145 replies to this topic

[Osiris1975]

Skinny Pete, on 21 November 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

Let me start by saying I've read many threads like this and have finally reached my breaking point with the extra four pugs that join my team. Like always, I advise them to stay together, work as a team and tell the scouts to scout and not be a hero.

But of course, my group sticks together, the pugs run off and try to fight their own battles and we end up 4v8. It took me five games in a row. I honestly can't wait until we go to 8v8 premades.

No offense to lone wolves, but it just doesn't jive with how I like to play. To each their own.

Actually whenever I'm playing alone, I wait to see where most of the people go and then follow them.

But seriously, you are blaming PUG players for just playing the game the way they want to play it, when the real blame is with PGI. The only way to make both team-players and PUG players happy is to keep them separated. Put solo players all on the same matches, and preforms all in the same matches.

[Taizan]

Skinny Pete, on 21 November 2012 - 07:21 PM, said:

Once again, you're saying something with the confidence that your troll clan will back you up. Back on topic, I am willing to guess that the majority of the population would rather have 8v8 premades.

Nope, no clan to back me up, I'm a lone wolf and actually tried to reason - anyway - of course everyone would like to have 8vs8 matches, me included, and its not implemented at the moment, so everyone has to PUG.

I simply try to make the best of it, it won't always work but the times when it does work out are really what makes me happy about this game and seeing it through - even though many things are amiss.

[Fooooo]

Desrtfox, on 21 November 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

Preemees need to get over themselves. I've played many games, mostly pugs or small teams (2 or 3). Here's some advice. Stop being so egotistical. Follow (OMG!) one of the pugs. This way, you at least have 5 in one area.

Maybe you are insulting to the pugs, I don't know,but if you were, I wouldn't follow you just because of that.

Generally, pugs will migrate to the largest clump of players. They don't generally spread way out unless they are scouting. Pugs are as smart as you.

Make sure you take command - you know, with the map. You do know how to do that right?

Like others have said, try working with your team, not ordering them around like second class citizens.

As a mainly pub player for now, the highlighted part really works well, at least for me.

Basically 3 or 4 mechs follow me the whole match, most times they have not said a word at all so I really have no idea if they were all a group or just 3-4 random players following me, but most times (not always!) they seemed to work together well which leaned me to thinking they were a group.

Its only happened a couple of times, and sometimes I would rather follow them than them follow me (as i said, usually not a word is said), but when it happens it usually ends up 8-0.......a washout for the other team.

Edited by Fooooo, 21 November 2012 - 08:20 PM.

[Karyu]

I love (read: sarcastic version of hate) how everyone gets so hung up on the win/loss aspect of things. PUGs didn't ruin my game. People who cried endlessly about losing repeatedly and INSISTED the game adapt to them instead of them adapting to the game (VOIP/basic communication/etc) is what ruined it for me. Win or lose I don't care...8-1 rolls are just as common now as they were before, so this bandaid hasn't actually solved anything, what RUINS it for me is not being able to play with 8 other members of my 12 man company because at the end of the day, community is what keeps me interested in a game. So far this community has proven to be ****, but at least there's some good guys in my unit I would like to continue playing with.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

Lone wolf // PUG4LiF3 // +2.0 KD // Ruining your game // thread...

UPDATE:

Edited by M4NTiC0R3X, 21 November 2012 - 09:08 PM.

[SuperPuppy]

Jman5, on 21 November 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

More often than not the premade will move off to some location after communicating via VOIP and then fail to inform their PuG allies. Then they get all in a huff when their pug allies werent glued to the map to notice in time.

If you really want to be successful with PuGs perhaps adapt your play style to their strengths instead of trying to force them to conform to yours. If they are not following you to a coordinate double back and regroup with them. Too many premades refuse to interact with their teams other half.

It sounds like you and your buddies have a plan and you dont give a damn what anyone else wants to do.

Definitely true.

I PUG exclusively myself, and it's only because I want to get comfortable with the game before getting into a team (But with 8-man pre-mades gone, that's pretty much delayed indefinitely).

But I notice that outside of the "stick together, focus fire" advise (which is well and good), announcing more specific orders gives us PUGs better means of coordinating with the rest of the team.

Orders like:

• Defend F5, don't go past the ridge.
  
• Go water, rendezvous on boat

Since it's hard to know if you're rolling with a pre-made, your basic assumption until someone speaks up is that no one has a plan.

