I had a really busy day in Lord of the Rings Online and I absolutely have to vent to someone. Good thing I have a blog! The day was not only busy but it was borderline lousy. Oboe (my minstrel) and his static group of friends (theres 3-4 of us on at any given time) decided that we were going to start running regular groups to Urugarth, Carn Dum, Barad Gularan, and other dungeons. We’re level 49 and working our way to 50 at a steady and comfortable pace so doing these dungeons really is only icing on the cake. Since our Kinship right now can’t field a group to run anything, likely due to burnout causing people to quit, we are forced to seek out PuG’s (or pickup groups).
And there is where the hell that was my day begins. We advertise in Angmar that we are looking for three more to do Urugarth. Within a reasonable period of fifteen minutes we have fielded what looks to be a decent group. There’s a great class balance of all 48-50’s and we have decent gear and good kinship representation. We go over the loot rules that should be absolutely common sense to anyone who plays a MMORPG today and then proceed to the dungeon. It’s stated over and over that you roll need if you’re going to use it on your this character that you’re currently playing (Whether it’s for crafting, questing, or wearing) and you roll greed if not. Really simple stuff here people, it’s probably the most basic rules to grouping you learn at level 10. When we get into Urugarth we don’t go 2 bosses before we have people rolling need on items that their class can not use! When asked why they rolled need they claim it was an accident and the item is redistributed. When we get to the next boss the guardian who was with us the previous night rolls need on the item he had won the night before! When asked why he doesn’t know! That right there should have been the end of our group.
My day gets better /insert sarcasm here. We get to the last boss and I give a reminder of the loot rules. We have had two foul-ups already and I want to perfectly clear what the rules are so no one can claim stupidity. Well of course the best minstrel shoulders outside of a raid environment drop. Can you guess what happens next? The guardian rolls need on medium armor shoulders with fate as the main stat! These are bind on acquire shoulders and when we ask him why in the name of all that is holy did he roll he says “mistake, sorry”. I was done. Completely done with that group. What form of lower education is being taught in our school systems, or not being taught for that matter? Why can’t these people understand? This is not something that requires a thinking process – you can use it or you can’t – if you can use it roll, if not don’t.
I wish I could tell you my day ended there but being the masochist I am we decided to form another group and go back in to Urugarth. This time we formed another group of similar makeup and blacklisted the people who, for all intents and purposes, ninja looted. We go through the loot rules and the explanation of assisting. It’s common sense again that you listen to the group and when we say “Only attack what X is attacking” …. it’s that simple, right? Wrong! This group just could not figure it out! They were pulling mobs from every direction into the battle, not assisting, not tanking, not doing anything they should be doing. When we wiped on a pull that could have been done by a group 5 levels lower than us in all vendor purchased gear I was done with groups for day. I straight up told them they need to learn to play before ever coming back into a group.
Where are these people coming from? There’s not a farm out there breeding stupid people without common sense or the ability to listen, is there? Why am I never able to find a pickup group that consists of intelligent or at the very least responsive attentive people? Has the bar been set so low now in the MMORPG genre that we will have people reaching the max level that know nothing of game mechanics, class mechanics, and common sense? I can’t blame WoW for ALL of this because these people were in WoW too! I used to try and convince myself that in WoW it might be their first MMO and a grouping experience would be something new to them. But now I see it has followed me everywhere. It’s forcing me to have to interview and screen the people who join my group. In order to join my group I am going to require a signed document stating they have read the rules and hereby acknowledge that they understand. Why has it come to this?
Thanks for reading my rant. I feel better now. It’s times like this I wish there was open pvp. How I long for the ability to simply destroy these people’s characters and camp their bodies for hours on end.
I think you can blame WoW and any other solo friendly game. People are not learning how to play in a group because they don’t have to.
“Has the bar been set so low now in the MMORPG genre that we will have people reaching the max level that know nothing of game mechanics, class mechanics, and common sense?”
Yes.
Another reason why PUGs are so horible:
Ppl who actualy know how to play avoid them at all costs, usualy beacause of similar wipeing expiriences 😛
They come from hell and exist to torment you. But seriously, the bar has been set that low. Blame WoW if you must but also blame Turbine who hasn’t created an environment where classes need learn the group skills needed to make an effective group.
/weep
This is also why I don’t do PUGs sad to say and also, when in my weak moments, I think it would be good for someone to host a “How to Group” school. I’ve thought of a fellowship called the “Mentor” which exist solely to teach the basics of group play….
of course I meant “kinship” rather than fellowship, but you get the idea…
What I found particularly interesting there was the first pickup group. I mean, I think just about everyone’s experienced people of a level that you’d think they couldn’t reach without some vague idea of how to play their character, only for them to perform any number of acts of such extreme stupidity you wonder if the character was bought from eBay, or is currently being played by their pet hamster. The need/greed loot rolling thing, though; whatever other hideousness I encountered in WoW pickup groups, I found people generally could cope with the idea of need and greed. Obvious ninja-looters aside, it was pretty rare to run across someone who’d hit “need” on everything.
LotRO, on the other hand… granted, I didn’t get terribly far with it, but on a few runs through the Great Barrows, I don’t think I ever found a team that didn’t include at least a couple of people who’d hit “need” on *everything*. After that happened once or twice, I’d try and clarify things before starting with those same criteria you use, and… resounding silence, followed by people “need”ing everything. Seemed like there were three alternatives:
(i) constantly check, chide and remind people about looting as you go (and thus take twice as long to get anywhere in the dungeon, for no effect anyway as the compulsive looter responds for the 38th time with “sorry”, or “oh yeah mistake”, or best of all “lol”)
(ii) kick people who can’t understand basic loot etiquette, or quit from groups involving them (not very practical when it’s taken you half an hour just to form up a bleedin’ group of vaguely appropriate classes/levels in the first place)
(iii) you can’t beat ’em, so join ’em, and roll need on everything yourself anyway
Unfortunately, (iii) is by far the easiest, so after a few runs, I’d do “proper” need and greed myself for a few rolls, ’til it was obvious there were compulsive needers, and then just hit need on everything myself (except for Bind on Pickup/Acquire stuff, I couldn’t sink that low). And of course (iii) is contagious.
What is funny is that my adventure doing Book 5 Chapter 8, Fire and Ice, with a PUG went about as smooth as I could have wanted…we never established loot rules or anything, the leader of the fellowship simply would tell the burglar which mob to mez and which one to pull…I guess it is luck of the draw as far as finding a quality group goes…so far I have only had a few bad experiences on my server…knocks on wood…sorry to hear about your experiences…
Most of mine have been pretty good since playing Lotro. For some reason the individuals seem more mature then I have experienced in the past. My rule is if you violate the loot rules, just one mistake and your booted from my group. Simple as that. For some reason I never have problems getting groups.
I like the idea of everyone hitting need. Just in case someone makes a mistake in only hurts the one who clicked improperly.
I empathize, mainly cause i was shotgun on those runs, hehe. But, i like what folks have said here. Having played so many these games, have i become complacent to knowing what to do? Have so many new folks joined that I take for gantid? I like the environment of getting to know new folks. This game I just got to know Keen, if the other guy i was with had not reached out, i may have missed this oppurtunity . But, the headache of always having pugs blow up in your face is not so cool either and drags you way down. I want to find new ways of meeting folks outside of long raids or high risk venture when i dont have so much to lose? Though big raids are easier because im not in charge of all the loot? You got me thinking thanks