Teaming and Supergroups

[ukaserex]

I came across a comment on one of the CoH facebook pages, which left me puzzled.

If it's not too intrusive, how many of you teamed only or primarily with SG players, as opposed to just joining whatever teams happened to be forming at the time?

The comment I came across was from a player who said his SG no longer played, or had disbanded so he never did any iTrials. This kind of puzzled me, as being in an SG wasn't a requirement. I know some people are uncomfortable teaming with people they don't know. However, for an iTrial, with some of its gated content, I'd think an SG only iTrial would be the exception, rather than the norm. But, since I was in an SG of one for the most part, I may not have a clue as to what the rest of you were doing.

Did this happen often? If so, how often did your group do iTrials?

Also, did some of you belong to multiple SGs on the same server? Or did you stick primarily to that one group as well as maybe having one SG specifically as a place to stash all your loot?

[Angel Phoenix77]

I came across a comment on one of the CoH facebook pages, which left me puzzled.

If it's not too intrusive, how many of you teamed only or primarily with SG players, as opposed to just joining whatever teams happened to be forming at the time?

The comment I came across was from a player who said his SG no longer played, or had disbanded so he never did any iTrials. This kind of puzzled me, as being in an SG wasn't a requirement. I know some people are uncomfortable teaming with people they don't know. However, for an iTrial, with some of its gated content, I'd think an SG only iTrial would be the exception, rather than the norm. But, since I was in an SG of one for the most part, I may not have a clue as to what the rest of you were doing.

Did this happen often? If so, how often did your group do iTrials?

Also, did some of you belong to multiple SGs on the same server? Or did you stick primarily to that one group as well as maybe having one SG specifically as a place to stash all your loot?

When I first started and made my supergroup I would say I almost teamed with them, than as time went on and they left I started to run with a different super group and or solo. After a year and a half they all but left and that left me to only solo, which did get boring so I would run with pugs some where awesome but most did not mess well. The only time I would actively team is if there was a task force. Near the end I would duo and trio, and team.
I only ran the itrials when I was a paid member, and I almost always had bad teams that would quit so I would only gain and I am not kidding 25000 worth of point.

[Aggelakis]

None of my SGs had enough commonly active members to do a task force, let alone an iTrial.

Then again, I solo'd most of the time; if I teamed it was typically with friends. I only did a few iTrials. (The furthest I got was TPN.)

[Shifter]

If it's not too intrusive, how many of you teamed only or primarily with SG players, as opposed to just joining whatever teams happened to be forming at the time?

I teamed with people from private channels primarily, ones with players I enjoyed playing with. I'd try those channels first, and then go to public channels if I needed bodies to fill the quota or something. It's hard for me to answer your question as private channels took over the primary function of SGs in my eyes (that being to bring together a sub group of players to play together), but I guess I would have to say this falls into the "joining whatever teams happened" bucket the way your question is worded.

[blacksly]

I generally teamed with PUG... I like some challenge, and it's a challenge to keep some PUGs alive. Meanwhile, my SG, the Legion, generally steamrolled through content to the point where you would hardly notice if a couple of the players went AFK for a minute. I only enjoyed that for a bit at a time... CoH is pretty easy when everyone on the team has good builds and knows what they're doing. I was only interested in "pretty easy" once in a while, the rest of the time I tried to raise the difficulty by inviting random strangers with the LFT tag on. Actually, some of the best teams were a combination of Legion and PUG, as that usually gave enough solid players to not have to worry about regular wipes, while still on occasion managing to turn up a Leroy Jenkins to raise the difficulty level.

[Microcosm]

I almost exclusively PUG'ed. SGs seemed to always require, or at least expect, consistent time commitments which I couldn't/wasn't willing to give. I also played multiple alts, and might leave one alone for months at a time. By the time I picked up that character again, he would usually be kicked out for long absence.

PUGs had the downside of occasionally being terrible, but usually they were good enough.

[Paragon Avenger]

For iTrials, sorry Apple, PUG to fill the league.
For TF's I used channels.
For regular content solo'd or found friends.
For events I would PUG.

My SG was my bank. Only my toons allowed.

[Burnt Toast]

My SG was just me...
Back when I ran a very large SG we teamed a lot together...mainly just missions and the occasional TF. (This was before Itrials existed back in 2006-2008).


Itrials - I usually ran them or ran with friends...we would get a core group of friends and then invite other randoms.
TFs - Almost exclusively friends and people from private channels.
Missions - Friends or PUG.
PLing - Almost always just friends.

