Breakfast Topic: Is silence golden in PUGs?
by Olivia Grace 
Feb 9th 2012 at 8:00AM
PUGs. We've all done them. In my guild, puggers are some of the most complained-about people in the game. Much as they are probably perfectly reasonable, lovely people, something about being put into a group of randomly selected strangers to perform a cooperative task doesn't always bring out the best in players.
5-man Dungeon Finder PUGs follow a predictable pattern through patches. At the beginning of the patch, when the content is fresh and new and (in some cases) difficult, puggers are talkative, helpful and generally more friendly. You just wiped to Queen Azshara? "Hey," a DPSer might say, "we should kill the Hand of Azshara as priority." "Ah, I see," the tank replies. "I didn't know -- sorry, I'll put a skull on it."
Now, that may well be either my being lucky with a PUG I was healing or my memory distorting past events. However, it seems that as patches progress, talking in PUGs becomes ever rarer and ever less kind. At this point, you're lucky to get a "hi" at the start of your PuG, and if anyone does talk about the Hand of Azshara, it's most likely just someone spammming a macro that yells "HAND." I think the same behavior holds true in the Raid Finder, too.
As you may have noticed, I am a talkative soul and often try to chat in PUGs. I'm generally ignored ... but it hasn't stopped me yet! So would I drive you round the bend? Are you just there to get a job done and don't care for pleasantries or making a connection with strangers you'll likely never encounter again? Or do you long for a bit more conversation? Is silence golden in PUGs?
Also, a personal gripe -- is it so hard to reply "r" when asked "r"?
5-man Dungeon Finder PUGs follow a predictable pattern through patches. At the beginning of the patch, when the content is fresh and new and (in some cases) difficult, puggers are talkative, helpful and generally more friendly. You just wiped to Queen Azshara? "Hey," a DPSer might say, "we should kill the Hand of Azshara as priority." "Ah, I see," the tank replies. "I didn't know -- sorry, I'll put a skull on it."
Now, that may well be either my being lucky with a PUG I was healing or my memory distorting past events. However, it seems that as patches progress, talking in PUGs becomes ever rarer and ever less kind. At this point, you're lucky to get a "hi" at the start of your PuG, and if anyone does talk about the Hand of Azshara, it's most likely just someone spammming a macro that yells "HAND." I think the same behavior holds true in the Raid Finder, too.
As you may have noticed, I am a talkative soul and often try to chat in PUGs. I'm generally ignored ... but it hasn't stopped me yet! So would I drive you round the bend? Are you just there to get a job done and don't care for pleasantries or making a connection with strangers you'll likely never encounter again? Or do you long for a bit more conversation? Is silence golden in PUGs?
Also, a personal gripe -- is it so hard to reply "r" when asked "r"?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Swifteye Feb 9th 2012 8:07AM
I love talking in PuGs, personally!
Maybe I've just been INSANELY lucky, but I have yet to run into a single person who actively expresses disdain with my chattiness (e.g. "Shut up and DPS", etc). I have occasionally been met with silence (and have taken the hint to just be quiet), but far more often than not, I get people laughing and being chatty back.
More often than not I am the first to say something, and it's usually something goofy, and as people begin to chuckle and chat it's almost as if you can hear a collective sigh of apprehension-turned-relief.
Why, just yesterday morning I randomed into HoT, then WoE, then HoT again... while the healer was afk for a couple minutes for a bio emergency, I said "So I did HoT and WoE this morning, was expecting a quick End Time to pop before bed (I work graveyard), but instead I get HoT with its forty minutes of RP again... I call shenanigans! :p"
Turned out the tank worked graveyard shift too, so we had something to talk about, and now I have a new person to do stuff with in the morning when queue times are notoriously long! ^_^
To make a long story short (which is completely and utterly pointless by now), I've had plenty of luck with my tendency to speak freely in PuGs, and I don't plan to stop anytime soon!
Revnah Feb 9th 2012 8:07AM
Couldn't agree more. Some of my fondest WoW memories revolve around lovely people I met in PuGs. I nearly ended up server-changing back in the early days of Cata when my druid got thrown into a group of guildies and we took something like 3 hours to clear Blackrock Caverns heroic (it was REALLY hard in those days, and we all in blues and greens). It was hard, we wiped, it was frustrating, but we talked, discussed, strategised, laughed, and we got it done. Still makes me smile every time I look back.
I find it creepy when I zone into a dungeon and my "hi" is met with a wall of silence. Although, at least silence is better than l33t speak and/or putting others down over their perceived inferiority!
D Feb 9th 2012 8:56AM
Agree about the "leet" speak and put downs. Quick way to my add-on enhanced ignore list. And whats with the never putting a reason for the kick now in LFR? I mean I guess it makes sense in that the person being kicked doesn't see it. That doesn't mean someone else in the group couldn't see it and think "oh I shouldn't do that either".
cromahr Feb 9th 2012 9:55AM
I feel the very same way and couldnt have put it better into words, I have some awesome memories from meeting some nice people in a PUG, chatting a little bit in between, planning if something was tough.
