Guild Wars 2

I failed P1 at least 5 times today because
1) People who refuse to listen to instructions – a) pugs split up to kill different burrows or b) pugs come back to “help” with kiting when they don’t know how to.

2) People who refuse to listen to instructions – got all 5 scepter pieces and last guy was in combat not letting us respawn.

Guess what kind of pugs I really detest the most. And no, I gave them a few minutes and not insta RQ.

Welcome back to September/October 2012.

Nobody that is experimented runs AC outside of guild or predefined groups. The guys that come to AC now are the guys that started GW2 recently (I very rarely see someone with 2k achi in AC anymore) and they just hit level 80. They want to get into dungeons because they lost huge amount of time trying to do it at level 35 and at that time they received answers like “no, you’re not level 80”. So instead of having level 35 unexperimented guys with whom nobody plays, they are now level 80. They think they have worked hard to get there so they think that they know better than having to listen to you. And there you are with people more stubborn than before that listen less.

Fror.2163:

Welcome back to September/October 2012.

Nobody that is experimented runs AC outside of guild or predefined groups. The guys that come to AC now are the guys that started GW2 recently (I very rarely see someone with 2k achi in AC anymore) and they just hit level 80. They want to get into dungeons because they lost huge amount of time trying to do it at level 35 and at that time they received answers like “no, you’re not level 80”. So instead of having level 35 unexperimented guys with whom nobody plays, they are now level 80. They think they have worked hard to get there so they think that they know better than having to listen to you. And there you are with people more stubborn than before that listen less.

I somewhat agree with this. I have had some bad experiences recently in AC pugs as well.

There does seem to be more new people in the AC pugs but I don’t know why outside of AC being the “first” dungeon. What I do think is happening is that the new people aren’t admitting being new to the dungeon if they are. This is probably because of the bias against new players(especially on LFG). Personally, I don’t mind if 1 or 2 people are new, but I’m not good at teaching others because sometimes I get frustrated after repeated failures.

My advice if you’re entering into a pug would be to mouse over everyone’s achievement points and ask them if they’re new to the encounter if they’re below 2000(just to be safe). If they’re below 1000, then you might want to find a new group or kick them if you’re one of those people who can’t stand helping newbies. I actually did an AC group where someone posted on LFG that it was mandatory to have over 1800 achievement points to join. The group did fine and I asked the guy about achievement points not necessarily being an accurate measurement of experience and he agreed but said that it has worked out well for him so far.

Some other thoughts on AC:
-needs some serious bug fixes
-if they decide to ever fix the exploits then the bugs should be fixed as well
-Hodgins event is doable, but it needs changed
-if AC is supposed to be the “intro” dungeon then something needs to happen with how accessible it is to new players
-scaling should be looked at again so there’s less bias against sub 80s in groups

To be honest, achievement points are a pretty bad way to judge player skill. I’ve seen players with less than 1000 play like pros, and people with 5K+ play as if it’s their first time playing the game.

Milennin.4825:

To be honest, achievement points are a pretty bad way to judge player skill. I’ve seen players with less than 1000 play like pros, and people with 5K+ play as if it’s their first time playing the game.

I agree. It doesn’t take skill to get achievement points so why would achievement points denote skill?

Zindrix.1750:

Fror.2163:

Welcome back to September/October 2012.

Nobody that is experimented runs AC outside of guild or predefined groups. The guys that come to AC now are the guys that started GW2 recently (I very rarely see someone with 2k achi in AC anymore) and they just hit level 80. They want to get into dungeons because they lost huge amount of time trying to do it at level 35 and at that time they received answers like “no, you’re not level 80”. So instead of having level 35 unexperimented guys with whom nobody plays, they are now level 80. They think they have worked hard to get there so they think that they know better than having to listen to you. And there you are with people more stubborn than before that listen less.

I somewhat agree with this. I have had some bad experiences recently in AC pugs as well.

There does seem to be more new people in the AC pugs but I don’t know why outside of AC being the “first” dungeon. What I do think is happening is that the new people aren’t admitting being new to the dungeon if they are. This is probably because of the bias against new players(especially on LFG). Personally, I don’t mind if 1 or 2 people are new, but I’m not good at teaching others because sometimes I get frustrated after repeated failures.

