To me, that's the 'guild run' group finder, and I've been in group finder raids where we wiped on Dash'roode on 90%.

 

This is a raid where there's a clear majority of a guild (usually 6+) and you're obviously not part of that guild. You might be thinking you'll be on your way to an easy win, but you'll be wrong. This is because if these guys are actually good they'd be usually be doing Hard modes unless they're just really bored (have seen this happened once in all my group finder raids). If you hear these guys tell you this fight is really hard and you can't screw up, and it's not Operator IX (where no amount of uberness can carry a bad player who doesn't know how to channel), it's going to be a painful experience, because that means your guild run is basically same as a PUG as this is the only reason why any story mode encounter outside of Operator IX would require everyone on top of their games. The said guild will often make plenty of mistakes, but you can't even correct them because they have a clear majority and you don't want to risk getting kicked.

 

No you won't be wiping on Dash'roode at 90%, but do expect to randomly wipe on trash and have a high probability of having the group break up shortly after the weekly mob is done, leaving you in a position where it's almost impossible to finish the raid. To compound things this group is almost always good enough to clear the weekly mob (which isn't saying much), and after that you're totally stuck with them, because trying to get another group finder raiding going after you're past the point of the weekly mob is extremely difficult, as the only kind of group you're joining is likely another group that had some serious problem and needed to find replacements from group finder. In fact, looking at my various alt's lockout, wiping on Dash'roode at 90% is usuaully fine because the likely outcome is the group breaks up completely and you get to try your luck again. If you get a lockout on say Operation Chiefs or Operator IX and then the group breaks up, you may not be able to finish your raids at all.

Idk i really have found myself enjoying pug runs 80% of the time. Iv met alot of good guilds that just needed 1 more guy. My guild has 5 progression groups but i dont play enough to justify taking up a spot so i have to pug most everything. Sometimes it good. Sometimes its bad. I first invite everyone into my guilds ts. Tell them where to download it and tell them we will wait. Most bads arent bad they just dont know. I doesnt take long to teach people. Sure my tank is locked out at first boss of sv this week. But guess what their are 2 more people out there that know the first to fights of SV now. So maybe next week they will be able to help out another "bad". Iv had complete pug runs were we one shotted tfb. Iv had runs were we spent 6 hours and couldnt make it past operator 9. You never know but i still enjoy it. If you play on Harbinger. My mains are Gilgol and Mershnek. Ill run with random people anytime

Idk i really have found myself enjoying pug runs 80% of the time. Iv met alot of good guilds that just needed 1 more guy. My guild has 5 progression groups but i dont play enough to justify taking up a spot so i have to pug most everything. Sometimes it good. Sometimes its bad. I first invite everyone into my guilds ts. Tell them where to download it and tell them we will wait. Most bads arent bad they just dont know. I doesnt take long to teach people. Sure my tank is locked out at first boss of sv this week. But guess what their are 2 more people out there that know the first to fights of SV now. So maybe next week they will be able to help out another "bad". Iv had complete pug runs were we one shotted tfb. Iv had runs were we spent 6 hours and couldnt make it past operator 9. You never know but i still enjoy it. If you play on Harbinger. My mains are Gilgol and Mershnek. Ill run with random people anytime

 

The difference between a gulid run and a PUG is that in the latter you can usually try to help people who are bad while in the former you have no chance of helping others if it turns out the said guild is bad, because they have a clear majority and nobody is going to be dumb enough to say like: "Hey your guild's DPS totally sucked that fight" even if it was true because the said guild has a majority. Even the most obnoxious raid hero is usually well aware that he's not going to have the majority in a PUG, and since having a lockout on a mob like Operation Chiefs makes it almost impossible to find another group, that guy will usually be forced to compromise as he is aware his prospect of finding another raid at that point is very bad.

 

The guilds that are truly good and just need another person will have an attitude where they're going to carry that last person no matter how bad he is (unless it's Operator IX). So they wouldn't have any high expectation from the last person and therefore have no reason to freak out over anything. The one guild run I got to that was actually good we actually ended up with only 7 people and still cleared bosses fine, and that guild never freaked out the whole time because if you're good, you should be expected to be able to pull off things like that. A lack of willingness to carry implies that you're working with PUG level players. Not saying you should expect to be carried, but working with PUG level players who you cannot give advice to (because the guild has majority) makes things even harder.

