Patch 3.3 Makes PUGing Easier

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Back at Blizzcon we received an announcement from the devs that they were implementing new ways to reduce the wrath of the “additional instance” boss, which was already in place on many realms at the time of the convention. As many of you may have noticed this seems to have gone off pretty well and I think at least for now the instance door boss has been put down. Lets hope his respawn timer doesn’t come back up anytime soon, but so far so good. People have been able to farm Headless Horseman to their hearts content and daily heroics don’t see us spending 45 minutes waiting to just zone in.

At the con they also announced that they were going to refine the LFG system as well as add in cross server LFG capabilities to the game. Well in patch 3.3 PTR we are seeing the beginnings of the system. I for one am incredibly excited and can’t wait to see how this feature shapes up. As it stands you can use the system to go into a completely random group, or you can party up with a couple people and random the rest. You can choose your spec or role that you can fill just like in the current LFG system, but now you have the option of assembling a completely random group from different servers, and you get an option to sign up to lead the rag-tag band of misfits you aquire. As a reward you’ll receive a number of Frost Emblems and a helping of gold for your time and trouble. That alone is a good incentive to use the system as money and badges are always a good thing.

For me the biggest draw of this is the cross server interaction. They put that together for us back in an attempt to balance out Battle Grounds (which more or less worked but that’s a topic of debate for another day). Now the idea of being able to go directly to the instance with people pulled from the other servers of my battle group excites me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a group ready to go but missing a tank, and there were none to be found. I just imagine a tank on another server unable to find a group kicking his can around wondering why no one wants to play with him. With this new system, the problem is lessened in theory. With the amount of badges we’ll likely need when Icecrown drops this will help ensure you’re able to find a group.

In a nutshell this will help eliminate those times where you’re sitting around for hours waiting for a group to do something. Just hit a button and shortly thereafter you’re off on a new adventure.

This is also important because there are also plans to use this for raids as well, at least the random group part, but not the cross realm part. Right now the interface for it is buried in the PTR (you can dig and find if you like). This is good for people like me with an army of alts. There are a ton of raids I would love to run on my hunter, like I would love to run her through naxx, but I can never find a group. This would also help struggling guilds that are having trouble filling in the last couple slots of their roster for a raid, just pop open the tool and find a few more folks to join in the fun.

I’m really excited about this feature and I think it will open up a lot more of the game for many people. It will allow greater accessibility to the content of the game for people that otherwise might not have been able to see it.

What do you think? Like it? Hate it? What do you expect from it? Will you use it?

That’s all for today, until next time Happy Healing!

Sig

Image borrowed from wow.com

33 thoughts on “Patch 3.3 Makes PUGing Easier”

  1. My concern with the system is how it will deal with idiots. Just because someone hit 80 doesn’t mean they are ready to tank a heroic, but what is to stop them from clicking “tank”? Or what about someone who just hit 80 with their ret pally and clicks “healer” even tho they have no holy spec? The others won’t know until they are all ported to the instance, and that will waste a lot of time.

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  2. Can’t wait! Also sometimes I’ll be wanting to do a dungeon/raid at an offl-time. You know, like 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning. Hopefully this new system will make it easier to get a random group together. I’m excited about the posibilities!
    .-= nevis´s last blog ..Somepug wants in… =-.

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  3. I think it is an interesting idea, but I’m not sure how much it will help in reality. It seems to me that most of the time, groups are held up because they can’t find a tank or a healer while DPS classes are a dime a dozen. I sort of think the same problem will exist even with cross-realm LFGs. People are only going to go to the cross-server LFG if they can’t already find a group on their realm. Since most tanks and healers have an easier time finding groups, I believe the cross-server queue is going to be full of bored DPS classes.

    However, I can see more merit in cross-realm raids. Putting aside the obvious issues, such as skill, gear and communication, it would be much easier to fill raid spots. Supposedly this is also currently on the PTR.
    .-= Verile´s last blog ..Hooray a New Fishing Contest! =-.

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  4. @foop but right now it’s the same thing. You take the same exact risk when you invite someone to a pug group or if you yourself go to a pug group with unfamiliar people. So not much changes on that front.

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  5. I’m pretty excited about it from a leveling perspective. So few people want to run lower level instances and old school raids these days that being able to pull on that limited resource across all servers will finally make those things possible.

    I’m not on the PTR, so I don’t know the details of how this will work, but while I’m excited for the potential, I don’t know that I like how some of it sounds. It sounds like you enter the queue to fill your selected role(s) and then it throws you in once a full group has been found. It sounds like you have no control over that at all, so you could easily wind up in a group full of complete morons and have no control over who gets in.

