PUG Life: Two Positrons

[DougGraves]

The first one my team made it a challenge.  A dominator would instantly immobilize every  spawn scattered across the map.  Then the dominator would usually get knocked out by the return fire.   But, when the dominator did not lock them down someone had an aoe with knockback that would scatter them to the winds.  

 

The second one was advertised as a KM TF.  But then the leader got upset when people were actually killing most and not rushing to the end.   On the final mission in Atlas City hall, there was a spawn at the bottom of the stairs and a hero below the statue.  The leader ordered everyone to fly over the group at the bottom of the stairs to rescue the hero.  Then to go back and defeat the spawn at the bottom of the stairs.  They just kept giving crazy orders that made everyone confused and then got upset when people were scattered.  No one suggested staying together to do Posi 2.

  

[Ironblade]

Yikes.  I had a Lady Grey on Thursday that was exactly the opposite.  Everybody followed the few instructions I gave and our 'tank' was a brute that knew the missions and maps at least as well as me, if not better.  Super smooth.

[Clave Dark 5]

Did a redside Lord Recluse... whatever it's called (the one with Atlas in ruins and go fight all the good guys, whilst in the cut scene  Manti is apparently starting to lose it and constantly firing arrows and telling everyone they can't give up) that started pretty rough.  After me and another telling the leader we weren't all that familiar with it (I think this was third run ever?), they just said "first flyers then towers," which uh...  Fortunately, apparently some of the others were familiar enough and had TP, ha ha.  Some deaths fighting that giant robot outside the one map, then we rushed that one (other?) map and hit the door that won't let you past till you have a key, so they rushed back alone to wherever to get it and died, etc. whilst we stood around boomboxing.  They kept mentioning how bad their End was and they couldn't wait to slot the Incand to take care of that, and all their tanks had bad End problems (I didn't say anything).  Overall we got it pulled off, but not really because we deserved to.  I love it when that happens!

[Infeareal]

All I do is pug. I suspect that is 95% of players here. It's cool an all you had some negative experiences but these posts tend to not be highly productive. I mean on a posi 1 if you have a knockback power it can easily be just as valid of a form of mitigation as anything else (given team comp or skill).

I have had some smooth runs, and had some others, a run with someone that had never done a group one once and were new to the game and that was in their mid 20's. A lot of new and returners. People that are not familiar with the maps, people trying to lead that have never before because they want to help out and there are always people looking but sometimes its harder to find someone leading. 

Since I came back I lead 95% of the group runs I do. Seen some stuff not go smooth. 99% of the time you explain something and everyone is good. You try again, knock it out, move on. There has been enough new people that they have no idea how much knockback can frustrate someone, it is just a new cool power to them, and they do feel powerful if that is your first character to have one.

I tanked an ITF right at 30 on the first tank I was bringing up since returning, had no clue where things were and the last time I ran it was sometime during live. Middle of the night, people talked, I said I can tank but remember nothing of the place, went smooth. 

How about we talk about all the smooth runs we go on, that would be cool to see, most people love seeing the positivity. How nice it was to have that grav/dark controller the other day or the fact you never had to blink at your health when that defender was on your team, or how cohesive that 50+4 was. I can tell you that is far more valuable to the community.

Edited February 19 by Infeareal

[Clave Dark 5]

I don't see us complaining here so much as just having a chuckle over how badly things can go sometimes.  I do 100% PUGs, and I'm not about to stop, fool that I am.  😃

[dtjunkie]

PUG Life: 13 Hesses

 

Ernesto Hess is my favorite TF so I always go hard after it when it's the WST. I ran it 24 times this week (each time with a different toon), 11 solo and 13 with PUGs I led. Every single PUG went super smooth. I was super impressed that all 13 PUGs went up the catwalks and fought Burkholder the way he was meant to be fought - on top of the giant death robot. I loved that many of my PUG teammates had Team Teleport and could facilitate bouncing around the Striga radar towers quickly. I was very pleased that except for 1 or 2 times, every single PUG waited until every team member was in the mission before completing the four quick radar tower missions (gotta get that prismatic aether mission complete roll for everyone!).

[Snarky]

just did the oldchool LRSF on a pug i joined through ouro.  The team was great, the Tank was able to pull the heroes, and it was surprisingly easy!  Worthy Opponent badge fell in my lap

[Clave Dark 5]

Did a random Talos PUG tonight doing just any ol' missions - radios I suspect.  My 50 Dom had to run at their level without all her bells and whistles (perma-dom, my bespoke amped up damage slotting, fuin things like Venge, etc.), but still ended up tanking for the group (stalker, MM, and everyone else support squishies) by starting off with spawn-wide mezzes and then jumping in to drop my one AoE available at that level, then alt-tabbing through the foes to single target mezz them until there were no more foes.

 

Good PUGs aren't as interesting to talk about ha ha!  But yes, they are out there, often.

[tidge]

17 hours ago, DougGraves said:

The second one was advertised as a KM TF.  But then the leader got upset when people were actually killing most and not rushing to the end.  