[Kaijin]

siLve00, on 21 November 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

you can always join a teamspeak.. or search for a clan/grp who is using their own teamspeak and let you join.

even rl issues dont count.. every1 can buy a 3 $ standalone micro. and dl teamspeak... if you cant talk... np just listen... even you have family issues .. there are plenty of grps who consider this and wait and stuff.


both sides got their point somehow.. but still.. i think every1 can chose the side.. i pug sometimes too because its fun.. but its fun too to play with friends.. but just because we have some good laughs..
even with 4 good ppl you run a 90% winratio.

What if you can't hear? The solution for some may be VOIP, but not for all. The solution is a more robust text communication system, configurable in Options.

[cmopatrick]

ok, i drop both ways... ts pick up groups (we meet in lfg or there are spaces in a dropship and we are told we are welcome when we check) and what is considered "pug" (i often only have 15 to 30 minutes to play and no time to wait for a team to need an extra... especially bad these days with 4 pilot cap).

i have seen (and been in) ts premades that are actually less effective than dropping into a true 8 person pug... when the 8 are experienced and competent with the mechs they are piloting. it is really only when the TACCOM is both experienced and competent or the pre actually represents an actual competitive group that they easily take all but the best comers.

what i have experienced is a fair number of matches where the "pugs" generally follow communications from the pre (if there is one)... UNLESS the "TACCOM" is bossy or needlessly arrogant. ordering people who are not, if effect, in your chain of command is useless in most situations in the real military (yes, i am a vet)... and we have a lot less leverage than the UCMJ (or whatever your country's military rules/laws are).

most pugs who have been on more than a week not only want to win, but know they do not have the skill needed to do it on their own. there are exceptions (a pilot named "codex" (sp?) comes to mind... honor is due there), but in general, positive direction with a plan in mind will help one or more of them. problem is, i have yet to find a front line pilot who types well while fighting... or scouting (i am a scout and die a lot trying to tell team where targets are and are moving). many people do not appear to know how to use "R" to lock targets, even when they are not going to engage them. premades should know better, but often let the scouts run "starburst" 3 and 7 line (most often) but never tell us we are getting cut off from the center until we have no remaining choice than to try to turn them with a cap.

a further thought that i have seen seem to improve pug cooperation is one of the pre ask about the order and have the TACCOM give it after. for those of you pugs who want to improve the chances, since many pre don't communicate much, ask if there is a pre (and if so, do they have a plan) before the counter is done.

new people are new. can we not extend a bit of patience to them? people with little time still deserve to play with a general chance of winning... and dropping mixed in with a pre at least helps there. i would actually submit that only the uber lone wolves will like all pug... they will mop the floor with anyone on the other team left alive (they do now, and at least now, there is a chance they will face a pre).

ok, that rambled, but both sides are right about some of it and wrong about the other bits... imo, of course...

Edited by cmopatrick, 21 November 2012 - 09:56 PM.

[Mavairo]

I am going to take a moment to lighten the mood here abit.

PUGs who were with me tonight, by and large thank you. We formulated working strategies, were able to change them on the fly, and coordinate with you in the process. You listened when something like "D is Primary" came up in team chat, and murdered the ever living hell out of those poor souls with us.

Since the implementation of 4 man teaming I have noticed -overall- at least during Prime Time hours, pugs are improving steadily. Whether this is simply the pugs over all becoming more experienced, or that the 4 man teams they are rolled with are starting to rub off on them abit remains to be seen.

But all the same, thank you.

It gives me hope to see Pugs that try, and pugs that work together. It means down the line there's going to be some form of Challenge for the Pre/Pugmade (Pugmades are randoms that got together, and rolled together for the rest of the night/day) teams, once community warfare and territory control hits. Which will be awesome for all of us I think. It also makes the game a HELL of alot more entertaining, when I know my opponents are actually going to try and fight properly.

[Jared Synge]

PUGS Do Ruin Games? Hmm lets see in the last three days I've played, I've tripled my victory over loss ratio, increased my k/d ratio somewhat, and have enjoyed myself quite well wiping the floor with premade teams who seem to follow the same tactic every time. Oh by the way, I pug full time and when I do get grouped with a premade team it's even better. So the crying notion that you think pugs are ruining the game may just be your inability to adapt or overcome some obstacles that seems to make you feel this way.

