Guild Wars 2

Dear GW2 community,

There seems to be an ongoing trend where people who have no clue what to do join groups asking for exp players. See I am a nice guy and try to help out these people even though they shouldn’t have joined in the 1st place…yet when you die because of something you didn’t know and then want to kitten because nobody told you about it…expect to be kicked.

If you have no clue what to do try and avoid “exp only” groups and maybe make your own group including all or join a guild that helps teach people the dungeon paths. I know many are out there and heck my guild taught me and I have taught many people as well. Yet when I have limited time I like to run a nice smooth dungeon path and not explain every encounter so please respect my LFG post when I ask for exp players only.

Not trying to be a kitten just please read lfg posts before you join them

Thank you for your time.

Reading is simply too hard for 90% of LFG users. I was trying to sell CM p3 last night and all I got were people who randomly joined parties in order to find a group. Ended up in me giving the tokens away to friends instead.

Yeah sadly it is something that is a big issues in this game…Idk how many times my post has clearly said P1 or something and then we get in and someone selects P2 and then wants to kitten saying “LFG said P2” when I made the lfg myself so I know what I put and everyone else put p1 during selection time.

Idk how hard it is to take a few seconds to read the generally 4 words in the post before selecting join

While I’m always happy to take in newbies (that are willing to learn) in dungeons, I have to agree with the OP here; please read the LFG description before joining a group. If you do not meet their requirements, don’t waste their time and yours.

When I say P1 LvL 80 EXP only…the P1 generally means path one explorable as if you are doing story you just say Story.

I was looking for someone to fill an empty slot in aetherpath, so I put “aetherpath experienced”. As I got more and more people that had never done the path, didn’t speak at all, etc, I progressively added to description of the LFG because I was stubborn. It ended up with something like “aetherpath experienced. (EXPERIENCED). But really, be experienced and have done this before. Reading at a second grade level required.” Only then did I finally get someone that had done the dungeon before.

Generally, I find the lengthier and more descriptive your LFG post is, the better calibre of players you’ll get. Not sure why that is.

Exp = exploitable.

They know well wat Exp means, they will join and won’t make their own party for unexperienced, simply because they want to “exploit” experienced players to carry them to the end, rather than go through a two hours long run that could as well fail. We veterans, who back back then (Over 1 year ago) had to get our experience the hard way, being ALL unexperienced, having to forge strategies ourselves and hit our teeth hard into these paths; the newbies of nowadays instead, simply claim everything to be done and served to them. If it doesn’t happen, they insult you even.

Francis.9415:

Pip.2094:

They know well wat Exp means, they will join and won’t make their own party for unexperienced, simply because they want to “exploit” experienced players to carry them to the end, rather than go through a two hours long run that could as well fail.

I don’t think its an exploit, rather an option. They just choose not to care on what you post but for sure they understood it.

But if I force a person to give me help despite said person didn’t offer it to me and even denied it to me by saying “exp only”, I am exploiting that person in a way…

Words in the wind my friend, PuGs just don’t read, no matter how much your master the arts of “LFG description” ppl don’t read, forget reading the forums and guides.
Even if you are willing to take newbies, they just don’t wanna read and learn. can’t help those who don’t want to help themselves.

While heaps of players ignore the LFG descriptions, typing ‘experienced’ rather than ‘exp’ might stop the occasional player who thinks ‘exp’ = ‘explorable’.

frifox.5283:

Exp means explorable mode

Skweak.7392:

While heaps of players ignore the LFG descriptions, typing ‘experienced’ rather than ‘exp’ might stop the occasional player who thinks ‘exp’ = ‘explorable’.

I can confirm that most people think “exp” means EXPLORE, not EXPERIENCE. It’s pretty annoying really, most of the time they will even ignore you if you try to explain to them that they’ve joined the wrong group.

Not to mention there’s people who don’t know what AP means, so saying something like 5k+ only, means absolutely NOTHING to them, and they’ll happily ignore it and join with 800 AP.

To be honest, everyone has already figured out what kind of people join groups labelled as “exp only”. Any decent player avoids using “exp” in their LFG description. Same for AP requirements, by the way.

Then there’s the vagueness of the word “Experienced” as well:

See, some people have a rather generous assumption as to what “Experienced” mean. They think that having run TA up once, CoF p1 umpteen times and maybe a failed bout or two at AC (Either path) makes them “Experienced” at dungeons Over All. Including the dungeons they have never once ran before, but their logic goes “Hey, I’ve run other dungeons before, how different can it be?”.

And then we have those who think “Experienced” is all about knowing your Profession, and they know exactly how to play their Cleric Guard. In WvW. While staff-camping. For Swiftness.
Or they run their Terrormancer in PvP and “win every solo queue they join”, so obviously their build is the bestest of best in every practically applicable scenario ever created.

And last but not least, the typical 5-7k AP people who have played since launch, but never got around to doing a lot of dungeons for whatever reason. But hey, they’ve got a years worth of playtime, of course they’re “Experienced”.