My advice if you’re entering into a pug would be to mouse over everyone’s achievement points and ask them if they’re new to the encounter if they’re below 2000(just to be safe). If they’re below 1000, then you might want to find a new group or kick them if you’re one of those people who can’t stand helping newbies. I actually did an AC group where someone posted on LFG that it was mandatory to have over 1800 achievement points to join. The group did fine and I asked the guy about achievement points not necessarily being an accurate measurement of experience and he agreed but said that it has worked out well for him so far.

Some other thoughts on AC:
-needs some serious bug fixes
-if they decide to ever fix the exploits then the bugs should be fixed as well
-Hodgins event is doable, but it needs changed
-if AC is supposed to be the “intro” dungeon then something needs to happen with how accessible it is to new players
-scaling should be looked at again so there’s less bias against sub 80s in groups

People who salvaged and ate 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 items just in order to farm achi points will certainly do a loooot better than someone who didn’t.

Milennin.4825:

To be honest, achievement points are a pretty bad way to judge player skill. I’ve seen players with less than 1000 play like pros, and people with 5K+ play as if it’s their first time playing the game.

I agree, there’s no reason that achievement points should be an accurate representation of player skill. All that I was implying was that if a player is sub 1000, they’re probably new to the dungeon/game.

The guy that was posting the “1800 achievement points to join” LFG mentioned the fallacy behind this method yet he said it was working well for him so far. I guess I can believe that there are far fewer that don’t fit into this methodology than those who do.
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Also, there’s no reason AT ALL to farm achievement points. Who the hell would do that?

Pip.2094:

People who salvaged and ate 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 items just in order to farm achi points will certainly do a loooot better than someone who didn’t.

You get, I think 200 max points for salvage. 36 for all you can eat and I think 36 for thirst slayer. Not thousands there.

From my personal experience, not in all cases but certainly in most, people with more achievement points are better players. Or at least average players.

When you join a pug group and you see everyone with 4-5k+ points you at least feel good about the group, but when you see 2 or 3 people with 700 to 1k points its most likely a good idea to leave that group. This isn’t a proven fact its just one of those common sense things.

My experience with annoying and full of themselves PuGs has lead me and my guildies to search for newbies when doing dungeons. Maybe they are bad, maybe they are good, but at least they aren’t likely to have the bad habits that “experience” players have.

You can give them tips without them becoming defensive and saying something like “I know. I’ve done this a million time”.

But I do feel bad for those newbies. Because after going through a smooth run with us, they’ll probably encounter a horrible PuG, in which they’ll be asked to exploit in order to win simple fights.

i didnt even know anybody did AC anymore….jesus please take me with you! i never see map calls out for it anymore :/ im most definitely willing to listen i just want to finish my armor set off.

i will agree though, the one group i got into recently….was full of level 80s who had no idea how to dodge, or kite. it was really sad and it took us three hours to finish the dungeon.

Milennin.4825:

To be honest, achievement points are a pretty bad way to judge player skill. I’ve seen players with less than 1000 play like pros, and people with 5K+ play as if it’s their first time playing the game.

I didn’t say people with less achi points are less skilled. I said they think they are newer to the game and started when experimented group players stopped explaining. So they know less about “playing together” the way some people expect.

Khal Drogo.9631:

I failed P1 at least 5 times today because
1) People who refuse to listen to instructions – a) pugs split up to kill different burrows or b) pugs come back to “help” with kiting when they don’t know how to.

2) People who refuse to listen to instructions – got all 5 scepter pieces and last guy was in combat not letting us respawn.

Guess what kind of pugs I really detest the most. And no, I gave them a few minutes and not insta RQ.

Without having been there, I can already guess how it happened. There’s no way you can fail in the same dungeon 5 times in one day all because everyone in the group was new except for you. That’s silly. The biggest problem in groups, from my knowledge, is people do not thoroughly explain anything. I run with groups of new players all the time in every dungeon and I never have problems, even in the harder dungeons. I take time to thoroughly explain all the mechanics, what needs to be done and why it needs to be done. I tell them precisely what to do and I do it with a friendly tone. And I never have any problems.

If you fail at path 1 at least 5 times in the same day in different groups; the problem has gotta be you.

