I don't mind PUG's, but boy do I hate FPUG's.
Confused? Good, mission accomplished. Let's decode what I mean.
There is a subtle difference between a PUG and a FPUG on paper, but they are worlds apart in practice.
The abbreviation "PUG" refers to a "pick-up group," or a party/raid that is formed amongst several people that are unfamiliar with each other at the onset of the task. A PUG could be a 5-man party where 1 of the 5 was fished out of trade chat to fill a role, or it could be 5 people who met through the LFG channel and decided to trek into an instance together. As long as the group is not formed completely of people from the same guild, or it's not a pre-arranged meeting between the people involved, it can be considered a PUG.
A "FPUG," or "f!@$ing pick-up group," is the same thing, with one caveat. Not only do those involved not know each other, but in addition, they have no idea what they're doing. The term FPUG speaks to the ability of those involved as well as their knowledge of the encounters they're about to face. For example, a PUG setting up to battle Patchwerk would sound like this:
Raid Leader: Which tank is taking hatefuls?But a FPUG would sound like this:
Tank 1: I'll do it.
Healer 1: I'll watch the hateful tank
Raid Leader: All right, get your buffs up, pulling in 10 seconds.
Raid Leader: H'okay, so what does this guy do?See the difference?
Tank 1: Not sure, I think he might hit hard.
Healer 1: Should I use big heals or flashes for this?
DPS 1: Isn't there an enrage timer on this guy?
Tank 2: My shield wall isn't up yet, give me a few minutes for the cooldown?
Raid Leader: Let me go read the strat on this, one sec.
Me: Great, we're so screwed... oh wait, was that out loud?
In the first situation, everyone knows how it works. People just need to be assigned any encounter-specific tasks and then they're ready to roll. In the second situation, people roll up to a boss and then go "crap, what do we do? Let's have everyone babble over Ventrilo until we hammer out a solid-sounding strategy and pull 30 minutes later."
... okay, so I'm a little bitter. Over the weekend I tried to PUG 25-man Naxx and ended up in a FPUG that took over an hour just to clear to Instructor Raszuvious, and then the raid leaders were looking up Wowwiki strats when we got to him, taking another hour to hammer out the working strategy and wipe a few times to give the priests some work with mind-controlling. The icing on the cake is that I was one of the first dead every attempt, even on the kill. Why? Because the priests didn't do smooth mind-control transitions. I ended up tops on Instructor's aggro during the gaps in the tank rotation, leading to my quick and painful demise.
Such is the life of the top-DPS'er in a FPUG. You get very intimate with the floor of an instance.
2 hours, 1 Emblem of Valor, and a lost loot roll. I shoulda just farmed honor. Friggen fail-pile FPUG's...
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2 comments:
This is one of the reasons i never did PvE content in BC unless I had to (Many heroic SV runs for the hypogryph, etc).
It also doesn't help that because I don't do much PvE the first couple times I run an instance I don't know what's going on.
Fortunatly I know how to take direction and also know how to play my class which is obviously lacking in your example
"Healer 1: Should I use big heals or flashes for this?"
UGH... once I was running a heroic with a tank all in greens, he didn't seem to have the pulling or threat mechanics down. Another guy in the raid had to teach him druid tanking mechanics on the fly.... we barely made it thru after it taking 3x as long as it should have.
I look at a group as kind of a 3 strikes rule
Strike 1 - Don't know the content
Strike 2 - Don't know what to do with your class
Strike 3 - Undergeared people
One strike is OK, two is painful, three and you'd better get out of the group.
.. all i can say to you guys is that it's a game, relax. Not everyone is up to your level. If you want your level of PUG, you should ask for that pug or group with your friends. a PUG is what it is, a PUG.
People have to start somewhere and for most of these people who don't have much time to play, all they could do is PUG. You are lucky to have more time to enjoy the game and with, most of the time, your friends.
The only FPUG rule for me is if they don't know but don't listen. if they tried, it's all good.
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