 

I once joined a run with 6 guys in a guild and we ran out of shield generators on Dash'roode at 50%. The 2 PUG was DPS (me and another guy). The two DPS from the guild were horribly underequipped (like 23K HP) while the 2 PUGs are like 28/30K. But of course, the guild blamed us for lack of DPS. Frankly, even if we did 0 DPS you shouldn't have Dash'roode hitting 50% when you ran out of shield generators, not to mention we can see rather clearly that it was that guild's DPS who died right away as the fight started. If you're in a PUG you can politely tell those 2 DPS with 23K that they probably aren't ready for this fight yet, but what can you do when the 2 bad DPS have majority? Well in that case it was so bad we broke up, but imagine if you're at Olok the Shadow with the same setup. You'd be pretty screwed.

I sympathize with bad GF experiences. However, you're not thinking through your options very well. If you are better off wiping on Dash'roode so your options stay open, then you're also better off getting votekicked on Dash'roode so your options stay open. There's really no downside to you speaking up and trying to get the Guild of Bads on track. If they suck and votekick you? Hurray, now you can try to hook up with a Guild of Not-Bads. If you get yourself into a situation like what you describe--locked to OpIX with bad prospects for finishing--then that's really more on you than it is on them.

 

I once had a hilariously bad guild votekick me from Xenoanalyst before we even started because of something like this. My only regret is that I didn't quit on them myself sooner--the writing was on the wall from the word go. Be the master of your own destiny. Fix it or cut bait and run.

I think you're making a gross generalization, probably based on 1 or 2 bad experiences. The situation you're describing does, and probably more often, happen with full pugs.

 

Remember, there are ultimate comms rewards for queuing up for story mode. This is the main reason why guilds will do it. Also, sometimes we're running alts, sometimes we have too many team members out of town, and we don't want to just try to pug 2 people to come in on hard mode Kephess in TFB. Of course there are certainly some guilds that are very casual and have trouble doing even the easiest content, but if you find one of those groups, just put one or more of those people in the group on ignore and try again. You aren't necessarily going to have better luck kicking the bad people in pug, people generally seem to throw the blame in all directions, sometimes the wrong ones.

 

Also, I can say from experience that 1 or 2 pugs can be responsible for wiping a group. without even realizing it

 

But we've carried a guy that had nothing but leveling greens and blues through all of S&V with no problems.

Edited June 9, 2013 by chuixupu

This is a bigger problem with S&V than TFB. The way TFB is setup, if you can beat Operator IX you know at least you have a group of guys who are fundamentally solid on game mechanics, since there is absolutely no way you can carry a guy who doesn't know how to channel the shield. So if you get past Operator IX you have reasonable confidence that the guys you get is solid enough to beat Kephess and TFB. Maybe you fail anyway but it's not because they're bad players, because if they are you'd never have gotten past Operator IX.

 

In S&V the first 4 bosses are basically trivial so you really have no idea if your team is at all good until Olok the Shadow, which requires some semblance of competence to beat. Now this happens with everyone, but it's much harder to correct a bad guild than a bad PUG. In particular, what do you do if it turns out it's the DPS that are bad in the said guild? In a PUG I often run with guys who are grossly underequipped, and if we absolutely can't meet enrage timer then we obviously start replacing the weakest DPS first and that has a reasonable chance of working. Trying to replace DPS in a guild that has majority just doesn't work. Most likely they will blame the loner, and even if you have definitive proof it's their fault, you still won't win because they have the majority.

 

Ouside of Operator IX it's very hard for someone truly clueless to wipe the raid, simply because the truly clueless wouldn't even know what you have to do to wipe the raid. For example one time I had a guy pick up the portable shield on Dash'roode and never moved which led to an instant wipe. Was that guy clueless? No because if you're clueless you wouldn't even know there was a portable shield to pick up. I had a tank that purposely turned the tentacles to slam the DPS on TFB. Again, this isn't something you can accidentally do. Even if you just stood at a random place to tanking, the DPS will naturally move behind to avoid the slam, so it took effort to ensure the tentacle always slammed the DPS. These guys are your biggest problem, but it's way harder to correct them when they're part of the majority. You'd hear stuff like 'we always have tentacles slam DPS when we won', and sure I don't doubt that because first phase of TFB isn't even hard, but that's still a very bad idea.