Ran it with some guildies who really weren’t sure what to do… And since our Vent was broken, things should have gone a lot worse but they didn’t. Overall it actually seems easier now. Especially with Scavenger’s leaps no longer being an inescapable buggy Death sentence to anyone without Stability. Spider boss seems rather buffed now but that’s a good thing too, keeps your group from investing too much time to find out if they can hack it or not. Think we had 2 puggers as well and they were really on the ball.

Maybe it’s just your Server??

Dante.1763:

i didnt even know anybody did AC anymore….jesus please take me with you! i never see map calls out for it anymore :/ im most definitely willing to listen i just want to finish my armor set off.

I think that may be more because people have moved so heavily over to GW2LFG. I know I no longer go to zones and shout out for group members.

i will agree though, the one group i got into recently….was full of level 80s who had no idea how to dodge, or kite. it was really sad and it took us three hours to finish the dungeon.

You should have seen the run we had earlier today. I actually had to explain to the level 80 ranger how to put his pet on passive.

Actually I thought things were getting better. I had terrible experience with AC. But recently I’ve been armor token hunting for my alt and most of the PUGs that I joined did a pretty good job. But to be fair, most of the players were had 1500+ achievement points… even if that isn’t the ideal way to ascertain if a person is experienced. I had an 800 a.points guy and he did brilliantly.

I guess people learned p3 so they know what to do now. p1 is more difficult but groups that I’ve been in lately have done well. It’s just kittening Ghost Eater that I won’t go anywhere near without good players from my guild.

Having just learned to do AC i can see the problems with pugs are not the dungeon ,but the community. We all like to think AC as the next CoF speed run ,in fact it requires more skill. P1 is a pain even with those who know it. Timing is also a problem if one person stops kiting or a Elemental is not at then things slow down. Most usually with a Party wipe and players leave.

It looks as if the community is already divided and we expect professional players to do dungeons now ,which is bad.Most Pugs are bad because no one gives them a chance ,or allows them to learn. Its not WoW its Guild Wars 2 why the rush ? Enjoy and pass that experience on too others.

Dungeons are called dungeons for a purpose its not a speed racing circuit.

Ratty.5176:

You should have seen the run we had earlier today. I actually had to explain to the level 80 ranger how to put his pet on passive.

what!? how do people not know that!

codeman.3425:

Having just learned to do AC i can see the problems with pugs are not the dungeon ,but the community. We all like to think AC as the next CoF speed run ,in fact it requires more skill. P1 is a pain even with those who know it. Timing is also a problem if one person stops kiting or a Elemental is not at then things slow down. Most usually with a Party wipe and players leave.

It looks as if the community is already divided and we expect professional players to do dungeons now ,which is bad.

And the issue is also that AC is very unforgiving to any mistakes. Imo, it’s not the best place to learn how to run dungeons, even though it is supposed to be the lowest level. If one mistake is made, or 1 person gets downed too soon (say at the Spider Queen or during burrow-smashing events), it all suddenly goes downhill. So I guess it’s hard to become good at this dungeon. People who are new at it need time and instructions sure, but as said before, some people just don’t listen / ignore their party. And a lot of players like that do seem to end up in AC of all places…. maybe because it’s the first dungeon and thus everyone’s first port of call for dungeoneering, idk.

Milennin.4825:

To be honest, achievement points are a pretty bad way to judge player skill. I’ve seen players with less than 1000 play like pros, and people with 5K+ play as if it’s their first time playing the game.

People have off days. You don’t get 5k points by doing dailies and salvaging. Not every 1000 point player is bad but if you took 100 players with 0 to 1500 points and conpared their skills with 100 players with 4000 to 5000 points, you’d see a major difference in knowledge and ability. Guild wars 2 is a skill game and people with more plints have more practice. It’s pretty straitforward.

One way a person with that many points can seem bad would be if they were on an alt that just hit 80. They will play that profession poorly (unless they’re some okittend talented pro gamer, no one just picks up a profession that just hit 80 and does well with it).

In my own experience, I’ve pugged over 300 dungeon runs and have found many more liars (lying about experience with dungeon), non-chatters (people who refuse to communicate), and outright awful players when achievment points are that low.

