Guild VS PUG

[Jarlaxxx]

Hey All,

I am opening this post to bring up the differences between GUILD raid groups and PUG raid groups.

I personaly believe that both have their possitives and negatives and that as long as players know what they are, they will be more open to both types.

PUG
+Personaly I like PUG raids due to the possibility of learning something new.

-Unknown player capability and knowledge of raids

Guild
+Guild groups refine a method of completion to minimize resource drain and maximize speed.

-Pompus attitudes and somewhat negative feel towards some but not all players that are not in their guild.

Please add a positive and negative if you think you can of both groups.

Jarlaxxx

[DoctorWhofan]

PuGs is all that I do, for 2+ years. I like PuGs because of the unpredictablity. Twitch skills are honed, flexiblity is excerised, openness to different stylesof play/builds is reveled, friendships are made. So when I do play with my guild, the very rare times we make up the party, I aprepared for anything.

Guild parties run smoothly because the is knowlaedge of of your party's abilities. Detailed knowledge. YOu know so and so's mixed build can or cannot get locks. Or who are the battle clerics or the enchantment casters. It makes party wipes and unnesscary deaths nil. The negative side of running with only guildies, is when you step outside that group. So when you do, you have no idea what kind of cleric/caster/rogue your partymates are. Or you assume everyone plays a nuking Sorcerer cuz your guildies do. Assumutions wcan get a party killed faster than anything. Arrogance also will. Fustration because the party doesn't run as smoothly as your guildparties causes most to say nasty things, throw "I'm better than you" attutuide around, then quit. Next thing we have is a PuG hating forum poster.


Aside to this, when I join a party of people from the same guild, that's a PuG for me. I'm not from that guild, and I am often refferred as the PuG. When more than half the party is from the same guild, it is a guild run to those guildies. IMHO

[Uamhas]

Guild:
+ Predictability
- ...Predictability

Pugs
+ Meeting new people
- ...Meeting new people

(makes sense to me)

[Xalted_Vol]

Pug

[Freeman]

To me, guild groups are for when you want to get the job done. PUGs are when you want to add a little excitement back into the game. You hardly ever see someone posting about a guild group running a quest, but I've spent a lot of time reading about the adventures people have had in PUGs. I'll still never forget hearing about a guildie's four hour Crucible PUG run. We got updates every half-hour or so. You can't find that kind of entertainment anywhere else.

[Aranticus]

listening and not listening

following and not following

known and unknown

contributers and slackers

all these can happen to both guild and pug groups. in guild groups, they get booted. in pug, they enter DNP list

[Braegan]

Guild: Everyone knows what to do to a tee. +

Pug: Rare chance I get to learn something new, 50/50 chance I group with someone who is good at what they do and look for them in the future. +

I'll just keep my post to the positive of guild vs pug...

[Renegade66]

Guild: Stormreaver aside, it's rare that Legion completes a raid without some piece of unsoliceted "advice" being thrown at one of our own. Running with the best exposes your flaws and is where you really hone your skills to perfection.

Good PUG: Where I learn new strategies and hunt new recruits. Very fun to meet folks and learn to mesh your skills with others of similar talent.

Average PUG: Good place to show-off your superior skills and teach decent players new strats and help them become better players. Provides a fun challenge versus auto-success when running within guild.

Bad PUG: Torturous waste of time. Life's too short to drag shlocks through a raid only to fail because they don't listen and manage to do something really stupid. Example, climbing up the ladder in Titan, dropping the barrier then dying because they forgot to bring cure pots. At times, I do like to join bad-PUG quests, but only if I can solo it whether they keep up or not. Real ego-builder.

[ShaeNightbird]

+ Guild: Running with friends, compatable playstyles and being able to compose a full team of people you know you can depend on. (If you're in a large guild, that is.)
- Guild: OMG, nobody else is on right now.

+ PUG: I can't say every person I've met PUG-ing has been terrible. Lately I've met some really good folks.
-PUG: Attitudes that clash really badly with mine, leading to shared misery, for I'm not one to suffer either those I consider to be fools gladly, or in silence.

The best combination I've discovered so far is a combination of Guild + what I deem a good PUG. A run I did last night was a fine example of this.
My guild, some members of an allied guild, and someone I'd never run with before. Positive experience, cut short by the lateness of the hour.

[NullWolf]

+Guild: As stated, knowledge of each others abilities / play styles. Also, sometimes more communication (sometimes not needed).
-Guild: Can get "boring"...