[DBadger]

The EU servers were probably a bit different. I had a SG with a fairly small base of players, we did stuff like regular levelling groups, but I mainly grouped for TFs etc with people from the various Global Channels (mainly Sals Badgehunters on Union, can't remember what the Defiant one was)

It tended to be the same group of players at the same sort of times, especially enjoyed lunch time ITFs

PLing, I had two accounts so just used my Brute to PL heroes on my main account to around L20

Missions, I pretty much soloed everything, only occasionally grouped up outside of TFs etc

[Charged Mastermind]

My Dad and Mom used to play with only family friends, and they gave us our accounts because they got bored and work was becoming a hastle. The family friends gave their sons their accounts but they didn't play much because they had strict rules about gaming and stuff. That was back around Issue 13 I think. So I never really played any iTrials with people I really knew.

That being said, in most other games I had to worry about PUG teams being bad because we would have that one guy that wouldn't know HOW to play the game and not know how to play the mission, so I steered away and did some soloing because I knew it would piss me off less than soloing.

But in City of Heroes it didn't really seem like I had to worry about PUG because most of the TF's, trials, missions, stuff like that were fairly simplistic and almost all people that wanted to team were people that were higher levels and actually knew how to play the game instead of running into it blindly.

[AlphaFerret]

I was a PUG maniac.
SGs seemed to have a short life span of being highly active.  It was always very cool when your sg was out in force.

[Sajaana]

My SG was a roleplay SG (VoPC).  When we teamed up, it was basically for our daily roleplaying plot either in the AE or via the radio.

I did most of the iTrials, story arcs, task forces and levelling via pick up groups...pick up groups which were never ever boring or regretful.  The best thing about CoH is that you could help your SG even if you went solo or in pick up groups because of the "SG mode".

[SerialBeggar]

My SG was basically me.  My brother was in it in the early years, but we hardly every team together except as a filler for a TF and he later left the game.  Thus all the teams I've ever been in were PUGs.  I prefer larger teams because they're more dynamic.  During my first year, I joined a few duos and trios, but they were boring, especially if I joined with someone who was playing as dedicated support.  Perhaps it was just me being naturally cautious as a newbie, so I didn't know how to cut loose and make things more exciting.  Later as a long time veteran of the game and everything had already been done dozens of times, being in PUGs was the only thing that gave the game some spontaneity.

[edit for spelling]

[Optimus Dex]

My supergroup was my sons and a friend of mine and me. My sons drifted off and about year 7 so di my friend . So there was some supergroup running but I was in mostly pug's . Most of them were surprisingly good. ITF  I  usually got invites or saw group forming in chat.

[ukaserex]

Very enlightening stuff, thanks! 

[Winter Fable]

Pugs all the way.My husband and I were sad to see so many people calling for teams or being kicked for having KB powers so we started the No Rules Radio missions on Freedom.We took whomever wanted to team and let them use any powers and had fun.I played my emp and my husband used his tank to keep pulling mobs from far away rooms so before we finish with one mob another was there which ment it was crazy fun.We felt in order to help the game we should keep teams running so anyone could join and have fun.

[Angel Phoenix77]

I was a PUG maniac.
SGs seemed to have a short life span of being highly active.  It was always very cool when your sg was out in force.

this is very true , it was painful when your sg mates either quit or just quit the game.

[Ankhammon]

this is very true , it was painful when your sg mates either quit or just quit the game.

I much preferred SG for TFs. I just had way too many experiences with PUGs that fell apart a couple missions into the TF leaving me alone to try to finish it.
I usually did, but it sometimes took many many hours.

[Battlechimp]

I'd have to say, most of my teaming was PUGs.  I was a member of two relatively large SGs, The Paragonian Knights and Legion of Catgirls :-)

The first one, we did do TFs together, although not large enough to get enough people to do SG I trials.  Teaming was mostly from people in sg chat going "hey anyone want to do X?". Sometimes full groups, others a few SG members and we'd fill with random people.

The LoC though we'd do weekly TFs, we'd regularly have two or three teams filled with cat girls, then filled teams up with random people as needed. 

But for the most part I soloed, mostly because on weekdays when I place, I tend to randomly afk, so I tried not to inflict that on others.  But when I did team, there might be a couple sg mates, but everything else was random PUG.

[Mistress Urd]

I teamed with people from private channels primarily, ones with players I enjoyed playing with. I'd try those channels first, and then go to public channels if I needed bodies to fill the quota or something. It's hard for me to answer your question as private channels took over the primary function of SGs in my eyes (that being to bring together a sub group of players to play together), but I guess I would have to say this falls into the "joining whatever teams happened" bucket the way your question is worded.

Same here, most of the broadcast or blind invite teams were usually a waste of time. I used private channels for most teaming purposes, because I know those folks were fun to team with.

[Ultraamann]

I spent the vast majority of my time soloing.  Just my nature.  I liked grinding out the things that I wanted to do.

When it came to TFs, trials, and when I was feeling a tad more sociable, my first call out was always to my SG.  After that, to a channel of our allied SGs, and after that, I'd throw it out to the more public channels.  I'd generally end up with about half friends and SG mates, and about half PUG players.

