To team or not to team?

[CG]

I played CoH from about when it came out and I loved the easy teams.  After CoH, I tried World of Warcraft and teaming was such a pain to get going.  I never put much thought into why, but just accepted; WoW was my second MMO so I didn't put a lot of critical thought into it.  Different game, different rules.

Today, I was playing Champions Online and it suddenly hit me.  Probably because of the juxtaposition of a Super Hero MMO, which I expect easy teaming and "quests" which were in WoW. It might be that this is already well known, but I'm going to articulate it here for comment.

• City of Heroes let you complete other people's quests with them and get full rewards.  Most Questgiver systems out there put you on a chain and while someone can help you kill 6 Giant Rats, they don't get Xp from handing it back in.  This is a barrier to teaming.  If I need to do/have already done a quest, I have little motivation to go help a stranger.  I'm actually losing out on my own questing XP by doing so.  This is a disincentive.  I realize that there are altruistic players out there, but I think it really does have an effect on the general player base
• Instanced missions.  This lets people join you in an isolated environment where you're not competing with other players (that are not on your team) for resources.  Everyone in the instance is collecting resources (glowies, arresting mobs) for the group.  This is an incentive to work together.
• Larger teams make for more epic experiences.  It also makes for easier teams because there's usally room for one more
• Sidekicking/exemplaring.  This was sorely lacking in WoW where it was another disincentive for toons with a >5 level difference to join up.  Neither got Xp and one of them was vastly over/under powered.  It felt like you were slumming when you were helping someone lower level out; the game didn't reward you at all for this.  When I started CoH, it was one sidekick per person witch made it a little trickier because you had to pair up a high level with a low level toon.  The later change for the missions leader being the "main" and everyone else adapting to their level was brilliant.  Yet another change that broke down the barriers to teaming
• Lack of loot.  Or at least a lack of common loot that you had to need/greed/share/ninja.  If there was an individual random drop, nobody else knew you got it and there was no group roll off.  If there was a team reward, everyone got it (Merits/Hami-O/etc).  Again, this meant you could be less picky about who you brought with you because unless they were pulling all the mobs in the instance to the team, there wasn't a whole lot they could do to mess things up.  Another incentive to team.
• No Holy Trinity.  In CoH, you could take any mix of classes and do just fine.  Again, this makes teaming easier because you don't need a competent Tank/Healer to prevent repeated wipes.  Another incentive to team.  Often we had fun trying to figure out what our group's strategy would be given the team members we had at the moment.  It usually didn't take long to find something that worked.

What I noticed in Champions Online was the main chat is full of items for sale, whereas CoH was filled with team requests.  I couldn't put my finger on why at the moment, but everything crystallized for me today.

If you're still with me, the reason I'm posting this is that I hope the Plan Z options will include the aspects of CoH that incentivized teaming and leave out the aspects of WoW or CO that disincentivized teaming. I think the ease of teaming made for a more relaxed gaming environment which allowed the community to blossom.  You could work with almost anyone in a mission and you didn't have to be wary about whether the other player was be trying to pull a fast one.   

tl;dr: Teamwork in game was the source of goodness from which everything else flowed.

[Cobra Man]

I've had pretty much the same experience when I've been playing The Secret War.

The game looks wonderful but the teaming mechanic is pretty poor.

In addition the game 'dungeons' appear to hinge on having the usual old hack 'Holy Trinity' thing in place.

CoH had the perfect teaming system, and quite why other games can't emulate or even replicate it is puzzling.

[JaguarX]

CoH had the perfect teaming system, and quite why other games can't emulate or even replicate it is puzzling.

That is a good question there.

COH had a good teaming system for those interested in teaming and games that placed great emphasis on teaming.

Then again not everyone is interested in that much teaming or emphasis on teaming as much as COX placed emphasis on it.

[corvus1970]

Then again not everyone is interested in that much teaming or emphasis on teaming as much as COX placed emphasis on it.

While CoX highlighted teaming and made it very easy, you make it sound as if the game peer-pressured you into teaming with its "emphasis", and I feel that's misleading.

For those not interested in teaming, you could solo, and do so rather easily, especially with the advent of radio-missions. As the game got older, soloing became easier and easier, a move which benefits the casual gamer.

[tigerbaby]

While CoX highlighted teaming and made it very easy, you make it sound as if the game peer-pressured you into teaming with its "emphasis", and I feel that's misleding.

For those not interested in teaming, you could solo, and do so rather easily, especially with the advent of radio-missions. As the game got older, soloing became easier and easier, a move which benefits the casual gamer.

In fact, soloing was in many ways an equally rich and rewarding playstyle in CoH, as it allowed me to read through the mission text at leisure and fully engage with the storyline; this was particularly true of the post-50 content and the signature arcs.  CoH was the game that answered 'NO!' to the question 'is it too much to ask for both?' with regards to teaming vs. solo play.  The only downside of this was people who played exclusively one way or the other 'missed out' on the pleasures of each, and the obvious care the dev team took to assure both playstyles were not only viable, but enjoyable.

