Why do we have bad PUG experiences?

[TheMoncrief]

Expectations.

 

Bad PUG experiences are inevitable. Not everybody will be as good as you. Not everybody will be motivated by the same things as you. And even if they were, you'd still feel like you were the only one actually playing the way you expect, because you only have insight into one person's reality - your own. There is not and can not be any guarantee that your PUG experience will be good. In fact, there is pretty much a guarantee that at least some of them will be bad. That's what happens when you are dealing with other people.

 

The other players are not there to make your PUG experience good. They are there to make their own PUG experiences good - and many of them will want significantly different things out of those PUG experiences than you do. Others will want the same things, but bring different skill sets to the PUG than you bring. Enjoy the good and tolerate the bad. It's all you can do.

[UltraAlt]

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

Thoughts?

 

This seems to be end-game focused.

 

Have fun in the end-game.

You won't find me there.

 

Teaming with new players in the game has been a lot of fun.

Most of them want to learn and are really loving the game which make the PUGs very enjoyable to me.

I love to see a team flounder for a mob or two, then figure out how to work with each other, and then get tighter and tighter as the mission(s) progress.

[StarseedWarrior]

Its very clear many do not play on excel here lol.

[Marshal_General]

25 minutes ago, StarseedWarrior said:

Its very clear many do not play on excel here lol.

Wat chu talking bout Willis?

[Sovera]

Whatever character I play I consider myself the glue of the team. Most of the time not needed, but when needed if it goes south I consider it my fault. Either a Surgeon that needed killing and I'm bouncing and doing it instead of expecting others to, or trying to time a CC/KD on a PP so its T9 does not go off, checking the HP of team mates and bouncing to one who has gone to half HP to help clearing whatever they are fighting with, etc.

 

Edited March 5 by Sovera

[WuTang]

On 3/3/2024 at 6:45 PM, StarseedWarrior said:

Except these are not casual projects I agree with your attitude here but not all of the context, if your pugging often then its a little more daunting over time if that makes any sense. It has nothing to do with someone on occasion soloing in the team it happens in pugs a very high percentage of the time, so its understandable when you know you could be getting the mission done allot more efficently and allot more fun let me give you an example. If I am playing a kinetics buffer/support then if people are split up, no one else but the group im with will benefit from fuclom shift, end returns, as well as heals, and the other side are dying often this is not fun most of the time for others in my experience.

 

This is not that kind of mmo where you can solo doing other things unless it is an easy mission, teaming is not about just joining a team its about cooperation, and this mmo is a heavy cooperation based mmo much like other older mmos at the time, its deep in the mechanics and you cannot really change that without breaking the game. Soloing is for soloing that is why it is called soloing lol.

I'm new and pugging is all I do if I group. I don't know mechanics and I don't know runs, but as I am new sticking with the group is my only real goal. I found myself and a few others were working a boss that just would not go down. I also noticed my End was not replenishing like it was and that's when I realized that as soon as that boss gets unbound from whatever was holding him we were toast...I bounced and got back in range of the group as fast as lighting.

 

As far as bad pugs...I can only go with my experiences from other MMOs, it's almost always a bored vet or worse a bored malicious vet.

 

If I find that we are dying more than I like then I politely bounce, mostly because it could be my deficiencies causing the wipes and I don't want to ruin it for others. But if I were to find it to be because of a douche in the group...then I would bounce and make sure to note their handle.

 

Having said all that, I have yet to experience a bad pug in CoH. Even General chat is low on trolls compared to other MMOs. Most everyone I've ran across have been very helpful, prob one of the best MMO communities around.

[WuTang]

4 hours ago, TheMoncrief said:

Expectations.

 

Bad PUG experiences are inevitable. Not everybody will be as good as you. Not everybody will be motivated by the same things as you. And even if they were, you'd still feel like you were the only one actually playing the way you expect, because you only have insight into one person's reality - your own. There is not and can not be any guarantee that your PUG experience will be good. In fact, there is pretty much a guarantee that at least some of them will be bad. That's what happens when you are dealing with other people.