I always enjoyed the PUGs, mostly because my one rule of teaming is: take anyone who wants to come, any toon type, any archetypes, any powersets (except Demon Summoners, because f*ck them).  I never ever tried to construct "ideal" teams.  Bring what you want, and we'll make it work.  People were often grateful to get the chance to use some of their less popular characters, and it led to making some great in-game friends.

[Brightfires]

Even when it came to iTrials, I didn't like playing with people I didn't know... which is why I was so fond of the set-up we had on Liberty, with the LB "usual suspects" and the Ouphs. The channel regulars, who I knew, were enough to fill the majority of spots in those leagues. If there were a few strangers, that was fine. As long as I was familiar with most of the people there, I was reasonably comfortable.

There's no way I could have done trial or TF content with my SG. FlyingCodeMonkey and I were the only members of the Elysion, and he had Bask and Prince in there pretty much only to invite my alts when I made one. 

As for regular-sized teams, I was never really comfortable with them no matter who was involved (I preferred either the huge leagues or solo/small-team play-), so even running with people I knew wasn't high on the fun scale. Running with strangers? That was even worse. It was all the stress of a "known" team, plus an extra layer of "Oh, god. Who are these people?" on top of it.   

[Blackstar5]

I wasn't opposed to teaming but I didn't like to wait on finding a team.If after 5 min of looking , I still didn't have a team then it was time to play the lone wolf.By the end my sg had dried up and all the people I knew had stopped playing.

[Sajaana]

The great thing about teams is that the player finder was really useful.  You could write in a short description of yourself and post your preferences.

I also used to do my own sort of advertisement in global.  I believe, for Sajaana, I said something like this:

"Single, white, female corruptor ISO mission group.  Has teleport, heal, speed boost, nice legs and a charming personality."

[MaidMercury]

My 1st SG was cool, we teamed often. However, that was 2007.
It dwindled slowly and then I was the sole owner...I couldn't bring myself to let it go until the game was shut down.
Nostalgia I guess.

I didn't meet very successful SG's afterwards...Or I didn't exert myself looking.
I always answered invites by Heroes that appealed to me....They came more often when I got a name for myself as a decent Healer.
....I never liked solo-ing. 

[MattTreck]

I mainly found pugs via chat. I never accepted blind invites as they pretty much always ended badly.

SG teaming happened, but it seemed like I was very rarely apart of a highly active SG. I think the only one I remember was very active that i was in was Helmet Heroes. Wow that has been a long time.

[ukaserex]

Even when it came to iTrials, I didn't like playing with people I didn't know... which is why I was so fond of the set-up we had on Liberty, with the LB "usual suspects" and the Ouphs.

I rather enjoyed the Ouphs. A very relaxed, easy-going group for the most part. I also enjoyed "the usual suspects". Most were exceptional players, with a few slightly better than average players thrown in for kicks and grins.

[MWRuger]

I played late at night so PUGS. I actually had a ton of fun when I did team with fun far, far outweighing "WTF did you just do"?

[Battlechimp]

I played late at night so PUGS. I actually had a ton of fun when I did team with fun far, far outweighing "WTF did you just do"?

But those "WTF did you just do?" Moments were some of the most fun

OK well maybe after the fact.  During it was "are you an idiot?"

[FatherXmas]

I primarily soloed but if someone broadcasts looking for help I would offer to join in.  All the SGs I belonged too either evaporated or was my solo base.

[DragonCommando]

I was almost ever soloing, or playing a duo with my brother, for TFs and ITrials I used mostly private channels, but I had my share of PUGs and most of the time it wasn't a problem, since most players were surprisingly good.

Remember a PUG Synapse that I formed with 6 controllers, a blaster and a Brute, one player was worried cause "we didn't have enough damage" and a Tank, lol, we steamrolled the TF and no one faceplanted, it was too much controls and buffs/debuffs... and a PUG ITF, on Champion, with 4 stalkers and a troller (or a fender can't remember now), well this time we didn't steamrolled, but in the end we did defeat Romulus.

[Dal]

I mostly joined pick-up groups. Sometimes it was really bad, sometimes it was a good surprise. The bad thing was when people simply vanished in the middle of missions or when we couldn't find anyone to fill a group slot.

[hejtmane]

I use to host TF's and advertise on the chat channels I took all builds and never worried if we had this or that dark defender lets role scrapper with taunt aura for tank lets role I mean what ever build and who ever showed up that was the team

[Young Tutor]

Like others, I mainly used my friends list and global chat channels for teaming and would join whatever PUG someone was forming. Between iTrials, mothership raids, and other activities, you'd get to know the regulars. I played mainly on Victory, so other servers might have been different.