    Or let’s say you find an excellent group and would really like to run with them again, so you enter the queue together hoping you’ll get matched up a second time in a row, but instead you find yourself with a whole new group of people. It sounds a lot like blind speed dating if you look at it.

    If it pulls up a list for the leaders to choose from then it’s all good, but after seeing so many fail groups in battlegrounds, I can’t say I’m especially thrilled if this is going to end up working the same way.
    .-= Psynister´s last blog ..Paladin Tanking: Level 80 =-.

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  6. My only concern is grouping RP servers with PvE/PvP servers – my battle group is already pretty tough on folk from the lone RP server that it’s part of, so I’m hoping that Blizz eventually re-formats the groups based upon server type. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to this feature. I already have a developing army of 80s, and not having to rely on friends and guildies to gear them will be a plus (I have a hard time filling pugs, it seems).
    .-= Matojo´s last blog ..Cross-Server LFG, Eh? =-.

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  7. I just pray that they allow us NOT to use it.

    I’m on a quite strong and progressed alliance raiding server. Not all pugs are good but odd’s are just checking the guild name /who randomperson I can be assured a capable person, who has reputation to protect thus wouldnt be a ninja, or just lazy.

    I really dont feel like scraping the bottom of aggramar’s barrel or something for pugs no one wants because blizzards new LFG thinggy matches us.

    I’m suspecting /trade will become more use around my parts.

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  8. Sounds interesting, only i get a feeling that if this gets implemented for raids, it will definitively be a giant blow to guilds as a concept.

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  9. I dont think getting the one random terrible kid will be much of an issue for doing just plain heroic farming. I healed a group last night with no dps over 1.8k and we did 2 heroics without a death.

    Doing this for any raid, even naxx 10, is a little scary though. One or 2 terribles in a naxx 10 would suck.

    I’m optimistick, but guarded about the whole thing.

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  10. You bring up a good point about the cross-server LFG for old school instances/raids. But I wonder if they will allow a lvl 80 to queue for instances not of their recommended lvl range. Say a lvl 80 wants to do BWL or AQ40 for fun or for the achievement because they had never played WoW during the vanilla wow age. At this time a lvl 80 cannot queue for anything 4-5 lvls under them. I hope they allow queuing for all instances with this new system.

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  11. I am a bit concerned actually that people will use it too much. Right now one of the best ways I know to make new contacts for potential future non-guild runs (groups with people I know and trust but is really just a pug) is to join pugs, check people out, see how it goes, and add them to my friends list.

    If everyone starts using this system I will forever be random pugging because I can’t ever count on finding the same people again.

    Also, does anyone know if it allows you to search your own relam as first priority? That might help with my concern a little bit.

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  12. I, additionally, am incredibly excited for this new system!

    @Foop has a totally valid point. Sadly, we have to deal with “less than desireable” players a lot, regardless of the level of content. However, it’s very possible that Blizzard could implement a mechanic to read the person’s spec (and even off-spec) to see if it’s viable. There are addons already that can tell you where the bulk of someone’s talent points lie, so it shouldn’t be too hard to focus on that.

    @Verile: Although your experience may be a wealth of DPS classes, I’ve been in LFG for a daily heroic or a popular heroic as a healer for hours. Sometimes there are situations where there’s too many tanks, or too many healers.

    Also, consider this: another great recruitment tool. Now people looking to maybe transfer servers actually have a chance to experience some real gameplay with guilds on other servers! A new system of “test driving!”

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  13. I’m not on the PTR at the moment, but with the proof of demise achieves becoming feats of strength, will the random pug be the only way to get frost emblems? If so, that sucks pretty hard, since I have a regular group of 4 other people I run dungeons with, and we can’t exactly ask someone to sit out just so we can have a ‘random’ group. Can anyone clarify on how ‘mandatory’ this will be? Supplementing the raiding of ToC-10/25 with heroic dailies has been a good source of triumph emblems for me, and it would kinda suck if that was taken away.

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  14. So I can see how this is a great idea if you don’t have a guild, but my concern is how this is going to affect guilds with strong community spirit? All of a sudden we’re being punished for grouping with our friends? If I go with a bunch of random people I get emblems and goodies. If instead I follow the loading screen advice of “Play with your friends” I get nada?

    Blizz needs to have a rethink on this.

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  15. Bubbles/Addedsparkle: The ‘random daily’ emblems apply to selecting a random dungeon, even if you made the group entirely from your guild. So this isn’t a punishment; it does sound like you will get a different amount of gold depending on how many people you ‘random’ (and the achievement is only for ‘random’ groups), but the emblems are part of the quest that you get based on picking a random dungeon, even with people you know.

