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Pick up Groups on ProgressionFollow

#1 Nov 14 2016 at 6:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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Some observations from recent experiences:

-you do still meet some good players in pugs, and it remains a good way to get a taste of a guild's attitude (if you can manage to get in a group with a few of them).

-most people are not willing to form a group, if you are willing be prepared to deal with AFK people in lfg and those that ignore you if you aren't asking them to go to a rolling premade in the zone they want but have not specified in the LFG tool.

-some pugs don't talk at all. Kind of misses the "meet people and have fun" aspect of EQ. "All business" is fine, when a group runs like clockwork... no communication and bad pulls/stealth afkers isn't cool.

-leveling outside of the "preferred" zones 5-55 is pretty dead. Some of the popular choices make sense, though some variety is nice too in my view. Example: Dawnshroud isn't really that great, I'd much rather be in a busy Lower Guk than a busy Dawnshroud myself.

-Pugs are desperate for tanks, almost as desperate for healers

-on Phinny, especially in the 20-35 range, I found a lot of people looking for group with an "out of group" (usually chanter or druid) as the sell. I had one day where our group had a chanter, druid and cleric babysitting us... was ridiculously fast (to the point 2 people left group due to the constant pulling... burned them out after an hour).

-lfg tool is a long wait for most classes once you get above 25, you are smarter to use chat channels, and even smarter to be in one of the appropriate level zones that have heavy traffic (more likely to get an invite when you are not a 30 minute run away)

-some people will go to a zone 5-10 levels over their head and spam out of character that they are looking for group. A level 5 doesn't offer much to a group zone full of mid to upper teen players.

-despite the XP formula being 1.5 your level +1 don't expect much action outside of about a 5 level range, even guild groups are much less generous with this than back in the day (I grew up in EQ on a server where 30s grouping with low 40s was common).

-People will do really dumb things like pull 4 mobs to the group in CoM with no announcement when the group has no CC and the healer is low mana and said so, causing a full wipe. You may even get to experience this 2-3 times in an hour.

-It's amazing how many pug members will go LD permanently during a bad pull or after someone dies.

-people are scared to do nonstandard groupings (must have SK/War/Pal and a cleric... maybe try shaman/druid), and when you end up in a nonstandard group, people don't adjust. Example: a group with monk/rogue bouncing aggro as tanks and no bard/chanter/necro as CC can work, especially if the 3 other members of the group with root use it to park the adds. If they run around aggroing more mobs everytime they get hit... hard to succeed.

Guild groups are generally best is of course the old lesson. What many of us are into on Phinigel at this point is being in that "no man's land" where most of a guild is 55+. From what I have seen, casual/family guilds on Phinny could do a little better supporting their 20-40 membership (getting to 20 with the xp rate shows the character has a decent chance of being played). At 40 you can be hidden in a much higher group, and the way group XP is applied that could even be a gain even if the character does nothing.
#2 Nov 14 2016 at 5:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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Playing a rogue means you never need die when the dummy puller routes
a train to the group. It also means that you're very dependent on the active intelligence
of strangers in pick up groups.

I noticed a number of people pulling the long term AFK stunt
when I played on Fippy. I'd simply kick them and then let them off-tank adds
- I distinctly recall this happening in Kithicor Forest groups. I've zero
patience for people like that.

Pulling CoM is tricky due to odd pathing so bad pulls can be forgiven
not announcing it is unforgivable. Serial offenders should be auto /kicked.

Dawnshroud is one of the least interesting zones in the game.
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