Right now, it often seems to be "zone in - creepy silence - IF you say "Hi" first, no one will answer and the tank will start charging stuff, so you might wanna use that typing time to buff him instead - no talk - when something goes wrong its either a) people immediately dropping the group or b) the good ol' "wtf?"
THis morning, I ran Well Of Eternity with my priest...queued as DPS (didnt feel like healing, don't heal very often for PUGs, only for guild runs), and the druid healer suddenly asked me whether holy was my offspec. When I said yes, he asked me some questions about the spec works, what the more important abilities are, a "tank heal rotation or priority" etc.
No one else said anything, and for some reason I almost expected the tank to go "Shut up and dps, nubs" or something, but he didnt...guess I should be grateful cuz God forbid, we dared to talk.
Another thing comes to mind from last night... I used the LFR tool and did my weekly two raids on my healers. When I did with my priest, it was quite...interesting. Encounters started with 1 or 2 healers missing etc. Still, we pulled through, it was both a challenge and... uhmmmm... stressful. Mind you, my priest doesn't have an insane ilvl yet, because I just came back from a break a little while ago.
So at the end, after we had killed DW (with 2 people dead, and only one tank because one of them AND 2 dps weren't caught by Thrall's "air stream" or whatever and landed in the water... can this be fixed PLS?), a rogue suddenly started posting all these heal-meters... total healing, absorbs w/e, and then berated us healers (who had just healed our hands off even while people were dead/missing and I was out of mana at the end, praying for my fiend to come off CD). He told us how many gazillion "HIS priest" does here and how we had to L2P.
I thought this wasnt quite fair, and I was about to really flip out. I mean, I dont expect people to say thanks for pullign through even when it seems that things will go belly up, but to call me out for "Low HPS lol nub" after my HPS had just saved his neck with people missing and others attacking the wrong targets etc...
But you know what? In many cases it aint worth it, and just adds to the frustration if you get angry or waste your time on a long discussion. I figured he'd keep insisting how much better "his priest-main" is and how much I suck for not putting out x HPS, regardless of the fact we had actually finished the fight.
Sorry for rambling, recent experiences that came to mind... :/
TL:DR: Revnah, totally agreed =)
pweber Feb 9th 2012 10:00AM
I don't PUG - any more - except for holiday bosses because I'm one of those not-so-great players. I'll never learn any of the instances until I'm able to solo them. I'll never have any of the l33t gear.
And I don't care. After trying to get myself geared and knowledgeable, but being inundated with "stoopid nub," "idiot!" "you're doing this in THAT gear?" etc. etc. I decided solo is a lot more fun and a lot less stressful and, after all, this is a GAME, not my life.
Swifteye Feb 9th 2012 10:12AM
@cromahr
You just reminded me of the last LFR I did about three days ago.
I'm not sure how, but we ended up starting Madness with only one tank and four healers. Those folks worked their BUTTS off, and we beat the encounter on the first try, though it got a little hairy in a couple of spots.
I was expecting the usual "loot roles, everybody drops group, nobody says anything unless it's someone carping about how X won THEIR item and didn't deserve it" thing, but... /raid was positively FLOODED with "Amazing heals!", "Can't believe you guys pulled that off so understaffed; so pro!", "Tank is total BOSS to single-tank that whole fight!", "We should get an achievement for that, incredible teamwork!"... etc.
Nearly every DPS said something positive about the experience and about the tank/heals, and I was really happy to be there! Definitely made my morning, and the best LFR run I've had to date! ^_^
exogenesis. Feb 9th 2012 8:09AM
Considering a lot of my PuGs are filled with "wtf noob", "retarded noob", and "such a retarded healer/tank/DPS", I do find that silence is, indeed, golden.
However, I treasure the occasional PuG that is full of friendly conversation and jokes. I've had a few, and one even resulted in everyone swapping emails so we could add each to RealID and group up again. They are probably the reason why I continue using the dungeon finder tool. Every group full of morons brings me closer to another group full of genuinely nice people.
Lupos Feb 9th 2012 8:09AM
One of the things that I hate about this new LFG/LFR tool world is the lack of communication. There was a time, for all you whippersnappers, when you could make long lasting friends by manually finding a group. What did we sacrifice for convenience!?
Alysandir Feb 9th 2012 8:26AM
Standing around for two hours in town trying to either put together a group or finding an existing group that needed your role.
Blayze Feb 9th 2012 8:54AM
And that wanted your specific class.
Tortheldrin Feb 9th 2012 9:16AM
And flying all the way to the dungeon... Just for the group you got in to, To wipe/kick you and having to wait hours in trade to do all of the above comments.
