How to know you're in a *GOOD* Pick-up Group
By
AmericanSteel,
Posted on: 2006-03-20 13:09 in Player Guides
A groups of a few friends and I had picked up a tanker and a scrapper to do the Eden trial, and in we go.
Being a rad defender, I throw out the debuffs, and immediately see the scrapper and tanker change targets from the anchor to other foes, leaving the anchor till last. I was taken aback by this extraordinary behavior, and asked if they played a lot with rad defenders. Sure enough, the two of them played together regularly and in one of their alt sets one of them was a rad defender. I knew it! 
Made it through the trial with only our suicidal blaster friend going down a few times, which is pretty much par for the course for him (myself and the Emp keep our rezes through various respecs for a reason) and one scrapper dropping once against the Titan. Everyone knew what to do, the tank went in, footstomped as he was going yellow, my debuffs turned on, and the Emp healed him, and we'd just destroy the DEs.
Then they asked us to Coalition with their, also small, sg, so I had to figure out how to set up coalition chat. . .
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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!"
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80% of the time I team with my SG, 10% solo, and 10% pugs. Recently I was on a great pug where *I* didn't see the void. The scrapper and tanker headed right for him shouting "Stay back Squid-boy, we got him!" and the empath glued herself to my side. :-) It made me feel loved.
***
Lumin (D4,50), Caelestes Lux (PB,50), Corpus Operandi (MM,50)
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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...
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Not sure what to think about that. On one hand, I can kind of understand where you're coming from; for example, I'm immediately leary of anyone uses l33t speak in their name or anyone who is Xxx (name) xxX. Basically, if I have to concentrate to type /invite (your name) then you've already made a bad first impression on me.
On the other hand it wouldn't surprise me if I would have scared you off! Took me quite a few attempts to get to be any good at all with the costume generator. I had made four toons before I even realized you could unlink the colors. My first was a horrible hellboy knockoff. Even now I find I'm somewhat fashion-challenged. When I try to do elaborate things it usually has a mixed degree of success; I've often found that getting fancy just doesn't work for me all that well. More often then not, the toons I make that stick around have a relative degree of simplicity in how they dress. I literally had a hero get into her late 40's before I even created a second costume for her. She's been 50 for some time now, and I still haven't filled the 3rd or 4th slots. Although in my defense, I would point out that many of the classic superhero characters aren't dressed all that elaborately either; Sometimes simplicity does look good.
And you know, I find knockoffs aren't always losers. Just last night we ran into a Red Skull knockoff. He was quite pleasant. I only ran one mission with him, but I'd certainly reinvite him again. He comported himself fine.
Bottom line, if I'm earning xp faster in the PUG than soloing w/ my stalker, it's good.
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I was recently invited to a PUG for an AV mish where I was the second Tank. The other tank, who'd obviously been with the team longer, was a couple of levels above me. Now, I don't mind playing with another tank, but it is immensely helpful to have the roles spelled out beforehand.
Here's the surprising part; when I asked "So, what's the plan--what do you want me to do?" I actually got an answer a useful, reasonable answer. Team leader says, "Other Tank is lead tank, you follow and pick up extra aggro."
I nearly fainted on the spot in surprise. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a PUG leader how they want the battles to run and gotten the answer, "Just kill 'em!". Urgh.
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I MUST show this to my husband! Whenever he's asked about his role as a second tank on any PuG, they kick him. Poor guy, he's only trying to play nice... But I'm happy that you've had a good experience in that. The only bad thing about good groups is that you can't force yourself to stop playing 
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First off, let me start by saying: I love the "How to know you're in a PUG" thread. Truly hilarious stuff. Love it, love it, love it....
HOWEVER
In honor of recent groups that I accepted invites to without knowing anyone- and finding the groups to be excellent- I would like to start a thread whose basic premise is:
"Yeah, I accepted an invite to a group where nobody knew each other- and they were really great! I first started to realize we were good when..."