 

The other players are not there to make your PUG experience good. They are there to make their own PUG experiences good - and many of them will want significantly different things out of those PUG experiences than you do. Others will want the same things, but bring different skill sets to the PUG than you bring. Enjoy the good and tolerate the bad. It's all you can do.

Mildy agree, but I definitely see your point. That is why my PUG expectations are pretty low and that's also why I have no prob bouncing if it's no fun. Can you get kicked from a group in CoH? If I were to lead one and I notice someone doing things that caused wipeS, then that might be a consideration I mull over. But yeah, you've got to see things from other's perspective. What makes something fun for one might not be fun for someone else. Like in WoW, I could spot people who were in a group just to be lead on the DPS meter, show their prowess and display their tiny little epeen. I'm there for fun, experience, money, loot, maybe meet a decent rando, or any number of reasons. But I always try to be tolerant of how others are so long as it's not douchebaggery.

[Sunsette]

21 minutes ago, WuTang said:

As far as bad pugs...I can only go with my experiences from other MMOs, it's almost always a bored vet or worse a bored malicious vet.

 

I'm definitely familiar with this behavior in other MMOs, but I think the incentives/community are such that you don't really get this nearly as often in CoX. Other MMOs have a lot more 'chore' activities that people are heavily incentivized to do even if they don't want to. 

 

I most see it occur in CoH in Incarnate trials, and never more than mild mischief.

Edited March 5 by Sunsette

[tidge]

One commonly run PUG TF is Penny Yin's... It has opportunities to bring extra 'boys to the yard's that can be seen as "making trouble" or as "making memories" (or both), especially in the final mission.

 

Personally: if a PUG has been ROFL stomping everyone, I don't see the big deal about opening side doors or resummoning Clamor ASAP. I know there are some players very sensitive about this so if I am playing a character that can, I just run out to intercept the incoming Freaks in the hallway. A recent team chat had a PUGmate ask "isn't there supposed to be an ambush?" from the reactor room. This certainly borders on "showing off", but it isn't as if that extra wall of enemies isn't already coming for the group. The team I mentioned resummoned Clamor and defeated her while I was cleaning up the other spawn.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Sunsette said:

I most see it occur in CoH in Incarnate trials, and never more than mild mischief.

Had this the other day on a Triple Threat badge run (where you have to defeat Chimera, Shadow Hunter and Nega-Pendragon within 5 seconds of each other). League was split into 3 teams, each on an AV. @Oklahoman was giving very clear instructions to take each down to 2% and hold. I was giving similar instructions to my team on Shadow Hunter (I was tanking him), when somebody from a different team deliberately griefed the attempt and defeated Shadow Hunter before the kill order. It's not an easy badge to begin with, but that's uncalled for.

[Sunsette]

That's unfortunate. Sorry you had to deal with it. 

 

I've mostly dealt with it in non-badge runs where someone wants to get a little spicy, and that's not how I roll but it's not too difficult to deal with either. 

[Oklahoman]

57 minutes ago, Uun said:

It's not an easy badge to begin with, but that's uncalled for.

 

You can do absolutely everything right in a Triple Threat run and still miss out because of the random regen tick. I don't think I've really seen someone intentionally cause us to fail. More often than not they just aren't reading chat, or they don't realize they have a damaging aura up.

 

Had a LAM badge run fail the other day because, as it turns out, one of the participants doesn't speak English and had no clue what I was saying.

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

 

You can do absolutely everything right in a Triple Threat run and still miss out because of the random regen tick. I don't think I've really seen someone intentionally cause us to fail. More often than not they just aren't reading chat, or they don't realize they have a damaging aura up.

 

Had a LAM badge run fail the other day because, as it turns out, one of the participants doesn't speak English and had no clue what I was saying.

So that was the guy what used the pac nade eh.  that was some sad shit.

[Oklahoman]

5 minutes ago, Snarky said:

So that was the guy what used the pac nade eh.  that was some sad shit.