+PUG: Tends to be more exciting / interesting at times.
-PUG: Sometimes run into awful players... (or newbies like myself that are running the quest for the first time... ) / That one guy that has to make lewd comments when they get buffed with Bull Strength or Cat's Grace... (usually some kid.... "Wow... I've got the grace of a cat... I can lick my own [bleeps]" <- Was doing Cerulean exploration / slayer and ran into this kid... an immediate squelch / DNP happened...)

[Ministry]

+ GUILD - Ya know em and can count on them. They win with ya, die by your side and their goal is to help you get better and have fun. There is nothing like being in a great guild full of great players. I have lost count of the people that have asked me about joining Legion and I think it's great. I take it as a personal and guild compliment and so **** appreciative whenever I hear comments like that.


- GUILD - Every once in a while ya want to run on your own, with friends outside of guild and they suck ya back into their runs... which ain't always a bad thing...


+ PUGS - Too much fun. I love running with and meeting new players. You never know, you might make a new friend, learn a new tactic... This part is great. They usually have so many different ideas... some good, some bad... who cares... it's all fun. Even if it goes bad... or you meet a bad player... you can wipe your hands clean at the end of the quest, write down their name and remember em...


- PUGS - Sheer hell from a bad pug. Ya get onto one of those runs from hell where players are either bad or have bad attitudes or both and you can't wait for it to be over or a wipe so you can politely bail. Pretty much this is just some time in your life that you will never get back... oh well... The worst is when you meet one of those types of players I just mentioned who irks ya the wrong way, you get into it with them and forget just for a second that the game ain't real and your intention all along was to get out of RL for a bit and have some fun.

TY for reading...

[Varr]

Guild running offers me a satisfaction of socializing. Where there is general excitement for your socal friends betterment of character...........my friend getting a sweet raid pull is as important and satisfying as getting it myself.

For may pugs, there is a different key to me. The loot is more just about aquiring 'stuff' for my toon..........the sence of adventure and excitment comes more in the completion of the quest and the joys of killing the dq for the first time, or seeing the delving suit in a chest. So for me new players actually are the most fun to pug with personaly.

As for pugging with a group of experianced non guildies, for me the runs are more just loot runs with little joy unless they are with specific players I know and like but are not guildies. The pug with out bud's is just a way to kill time. I however care more about the unity and fun side of the game than the success loot side.

[bigpapataz]

Well I love guild runs things go smooth most of the time and have lots of fun. But I do pug a lot and its almost getting to the point that it doesn't even feels like pugging at the higher lvls. I mean how many of us have ran together over and over so its like an allied run. To me Pugs are partys that most of the people I do not know.

[Umbrage]

Guild:
+ Predictability
- ...Predictability

Pugs
+ Meeting new people
- ...Meeting new people

(makes sense to me)

Those are totally true!!

Especially the "meeting new people"

[Umbrage]

To me, guild groups are for when you want to get the job done. PUGs are when you want to add a little excitement back into the game. You hardly ever see someone posting about a guild group running a quest, but I've spent a lot of time reading about the adventures people have had in PUGs. I'll still never forget hearing about a guildie's four hour Crucible PUG run. We got updates every half-hour or so. You can't find that kind of entertainment anywhere else.

Yeah, PUGs can be very interesting. I remember a shroud run a while back where on part 4 I (playing a melee rogue) got assigned a cleric to heal me. (a fighter and barbarian were the others assigned clerics) In a guild run that would never happen. If you had 3 clerics, you'd make sure to have 3 fighters/barbarians. They can get streamlined to the point of being inflexible.

That's part of the reason why I prefer to do any new quests with a mixed group of people that haven't done it before. The first party wipe after the Mobs got Blade Barrier was awesome. Nobody complained about it, we talked about how cool the effects were.

That being said, most of the time I prefer to group with "good" people. They usually aren't all from the same guild, but they know what they are doing, and are also fun to game with.

[Jarlaxxx]

I am really appreciative for everyone’s comments.

I try to join any group that has an LFM up for the quests that I have in mind. Sometimes I might even look to see who is in the LFM but most of the time I just click if the party is looking for my type of character. I do not have the luxury of time to be able to pick and choose the quest I need or want.

For the most part I love to pug for the following reasons.

1. If I get into a group that doesn't know the quest that we are trying to do, then I help them out with knowledge of the particular quest.
2. If the group has a similar character than mine I will ask about their build and share with them how I built my guy. Then I try to out kill them. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
3. Being the one to save the party from a wipe is always fun. It’s an Ego Booster like Ministry said.
4. If I am always joining a PUG then I am not LEADING the pug. I am in charge of a lot in RL and it is refreshing to sit back and follow directions.

[Judo]

i enjoy pugs, cuz its more fun killing them, sublimely, and not getting the blame, cuz in guild groups....they know it was you