    Lodur: They have said (at Blizzcon, and since) that the raid LFG will not be cross-realm. The replacement is obviously a replacement for the *existing* raid LFG. It has some obvious improvements — being able to list yourself for more than three raids is obviously super-win — but the weekly raid quests make it pretty clear that they’re not going with the ‘run a random raid with random people’ for that.

    Elnomore: It doens’t look like they’re adding this, though it is now possible to add yourself in to LFG for all the LK normal dungeons. (So they made the range wider, but didn’t make it not apply at all.)

    Verile: There is no *non* cross server LFG anymore. the only LFG is the cross-server one.

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  16. @christopher You are right and (much to my own embarrassment) chalk that up to me not being able to read my own damn handwriting lol. I was at the con and wrote all this down for later posts and was going off that.

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  17. @christopher so we can get the emblem but not the gold or the achievement for playing with our friends instead of complete strangers? Great 😛 Still feels like Blizz urging people to forget guild loyalties.

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  18. @AddedSparkle: Look at it this way. If you still get emblems for running with your guild, that’s pretty much a key bonus for most people. There are still numerous ways to earn gold. I believe (read: my speculation) is that Blizzard, by upping gold rewards for the ‘random groups’, is effectively saying, “This group has the chance to really suck. If you survive the torture, here’s your just reward. Consider it as a chance to trigger a “hard mode heroic” LoL!!

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  19. Matticus said: “As for how to deal with questionable players, there is a new feature added where players can vote kick off other people.

    It is glorious.”

    Hmm, how long before people start using this to kick other people in a griefer way? 4 friends + random, kick the random for lolz when the last boss is at 20%.

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  20. Matticus said: “As for how to deal with questionable players, there is a new feature added where players can vote kick off other people.

    It is glorious.”

    I wonder if this will just contribute further to people being jerks – zomg you pulled under 2k dps, boot. It would be nice if there was an ability for an undergeared person to mark themself as undergeared or newly 80 and somehow avoid the overgeared jerks of which there are some hanging around on my server at least.
    .-= ascian´s last blog ..The gaming silly season =-.

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  21. In my opinion, it could be the first step to the funcionnality I am really waiting for : playing with friends that are on another servers (impossible rightnow, impossible with the coming patch as random selection).
    Have you never discuss with irl friends at schoold/work and wanted to make some 5-men instance for fun or to test each others ? Rightnow it’s impossible unless all people to reroll on the same server.
    It could be the end target *hope*

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  22. IS there a place where there are tanks kicking their cans wondering why nobody wants to play with them?

    My boyfriend’s a level 80 prot pally and he gets twenty excited whispers the minute he logs on.

    Won’t this just flood everyone with excess DPS and there will be no more tanks to go around than there were before?
    .-= Rhii´s last blog ..Myrhani the Hallowed =-.

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  23. What about the Wintergrasp Buff you get for your faction controling Wintergrasp. I’m still wanting to farm some of those shards for the BoA gear that can be purchased with them. Will I still have that buff if the random pug group leader doesn’t have the buff on his realm? Will the players who have the buff from their realms only get the shard drops and the other group members without it not?

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  24. Hmm…

    The current system have the big drawback, that you can only pug players from your own server. When it comes to less disereable instances or low-level instances, this will be great.

    But the system we have now, have found it’s way of pugging in some sort of the other.
    On my server very few random pugs are made (yoink in everything that wants to come along), either they are carefully made by checking gear and talking to people, or made like this :”link achi and wow-heroes score min. 5000″.
    One is slow the other stinks. But it works.

    Being in a small guild, that often have to pug our raids, I am pretty sure we will not use the “random”-mode. We want a reasonable gear-level AND reasonable players behind them – Do not want any asshats to ruin our fun!

    And of course there will be griefers in this system as well.
    Just combine it with the freshly added need/gree/DE system and picture all the fun.

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  25. You know, it wouldn’t be too hard I would think to really make this useful.

    Add a criteria for the raid/group leader – where they could:
    1. Enter a minimum gear score (but which system to use?)
    And/OR
    2. “Require achievement” to only allow those that have the achievement for said raid…

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  26. I’m looking forward to this change as an individual player. PUGging dungeons to meet new folks, have a bit more challenge with unknown agents, get extra gold an emblems? All sounds good… for me.

    I do have some concerns from other points of view, though. Firstly, I know some people who are not comfortable with PUGging, for their own reasons – usually to do with experiencing unlucky/bad PUGs in the past. So what happens here if they join a PUG, something goes wrong or they don’t get on with it for whatever reason. They have a bad time and waste the day’s chance at the daily?

    Also, the feeling of competition which I’ve spoken about in other posts may be increased with this feature. Cross-realm PUGs – great, chance to meet new people. Also a chance for some players to prove their imbaness in an anonymous environment and potentially pick on others who don’t ‘do as well as them’ for whatever reason – possibly incite an unfair kick vote from the rest of the group. Not great on confidence for anyone.