Join a guild that can fill these raids without the need of pugs. Problem solved.

Join a guild that can fill these raids without the need of pugs. Problem solved.

 

Thanks for that insightful and well thought post Hobo. Would you like to explain anything else Captain Obvious?

 

Back on topic though. I agree with the thread's point. I don't necessarily think that the issue is the result of "bad guilds though". I think the problem lies in the fact that people feel *obligated* to join a guild otherwise they are deemed inferior. I left my raiding guild 2 months ago and was the best decision I ever made. I may join another guild but I'm not in any rush to do so. The reason I left was (among other things) they were accepting nearly anyone in the guild for no reason and people didn't understand basic concepts.

 

This same issue applies to all guilds/pugs. The basic concepts JUST AREN'T THERE. These group finder quests show a recommended gear level; and yet people are entering with level 45-50 greens/blues. I'm seeing DPS who just sit still for 10 seconds and dont do anything, or they are keyboard turners that don't know how to follow the boss by moving their mouse.

 

The problem with storymode operations is that no matter how "easy" they make it; it seems like there are people who are just dumber then they expected still queuing up for it.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Sykomyke

Thanks for that insightful and well thought post Hobo. Would you like to explain anything else Captain Obvious?

 

Back on topic though. I agree with the thread's point. I don't necessarily think that the issue is the result of "bad guilds though". I think the problem lies in the fact that people feel *obligated* to join a guild otherwise they are deemed inferior. I left my raiding guild 2 months ago and was the best decision I ever made. I may join another guild but I'm not in any rush to do so. The reason I left was (among other things) they were accepting nearly anyone in the guild for no reason and people didn't understand basic concepts.

 

This same issue applies to all guilds/pugs. The basic concepts JUST AREN'T THERE. These group finder quests show a recommended gear level; and yet people are entering with level 45-50 greens/blues. I'm seeing DPS who just sit still for 10 seconds and dont do anything, or they are keyboard turners that don't know how to follow the boss by moving their mouse.

 

The problem with storymode operations is that no matter how "easy" they make it; it seems like there are people who are just dumber then they expected still queuing up for it.

 

If you assume that the average player isn't very good, why should the fact that you have a guildtag suddenly make you good? The group finder tends to self select toward bad players anyway, since there just isn't much point for a good player to do these raids. Now getting bad players is fine, but getting bad players who don't listen, or worse yet, have a majority, severely limits your options. If you can't tell that DPS with 23K he's the reason why you're failing the enrage timer because his guild has the majority, your options are extremely limited. Note that even if you're in a PUG full of bads, most people can usually agree on that the DPS with 23K probably should be replaced first, so at least you've some hope.

 

Of course people are always surprisingly bad no matter how low you set the bar, but as long as people are willing to listen it's usually salvageable. The problem is when you get guys who don't listen. I had a Madness Assassin who claim he was getting aggro on Titan probes, and I'm not even sure if that's physically possible even if you're casting Death Field the moment the adds spawned since Madness has nonexistent AE power. I'm 99.99% sure he confused Lots of Missiles with adds but of course that guy said he totally knew what he was doing. The difference is that in a PUG you can usually get rid of that guy, but not in a guild run when that guy also has the majority.

Ah, my first S&V GF. It was less than a week after release; I knew queuing would be a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

 

First thing I asked: "Has everyone done this yet?" Four or five people say "no" (a surprising turn of events in itself; not that they were new to it, but that they admitted it). A person in the group then decides that would be the perfect time to start the event (granted, it may have been a new person that was unaware that moving forward would start a boss fight).

 

Of course, we wipe in a terrible fashion since most people had no idea what to do. Then there was the predictable "OMG YOU GUYS **** SUCK" comments and the group broke,

 

Really, I blame myself. I knew queuing for a new Op would be destined to fail, but I did it anyway.

 

 

I have a few honorable mentions, but those are mostly fail players, not fail groups. The most comical had to be back in EV where we asked the tank if he knew how to tank SOA, and he confirmed he did in a "how dare you question me" attitude, and then failed to bring SOA under a pylon even once.

