How to know you're in a *GOOD* Pick-up Group
By
AmericanSteel,
Posted on: 2006-03-20 13:09 in Player Guides
You know you're in a good PUG when.....
...without a word, the team forms up with tanks and scrappers in front, controllers and defs in the middle, and blasters at the rear.
...a tank or scrapper says "ready?", and then stands there, waiting and waiting, until the "other" member of the party finally says "ready" (after being nudged).
...you suggest pulling, and someone says "good idea".
....you suggest lowering the difficulty level, and someone says "good idea".
....there is lots of team communication, lots of business chatter, lots of joking and laughter.
....there is NO team communication, and the team acts like a well-oiled machine without it, because everyone is playing their ATs and knows their role by heart without having to say a word. (spooky, but tremendous fun)
....everyone on the team is courteous, and all members are constantly watching out for all the other members.
I'll [i]almost certainly[/i] be happy with I7....."SOON(tm)"
Too bad "Maturity" isn't an Enhanceable power.
Anybody with a bow is okay in my book. ;-)
@Linuial
Starfire/Hellfire
Liberty, Infinity & Protector
Bump, and an actual story.
So I'm playing Grava Teen at level 10, and I'm invited to a team, no tell asking, but I was lft.
Join up, and half the team is in the hollows, when I and another are in Atlas. We decide between a mission in kings row and a hollows mish, and the hollows wins.
On the way over I'm boosted by some random kinetic so I'm speeding around having fun till we get there.
We go in, and two have to be sk'd to work, but they leave later. Oh! Had a defender healer, a tank (invul, maybe), a blaster with ice secondary, and maybe another controller (ice) with me as the other when we finished.
The tank needs help learning to tank, and we have some bad pulling times. Plus I attack the wrong guys twice, but it's all okay, we figured out what was wrong and changed it. Never had team wipe, but came close once.
But the rest of the time the pulls are working, we're attacking everything even when they mix in together, and we finish the mission in an okay time.
Got one global friend, and I friended everyone else so I can team with them again.
Now that it's revived, more stories please!
-When you take on 13 praetorian AV mishes and no one dies.
-When you as a lvl 38 controller teamed with a couple of 37s, a 41, an exemped 50 tank to 41, and a 39 tank can tank down clear an invincible crey mish with only the occasional 1 shot kill from the Paragon Protector's. Again though good team good people. The double tactics, Assault and Vengeance help too 
-When a sewer team down to 4 people get's all the way to the skyway sector and instead of exiting because they died chose to leave.
-When 4 people can come up with a strategy to take out the clockwork king
Oh how I wish I could find more good Pick-up groups.
The best one I've had recently, was one I helped make happen ( but i don't claim all the credit. We had a good controller and people listened), after the group had a few wipeouts using the Mass Assault type of strategy...which is no strategy at all.
They did this while I shook my head and just tried to get aggro and keep them safe from a large group of Circle of Thorns, including 2 purple Madness Mages, 2 Spectral deamons (purple or red, can't remember), 3 energy mages (red) and several yellow-con minions. The whole group was cramming themselves in the narrow CoT tunnels and each person was attacking something different....team wipe. Little to no communication about team tactics.
3 times we wiped out.
I spoke up after that... I stuck with this group because I don't like giving up and I made a new friend in the group and she/he didn't leave. ( I did not blame the ones who did leave though and apologized to some who left, for not being able to get the aggro away from them.)
The remaining members listened to an idea of mine and agreed to let me pull using Challenge from the presence power pool (better chance of a single pull, similar to the way Taunt used to be before Issue 3, I think...it's been awhile, can't remember how long ago it was before the changes to Taunt) and lead the minions, then the mages, into the wide, open spaced entry room and to the side, so the mages don't just stand there blasting but actually follow me into melee range around the corners.
With people actually listening, and a VERY good Controller named Andrea Gale who used her powers very well, ( Kudos and congratulations to her/him) we managed to get halfway through this incredibly long dungeon with only four people, including myself. This mission had been set for 7 to 8. We would have been five people but our group leader, without warning or any word, used Stealth and just stood there AFK on two occasions for the majority of the fights. ( I didn't even notice at first, I was busy keeping an eye on any loose mobs that got past me and attacked teamates and then scouting ahead and pulling again as soon as everyone said they were ready.)
