Breakfast Topic: Calling it quits

by Elizabeth Harper Jan 2nd 2009 at 8:00AM

If you've ever played in a group or run a dungeon, then you know the nuisance and frustration of playing in a bad group. I'm sure most of us have been there -- a dungeon run that seems a never-ending string of wipes, a PVP group that's unable to stick together long enough to accomplish any objectives, and the inevitable repair bills that arise from a group of players that doesn't quite mesh. At this point in my healing career, I practically never group with people I don't know. Too many things can go wrong and any rewards that might come from running an instance aren't worth the sanity that would be lost by trudging onward after the fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth wipe. (And even sticking with people you know doesn't always lead you to pain-free groups -- I'll just say that Loken and I are never on friendly terms.) But a thousand complants about bad group experiences aside, when you're unfortunate enough to find yourself in a bad group, how do you know when to cut your losses and call it quits? Do you flee at the first sign of trouble? Hang in until the group leader calls it quits? Or do you have some other breaking point?

Tags: group, grouping, groups, instance, instances, pick-up-group, pug

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Instances

Reader Comments (Page 6 of 6)

Dysmorphia Jan 2nd 2009 7:28PM

I quit when it stops being fun. I used to try to stick it out more, but now I'm making more of an effort to really ask myself if I'm having fun. I got too close to complete healer burnout by overextending myself. People seem to be so happy to find a healer that unless things are going really, horribly badly they'll stay, and if things are going well they'll want to run with me for hours. I have to be the one to cry "uncle".

patrick Jan 2nd 2009 10:35PM

I try not to pug. Just too many tools playing this game. At least in a guild there is some discipline and camaraderie.

But having had to go holy for the good of my guild I agreed to do some pugs during quiet times to gear myself up.

Like some of the earlier correspondents I seem to find that pug members from the uber-hardcore-cleared everything in 2 weeks guilds are the worst.

From trees bragging about how much mana they got and that no cc is required (before I respecced) and when the tank wasn't pulling quick enough starting to pull themselves. To constantly pulling aggro and wiping out my less than impressive mana pull and blaming me and many more examples already written about above.

My theory is that in these hard core guilds there are about 10 core, really good players. The rest of the guilds are full of try-hards who get pulled up to the lvl213 epics by these good players and never really learn to play their class or work in teams. They then go and pug to show off their shiny epics and criticise other runs.

Basically, good players know they are good and do all the right things in a professional way. The rest of their guilds just think they are good and act all arrogant around others. I won't learn anything by pugging with those tossers so I won't go on any pug with a top-5 raiding guild.

The other key to when the pug will be bad is when the dps or healers keep telling the tank to 'gogogogo' on every pull regardless of mana levels or cds. Without fail a wipe takes longer than spending 10 seconds preparing the pull. Why these dickwads don't know this I'll never know. Must be add.

Got full healing and dps gear now, no more pugs for me for a long time I hope.

Arkeband Jan 3rd 2009 3:43AM

It depends - I ran with a group pre-3.0 in ZA, and we wiped on Zuljin about eight times, and we were in there until 4 AM... but we were so excited about getting his health meter lower and lower each time, and we finally killed him (just barely!) and Vent was filled with cheers and "YEAH! YEAH!". That was an awesome night. Some people had gotten impatient and left on the third wipe, but staying was way more rewarding - we learned that fight and accomplished it all on our own.

However with heroics (in WOTLK), especially once you've done it a couple times, and your goals turn into racking up emblems instead of completing the instance, it does feel like a waste of time if your group is not making any progress.

On the flip side, I'm now in a great guild and my purely PUG days are far behind me, and now I've realized these people have absolutely no tolerance to wipes - they actually leave the instance if someone dies by accident, even if we're clearing everything else at a great pace.