I find that posting zerker speed run / gearcheck / melee only / ‘some quirky description’ works for finding like minded players who are (hopefully) in meta, and generally know the dungeon well enough. Have mostly avoided exp only groups with no requirements.

“exp” is subjective, I recently joined an arah group who said “exp only”. We got to lupi and they ranged lupicus and didn’t dodge grubs so i had to keep running to them and killing the grubs. I considered them bad players however I can’t deny they were experienced at ranging and had obviously done lupicus several times, you need to be more precise about what “experienced” means as it is a subjective word which means different things to different people.

I’ve had more success with “know the path”, then “exp” or even “experienced”. Some people take experienced in a more general sense, meaning “not noob, know your class” or something like that. When I ask people explicitly to know the path, even if I do get retaliative newbies they tend to be ones who have read/watched guides – and I’d rather have ones that are trying then ones that want to get carried by “exp” groups.

I have experienced pretty good success by opening the description with: “Read first: insert requirement list”.

Also, I agree with using the phrase “know the path,” it is much better and there is no experience/explorable confusion.

I use “Experienced Melee Zerkers” these days- That way noone can says they missunderstood my LFG text.

The other thing to consider is that you have a total of 24 characters(that includes spaces) to say everything you need to say in the party description. You can type more but that isn’t going to show up in the LFG description unless the reader hovers over each description.

well, it is how u define exp. R u exp if u did it once b4? Anyways if u want to ensure a speedrun, gear check every1

^ This. The dead silence of ‘I-want-to-be-carried’, or ‘I-don’t-speak-English’.

Iris Ng.9845:

^ This. The dead silence of ‘I-want-to-be-carried’, or ‘I-don’t-speak-English’.

At least if they were honest I’d feel a little bit better. What they don’t know is continued silence is a sure way to get ejected from the dungeon if I’m there.

As for the language barrier, well that’s a tough one I don’t want to just kick people for that but you know that problem makes it hard to communicate. Dungeons are about cooperation

Exp in lfg note generally denotes explorable mode to distinguish it from story. If you want to say experienced you’ll probably have to say the full word and also mention whether or not it is explorable or story or people will be confused.

I have seen some that present themselves as not fluent in English just to avoid questions and communication. It isn’t hard to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Here we go. Here is another edition of Chuck’s Arah LFG posting.

“VERY EXPERIENCED. Meta Builds. Melee everything. Ping Gear. Will be quizzed”

I’ll give you one example question:
Q: “What hand does lupi try to slap you with?”

If gear is right, and answer is correct. Then you go ahead and proceed my little friend.

If you say for example, “lfm p3 exp only” when you say the path number that should be obvious enough that you’re talking about explorable mode. There’s no such thing as Story Mode Path 3. To say path 3 explorable would be redundant.

That being said, the more painstakenly descriptive you are, the more likely people are to understand what you mean.

That also being said, I had a post saying “need WARRIOR” and got a ranger, then necro, then ele, then mesmer join. Finally we gave up and removed the ‘need warrior" and behold! A warrior joined. Gotta love it.
On the other hand, I’ve had groups with my not serious friends saying “casual run, all welcome, killing everything” and people join expecting a speed run and kittening when something takes longer than it’s “supposed to”

I know the feeling :/

I am more than happy to help someone that is “new” to the dungeon if they are upfront with it and say they are “new” But i will always kick noob scrubs that join our party pretending to know what that are doing.

Language isn’t necessarily a deal breaker though. The other night I was doing Fractals with 2 Chinese players who didn’t speak a word of English. It was obvious they hadn’t done the Thaumanova fractal before, but they picked up on what we needed to do at Subject Six and the cannon room pretty quickly. (We had to 3 man the Anomaly due to them falling through the floor, but at least they know what to do for the future. )

I just assume that there is a high chance upon posting an ad on the LFG that the people who join will have the mental capacity of a toilet seat.

I join whatever I want.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Here we go. Here is another edition of Chuck’s Arah LFG posting.

“VERY EXPERIENCED. Meta Builds. Melee everything. Ping Gear. Will be quizzed”

I’ll give you one example question:
Q: “What hand does lupi try to slap you with?”

If gear is right, and answer is correct. Then you go ahead and proceed my little friend.

A: its a trick question he doesnt slap you he kicks you. and with my PVT gear and can tank that kitten so do i pass?

now for the elitist response- clearly you dont know lupi! its an uppercut not a slap. google the difference and link you gear 1st before i rage quit

I joined an “exp” CoE-group yesterday. Two of the guys came in and, when we saw them running around like beheaded chickens, they said they had 3k AP and therefore were experienced at killing things, but did not know what this dungeon was about. “Thank you for participating but we’ll spend 5 more minutes to get really experienced guys.”

It’s always great when you see an “exp” group with 2 Wars/Guard and an Ele and think “oh boy, this could be a good group, an Ele in that comp? But be a might stacker!” … nope, just bought for Fiery Exploit Sword.