We eventually abandoned the mission when I ran out of time ( and another team wipe from a bad pull..my fault. A few purples and Spectral Deamons in a huge mass of minions. It was not pretty and I couldn't see a way of making a safer pull. ) and advised them to leave as well, since it was a mission of the group leader's. He/she was not there half of the time and didn't listen to any group tactics when he/she was participating (running ahead to engage the mob before it followed my character all the way back)
But the remaining group members commented on how well we did with so few people, in a mission meant for 7 to 8. The fact that teamwork and strategy made it possible for us to get so far felt like a victory.
Oddly enough, most of the good PUGs (pick-up groups, for any beginners out there reading this) have been formed by people new to the game. While so many players who have mutiple high-level characters, just rush in with no communication, not waiting until everyone is ready, impatient with pulling and just aggro everything. I understand having a character powerful enough to take out groups but come on...common sense or at least group courtesy please.
Kudos to all you new players who use strategy and your common sense. : )
Crowskull
Tank
Jackal Kane
Mastermind
Ares Wolf
Alt hero (currently blaster...I'm interested in the challenge. ; ) )
Love the stories...great!
Was in a team last night, we were all 37ish, and the missions were 40-41, i was 37 at the time, and saw lots of purple Paragon Protectors and Crey Tanks, i thought "This is going to be tough". I looked at the team and we didn't have a tank, so i offered to play the role.
The first group we took on was destroyed in next to no time, the blasters were combining with the scrappers to take down the bosses as quickly as possible, and the Lts and minions were picked off and defeated in no time, i was amazed. I had the occasional problem with Voids, they were always hiding around corners or hidden somehow, and i got picked off every single time, but we all had a good laugh about it.
Then we came across a Shadow Cyst Crystal, i immediately apologised, everyone laughed, we went in, took em down, a couple members fell, but no one complained. It had been a while since i had seen such amazing synergy in a PUG, although granted i had teamed with a couple members a few times previously.
We had so much fun, jokes all around, two of us leveled up within 5 seconds, which was weird at that level, another excuse to have a laugh.
We did a few more missions, all crazy difficult, but we made it through, no complete team wipes but close, no one complained about debt.
Easily one of the best PUG's i've been in yet.
Devouring Earth mission
ME: "i know i'm tempting fate, but i haven't seen any voids in this mission yet"
Defender: "You missed the Blackrose Quantum earlier"
ME "?!?!?!?!?"
One of the scrappers (night life) got some really good news at the beginning of that missions, we had a new grandma in our team! another excuse for some praise and laughs(in good taste of course).
If you think things can't get any worse, it's probably because you lack sufficient imagination
Kenshin - lvl50 Scrapper Katana/SR
Kaigame - lvl50 Controller Earth/Emp
Mayfair - Lvl50 Defender Kinetic/Psy
Kai's Guide to Earth Controlling **Old**
[ QUOTE ]
People have costumes that look like they have taste
[/ QUOTE ]
/agree.
A tastefully done, color coordianted costume shows that the player cares about the character, at least enough to not make him look like a goofus.
Also, brief character bios that are not littered with errors show maturity, and maturity is always welcome in a PUG.
A quick story: When I first started the game (04/2005) I rolled a blaster and an Emp Defender. I soloed my way to the Hollows, and joined my first team there. 6 people and I was the only support character.
We suffered one death (Leeroy Jenkins wannabe tried to draw angry mobs back to us, but was killed en route. Kicked, good riddance.) Afterwards, everyone thanked me for my timely heals. I told them it was my first week and it blew everyone away.Excellent team, but I never saw them again.
Well, playing a Dark/Energy Defender...