If I want to run CoF1 with my ranger — even though I’m stacking AoE might like a monster and just melting foes — no one buys that a ranger can be powerful and I’m relagated to a group of 1k pointers who wipe on slave driver. They should learn on their own. True elitism is believeing the 3 warrior meta really makes a difference. Those people are the real problem with this game if you ask me.

You should have seen the run we had earlier today. I actually had to explain to the level 80 ranger how to put his pet on passive.

That’s not surprising, it’s not something you really do in the open world.

Look, the community either shuns players under 80 and accepts the fact this will create level 80 newbies, or it accepts that playing with lower leveled players is a part of the dungeon experience and it can start holding level 80’s to certain performance standards. We don’t get to have it both ways.

To be honest, achievement points are a pretty bad way to judge player skill.

I agree with you, Milennin.
Achievements Points are an…okay…indicator of experience, but, unlike older MMOs that’s not the alpha and omega of this game. This game has action-oriented combat, so it’s more skill-based. Somebody could be fresh off the boat and dodging like a champ because reflexes are reflexes no matter what game you’re playing.

Dante.1763:

Ratty.5176:

You should have seen the run we had earlier today. I actually had to explain to the level 80 ranger how to put his pet on passive.

what!? how do people not know that!

I don’t know.. In the end I had to go.. “DO you see a little blue icon with a white dove on it” … “Nope” .. “OK click on the Red Icon next to your pet skills until you do.”

You are just getting old. They were probably having a grand old time experiencing the path for the first time till some old grump showed up barking orders and explaining to them how bad they sucked.

“What are you doing? Stack here! STACK! Skipping. Don’t fight those! Just run through. Everybody stand on the stairs here. I will pull. Don’t move just use one.”

Way to ruin it.

Slither Shade.4782:

You are just getting old. They were probably having a grand old time experiencing the path for the first time till some old grump showed up barking orders and explaining to them how bad they sucked.

“What are you doing? Stack here! STACK! Skipping. Don’t fight those! Just run through. Everybody stand on the stairs here. I will pull. Don’t move just use one.”

Way to ruin it.

There’s no problem with people being new to encounters, however I think people should pay more attention to the icons/text on LFG and abide by them so people can find like minded groups. I sure as hell don’t want to kill Kohler and have every encounter be more difficult with repeated failures for the sake of “experiencing content” that is stale.

Zindrix. I agree with you 100%. Read the kitten post people. When it says experienced or whatever the poster wants and you join when you know you shouldnt it is you being the kitten not the poster. If you do that they have every right to yell at you.

Slither Shade.4782:

You are just getting old. They were probably having a grand old time experiencing the path for the first time till some old grump showed up barking orders and explaining to them how bad they sucked.

“What are you doing? Stack here! STACK! Skipping. Don’t fight those! Just run through. Everybody stand on the stairs here. I will pull. Don’t move just use one.”.

I have no problem with not skipping stuff or random pulls when people are experiencing the dungeon for the first time. A little exploration and mob fighting doesn’t hurt. However, what I do have a problem with and what probably most of the ppl here are complaining about, is that some players, often in PUG groups, just don’t seem to be following any instructions during vital moments than can only be solved via the well tested tactic, such as the (in)famous burrows. That event doesn’t really forgive mistakes easily.
How many times have you done the Hodgins room, with someone just ignoring the party chat, or instructions after they’ve been explained time and time again? i certainly had a fair share of those experiences. And that’s the issue with unhappy-ending-AC-pugs, not the not skipping or poorly timed pulls.

honestly?? Umm zero times that I can recall.

Usually it was always a problem of us not all being on the same page together and planning for what to do half way through. Starting on the same page in the same order is easy in that room. Actually figuring out what order to spike in and more importantly what to do halfway through when things actually get hectic…. (spread aggro and keep kiting? Or bunker around Hodgs & help the guard clear half of them??). Some people think killing them fast as possible is always the best solution without even realizing that an extra LT/Elite spawns each time (and it’s usually a Scav or Breeder). I’m guessing that if someone isn’t really good at paying attention to your F.O.O. strategy, then maybe just killing the burrows slower and stopping to mop up the old adds first might guarantee success with those players who have the overall experience & “target prioritizing” of a Ranger Pet ??

Not assuming… this is a genuine query into the psychology of these players.
Anecdotal recounts or further experiments, please?