In all, some people take capable groups for granted - they want to go faster, to complete the instance in 25 minutes or less. These heroics in wotlk are so much shorter than BC's, and anything less than 45 minutes is worth your time - just because your group isn't going at a breakneck pace isn't worth wasting everyone else's time by leaving the group (which can be the nail in the coffin if you're the tank or healer.)

danawhitaker Jan 3rd 2009 12:15PM

I'll be honest, I haven't experienced too many "bad" groups in World of Warcraft. That's mainly because I experienced a ridiculously hellish amount of PUGs in City of Heroes that made me swear off random grouping for good.

There have been a few instances, even with good friends, where things just wouldn't go right. If I was in it for a quest, I would usually stick with it as long as I could so I could at least try and get that done and then move on. I remember one particularly frustrating night in Blackrock Depths just before I quit playing in October of 2007, I had a quest to complete that was very near the end of the instance. We got through most of it without too many issues, then we got to the room before that one, and all hell broke loose. Repeatedly. At about 3 a.m. the Paladin gave up, and that pretty much sealed the deal for everyone. I never did get the quest completed - I didn't even try again. I would definitely pinpoint that experience as one of the precipitating events that sealed my decision not to keep playing. I was burned out on the game, at level 70, trying to burn through old quests to keep myself occupied. I didn't have the time or desire to raid or play newer instances, I wasn't interested in making an alt, and I had maxed out my crafting skills. The only thing left for me to do pretty much was grind gold for my epic flying mount and that idea left me less than excited.

Now that I've returned, and have started a new character from the ground up, I'm still in limbo about how I'm going to handle instances and group situations. I haven't had to deal with it at all yet because I've been 100% solo thus far. I'm leveling faster, I don't have to fight with anyone over loot or chests or nodes, and I can do what quests I want when I want in the order I want. I may ultimately just end up waiting to do instances until a level at which I can solo them.

Dolida Jan 3rd 2009 12:29PM

I'm in a very small guild, basically formed with a few spread out friends so we could keep in touch while playing a game we all love. One of our guys is a pally healer, but because he works retail, he hasn't been on much. So we've pugged a healer for a few different runs (all heroics). Some went really well. Some went so-so. On one run, our healer went afk every couple of minutes with excuses like "I have something in the oven, brb" or "someone is at the door, brb" and a boatload of other things. Whether or not any of that was true, I don't know, but it got to the point where he was afking after every single pull for one reason or another. Fortunately, we were doing pretty well and didn't need to be healed very often, so we just carried on through the run. On another run, we invited a healer who turned out to be from South America and didn't speak English very well. In an attempt to make him feel more welcome (as he seemed a little unsure of himself), I mentioned that my family was from a neighboring country. His response? "[Country]=trash!" Not that I was offended by such immaturity, but I had to wonder what possesses a person to act in such a way. Surely he would like to run other instances right? I'd like to know how he plans on doing that with ANY group if his treatment of people includes a bigoted attitude. Eh, we did the rest of the run with him, let him take what was useful to him, and didn't bother being welcoming anymore.