 

Yep. We had a good exchange utilizing Google Translate. 🙂 But, even with a language barrier, I would hope someone would understand "DO NOT USE [Pacification Grenade]!" I probably need to change that bind to "league DO NOT USE [Pacification Grenade]$$league NE PAS UTILISER [Grenade de Pacification]$$league NE UZU [Pacifigan Grenadon]$$league dunwI' DaSaHbe'chugh"

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

 

Yep. We had a good exchange utilizing Google Translate. 🙂 But, even with a language barrier, I would hope someone would understand "DO NOT USE [Pacification Grenade]!" I probably need to change that bind to "league DO NOT USE [Pacification Grenade]$$league NE PAS UTILISER [Grenade de Pacification]$$league NE UZU [Pacifigan Grenadon]$$league dunwI' DaSaHbe'chugh"

why you are a great team leader.  where i just start to say things like.  "Everyone ignore what i say and run around in circles grabbing agro.... GO!"

[DrunkFlux]

On 3/3/2024 at 9:37 AM, FFFF said:

I've had my share of bad pick-up groups recently though the majority of my teaming experiences have mostly been quiet competence, teammates who join and fulfill expectations but are relatively quiet.

 

There are some of us that have well over a decade plus of experience, and let's be honest, this game isn't that tough. There's really nothing that require twitch reflexes, buffs/debuffs are very powerful and encounters are rare where you require players to act in a specific sequence or apply anything more than the simplest of strategies (e.g., "don't go on the stairs until we clear around it).

 

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

 

This would make sense if this was 2004 and the player base had only a couple of months under their collective playing experience, but this is 20 years later. Yes, there are "AE babies", characters that are manned by players who rush to level 50, but I think those are rarer than what most people believe. I think this is an overwhelming veteran playing base, and the state of play from our random pick-up group doesn't seem to match what I think should be better overall play.

 

I wonder a little if the bad play could be a result of part-time play. The vast majority of us have careers, families, activities, outside of this game and dip in only here or there. Maybe, it's truly rust. I know that I'm competent on just about anything pre-incarnate but I'm not knowledgeable about iTrials or how to speed past certain obstacles.

 

The other reason could be that some of us just don't care that much about our quality of play. I know there's more than a few that may enjoy an adult beverage or two while playing and that could obviously affect judgment, reflexes or even behavior. Others may just be tired of the pace of traditional team (which begs the question of why join one in the first place) and may try to solo in the context of a team.

 

Thoughts?

 

Its not from people having lives so much as people just not learning the mechanics much when they do play.  Be it from being an AE baby, though thats very rare actually, or simply never learning how buffs/debuffs work.

The weakest PI team I ever had was lead by an empathy defender.  And you can 100% guess why it was weak; they clearly over-valued healing and had not understood the value of buffs/debuffs and there was no other +1 toon.  I eventually left.  I did save teams before by myself whenever I switched to my widow, however, but she's designed around salvaging weak teams.

[StarseedWarrior]

36 minutes ago, DrunkFlux said:

 

Its not from people having lives so much as people just not learning the mechanics much when they do play.  Be it from being an AE baby, though thats very rare actually, or simply never learning how buffs/debuffs work.

The weakest PI team I ever had was lead by an empathy defender.  And you can 100% guess why it was weak; they clearly over-valued healing and had not understood the value of buffs/debuffs and there was no other +1 toon.  I eventually left.  I did save teams before by myself whenever I switched to my widow, however, but she's designed around salvaging weak teams.

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

[mechahamham]

1 hour ago, Oklahoman said:

Yep. We had a good exchange utilizing Google Translate. 🙂 

 

You're an absolute Chad for following up via machine translation, Okie. Bravo!

 

On the multi-lingual front, the players I seem to run into the most often that have trouble with English are Korean folks. They're usually on in the VERY late night US time or early morning. When my insomnia lets me sleep at all, I'm usually on the same schedule they are.

 

Maybe we should look at translating some common instructions or help to Korean. I know for a fact that the Montreal font that comes with CoH still has those Hangul characters. Perhaps some of Excel's bi-lingual folks could help proof a machine translation.

[mechahamham]

8 minutes ago, StarseedWarrior said:

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

 

I sometimes, but not always, have luck when explaining what combos are useful for by using the 'Holy Trinity' vs. 'Damage Multipliers' illustration. My explanation usually goes something like, "Most other MMOs are tightly anchored to 'Holy Trinity' mechanics: Tank, Heals, DPS. City of Heroes is not. CoH is all about stacking damage multipliers, positive on you and your team, and negative on your enemies. Accordingly, healing just doesn't go as far in CoH as those other games. Empathy is one of the best buffing sets in the game, and if you play it as a buffer, it's very, very welcome. If you play it as an MMO cleric healer, you're going to be frustrated."