 

 

9 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I don't see us complaining here so much as just having a chuckle over how badly things can go sometimes.  I do 100% PUGs, and I'm not about to stop, fool that I am.  😃

 

+1! For me it is less about getting upset and more about smirking about logical disconnects among players who say they want one thing but then fall on "No, not like that!"

 

I often ignore PUGs advertised as "Kill Most" because I've played on sooo many of them where the team leader freaks out because we are engaging spawns "that we don't need to fight". I'd say less than a quarter of these sorts of advertised groups even come close to "kill most".  I am not a mind reader, so how am I supposed to know that the leader doesn't want to fight as many of the Freaks/Council in the Penny Yin TF, or sweep through Crey on Manticore, or pull as many ITF Cimerorans/Council as possible?

[JasperStone]

I was on a PUB MLTF last night

A direct quote from the Team Leader when we got to the group of AVs prior to Lord Recluse

...

"Stop killing things so fast"

Edited February 19 by JasperStone
changed Precluse to Recluse ... :)

[ZemX]

11 hours ago, Infeareal said:

How about we talk about all the smooth runs we go on

 

"I make my livin' off the evenin' news
Just give me somethin', somethin' I can use
People love it when you lose
They love dirty laundry"

 

[sbloyd]

We had a rough insertion on the MSR the other night (nyuk nyuk).  I like having things go wrong once in a while, it adds an element of challenge to something that's down to a science these days.  That being said, the stakes are a lot lower on the MSR than on a Strike Force.

[FrankX]

Back playing again after Live ended.  Lots of Pugs while trying to refresh those memories.  Enjoyed them all so far, but clearly there are better and sub optimal behaviors.   Seeing a master at tanking is a treat.  Gentle leading without yelling is a great skill.  Knowing to hold of on the immob a second and to aim the knock back into a corner are teachable skills.

Wish there were more "chill/learning/refresher" task forces LFG.  This will minimize the conflict between expectations. 

 

[sbloyd]

1 hour ago, FrankX said:

Back playing again after Live ended.  Lots of Pugs while trying to refresh those memories.  Enjoyed them all so far, but clearly there are better and sub optimal behaviors.   Seeing a master at tanking is a treat.  Gentle leading without yelling is a great skill.  Knowing to hold of on the immob a second and to aim the knock back into a corner are teachable skills.

Wish there were more "chill/learning/refresher" task forces LFG.  This will minimize the conflict between expectations. 

 

If Synapse weren't such a slog, I think it would make for a good 'learn the ropes' TF.

[Ghost]

All I ever run on is PUG TFs.

On Posi’s and Synapse, I half expect…

Mobs to be locked down all over the place.

Toons to run around with hurricane on, throwing enemies every direction.

KB everywhere.  Especially if there’s a PB on the team.

 

In my little mind, I just assume the AT/powers are new to the players and they are still learning to use them (remember those days?).

 

[DougGraves]

34 minutes ago, Ghost said:

In my little mind, I just assume the AT/powers are new to the players and they are still learning to use them (remember those days?).

 

I see "bad" players a lot more recently and I have to assume it is new players.  It is great being on teams and finding out some people are actually entirely new to the game - not just back after a break.

 

But it does take a different mindset to play with new players instead of everyone having played for 10 years and done the TF hundreds of times.

[RCU7115]

I was on a Snarky team running a TF last year. Think it was a Posi 1 or 2. It went nice and smooth.

[cranebump]

When I do team, it’s with PuGs. When it gets dicey, due to new people (or old people brain farting) I don’t mind the chaos at all. Makes for some fun, via the expected. As far as the many well-oiled machines I’ve run on, I’m neither giddy or despondent. I simply have no emotional connection to them. They’re just not memorable. Like an OK cup of Joe. Gets the job done (and that’s about it). 

Edited February 20 by cranebump

[Carnifax]

I joined a +4 KillMost PuG ITF last night on Reunion. Mostly because when I logged in on my DP / Kinetics Corruptor with a mind to do some crafting LFG was full of drama for some reason. Turns out someone was claiming a +4 Kill Most PuG ITF would be a shambles and it'd take hours. So it would have been rude not to join.

 

We blitzed it in 41 minutes (8 team deaths along the way but never close to a team wipe). NO tactics at all other than "Run at them screaming". The Seafood Ambush we just rolled over (afterwards I realized someone had said "Drag them to the top of the stairs" but we'd ignored it). Rommie was just attacked, no pulling him to the door or other tactics. Just attack him in place. It was glorious. 

 

Team was a Domi, a Fire Tank, a Scrapper, a Stalker, 2 Blasters, an Illusion Controller and my DP/Kin. One or two dicey bits where we just went different ways on the 2nd mission and triggered ambushes on each other. On the 3rd we were moving so fast up the hill we had to regroup slightly because we were so drawn out and triggering ambushes. 

 

 

[Bonkleberry]

I was on a Manticore TF PUG once where the whole team wanted to skip what we could, but the only team members with stealth were me and a Stalker and neither of us had Assemble the Team yet. Several missions were just the Stalker and me duoing final rooms while the rest of the team sat at the door. One of the missions bugged and we all had to disband anyway.