definitely not be like that (unless they've been mostly grinding and questing, without any challenging content, then they've had no chance to get better).

This kind of people (high DPS, falling to simple mechanics) are usually people that play one class, one role. It's much less common among people that played all DD, heal and tank on multiple classes. Mostly because they tend to understand game mechanics much better.

But, I know some people IRL that can't drive and talk at the same time, so I'm not much surprised to see that kind of behavior in games. It's always a matter of training.

BTW. Playing without buff timers and dot trackers helps a lot. You have to know your rotation and not concentrate on looking at the counters. I think that once you're comfortable with your build, you don't need them and they become mostly a distraction. I suppose some people might be actually looking at the timers instead of the battlefield. I keep them enabled on both console (since they were introduced) and PC, but I rarely look at them, most of the time even when I have to stop normal rotation (esp. on melee) to execute some mechanics, I know exactly where I am and whether my dots are still active or not.

Mureel · November 2017

Runschei wrote: »

I don't understand why people pug veteran dungeons at all. For normal dungeons it's ok simply because I can solo most dungeons, and dragging 1-3 along with me shouldn't be any problems unless the 3 manages to really mess up and refuses to read chat no matter the five different languages I write in.

I do it because it’s fun and I enjoy the challenge and the fun at something like (VCOS) when the tank is all OMG! That’s the first time I didn’t die on that boss! (Because I’m interrupting the adds, etc) Or when people clear something they haven’t before etc. I love that.

Integral1900 · November 2017

To be honest if it’s anything but normal dungeons I won’t pug, using group finder to do vet dungeons is the very definition of the purest insanity

SoLooney · November 2017

pugs are barely bearable in vet 1 dungeons but when you pug the vet 2 dungeons and the dlc ones, it usually becomes a big mess. Like people bring in pvp set ups and only light and heavy attack, like wtf. not to mention i see dps in swords and shields and just a mess of combos for support roles. I think the funniest one I saw was a sorc khajiit sorcerer healer, blew my mind. holy shiz, role players doing challenging content...