[Tarman]

Streeter, on 21 November 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

function command keys maybe, in game VOIP Im not so sure. Team Speak is free and takes about 5 mins to setup. I dont believe anyone wanting communication would be that lazy not to be able to set it up. They just dont want to communicate that way.

It's about what needs to be in the game in the first place so that it isn't a piece of crap. You shouldn't need aftermarket tires because your car didn't originally COME with tires. When you get a new game, do you usually go "Hrm, I wonder how much 3rd-party extras Ima need to bring this up to full capabilities"? While you personally may indeed actually do this, many people will see "Hrm, game doesn't even have ingame voice and it's almost 2013, how ghetto. Ima go play Planetside2."

PGI has created this totally-helmet-wearing divide between the playerbase that should never have existed in the first place. Zero matchmaking and caveman communication tools equals crybabies and elitists fighting. So instead of everyone fighting according to their level and playstyle, we have jerks beating up losers and nobody's happy, and the forums fill with the rage and despair of everyone.

Edited by Tarman, 21 November 2012 - 10:22 PM.

[dario03]

SuperPuppy, on 21 November 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

Definitely true.

I PUG exclusively myself, and it's only because I want to get comfortable with the game before getting into a team (But with 8-man pre-mades gone, that's pretty much delayed indefinitely).

But I notice that outside of the "stick together, focus fire" advise (which is well and good), announcing more specific orders gives us PUGs better means of coordinating with the rest of the team.

Orders like:

• Defend F5, don't go past the ridge.
  
• Go water, rendezvous on boat

Since it's hard to know if you're rolling with a pre-made, your basic assumption until someone speaks up is that no one has a plan.

This.

I only pug and I will follow plans and listen to my team. Actually the OPs name looks familiar I think he might of been telling me stuff from beyond the grave in a game last week. Might not of been him but either way it worked out well and we won. But just saying stick together focus fire doesn't really tell me much. Especially if some people don't listen and split off because then as long as I'm with somebody then I'm sticking together and I try to focus fire anyways. But giving map points and setting markers and calling a target (if able to) is a lot more helpful and will get people to listen better.

Also announce that you're in a team, yeah some people don't like the premades but I think you would get a better response from most people if they knew that you were in a 4-man team because they know that those 4 probably know what they're doing and will work together. Out of 139 matches since OB I've only seen one group announce to the team that they were a premade. All they said was "We're a premade stick with us", and everybody did.

[Blastcaps]

Dwigo, on 21 November 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

Hmm, our 4 pugs left alive had no trouble killing the other 8 enemies and we started with 6 vs 8 to begin with

had similar though we lost, we started with 7, one DCd at the start and one of the premade group crashed we were told on team chat, we lost in the end but killed 6 of the other team so 3 premade players 2 pug players (including me) and we still killed more than we lost.
Usualy at the start of a match I'll ask for one scout to go left one to go right just to find out where the other team is coming from.

and to the OP, kindly dont be an a$$ some of them pug players your complaining about will be NEW PLAYERS so their learning, not everyone started in the closed beta so they dont have a lot of experiance if any, mostly it's going to take time for the majority to get used to how things work, hell I've had to explain while spectating to some players how to setup chain fire etc or to press R to lock for lrms or that they dont work under 180m etc.

you might be getting frustrated but you still got to have pateints with new players, as someone else said EXPLAIN what you want to pug players, and use the battle grid to mark where to go, and TELL players on team chat, ie "goto D4" "hold D5" etc.

[Allekatrase]

Bluescuba, on 21 November 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

Lots of points that would make this too long...

There are so many things wrong with this. You're basically saying that only premades play the game the way it was meant to be played. I might actually agree with you right now but that's not the fault of the puggers, it's the fault of the game lacking critical features. Also, there's the huge problem of the broken reward system that rewards inactivity which results in all the farming and there's a lot of instability in the client. Even so, most of these would be weeded out by a good skill-based matching system and an in-game report button, not to mention fixing the broken reward system.

The biggest problem is the matchmaker and it's not because it matches pugs with premades. It's because it has no skill based matching and doesn't attempt to match groups against other similarly sized groups. Your points about role warfare is ridiculous. It may be true now that only a premade has the ability to coordinate that way, but this shouldn't be the case. If there was a pregame lobby you could solo queue and then coordinate roles in the lobby. Or, they could adjust matchmaking to prefer a certain combination of weight classes in the match and they could even adjust it to prefer a certain combination of weapons so that there are weapons for all ranges.