[FFFF]

53 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

On the multi-lingual front, the players I seem to run into the most often that have trouble with English are Korean folks. They're usually on in the VERY late night US time or early morning. When my insomnia lets me sleep at all, I'm usually on the same schedule they are.

 

I had no idea that there were non-English speaking folks on HC. I don't think the HC servers/clients support any sort of localization, so this must be tough for them.

[mechahamham]

14 minutes ago, FFFF said:

I had no idea that there were non-English speaking folks on HC. I don't think the HC servers/clients support any sort of localization, so this must be tough for them.

 

At one point there was a poor, but fairly complete, Korean localization of City of Heroes. I think it was just 'City of Hero' because Korean tends to omit plural nouns. I've heard it described as 'Laughably inaccurate'. The CoH client and server is set up to use string tables, but a Korean client would have a different checksum than an English client. You'd have to do some hackery to get the old localization to work.

 

The default font used for chat and reticles in the game, Montreal, comes with fairly broad Unicode support, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters, so those folks who aren't multi-lingual can at least communicate with others who speak their language. We have a 'Korea' global chat channel with at least some community, I know. I've met at least one Chinese player as well, but don't know if we have much of a community there.

[skoryy]

The only bad PuG experience I've had so far was hopping on a team running at way too high a difficulty for midlevels.  After several faceplants, I noticed that the team leader was a mastermind but I didn't see any pets about.  Turns out he was running petless.  That's when I headed for the door and his the quit team button.

[Sunsette]

4 hours ago, mechahamham said:

 

At one point there was a poor, but fairly complete, Korean localization of City of Heroes. I think it was just 'City of Hero' because Korean tends to omit plural nouns. I've heard it described as 'Laughably inaccurate'. The CoH client and server is set up to use string tables, but a Korean client would have a different checksum than an English client. You'd have to do some hackery to get the old localization to work.

 

The default font used for chat and reticles in the game, Montreal, comes with fairly broad Unicode support, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters, so those folks who aren't multi-lingual can at least communicate with others who speak their language. We have a 'Korea' global chat channel with at least some community, I know. I've met at least one Chinese player as well, but don't know if we have much of a community there.

 

I've run into and could communicate with a few Korean players on Everlasting. The game's support of Hangeul is... interesting, it doesn't copy or paste correctly and my keyboard went a little wild when I tried to switch my input language to Korean mid-game but it prints just fine. I ended up having to write in Hangeul outside of the game and paste into the client to communicate with them.

Edited March 6 by Sunsette

[StarseedWarrior]

6 hours ago, mechahamham said:

 

I sometimes, but not always, have luck when explaining what combos are useful for by using the 'Holy Trinity' vs. 'Damage Multipliers' illustration. My explanation usually goes something like, "Most other MMOs are tightly anchored to 'Holy Trinity' mechanics: Tank, Heals, DPS. City of Heroes is not. CoH is all about stacking damage multipliers, positive on you and your team, and negative on your enemies. Accordingly, healing just doesn't go as far in CoH as those other games. Empathy is one of the best buffing sets in the game, and if you play it as a buffer, it's very, very welcome. If you play it as an MMO cleric healer, you're going to be frustrated."

I actually dont have experience with empathy yet I do with kinetics and others as well as other old mmos, illusionist for example eq2, and monk, etc.

[Clave Dark 5]

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

The only bad PuG experience I've had so far was hopping on a team running at way too high a difficulty for midlevels.  After several faceplants, I noticed that the team leader was a mastermind but I didn't see any pets about.  Turns out he was running petless.  That's when I headed for the door and his the quit team button.

I would have too.  I've no problem with petless MMs, but wow, you do have to know your settings.  Some of the most face-planty-PUGs I've been on had to do with the ignorant choice of "OK, so now I'm 10th level, so everything goes +4/+8 from hereon out, right?"