Thanks for that insightful and well thought post Hobo. Would you like to explain anything else Captain Obvious?

 

Back on topic though. I agree with the thread's point. I don't necessarily think that the issue is the result of "bad guilds though". I think the problem lies in the fact that people feel *obligated* to join a guild otherwise they are deemed inferior. I left my raiding guild 2 months ago and was the best decision I ever made. I may join another guild but I'm not in any rush to do so. The reason I left was (among other things) they were accepting nearly anyone in the guild for no reason and people didn't understand basic concepts.

 

This same issue applies to all guilds/pugs. The basic concepts JUST AREN'T THERE. These group finder quests show a recommended gear level; and yet people are entering with level 45-50 greens/blues. I'm seeing DPS who just sit still for 10 seconds and dont do anything, or they are keyboard turners that don't know how to follow the boss by moving their mouse.

 

The problem with storymode operations is that no matter how "easy" they make it; it seems like there are people who are just dumber then they expected still queuing up for it.

 

Cap'n Obvious to the rescue in his Obvious Vessel of Obviousness!

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's obvious, isn't it?

we're gonna have to go right to obvious speed!! ^^

Ah, my first S&V GF. It was less than a week after release; I knew queuing would be a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

 

First thing I asked: "Has everyone done this yet?" Four or five people say "no" (a surprising turn of events in itself; not that they were new to it, but that they admitted it). A person in the group then decides that would be the perfect time to start the event (granted, it may have been a new person that was unaware that moving forward would start a boss fight).

 

Of course, we wipe in a terrible fashion since most people had no idea what to do. Then there was the predictable "OMG YOU GUYS **** SUCK" comments and the group broke,

 

Really, I blame myself. I knew queuing for a new Op would be destined to fail, but I did it anyway.

Unlucky PUG honestly. Every time I pugged an Ops, be it in GF or from fleet, it was always a matter of good explanation of tactics to 1-shot majority of the bosses, if not all. Even with more than half of people not knowing mechanics.

 

Biggest problem I find in PUGs is the experienced players who don't wanna wait for tactics to be explained to new players. "Plz faster, how much longer, skip this part of explaining" etc and often deliberate pulls to start the fight. Of course that ends in a wipe most of the time. I honestly don't get it. Experienced players should know that wiping over and over again will make MUCH longer than spending 5 mins before each boss to explain it well.

 

Second most annoying thing is being the only (or one of the very few) player not from the same guild. For every great guild who will treat the non-guild player(s) as equal and leave nothing but great memories, there are 2 more that will treat the non-guild player(s) as 3rd class citizen. Not to mention situations when everyone from the guild needs on everything (even if they don't need it) to claim all the loot for the guild and ensure the non-guild player(s) get nothing.

Edited June 13, 2013 by Pietrastor

These group finder quests show a recommended gear level; and yet people are entering with level 45-50 greens/blues.

 

I just have to comment this one. First, the quest you get does show the recommended gear level - but the group finder doesn't, and you don't have to pick the quests to use the group finder. If you just hit 55 while questing on Makeb or something, you might not even know those quests exist.

 

And there's just the sad fact that the recommended gear is kinda high imo - I mean, isn't it rating 156 = the set of gear you get with basic comms? It takes a lot of time and effort to even reach the gear level you can do those ops, especially if you compare it to what we had just before 2.0: you just picked your free set of tionese and you were ready to go for gf operations. If you don't care for endgame that much and just want to see the ops once, the temptation to join and hope the group will carry you is big.

I just have to comment this one. First, the quest you get does show the recommended gear level - but the group finder doesn't, and you don't have to pick the quests to use the group finder. If you just hit 55 while questing on Makeb or something, you might not even know those quests exist.

 

And there's just the sad fact that the recommended gear is kinda high imo - I mean, isn't it rating 156 = the set of gear you get with basic comms? It takes a lot of time and effort to even reach the gear level you can do those ops, especially if you compare it to what we had just before 2.0: you just picked your free set of tionese and you were ready to go for gf operations. If you don't care for endgame that much and just want to see the ops once, the temptation to join and hope the group will carry you is big.

 

You can get 156 with just crafting though I rarely see people at that level. Usually you've people either way above (full 162s usually looking for just the arkanian) or way below.