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we get 2/3 of the way through sister Psyche TF and no Deaths, let alone No Team Wipes
On Justice
Global @Desi Nova Twitter: @desi_nova Steam: Desi_nova. I don't do Xbox or PS3
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Nice post. If I were to distill that into a nugget of wisdom to put in a "How do you know you're in a GOOD PUG?" the lesson would be:
Good PUGS practice good communication
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Truer words >.<;
Random things that may have been mentioned (but I don't have time to scan the whole thread! <;.;>
- All names have a reasonably logical number of capitals and lower case letters. Ie: names don't conistist of 'darkfiredarkman' 'OMGIPWNU" and "hIgUYz"; but rather "Searing Bolt" "Kokiru" and "Mk12 HunterDrone"
- The invite involved a degree of commincation; ie: it wasn't blind, and it wasn't 'perez' or 'hollows' <x.x> rather it was "Feel like joining a team in Perez?" etc...
- The jerk complaining about everyone's build (despite the overall smoothness of the team's operation no less); is actually kicked off the team and replaced; instead of the leader kicking the player with an unusual build; Team continues smoothly.
- Fun is had by all. = Can't emphasize it enough >.< There's a fine line between an "effective' PUG and a "good" PUG in my experience... effective gets you a boatload of xp... but generally bores you outta your skull; people only talk for organizational purposes, and in the smallest number of words possible. A *good* PUG has a degree of entertainment to it; players feel free to make jokes; talk about character history, maybe RP a lil (depends on server and who's in the group); etc...
That's my list!
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Nice post. If I were to distill that into a nugget of wisdom to put in a "How do you know you're in a GOOD PUG?" the lesson would be:
Good PUGS practice good communication
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The same can be said for PUGs that aren't communicating but everyone is doing what they need to.
I was in a low-lvl PUG last week, aside from the occasional "pull?", "pulling", "watch out for the 2nd group", "ready"...we really didn't say much but we were ripping thru missions like nobody's business. There were more "gratz" and "ty" being spoken then anything else.
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Fun is had by all. = Can't emphasize it enough >.< There's a fine line between an "effective' PUG and a "good" PUG in my experience... effective gets you a boatload of xp... but generally bores you outta your skull; people only talk for organizational purposes, and in the smallest number of words possible. A *good* PUG has a degree of entertainment to it; players feel free to make jokes; talk about character history, maybe RP a lil (depends on server and who's in the group); etc...
That's my list!
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I just got CoV weekend before last and I had some of the best PUG experiences in this last 2 weeks than in a year of CoH!
BIIIIIIG shout-out to A player called Darken Brute who was the coolest leader I've run into yet. As soon as a mish ended, the next was up, even if HE had to go train/sell. If someone was lagging behind, he'd ask gently, if they were on the way, and/or should we start without them. In the mishes he took charge and led the way. A very nice experience!
99% of my play experience is in PUG's, and it's times like this that make me enjoy the game that much more.
Can I get a link to the original "you know you're in a bad PUG when...?"
You know you're in a pick up group when....
Page 1 of 142 pages. enjoy.
I was leading a team on The Revenant Hero Project and we entered the Paragon Protectors base. Imagine our surprise when the entire base is filled with nothing but Paragon Protectors. We had 8-hero team in a mission set on Invincible. We had been following my story arc that lead to this mission and had really started to mesh well. No one died and there were even jokes about battling Mini-Me Protectors. The best line I have ever heard was, "Why have I never done this mission before! This is insane!" Everyone had a great time, earned lots of XP and everyone got their Infiltrator Badge.
Oddly enough the "pull" would be a sign in the other direction for me, maybe it's my scrapper blood, but i've noticed alot of times -- specially at low levels, pulling is useless, pullers often get 2-3 mobs out of a 10+ mob group, and we spend 5 minutes fighting a group we could have killed in a few seconds rushing it.
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- No one mentions 'pie'
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thats when i stopped reading that particular paragraph :P
The #1 clue your in a good PUG is when you are invited at the beginning of a mission and not the end! (groups wait for your arrival and are not inviting you to "help with the Boss")
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."