The one that annoyed us the most, though, was a pally healer we pugged that turned out to be an elitist jerk. The guy sends a tell to our tank pretty much demanding to be invited. We wound up inviting him and he shows up all in purples with great healing stats. Awesome, this should be a decent run. The very first pull, we find ourselves struggling and I'm noticing our tank's health is dropping and never once going up. In fact, *no one's* health is going up. The healer isn't healing. By the time he heals, the last mob of the pull is falling to the ground dead. The healer's words? "I WANT MORE DPS!" Nevermind that our dps was fine and he was the one not bothering to heal. We get to a particularly difficult point and we wiped a few times. In spite of our tank doing everything he was supposed to be doing, the mobs would inevitably run to our healer so we would work to pull them off him. We'd get the mobs back on the tank quickly, but something would happen where the healer would get trapped. So one of us would dps the trap away so he could continue healing. There was *always* something going on where we had to save the healer's butt. We wound up wiping at least 3 times in that spot alone...partially because dps would go off a mob in order to save the healer and partially because the healer wasn't bothering to heal. Healer is rezzed and he complains that dps is low and we should run normal instances instead of heroics. By this point we're really upset...since the reason why dps was supposedly low is due to us saving him every single time so that he *might* get it in him to actually heal us (oh, I should probably mention that a couple of us did have damage meters going and our dps was actually decent considering how much time we spent saving the healer). The idiot was way more concerned about making sure he kept his eye on his damage meter than keeping an eye on the health of those he was supposed to be healing (and very rarely did). This is all before the first boss! On the final wipe, the tank demanded to know from the healer why he died...why there was such low healing. Instead of owning up to the fact he was simply a bad healer, he made some snarky comment about dps and quit the group. Finally fed up with it, I told him to stop complaining about dps if he can't even heal well...that we've run heroics with other pally healers in lesser gear who have done a MUCH better job and to get over his elitist self. Apparently too much of a wimp to actually respond to me, he sends a tell to our tank complaining...to which our tank, decent as he is, explains that while he understands healing can be difficult at times, perhaps constructive criticism rather than a faulty attitude from him might have been more helpful. The guy didn't respond. While we're by no means a guild that carries any weight to warn other people about this fool, we at least know for ourselves. For the record, we've run that heroic a few times since that point with another pally healer and we had no problems whatsoever...thanks to healers that actually pay attention and do what they're supposed to do.

We've had our share of bad pugs (and the sad thing is that we've only pugged one person), but we always do try to give them the benefit of the doubt and complete the instance with them. We haven't kicked anyone out of the group, just let them either leave on their own or we let them run the rest of it with us. Fortunately even with a bad 1-person pug, the rest of us enjoy each other's company that we're willing to put up with wipes and such. Heck, we did one heroic where we wiped several times with a particular healer who admitted her gear wasn't up to par and she was trying to get better gear through the run. We were fine with that...we were helping her, we were getting to do the run, she was really nice and doing the best she could, and we all wound up having a lot of fun.

Smak Jan 8th 2009 3:49PM

Wall of text crits you for 25,000

Niian Jan 4th 2009 8:45PM

I needed a few badges in the wee hours of the morning, so decided to pug a "quick" heroic nexus.
The shaman healer didn't use chain heal much for boss fights (all melee group) and it looked like everyone else in the party bar myself just hit 80.

Some people should know that they can't just jump straight into heroics while they are wearing greens from a quest in Sholazar.

I think if I wasn't able to survive as long as I can (pally tank) I would have called it quits after the first boss. Finished Nexus tho, and bailed after a quick "Cheers for the run". I ended up doing around 1.5k dps, highest in the group. Lowest was 755, which even my characters at 70 can beat.

Never again! The benefits of having your own "instance group" is that you get to know how much your group can handle, etc.

chimbai Jan 8th 2009 5:03PM

In reply to FoxOfWar

While i agree the bear tank should have been handling aggro alot better there is one point to consider.

For druids, it takes a minute or two to build the aggro. Yes we have one aoe aggro skill and can use swipe if necessary but if folks dps or heal before we have got the attention of all the mobs, then they will aggro on the highest threat. (I know, duh, that is obvious :-) )

On a side note, I play a feral druid tank and can usually keep mobs contained up until the dps peels them off of me because they are targeting targets other than the main target. Had this happen in a pug in heroic utgarde keep. Not a hard instance but with the crew i was with we kept wiping because the dps would not moderate their aggro.

A tank can only do so much to keep aggro and frankly, in my opinion my only obligation is to tank the mobs and protect the healer. Others are included if they do not peel the mobs off me. If they do, then I hope they can heal fast because i do not have the time or the abilities to repeatedly aoe aggro in short periods of time. Druid aoe aggro skill has a cooldown.