You can get 156 with just crafting though I rarely see people at that level. Usually you've people either way above (full 162s usually looking for just the arkanian) or way below.

 

Unless 1 person can craft all the pieces (and even in that case, actually), that costs a lot of credits - and at least I don't have enough money to buy full set of anything. When I hit 55 last time, I had around 400k, and I probably won't get much with that.

 

But yeah, full 156 probably isn't something common to see, since people probably run hm fps while trying to get better gear and those drop black market gear, which is rating 162 I believe.

Anyway, from a more-of-a-pvp-player point of view, the recommended gear looks pretty high, since the "new warhero" gear isn't enough to do these ops. (Partisan is rating 150.)

Ah, my first S&V GF. It was less than a week after release; I knew queuing would be a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

 

First thing I asked: "Has everyone done this yet?" Four or five people say "no" (a surprising turn of events in itself; not that they were new to it, but that they admitted it). A person in the group then decides that would be the perfect time to start the event (granted, it may have been a new person that was unaware that moving forward would start a boss fight).

 

Of course, we wipe in a terrible fashion since most people had no idea what to do. Then there was the predictable "OMG YOU GUYS **** SUCK" comments and the group broke,

 

Really, I blame myself. I knew queuing for a new Op would be destined to fail, but I did it anyway.

 

 

I have a few honorable mentions, but those are mostly fail players, not fail groups. The most comical had to be back in EV where we asked the tank if he knew how to tank SOA, and he confirmed he did in a "how dare you question me" attitude, and then failed to bring SOA under a pylon even once.

 

So, I know this is long and probably necroing, but it's still relevant today and I'm only venting about it tonight because my pugging tonight has run dry and I have nothing else to do on the game. I will say you got luckier than I did this week. My imp pug operations have been absolute HELL; I'm starting to think either my sorc and mara are cursed or I can't rely on the greater imp population in Star Forge compared to Pub (like dps, the Imps are seeming a dime a dozen these days, with one brain spread out between them)

 

Had an outside guild run (Deathsquad) who needed just one or two more DPS on SnV GF so I took the spot on my mara yesterday. Everything seemed mostly fine; not one text was seen in ops chat but I assumed they just didn't want to inv me to their Discord or whatever, but smooth run.... until the Operations chief. First try was Ok, we went as a team to take out security pairs, but group leaders completely skipped gold team so we had to go back and were carelessly pulling and killing droids. They carelessly pulled the chief too, since we lost one guy to battle and one to a dc we wiped. Second try, THEY JUST SKIP ALL THE TEAMS, say "no alert run" in chat when I ask *** they're doing (i'm not killing one team by myself) and go straight to barrier to chief's office, they killed a few more carelessly pulled droids and wander like lost sheep, with the clock ticking down and some more deaths the lead says "welp, sorry for the fail, good night all" They had no idea what to do and no one SAID ANYTHING, that's where you got luckier than me.

 

Plus today I tried to do DF group finder late at night, and the underwalkers/Nefra were like a completely novel concept to the group; no one asked if anyone knew the fight or not, and no one spoke up for help. I just watched our tanks make a mockery of holding Nefra in one place, and another marauder taking Nefra's focus, on top of that I died as the sole dps holding focus for a second because the tanks couldn't hold threat because they were doing a bunch of running they didn't have to. I left before I saw how it ended because it was another unknown guild run and I want people like that to at least clue others in that they don't know **** before pulling. I hoped for a better group to search for a dps but no dice.

 

I really wish I didn't live on the West Coast sometimes: Any guild who takes ops seriously has already done the gf and gone to bed in New York by the time I can get back on at night, leaving the clueless groups like this, but digressing... Bottom line, you can't assume that Story Mode bolster will do the work for you, a pug who doesn't seek out any tutorial will find a way to screw up any op.

I haven't pugged an op in along time, but I do remember every now and then I would be the odd man in a all-guild run and it would be a bad experience. Usually those runs are people getting there feet wet in raids and are learning, but I didn't have the patience to teach them SM ops. Also, being the only non-guildie 9 times out of 10 you become the scapegoat for why they wipe on the first boss in KP, or something ridiculous like that. I much prefer just 8 random fleet players that are experienced Pug'rs then being in a guild run full of noobs.