<ul type="square">[*]When I'm asked in a private message, giving a few details on the team forming, before the invite box pops up.[*]When I can usually pick the right target (the last enemy brought down) for Darkest Night (all right, this one hasn't happened yet, but...)[*]When after a fight I ask for a target while standing over my teammates' bodies, and a combat type instantly understands what I want and goes to do it (lead a single enemy to me so I can cast Howling Twilight).[*]When the team decides to go after orange and red enemies and I'm not expected to provide healing.[*]When everybody expects me to be actively trying to be the last one left standing, including the Empath.[*]When the inevitable waiting around becomes interesting.[*]When people are prepared to teleport or escort new team members, and once assembled there aren't any more transportation problems (I don't think moving as a group is that vital as long as everybody's safe and comfortable).[*]When I don't get the classic "You're not doing anything!" complaint against Dark/? Defenders. (Actually, it doesn't bother me; I genuinely love the unobtrusive nature of Dark Miasma, and my secondary has all the flash I need. But the comment still shows a certain lack of acumen.)[*]When I'm recruited to help run people's random missions and nobody is using an XPS (experience-per-second) meter or asking people to kick up their difficulty ratings. I'm fine with power levelers, but feel the average pickup group is better suited to playing while enjoying the added chaos or order your teammates bring to your life. Just meant that the tone of the group should be decided by the team leader or a majority, and everyone should know and be all right with it.[*]When I can say in my Looking For Group box that I explicitly don't want any experience points and can still find a suitable pickup group. (Okay, this hasn't happened yet either, but I can dream...)[/list]All in all, about the same things everybody else mentioned, although my standards are a bit looser regarding tactics. I have to echo the sentiment about no-communication synergy: spooky but exhilarating. And while looking at the bios doesn't always help (some of the serious alt-a-holics both are the most likely to understand the game from your viewpoint and the least likely to have given all their characters bios (or at least, will have edited all of them to fit in the space provided)), it's definitely the best single indicator I've found.
Just to add something a bit more original, though: sometimes it's actually more fun (and funny) to be in a somewhat dysfunctional pickup group. Especially if you want to do a bit more roleplaying than usual; when things are already pretty much hopeless, that means there's no pressure. I design my characters before trying to squeeze them into archetypes and powersets, and so have a number of in-character but suspect builds and playstyles. Sure, my clichéd "hypnotic anime schoolgirl" Dominator can function perfectly well Holding off waves of guards while a Gravity specialist cracks the bank vault - but since the character actually isn't the usual, most of the time she's more at home pretending to be a flipped-out catgirl, screaming, scratching and climbing all over the guards (and taking a beating doing so), with the inherent potential for physical humor... and when there are three beginning Masterminds and their out-of-control minions all over the place, that's almost a saner combat strategy than the cool, aloof standard. And it's nice to have room for my own Mastermind to indulge in his habit of assembling his monks (an Arachnos ninja faction that have somehow persuaded him that they're monks who worship him as a messiah) and preaching to them, sometimes in the middle of a fight (my private goal being to see how little I can seem to be fighting while keeping the faith-healing show going and "accidentally" helping with the ongoing struggle). Or a Corrupter who happens to be an former head cheerleader and current diva (at least in her own mind) who's constantly using Grant Invisibility to keep people from stealing her spotlight, Challenging various enemies and "blasting" teammates for imagined slights (she has no clue at all that her Thermal Resonance secondary is a support powerset), and doing the "talking on your cell phone with your girlfriends while mostly ignoring your surroundings" shtick. Wouldn't want to go that far in a normal pickup group, but once everybody's pretty much figured out that this team just isn't going to even resemble a "well-oiled machine", then as I believe an elevator in the Paranoia universe once said, "We hope to be ascending to the level of, oh, say the RIP sector parking garage. If not, well, we'll try for something else on the way back down."
I suppose the secret to a really good pickup group is for everybody on it to be looking for the same thing, or at least like what they end up with.
_____
I've often listened to my colleagues curse the monsters that interfere with what they consider the serious business of vendetta. Personally, if I must contend against my fellows, I'd far prefer to do so on some noisome plain crawling with beasties. I welcome all such distractions, when the alternative is to simply slaughter - or be slaughtered by - other [players]. - Kafkar.
You know you are in a good PUG when...
1. The team leader says "we have a debuffer and a buffer (bubbler), we're set!"
2. The team leader says "nah, we're good with 5 people, we'll kick [censored]!"
Just keep coming back...
Logged on this morning to find that there were barely anyone online on Protector, only 14 people total.
