Why do we have bad PUG experiences?

[WuTang]

So I pugged in a 50 PI radio session yesterday. At first I didn't like how the lead was micromanaging the group, most of what she was saying seemed like common sense, and someone telling me what I already know bugs me. But then I remembered this thread and it dawned on me that it's likely she's had issues in the past...after that I just went with it. But because of her it was smooth and organized. 

 

Also, haha I pulled some stupid newb stuff and no one complained...too much. Like in a sewer mission, run through the tight door, y'all know the ones, and bam like 30 baddies just on the other side. I swear I backtracked so fast that they shouldn't have seen me...but nope here they came. I also fell off some stairs into a pile of baddies...I swear somebody had some buff that made us move faster. I'm usually not that clumsy. All good fun though.

 

But how this reflects back to the OP.... The lead clearly stated on a couple missions not to pull more than one group at a time cause that's all she could handle. On others though it was a bit faster. She'd clearly done her research and knew her capabilities. Much how the OP here is doing.

Edited March 6 by WuTang

[Sunsette]

5 hours ago, mechahamham said:

I wish I could count the number of times I've run into '+4x8 or nuthin' players. I've very seriously known more than one person who quit CoH entirely because they couldn't solo max difficulty, and I've heard at least two people this week make the statement that everyone should be able to solo +4x8. I'm honestly not sure if they meant that every player should slot to solo +4x8 or that every single player should be able to solo +4x8 regardless of slotting. Either way, wow, way to suck the fun out of the game.

 

I agree with this, it's unhealthy for the game. I think Dark Astoria did a good job tightening the band of expectations in power without making people feel weaker, and I'm impressed how deftly that needle was threaded. 

 

I usually build my L50 characters to be able to handle +4×8 in a reasonable timeframe solo because I enjoy building to that degree and it helps me deal with other kinds of content when crap hits the fan... it's unlikely I'll keep a character that can't build to that performance while maintaining concept and feeling fun to me, so I delete or retire a lot of characters.

 

But even so I rarely actually play at that level solo. It's immersion breaking, it's monotonous, and money and exp are easy enough for me to get.

 

Though I understand the human impulse here. Keeping up with Joneses is a reaction we would all do well to shed ourselves of but it's one easier said than done for many of us. I don't think there's an easy fix and mostly lament the decisions of the live devs in creating such wild differences in performance solo that span a 40 level [(–1 to +4)×(1 to 8)] difference. You can't remove those options now and you can't possibly buff every powerset and AT to match that functionality. 

[Belazarius]

Because you expect every player to play the way you intend them to do.

[golstat2003]

16 hours ago, StarseedWarrior said:

To be fair people who pick empathy generally play other mmos where heals are kind of king.

 

And they should learn that heals are the least effective kind of support here in COH.

 

It's a new game, they should learn the game they are playing.

[Latex]

On Petless MM's...

If I play League of Legends and one of my teammates doesn't buy items I can report them and they'll literally get their account suspended for griefing/trolling the game. They're not playing the game as intended and ruining the experience for everyone else.

If you play Mercy in Overwatch as the only team healer and you never use heals, you'll probably end up with a game suspension after a while too (Blizz is generally more lenient on what is and what isn't trolling) but 'refusing to play your assigned role' is a punishable offence in most team-based games.

If you're playing a Petless MM and joining PUG's you're doing the same thing and while it's not a competitive game (e.g. PVP) you're degrading the experience for the rest of your team, basically trolling. If you do it solo more power to you, but joining groups as a petless MM is just cringe.

[Maelwys]

9 minutes ago, Latex said:

joining groups as a petless MM is just cringe.

To be fair those other games have a noticably higher performance requirement floor than CoH.

There is a long history of Drama here, which basically boils down to the community tending to look unkindly on those who throw shade on others for their build choices.
The cliche goes something like this:

"Heal Please!"
"Whut?"
"You're a Healer! Heal me!!! I need heals!!!"
"Please, this game is so easy you could complete every single story arc with just Brawl on Autofire. Nobody needs a Tank or a Healer, get over yourself. Nobody else is complaining, and I'm having fun".
"But you're not having the right kind of fun! Call yourself a Healer and you're not even healing me you dirty great Trolling Troll!!"
"You do realise I'm a Trick Arrow Defender, right? Do you want me to shoot you in the face with my "Highly Effective Arrow Launcher" or something?"
"OMG Troll!"

Petless MMs can be perfectly viable. They get some Secondary Powersets which are very busy (like /Kin, /Dark, /Traps, /Cold, /Empathy, etc) and by ignoring most or all of the pets; a player can focus much more on teammate support. Sure, they've lower buff values than Defenders; but that doesn't really matter to certain powersets (such as /Kin) and they also get access to stuff like Powerboost and Bonfire via the Epic pools. Some of their primary powersets even have very useful riders on their personal attacks, like Bots/ (-Regen) and Demons/ (-Resist).
It's also worth remembering that unless they're buffed to high heaven, a MM's T1 and T2 MM pets can end up being a liability on Higher Difficulties and Hardmode TFs. This is because a MM's pets are "lower level" than the MM themselves; and if you're fighting foes that are ~4 levels or more higher than you, your performance gets utterly crippled due to the Purple Patch. So they'll often end up unable to hit or dodge anything and just getting in the way of the "real" damage dealers... even if the MM avoids having to keep resummoning them every few seconds.