The previous mentioned pug wiped repeatedly and got the healer killed because the warlock and later a hunter who was added kept attacking the off mob instead of the main mob. The mobs of course went after them and after they were dead killed the cleric. After the 10th wipe i called it quits as it was just a bad group.

normally i will stick it out but with a bad group you have to cut your losses if you are not making any progress and folks are not modifying their strategies to try to get it done.

dbodinem Jan 21st 2009 10:15PM

Having run almost exclusively PUGs, I rarely am the first to bail.

I usually ask the tank if he's going to mark. If not, I'll AOE after a solo opening.

I do my best as DPS to not pull off the tank, but I always communicate, even admitting, "Sorry about pulling aggro on that one."

More often than not, my rogue dies cause the healers not paying attention to me and I'm getting slaughtered by the mobs AOE.

Haven't run w/ a warrior/bear since expansion, but always knew their shortcomings in BC (Bears are great at holding aggro on 3 mobs, so encouraged marking) and Pally's can hold aggro on lots of Mobs, so AOE away.

I generally like a tank who likes to exploit my skills: (moonkin-rooting, rogue-sapping, hunter-trapping), but if the instance is running smoothly I'll happily AOE.

Hamstrungeded Jan 22nd 2009 8:45AM

The average Joe playing WoW for dungeons need to realize they are playing with other people, not computers.

''When grouping up with other people, a little kindness goes a long way!''

Very true. Those people who are appreciated, well-thought of and established players are those who treat people as people and show common courtesy. I myself remain calm no matter what happens, and if I do lose my cool, I apologise the next day. I don't pug at all except for group quests when leveling an alt, and even then I sincerely hope everytime I group up with a stranger, he's a good player. More often than not I get sensible answers from them if I ask them something politely, but if not, I'll just stoop to their level of intelligence to try and get them to understand something, about say, a boss fight.

I've sworn long ago never to PUG again after a truly horrible Shattered Halls heroic that lasted 5 hours and had enough replacements to fill four groups, but I keep coming back to pugging the occasional dungeon. The reason is that sometimes you DO find a good player in a PUG, and those people usually end up in my raiding guild and are happy about the way they're treated in there. I have a huge tolerance pool, but sometimes your gut tells you the group you're in has no hope of clearing an instance, and that's when I leave before the real trouble ensues. I have had my fair share of pure frustration and anger by staying grouped and trying over and over again only to have my faith punished by repeated wipes with zero progression. I flat-out refuse to cooperate with people I don't trust in WoW, and it doesn't take much for you to get in my good graces.

Furthermore, trash that respawns in an instance is a crime against humanity and sanity.

Brephen Feb 3rd 2009 12:46PM

I dont know about you, but the only way to counteract Unwanted DPS and Healer attacks is to have more than one tank. There is often a point where mobs are just too heavily concentrated to pull just a couple at a time. Most instances contain these parts, and when you come to it, just one tank has almost no chance of keeping the aggro, and thats when things get messy. But, its suprising how much difference 2 tanks make instead of one. They can keep almost all the aggro compared to just one, which keeps none. In groups that struggle to get tanks (A common occurence these days), Warlocks or Hunters that control their pets well are a god send. Many pets/minions (Especially voidwalkers) have passive CC abilities. It makes things a whole lot easier in the long run. And co-operation in the tank is the worst element to lack. If they cant work with other players, its not worth attempting the instance.

Zeldaan Feb 4th 2009 1:23PM

I'm a learning to be tank, so I have, and will do mistakes. But I'm happy to learn, and accept criticisms. However, some days ago I was doing BF with a PuG, when one of the dpsers keeps on pulling aggro. I did BF as complete beginner, and nobody pulled aggro. I thought I could do instance well enough, but when I told him to please not try to take the aggro, he told me I was a d*ck and that I shoud STFU and pull. So I kicked after growing tired of him insulting me, then his girlfriend. He continued to badmouth me, but my GM contacted his GM and he was gkicked. Oh well.

I'm usually a happy person, so if we wipe it's okay, if nobody is a jerk about. As long as we have fun.

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