[corvus1970]

Exactly! I feel that CoX gave us a great gaming experience whether we were teamed, or just hopping on to solo for an hour or two.

[tigerbaby]

As well as the solo 'meta-game' components, like badge-hunting, fiddling with Inventions, buying/selling on the MP, tinkering with bases or the Mission Architect, repeating old favourite or missed missions in Ouroboros...you didn't 'have' to do any of these, but they were a fun change of pace.

[dwturducken]

I did feel as though the highest levels were much more easily reached with a team, just for the amount of XP per level required. I only had one character at 50, and that was mostly because, about once a month, we would set that as our goal for the night. We would team specifically to level someone's highest character, particularly if that character was in the high 40s. I know that there are people, possibly even in this thread, who soloed to 50, and that was always a goal of mine, but it's an aspect that is absent from any other game. I have a character in the high 30s in WoW (about once a year, I buy a time card) that I have no illusions about ever reaching level 90, because the expansions are all pay. That's a bit more of an investment than I'm really ready to make for such a "casual" game.

[JaguarX]

While CoX highlighted teaming and made it very easy, you make it sound as if the game peer-pressured you into teaming with its "emphasis", and I feel that's misleading.

For those not interested in teaming, you could solo, and do so rather easily, especially with the advent of radio-missions. As the game got older, soloing became easier and easier, a move which benefits the casual gamer.

\

I dont know. Felt kind of punished for teaming. When you team, you get nice xp bonus for doing so. Soloing, while possible up to the extent, a soloist was basically locked out of a lot of the good storyline content. TF/SF/Trials-things that were the meat of the storyline of the game required teams. Yea you can solo a random, non-storyline paper mish here and there but all in all, the good storylines seemed to required teaming, and given the bonuses and speed of leveling compared to soloing it seemed like the game favored teaming. Not to mention the incarnate stuff which definately seemed to favor teaming compared to soloing.

I felt, DO NOT MISS THE KEYWORDS- I felt, that soloist were punished for soloing in COX and or teaming was very much encouraged and if you didnt team there was no love for you. You get the good stuff only by teaming, i'e the xp bonus that teams get, the relative good rate of incarnate stuff, even purple IOs was very hard to come by solo compared to doing certain TF/SF/Trials. The soloist was basically left out i nthe cold with incentives that seemed to favor only teams.  Not to mention certain AT was an uphill battle to solo, further limiting soloists to certain builds and power sets,


Now compared to CO, a soloist is not punished. Yo ucan do most of the content easily solo without if feeling like slower paced because of some huge bonus for teaming. People can still team there just as they do on COX but there isnt no big favor for teaming and not every other thing that is worth playing requires a team. it can be done solo.

[corvus1970]

I dont know. Felt kind of punished for teaming. When you team, you get nice xp bonus for doing so.

Well, yeah, nobody here is denying that.

Soloing, while possible up to the extent, a soloist was basically locked out of a lot of the good storyline content.

I never felt that way. Never. If you went through the game with the contacts you acquired, it was exceedingly rare to encounter a challenge that required teaming. Hell, even with my Blaster I soloed the Praetorian Arch-Villain arc with the Villains set as EBs. Granted, with my blaster, as opposed to one of my scrappers, I would make sure I had Shivans handy, but still. I soloed those. And that's just one example.

TF/SF/Trials-things that were the meat of the storyline of the game required teams.

I wouldn't call things like the Freedom-Phalanx TFs the "meat" of the story lines. To me they were the icing on a cake that was rather tasty all by itself.

Yea you can solo a random, non-storyline paper mish here and there but all in all, the good storylines seemed to required teaming, and given the bonuses and speed of leveling compared to soloing it seemed like the game favored teaming.

The game gave advantages for teaming, which is not the same as emphasizing. In no way does that mean soloists were left out in the proverbial cold. The game could be soloed from 1 to 50 if you so chose. Period.

Not to mention the incarnate stuff which definately seemed to favor teaming compared to soloing.

The "incarnate stuff" is a different beast that was added much later, and it had no impact on the ability to solo the game from 1-50.

I felt, DO NOT MISS THE KEYWORDS- I felt, that soloist were punished for soloing in COX and or teaming was very much encouraged and if you didnt team there was no love for you.

Yeah, glad you emphasized that you felt that way, because its all about your perception. While I could see the bonuses that were possible via teaming, I never felt pressured in any way to do so. And I sure as heck never felt that I was being gypped as a solo-player, as you seem to have felt.

You get the good stuff only by teaming, i'e the xp bonus that teams get, the relative good rate of incarnate stuff, even purple IOs was very hard to come by solo compared to doing certain TF/SF/Trials.