    Last but not least – I can see the merit of filling raid spots using this system. But my guild likes to keep a rapport and friendship going with our PUGgers. I’m guessing that’ll be nigh impossible cross-realm, unless there’s some method implemented in game to communicate with and reinvite players cross-realm.
    .-= Mimetir´s last blog ..Juddr: @mattycus Carefully. And not while wearing plate armour. =-.

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  27. In general, I like the idea.

    Only real doubt is if it wouldn’t make ninjas and “misbehavior” more common – as they would be less scared of losing reputation when playing with people from different realms.

    i.e. in battlegrounds I already meet players from reputable guilds on my realm afking and leeching, refusing to teamwork, cheating for the other faction to help a friend for achievements, being rude and obnoxious etc.
    It’s the same people that would be nice and perform well if you were pugging a raid or heroic with them: just in cross realm battlegrounds don’t feel compelled to behave.

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  28. Just a few comments for all you elitist commentators.

    Everyone has to start somewhere!

    I have a level 80 Rogue, with the best gear gold can buy. I say buy because if you have not done an instance before, you will not get accepted into one to try it for the first time.
    He is absolutely useless to me. He just makes things, food, armour and weapons for the lower level characters I am playing. And I only play them until they stop getting accepted into parties.
    I can understand needing certain achievements, and higher quality gear to be successful in higher instances and raids. But, how do you get them if they won’t let you into a group?
    The highest instances I have been able to do with him are ones that he can solo.
    After a certain level, you may well have the required gear and achievements, but if you have not already completed said instance before, no group will accept you.

    I can appreciate you have to be an elite player to succeed in the highest raids and dungeon, because you might be able to carry one less than ideal player, but anymore and you all lose. But how can you get that experience if you can’t get into a group because you have not done the instance before.
    It ruins what is a very good game. So if they are going to have completely random groups, they need to build into the automatic selection criteria that they have the necessary gear and achievements. That way if you have not got what is required, you won’t spoil it for everyone else. Plus if you have not done it before they can’t fob you off with an elitist attitude.

    Now before you start having a go at me:

    You have to be an elite player to succeed at the highest levels of the game. So an elitist attitude is necessary to succeed.

    However at the lower or lowest levels of the game the elitist attitude is as bad as other attitudes.

    For example, I don’t want you in my group because; you are not a high/good enough player. Which, in my opinion is as bad as, you’re the wrong colour. the wrong nationality, the wrong sex. Just discrimination in another form because they think they are better than them.

    And finally for those who want to farm, you are not helping them to level up, they are helping you to farm!

    I look forward to your responses.

    p.s. for those that do, I can be much more abusive than you could possibly be. If you disagree, tell me you disagree and possibly tell me even why you disagree. Who knows, I might even agree with what you say.

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  29. @mitch7236 – I absolutely agree with the mentality that everyone has to start somewhere. Regardless if you’re a new 80, or this is your 10th 80, there’s a development process. There’s a right way to go about it, however. The dungeon system is a great place to learn how to deal with boss mechanics. True, 95% of heroic groups just burn the boss through any mechanics, but you can still utilize that time to hone your skills. Stop DPSing when King Ymiron starts casting Bane, for example. Make sure to keep jumping/moving during Keristrasza to avoid her Intense Cold from building. Utilize Wowwiki.com, TankSpot, our site & others to study the boss mechanics before you encounter a new fight. Taking advantage of the myriad of resources out there puts you ahead of the game. Don’t ever expect someone to explain the fight to you. Take the responsibility on yourself.

    That being said, be careful about how you refer to an “elitist” attitude. First off, you don’t have to be an elite player to succeed at the highest level, and an elitist attitude is NOT necessary to succeed. Do you have to be a skilled player? Of course. Do you have to be a focused player? Yes. Doing ICC hardmodes is not Naxx with the current level of gear. Players are expected to react to strict mechanics, and harsh enrage times. “Elite”? No. Talented and dedicated? Yes. I simply believe there’s a fine line between those two.

    Please watch your rhetoric when making comparisons. Assembling a raid team is not comparitive to racism or sexism. An NFL team wouldn’t take someone that just randomly decided they wanted to know what a professional football game felt like. An airline wouldn’t hire someone to fly a plane simply because they used to fly model planes as a kid. Any job, any sport, any skill, requires practice and dedication, regardless of level.

    If you keep experiencing that kind of elitist attitude on your realm, then I encourage you to remain patient. Not all guilds/raiding teams are like that. You will find a nice crew out there, but expect to put in your portion of the deal by learning/practicing the fights and doing heroics to get your Frost Emblem gear, as well.

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