[Uun]

19 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

It's also worth remembering that unless they're buffed to high heaven, a MM's T1 and T2 MM pets can end up being a liability on Higher Difficulties and Hardmode TFs. This is because a MM's pets are "lower level" than the MM themselves

Not true for incarnate content. All MM henchman are level shifted to the MM's level, including any incarnate shifts. 

[shortguy on indom]

On 3/3/2024 at 2:37 PM, FFFF said:

And yet we are regaled continually of stories of incompetence, bad team play, and sometimes bad behavior bordering on griefing.

Going to put this into sig line w/ur permission... sums up my play nicely.

 

Usually solo 95% of the time, but spend the other time leading LFG: lvl 50 +4... 'lvl 1 and up' .......PUGs to their doom.  Fun is what you make it.

[Andreah]

I've had nothing but good experiences with petless MM's in pick-up groups. 

[Ironblade]

22 hours ago, StarseedWarrior said:

To be fair people who pick empathy generally play other mmos where heals are kind of king.

Eh, one of my earliest characters back on live was empathy/dark and CoH was my first MMO.

I've also done a fire/emp corr.  Empathy is a good set if you actually understand this game and that being a "pure healer" is stupid.

[Ironblade]

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

"But you're not having the right kind of fun! Call yourself a Healer and you're not even healing me you dirty great Trolling Troll!!"
"You do realise I'm a Trick Arrow Defender, right? Do you want me to shoot you in the face with my "Highly Effective Arrow Launcher" or something?"

 

Yeah, I was playing my empathy defender and on every other spawn, the blaster was yelling about how he needed endurance.

Whatever, pal.  I have ONE power that boosts END and it has a long recharge.  The problem is that your build sucks.

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, Latex said:

If you're playing a Petless MM and joining PUG's you're doing the same thing and while it's not a competitive game (e.g. PVP) you're degrading the experience for the rest of your team, basically trolling. If you do it solo more power to you, but joining groups as a petless MM is just cringe.

 

That's a load of bullshit.  This is a game in which people willingly carry low-level turnips, who have two attacks and nothing but body odor for defense, through level 50+ content; and team composition is so flexible that a bunch of Empathy defenders with one attack apiece can ROFLstomp everything they see, there's nothing "cringe" about playing a petless mastermind on a team.  If you're so bad at the game that you can't progress without being surrounded by seven living gods, the problem isn't the petless mastermind, it's you.

 

Get off of that high horse before you fall and hurt yourself.

[StarseedWarrior]

22 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

That's a load of bullshit.  This is a game in which people willingly carry low-level turnips, who have two attacks and nothing but body odor for defense, through level 50+ content; and team composition is so flexible that a bunch of Empathy defenders with one attack apiece can ROFLstomp everything they see, there's nothing "cringe" about playing a petless mastermind on a team.  If you're so bad at the game that you can't progress without being surrounded by seven living gods, the problem isn't the petless mastermind, it's you.

 

Get off of that high horse before you fall and hurt yourself.

I am just confused why anyone would roll a mastermind to not have pets lol.

Edited March 6 by StarseedWarrior

[KITANYA]

8 hours ago, WuTang said:

So I pugged in a 50 PI radio session yesterday. At first I didn't like how the lead was micromanaging the group, most of what she was saying seemed like common sense, and someone telling me what I already know bugs me. But then I remembered this thread and it dawned on me that it's likely she's had issues in the past...after that I just went with it. But because of her it was smooth and organized. 

 

Also, haha I pulled some stupid newb stuff and no one complained...too much. Like in a sewer mission, run through the tight door, y'all know the ones, and bam like 30 baddies just on the other side. I swear I backtracked so fast that they shouldn't have seen me...but nope here they came. I also fell off some stairs into a pile of baddies...I swear somebody had some buff that made us move faster. I'm usually not that clumsy. All good fun though.

 

But how this reflects back to the OP.... The lead clearly stated on a couple missions not to pull more than one group at a time cause that's all she could handle. On others though it was a bit faster. She'd clearly done her research and knew her capabilities. Much how the OP here is doing.

 

If those Buffs (that make you move real fast!) bother you and your control of you character, you can go to Pocket D and talk to Null the Gull to turn off the extreme speed. You still have the buffs/added stats, just not the crazy speed that can make you fall off floors etc 😄

 

Or you can keep it on and become accustomed and used to it 😄

[KITANYA]

5 hours ago, Latex said:

If you're playing a Petless MM and joining PUG's you're doing the same thing and while it's not a competitive game (e.g. PVP) you're degrading the experience for the rest of your team, basically trolling. If you do it solo more power to you, but joining groups as a petless MM is just cringe.

 

Is it possible to troll as a Controller though?

[Sunsette]

28 minutes ago, StarseedWarrior said:

I am just confused why anyone would roll a mastermind to not have pets lol.