Was almost imediatly tell'ed about doing some missions by a lvl 17. Being 13 I mentioned I'd need to be sk'd, and was invited anyway.
Team right then was a lvl 17 mind/emp controller that sk'd me, my lvl 13 Grav/FF, and that was it. But then more people begin trickling in. A lvl 16 warshade, a lvl 17 fire/* blaster that I'd teamed with as another character, a lvl 15 peacebringer, and a broadsword scrapper.
The first mish is in faultline, and I find out I can't go there yet. That's no problem though,a nd since the next missions was going to be Hollows anyway I head over there while they fight CoT.
When I get to the door to the mission we begin discussing what the mind/emp should slot and get at the next level ups.
That conversation continues throughout the mission, with most saying she needs fitness, but some saying only if she wants it. No one died, and what pulls we did went down well enough, though the blaster did open with fireball twice.
I wanted to continue that team, but I had to go. Nice to see people helping and giving advice these days.
I was in a group with my new blaster, a AR/Energy. Someone invited me to team, and I decide to stay.
To keep it short: We did amazing VS +3's.
The most telling feature of a good PUG is, taking care of 1-3 mobs in a group and realizing there are no more left to target.
This is going to be an anti-climatic story, but I rolled an EM/Fire brute last night and decided to see how far I could get just street sweeping.
Before I head out, I send out the usual "lvl 2 brute looking for person/team to street sweep". Well, I teamed up with another lvl 2 brute...
40 minutes later, we both dinged 6.
I have never seen such ferocious fighting speed! We literally ripped through mobs. 10+ white snakes? No prob. A couple oranges? Bah. A red and an orange? Easy.
I can't wait to see what a team of 8 Brutes can do.
when the abbreviations we've all come to know and love doesn't get someone asking, 'what does that mean'?
Kittens give Morbo gas.
In two years of play I've done probably 80% or more of it in pick up groups. I like the variety and unpredictability of it. Sometimes the surprises are bad ones but mostly it's pleasant things like meeting cool people, seeing toons built and played in ways you hadn't seen before, etc.
When I put together a pug, which I have done a lot in building my latest defender, I only a couple sensible guidelines--not rules because there is enough flexibility in the game to succeed in a lot of different ways, no rules! When followed the groups have always been good to excellent.
1- Keep the level spread tight. After everyone is exempted or sk'd as appropriate the highest level person in the group should be no more than two levels above the lowest. PUGs work best when everyone is high enough to contribute and nobody is so high enough to eliminate the challenge.
Dead weight kills PUGs.
2- Balance the ATs. A PUG is like a basketball team. A well-rounded one will have forwards (scrappers, blasters), a center (tanker) and guards (controllers, defenders). A proper mix of forwards and guards will ensure a good team. Throw in a quality center and you might contend for a trophy. The larger your team, the more important this principle becomes. Don't lose sight of balance as your grow from duo to eight-man juggernaut.
There are no required powersets or ATs.
I'd add one more guideline to that --
If you're the leader, do not be afraid to use the "kick" button when it's warranted.
Almost every PUG that has gone bad for me (not just boring, but BAD), has done so because of one or two idiots and a leader who's unwilling to rein them in.
34 heroes,
20 villains, Victory, Justice, Infinity, Virtue, Triumph, Exalted -- some more active than others
I consider myself a very good PUG leader. A lot of days when there are no teams to be found, or no room in a team I will start my own. I am a leader who takes charge and when people annoy the team they get the boot! Sadly, whenever I kick someone it almost always ends up I am sent a huge amount of mean tells and I have to ignore them... Still, if you are in a PUG led by SR-1293CSX, you can be sure it's a good one! 
(If anyone says I'm a bad team leader, they are the ones who got the boot in a past team 
)
I also agree with an earlier statement that you can be fairly sure they are good when they look good. Costumes such as a huge character in rainbow colors, a Cyclops rip-off with an inappropriate bio, are nearly always going to be a problem...
Not always. I have teamed with a guy a couple of times who was obviously put together with a single click on the Random button ("Dressed-In-The-Dark Man!") but he was one of the better Scrappers I've teamed with.