Everyone should be able to play the game the way it was meant to be played and not just premades. Get off your high horse. You're not better than the pugs, you're just using tools they're not which make up for a deficient game. And don't come back and say "well they could get in TS if they wanted to" because needing third party tools is just bad game design. All of your excuses for why premades are good are a result of the game not having key features that are already planned.

Oh, and I agree mostly about your first point. The current 4 man cap on group sizes was a bad move. The people complaining about 8 mans stomping pugs were stupid since you don't face premades that often and limiting group size to counter that was a terrible idea.

Edited by Allekatrase, 21 November 2012 - 11:21 PM.

[lordlazarus]

if pugs are that great why then is my kd ratio going thru the floor when were were dropping 8 vs 8 i had a 3.4 kd ratio since the patch where its 4 +4 group my kd ration is down to 1.4 i didnt become useless overnight so that leaves the fact that your playing with 4 randoms . the point being MORE OFTEN THAN NOT if you drop with pugs your going to face either a loss a death or a big repair bill . .

[Kell Draygo]

Players use to ezmode suddenly facing with a real challenge and instead of stepping up, they cry and complain. Good times. Now we see it isn't skill that brings them their uber K;Ds but ezmode premade for a fixed win.

Learn to play, step up to the challenge and realize it isn't easymode anymore.

[Allekatrase]

lordlazarus, on 21 November 2012 - 11:32 PM, said:

if pugs are that great why then is my kd ratio going thru the floor when were were dropping 8 vs 8 i had a 3.4 kd ratio since the patch where its 4 +4 group my kd ration is down to 1.4 i didnt become useless overnight so that leaves the fact that your playing with 4 randoms . the point being MORE OFTEN THAN NOT if you drop with pugs your going to face either a loss a death or a big repair bill . .

Wow, just wow. Your lack of logic is astounding. If having 4 of you in premade isn't enough of an advantage for you to win most matches against mostly groups of 8 random players then maybe you're not as good as you thought. You're really going to blame your K/D ratio dropping on the fact that you don't have a full 8 man premade anymore? I guess you're not as awesome as you thought and you really were just riding on the shoulders of your team.

[Alexa Steel]

@OP: well Iam a public player, I consider myself to be somewhat average and I won most of my matches because of good teamwork. Whaaaa? Teamwork in a PUG? Yes it all depends on communication and the pilots that you drop with, not all are bad, infact there are many that are quite good.
I would go even so far as to say, public players are better than most premades in SOME regards, because despite the odds they still are able to win, even without VOIP.
Lone wolves tend to excel at 1v1 fights and hit and run tactics for example.
Something that isnt really required when working in a team, you know like: "all focus fire on the atlas" boom alpha, atlas down and so forth. Tactics CAN be more complicated, but usually arent.

I played in some groups but have to say, I personally find it just boring, because the game gets much easier, I like the public challenge and the best part about that is, you dont have some Jarhead roleplaying a wannabe Clan-Star Captain breathing down your neck

Public players are the lifeblood of the game, if you dont like em, wait for phase two. You wont change the way PUGs want to play, simple as that.

Edited by Alexa Steel, 22 November 2012 - 12:42 AM.

[Greers]

If I drop in a team (I do about 40% PUG) we communicate our usual tactics. If we see the PUGs not following them we ADJUST out tactic. It's as easy as that: we are on TS3 and we are able to quickly adjust because of that!

If you (OP) just ignore the actions of the PUGs and continue your (now failing) tactics it's your fault you loose, not the PUGs! You have the means to adapt (Voice) so use it.

Imagine a real world General ignoring the actions of his troops (getting stuck on hard ressistance, routing...) and just continues as planned. He'd fail miserably, cause the "Real World" ist not like his planning predicted.

If you see your PUGs getting slaughtered somewhere they should not be you got two choices: ignore that fact (and loose because of 4:8) or try to help them and MAYBE loose (you're 8:8 now), because its not the perfect tactic. My hint: try the latter

[Salticidae]

I try and guide the pugs that drop with us but none listen...... Something to do with them all being AFK!!!!!

Edited by Zyne, 22 November 2012 - 01:13 AM.