 

Some people play to be contrary, some people really like the animation options, some people really enjoy the challenge. None of those reasons would ever be sufficient to get me to roll a petless mastermind, but I'll happily team with a petless MM in any content in which carrying a teammate is reasonable (the vast majority of the game)

[biostem]

32 minutes ago, StarseedWarrior said:

I am just confused why anyone would roll a mastermind to not have pets lol.

I can think of at least 3 specific cases:

 

1. No other way to get the whip attacks besides rolling a demon MM.

 

2. While you can get the bug/bird attacks in savage assault for dominators, if you wanted those attacks paired with a support set, a beast MM is the only way to go.

 

3. If you want the special dark blasts that can summon ghosts, a necro MM is the only way to go.

[StarseedWarrior]

3 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

 

Some people play to be contrary, some people really like the animation options, some people really enjoy the challenge. None of those reasons would ever be sufficient to get me to roll a petless mastermind, but I'll happily team with a petless MM in any content in which carrying a teammate is reasonable (the vast majority of the game)

Ahhh ok well I am not fully in agreement with people who gimp builds, it depends on how tough the content is not everyone feels like carrying others, we are playing an mmo after all. Yea its reasonable usually.

[Maelwys]

For a (rather long) while the only way you could be a character with a gun that fired futuristic looking energy blasts was by rolling a Bot/ MM.

 

Can't speak for other servers, but I remember seeing a fair number of petless Bot/Traps MMs running around back in the day. Some of them even occasionally remembered to use Trip Mine and Poison Trap.

[Sunsette]

Yeah I was def. sympathetic to them. I love tech and struggle to make characters of other aesthetics and origins. 

 

Just wish I enjoyed how Beam Rifle played on blaster, it feels weird with Sent range.

[Maelwys]

52 minutes ago, KITANYA said:

Is it possible to troll as a Controller though?

 

Fire/Kins with permanent Hot feet and Speed Boost 6-slotted for +runspeed made a good attempt. As did the Sonics and FFs who insisted on spamming their "Cage" powers on AVs. But my personal favourite was the Illusion/Empath Troller with no Phantom Army or Fortitude, who we ended up nicknaming "Vengeance Bait".

[macskull]

Why do we have bad PuG experiences? Because this game is deceptively complicated and I would venture to guess the majority of players never grow their understanding of the game beyond "see enemy click button." There's also the issue of communication - for example I was on two PuG Aeon SFs today. Both were advertised as speedy, but on the first one the team leader said "come here" right as they started the TF, expecting the entire team to go to the contact instead of the door to the first mission, then got upset when people zoned into the mission and started finding scientists instead of escorting Becky - because apparently the team leader wanted the badge for that even though it was advertised as a speed run and the leader had said nothing about it before actually starting the TF. Needless to say we didn't get the badge, the team had mostly no idea what was going on, and it took us nearly 40 minutes with things like the Brute using Fold Space on the lines of enemies in the last mission, except pulling them all away from their spawns so no one knew which mobs were actually the ones we needed to defeat. I turned around and immediately joined another team that finished in just over 20 minutes despite virtually no talking in team chat the entire time.

 

TL;DR: The PuG experience isn't always bad, it's just wildly inconsistent and we remember the bad teams more than the good ones.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, KITANYA said:

Is it possible to troll as a Controller though?

I've seen a few players that want a support set, but don't care much for the blast sets that Defenders/Corruptors get.  Some few will take the starting power and maybe the pet from the control set, with the rest being from pools and such.

[Clave Dark 5]

9 hours ago, Latex said:

On Petless MM's...

If I play League of Legends and one of my teammates doesn't buy items I can report them and they'll literally get their account suspended for griefing/trolling the game. They're not playing the game as intended and ruining the experience for everyone else.

If you play Mercy in Overwatch as the only team healer and you never use heals, you'll probably end up with a game suspension after a while too (Blizz is generally more lenient on what is and what isn't trolling) but 'refusing to play your assigned role' is a punishable offence in most team-based games.

If you're playing a Petless MM and joining PUG's you're doing the same thing and while it's not a competitive game (e.g. PVP) you're degrading the experience for the rest of your team, basically trolling. If you do it solo more power to you, but joining groups as a petless MM is just cringe.

The fact that this is the one game that won't  scold you for playing a petless MM is one of its strengths.  Feature, not a bug. 

 

I'll say it again (and those coupla people will drop by to downvote me again, just watch), but I recently leveled a semi-petless MM (lion-only Beast/Storm) and never once got any grief or even a "huh?" for it.  Every time I asked to join a PUG I'd let them know what I was running and no one cared. 

[Sovera]

7 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

The fact that this is the one game that won't  scold you for playing a petless MM is one of its strengths.  Feature, not a bug. 

 

I'll say it again (and those coupla people will drop by to downvote me again, just watch), but I recently leveled a semi-petless MM (lion-only Beast/Storm) and never once got any grief or even a "huh?" for it.  Every time I asked to join a PUG I'd let them know what I was running and no one cared. 

 

'Sentinels are rejected because...'

Me who has played the game for years now and never saw any AT rejected from a team: huh?