I joined a PuG Cavern Trial for the badge of it, and it was being run by a Taxibot. Things went so well (we finished in 25 minutes and THEN destroyed the boss) that I went a rolled up a T-bot that night. Yay!
I'm not the droid I'm looking for.
MA Arc ID 8121: Rapp'Mas'Ta's War. The Rikti are trying to incorporate sonic effects into their weapons? THAT can't be good. Maybe we should ask them to stop.
How to know your in a good pickup group, Virtue Edition.....
When your teams controller spreads the holds and buffs/debuffs around to cover the whole spawn.....
When as a stalker your about to die but then get ported over to an MM and hit with a heal...
When your team of three blasters wails through a mission faster then you could believe and not a request for heals abounds anywhere.
Teams with a Kheldian on the team.
I found I had problems finding teams with my PB in the pre-16 levels because lots of teams wouldn't know what it was and wouldn't invite.
Or worse, being asked what kind a of a healer I was (too many people mistake the icons in the search window).
Even better, teams with a Kheldian on the team, that approach a spawn and both the controller and the blaster exclaim "Void ahead, I'm on it!"
Seriously, I do 90% PUGs, and most of them are good, the others I leave after a mission (the really bad ones, I susually leave beforer the mission has even started). I have done respecs and TFs with PuGs and it was all fun...
If I meet one or two people who I want to put on my friend's list, I consider it a successful PUG. Even if I suffered some debt in the process, or the leader was indecisive, or whatever, if I encountered a couple folks with whom I had fun I'm satisfied.
[ QUOTE ]
I probably had one of my best PuGs yesterday, doing the 34+ respec.
[/ QUOTE ]
I had an amazing experience on the lvl 44 respec. I got a tell from a lvl 50 in my SG that he was with a group planning to do the 3rd respec trial. I had not done it yet, and asked him if they were any good. He said he had only joined up a few minutes ago but they seemed okay, so I went along.
Holy cow. You know how you often expect someone who has gotten to lvl 50 to know what they're doing, but they often don't? These people did. I would say the WORST person on the team was way, WAY above average in terms of skill with their character and being part of a team. The best people were absolutely outstanding.
During the reactor segment, someone had a real-life crisis and had to go AFK for almost 10 minutes. No problems. Someone else had a crisis and AFK, no problem. The only death was my SG mate and his response to dying was, "Oops, when did I activate Unstoppable?"
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Two nights ago I was on Virtue breaking in my brand new Invuln/Axe Tank (called, of all names, "The Abominable Axe-Man), and i got invited to a sewer team. It was a blind invite(natch***), but i was gettin ready to put up my Lft flag, so i let it slide. We had 1 healer(the leader), 1 bubbler, 1 warshade(one of the ones who knows how to use their powers right), 1 scrapper, me, 1 fire blaster, 1 mind troller, and an ice blaster. I leveled 4 times, and none of us died. we actually went to the hollows and ran a few mishes together as well. it was one of the only teams ive been on that everyone did their jobs. My main(and first) toon is a troller, so i can understand the urge to aggro with a squishee sometimes, but i was surprised that no one did it! Great team, would be honored to work with them again.
[ QUOTE ]
When as a stalker your about to die but then get ported over to an MM and hit with a heal...
[/ QUOTE ]
ok, ima troller with tp, and whenever i do this to someone who is near death they get extremely mad, so much so that i never do it anymore... to me its just a pride thing i guess...
maybe i'm the only one to ever get this lucky, but when you're random soloing (dark/regen/dark scrap style, baby!! fear one, hold a second, go to town on the third...invince is nothing but more inf with the occasion pop of dull and hasten...plz don't nerf me...make the KoA stronger...and get rid of their damn caltrops)...
you get an invitation from a fire/kin controller...
then you meet a emp/psy defender...
a SS/Stone tank...
a fire/fire tank (who WAS playing the roll as scrapper)
then, after storming a few mishes because no one really had to talk much, everyone gets really friendly...ask them where they're from...they say your hometown...ask your name...turns out it's your older brothers and sisters-in-law...
always fun times...
11 months of all-nighters, messy feeding sessions, bath fighting and realizing just how good my son's lungs work, and I am still convinced he is the crowning accomplishment in my life. What in the blue HFIL is wrong with me?