I got in a lot of good LOTRO gametime yesterday, almost brushing up against level 28 and mostly done with Lone-Lands (huzzah!).
I joined a Fellowship that was doing one of the book 2 quests — nothing complicated, just not soloable. It was clear that the leader (a Warden) wasn’t too familiar with being in charge, because it was one of those groups where we took ages between fights until he was 100% sure everyone was ready and so on. We had a pretty balanced group, so he needn’t have worried, but oh well. I was patient, got the quest done, etc.
So midway through I’m noting that the other captain in the team isn’t throwing me any heals, even though I’m tossing heals to him and everyone else. I couldn’t use my HOT on myself, just the “on kill” heal, so I asked him in chat if he could heal me as well, especially as I was generating some serious aggro in fights and dipping below half health.
Not only did he fail to respond — I asked him twice, even so — but the group leader blurts out, “Captains can’t heal unless they kill something!”
Um. What?
Dude, there is nothing more aggravating than someone who’s telling me how my class works — and they’re dead wrong about it. It’s not like I just stepped into my Captain’s shoes yesterday, I have 28 levels to show for the effort. I bloody well know what my healing capabilities are. So I kindly told him that, no, we can heal others any time we want, and he promptly ignored me as well, particularly not bothering to instruct the other captain to give me a hand when I needed it.
Those are the sorts of lovely factors that make PUGs so heartwarming. What really makes me want to tear my hair out is that I sit on my tongue so much in these groups because I try to play nice and not burn any bridges with folks I may be grouping with again in the future. It doesn’t help to build a reputation as a difficult jerk, even if you’re a CORRECT difficult jerk. And thus, why I’m glad I have a blog to spill this onto.
“And thus, why I’m glad I have a blog to spill this onto.”
I hear ya!
Sometimes i thought about making a blog my own about gaming in general.
Good thing i didn´t mine, unlike yours, mine would probably end up as just an frustrated read with me constantly picking on todays player generation *laugh*
But i can understand how you feel about this, it can be realy annoying ending up with such PUG´s.
What is your general opinion on Pug´s in LotrO? Does this happen more often or where you lucky until now with the people you meet? Looks like an overall very adult community to me.
The only bad PUG I’ve been on so far (and I still get annoyed about it) was doing one of the Epic Book quests in Angmar and I was on my minstrel alt healing for a friend who ran the PUG. A lore-master in the group was basically standing there leeching XP and tossing the occasional Burning Embers. It was a dps-intensive encounter and the only “real” thing for a LM to do is spam Tend the Sick to remove the disease effect. I said so in VOIP and his response is “I’m not a healer.” I said “I’m the minstrel, I’m the healer. I’m not asking you to heal, I’m asking you to use an ability that only you have to assist the group.” He refused. A couple wipes later I told my friend I’d help him later in a different group but I wasn’t tolerating the leecher LM and his wife in the group who were just out for themselves.
I hate PUGs in general. Your rant reminded me of one of Scott Kurtz’s posts on DING!:
http://www.crispygamer.com/comics/ding/Ding-2009-02-04.aspx
PuGs are there to remind us why depression is such a popular pass time.
@Ventris
this comic was awesome! and oh so true i stoped counting such pug´s during my wow time *shakes head*
One day you will get a self-heal, you just have to sacrifice your herald and switch to banners to use it ;p
But yeah, I frequently find other captains that don’t heal at all. And in PUGs you very often find people who will tell you all sorts of stuff about your class that you know isn’t true.
This story reinforces why whenever a MMO player hears the “word” PUG they cringe.
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