Lupos Feb 9th 2012 10:19AM
I guess I enjoyed the MMs in MMORPG instead of a loot pinata that happens to have other people that might as well be AI bots.
Joking aside, to me it was worth it to have that social aspect over the convenience because I made a large group of friends that I could draw on for groups. I had people I knew I could trust to CC and watch healer mana and when I LFGed in trade chat I'd get whispers from people that I would recognize. Basically Camaraderie > Convenience imo
Amanda A. Feb 9th 2012 12:42PM
Nothing's stoppping you from doing it the old fashioned way. I'll sometimes poke my server's trade when I feel like tanking or healing, myself, instead of solo queuing.
Oddly enough, I rarely get more than 2 bites, but it's still nice.
Neirin Feb 9th 2012 11:01AM
I felt the same way for a while, until I realized just how many people I had on my friends list that I only had there to facilitate making dungeon groups faster. At one point right after the dungeon finder came out I had 13 friends online, 2 were alts of people in my guild, 1 was an irl friend and the other 10 were people I didn't care much about beyond their ability to join a dungeon group. I come from a particularly small server and have been in a few very active guilds, so perhaps I was never in a particularly good position to benefit from trade barking as opposed to meeting people through guilds, but I just don't see how barking in trade is more social than LFD.
vocenoctum Feb 9th 2012 11:06AM
It's the same old discussion really. "Dungeon Finder killed community!" (not that you're going that way, just using hyperbole :)
The thing is, it's just like raids. You might think there was more social-ness and community in those days, but the simple answer to "it was tighter nit" was that there were just less people doing dungeons. I don't have exact numbers, obviously, but I doubt there's even any anecdotal evidence to suggest that even half the current crop of dungeon runners used to run dungeons back in BC or before. Of course this let more asshats into the dungeons, but it also let in a lot of other people too.
And of course, for all the "convenience shouldn't trump the experience" folks, nothing prevents people from still forming a group and doing it the old way. People don't because it's just not worth it.
eel5pe Feb 9th 2012 11:14AM
Lupos I certainly sympathize with you, as an old Vanilla player back when our server was medium pop but I could still recognize 75%ish of the characters advertising for groups, and we would form regular 5-man groups much the same way we form raids nowadays.
But nothing is stopping you from forming those same connections now. No tank in their right mind is going to say to himself "I could ask that excellent mage I ran with last week, or I could take my chances with 4 random yahoos I CHOOSE YAHOOS", and as a healer I know I would rather wait half an hour for my reliable guild MT to sign on than take a chance on getting a 130k HP tank in PvP gear. It may take a bit more effort now since an easier alternative exists (LFG) but it's not that bad.
Quark1020 Feb 9th 2012 12:26PM
Meh, finding groups was almost instantaneous for me, for the same reason I still do with group finder: I'm a healer my best friend is a tank.
All i had to do was go to (at the time) Dalaran and yell the magic words: "Need 3 dps for heroic daily, pst". Within seconds I'll get 5 whispers.
Lupos Feb 9th 2012 7:52PM
I do see the point. Maybe it was just me and my problem was I server transferred around the Ulduar patch and lost all the connects I made in BC. It's probably my fault haha
notsofarfetched Feb 9th 2012 8:13AM
I tanked a lot in WotLK and loved it, but got started a little late in Cata... which turned into never for this reason. I'd love to break into it, I'm decently geared out of the AH, but I don't have a large enough guild to even field a 5-man, and our server is tiny, so a new guild would be tough (though probably not as impossible as I think.)
Point being, I don't want to get yelled at while trying to learn the new dungeons, and it's too late to catch the kinder folk and learn without a nervous breakdown. I get that I probably need to man (woman?) up, but I don't want to bother with taking the abuse.
Hearing other folks recent experiences would be really helpful.
Luotian Feb 9th 2012 8:49AM
Ugh, I think cyberspace ate my comment. Anyway, the long and short of it was:
The other night my sister, our friend, and myself were running Cata. regs (trying to level our guild-- we finally dinged it up to 2 last night-- gear my new 85 enough for heroics and level their two characters). We zoned into Stonecore, my least favorite, with a healer and tank who both confessed it was their first Cata. dungeon. It was a blast walking them all through it as well as coach my sister on the priority system for her Demo. lock.
It wasn't the most efficient run I've ever had, and more than a few times I missed something important because I've never tanked/melee DPSed, but we didn't wipe and it was an awesome clean run that resulted in me walking them through...I think it's pinncale, where you fight Asaad.
I will confess that my macro on my lowbie tank has been met with people deliberately trying to screw me over every time I've used it (my sisters little tank hasn't met with much more success in PuGs, I'll confess, with people continuing to do things long after they've been nicely asked to stop pulling/knockbacking mobs), but that doesn't stop me from believing that if you're honest about your experience *most of the time* you'll end up with nice people that are understanding and helpful.