Iris Ng.9845:

^ This. The dead silence of ‘I-want-to-be-carried’, or ‘I-don’t-speak-English’.

This. 100% this. Nothing makes me want to kick a PuG harder than their blatant refusal to respond.

It’s baffling really. There are 5 people in the party…I can see them. How can they think they will hide and avoid me?

I generally don’t mind if we have to fill a spot and someone is a decent player but just not highly experienced in the dungeon. I can work with that. I cannot work with a non-responder though.

lets be honest, there is no difference in an lfg with p3 or p3 exp only, p3 speed run, p3 whatever. the 1 might fill faster than the other but your still getting randoms. GEAR CHECK and stop moaning like little bithces

Iris Ng.9845:

^ This. The dead silence of ’I-want-to-be-carried’, or ’I-don’t-speak-English’.

I may not have shown it, but I am very intolerant of anything that reeks of stupidity, especially pugs that don’t respond to me even when it’s blatantly obvious I’m addressing them.
*sigh* If only I wasn’t so softhearted, but that’s not to say I won’t give an idiot the boot if he repeatedly fails to synergise, or if I find his attitude lacking.

Raven.3248:

lets be honest, there is no difference in an lfg with p3 or p3 exp only, p3 speed run, p3 whatever. the 1 might fill faster than the other but your still getting randoms. GEAR CHECK and stop moaning like little bithces

Gearcheck is so 2013. I’ve been pugging to level my sub-80 alt, not for gold. The meta build gear check thing just ruins my immersion. That said, communication is the most important in pug, regardless being experienced.

Raven.3248:

lets be honest, there is no difference in an lfg with p3 or p3 exp only, p3 speed run, p3 whatever. the 1 might fill faster than the other but your still getting randoms. GEAR CHECK and stop moaning like little bithces

^ This! Pugging dungeons will always RNG bad to skillful players. The only thing good about putting exp in your lfg post is that it will have an increased in better players that’ll join.

I’m always a bit baffled at LFG descriptions. The idea of showing the entire player base “this group will be amazing for a PUG, but don’t join it unless you’re amazing” will surely attract every person imaginable.

Get over it and stop playing PUG if you don’t like PUGs?

The only specifications I make in my dungeon advertisements are “L80” when I don’t want to deal with non-max level players. At least by advertising like that I don’t feel bad kicking a lowbie if only because they didn’t read. Other than that, what really matters to me is that they communicate; if they refuse to talk to me or answer a question, it’s a no-go.

Sometimes to ensure a pug has read my lfg I will ask that they name their favorite colour/food etc. on join. If they don’t within 15s I kick them given that they did not follow party requirements/instructions as designated by the LFG. This typically results in a kittenstorm, but my pug groups are typically good. Forming zerk only ping on join groups also weeds out the illiterate (if you want a good laugh you can also form a ping gear on join group, and then quickly feel terrible about the state of the average player in this game).

Honestly when I see EXP it doesn’t mean anything.

Like an example recently is this arah post: “P3 Experienced DPS only. At lupi. noob-boot”

Summary of that group run:

- People didn’t dodge grub
- Warrior (who made group) got down on phase 1 by lupi kick
- Phase 2 not enough dps from 2x warrior + 1 thief to get to 3rd phase after Mesmer feedback (2 grub stack, 0 sigil stack since Mesmer join at lupi)
- Warrior demanded range for some reason because when this warrior + two other friends couldn’t deal enough dps (note group asked for dps)
- Phase 3 Warrior (instance owner) demanded everyone range
- Same person causes Lupi to bubble team and then this person proceeded to kick people due to death even though the warrior was the worst player in the group

Experience can mean simply knowing what is going on. It is very subjective. Then there are post like this Arah p3 post where it is obvious that the people who made the group do not have what they are asking for. I find that most post with “exp lvl 80” are fine but when you start adding things like dps, ping gear, or something along those lines I find that they are filled with toxic players and players who think they are “good” when they aren’t. To contrast this run, I puged with DnT with someone who was completely new to arah and we cleared the path significantly better than this group who posted this p3 run.

Point: Don’t trust postings most people exaggerate their own skills.

Arah is where my kicking is on rampage. And I still ask pug to ping gears though

happens on a daily base : lfm arah p3 exp, 4k ap+, gear check!
aaaaaand a lvl 79 warrior with 900ap joins …..
there is nothing wrong about joining groups, and im not the a**hole who says gtfo noob nobody wants you, id rather help the people and explain how things work. but sometimes you are just not up for explaining stuff and taking 2hrs for every run. so for gods sake, if people search EXP, pls just join when you have exp

I’m not sure what you guys are talking about, pugging arah is nice.
1. Post for DPS exp only
2. Party fill up quick
3. Wait for PUG’s to die
4. Solo

I had 2 odd experiences where my party got mad at me solo’ing lupicus because they wanted to participated and kicked me (sorry if you can’t kittening dodge lupicus kick)