Again, the "incarnate stuff" is a different story. It is optional endgame content.

The soloist was basically left out i nthe cold with incentives that seemed to favor only teams.  Not to mention certain AT was an uphill battle to solo, further limiting soloists to certain builds and power sets

Now compared to CO, a soloist is not punished. Yo ucan do most of the content easily solo without if feeling like slower paced because of some huge bonus for teaming. People can still team there just as they do on COX but there isnt no big favor for teaming and not every other thing that is worth playing requires a team. it can be done solo.

A soloist was not punished in CoX.

As they say, perception is reality, and when it came to CoX, I was a glass half-full kind of guy, whereas it seems to you were the opposite. You seem to feel that because soloing wasn't favored via the game mechanics, it was punished. I don't think so. To me, lack of favoritism does not = punishment.

As for CO, you go enjoy that.

[JaguarX]

Well, yeah, nobody here is denying that.

I never felt that way. Never. If you went through the game with the contacts you acquired, it was exceedingly rare to encounter a challenge that required teaming. Hell, even with my Blaster I soloed the Praetorian Arch-Villain arc with the Villains set as EBs. Granted, with my blaster, as opposed to one of my scrappers, I would make sure I had Shivans handy, but still. I soloed those. And that's just one example.

I wouldn't call things like the Freedom-Phalanx TFs the "meat" of the story lines. To me they were the icing on a cake that was rather tasty all by itself.

The game gave advantages for teaming, which is not the same as emphasizing. In no way does that mean soloists were left out in the proverbial cold. The game could be soloed from 1 to 50 if you so chose. Period.

The "incarnate stuff" is a different beast that was added much later, and it had no impact on the ability to solo the game from 1-50.

Yeah, glad you emphasized that you felt that way, because its all about your perception. While I could see the bonuses that were possible via teaming, I never felt pressured in any way to do so. And I sure as heck never felt that I was being gypped as a solo-player, as you seem to have felt.

Again, the "incarnate stuff" is a different story. It is optional endgame content.

A soloist was not punished in CoX.

As they say, perception is reality, and when it came to CoX, I was a glass half-full kind of guy, whereas it seems to you were the opposite. You seem to feel that because soloing wasn't favored via the game mechanics, it was punished. I don't think so. To me, lack of favoritism does not = punishment.

As for CO, you go enjoy that.

So just because I dont see it as you do, that means I'm the glass empty guy and feel since that solo wasnt shown favoirtism that is how I concluded that it was punished? Well no that is not how I came to that conclusion at all actually. It did seemed that teaming was favored by a while. If not then why the big xp bonus for teams? Why the team requirement for TFs/SF/Trials? which also gave decent xp bonuses and good drops? Sounds like teaming was favored and soloist was left out in the cold with the basics.

But I am enjoying CO as a matter of fact but just because my view is different than yours, it would be nice to not get personal with it. I didnt get personal with you at all yet, you did with me. WHat is up with that? Ok, so you feel that COX gave god's gift to soloist. I felt they didnt. In the end it's all a matter of opinions and opinions will differ just as views, experiences, and the likes. I can respect that. Can you, it doesnt seem like it as you went personal nearly off the bat with labeling me, all of a sudden a negative person because my view is different not to mention trying to assign a way how I came to that conclusion like you are in my head and know me enough to say it was only because soloist wasnt shown favoritism. If you want to discuss this, that is fine but at least have the common decency and courtesy to leave the insults out of it.

[CG]

Is it unexpected that an MMO would focus on teamwork? There are many other options out there with a rich solo play story.

[JaguarX]

Is it unexpected that an MMO would focus on teamwork? There are many other options out there with a rich solo play story.

not of the creative build your own super hero variety. We have, CO....that's about it. Depending on who is asked, COX may fit too. Besides those two well down to one, that is all it seems.

But really it's not too unexpected. Just kind of odd with the denial that it is focused on teamwork.

[corvus1970]

*SNIP* Sounds like teaming was favored and soloist was left out in the cold with the basics.

The basics? In a game with characters that were fully viable with DO's and SO's before the invention system ever came around? And even after that, the generic IO's were more than enough to build a strong character. And you didn't have to team to get those things.

Furthermore, you didn't need the purples you mentioned earlier to succeed. I had several level 50 toons and nary a one used any purple enhancements. You evidently think that because a soloist may not get such things, he was getting the short end of the stick, and if soloing kept a person from advancing, you'd be right. However, as previously stated, you could solo from 1 to 50 if you so chose.

But I am enjoying CO as a matter of fact but just because my view is different than yours, it would be nice to not get personal with it.  I didnt get personal with you at all yet, you did with me. WHat is up with that?

I didn't get personal: I countered your comments. You have obviously misconstrued what I said.

Ok, so you feel that COX gave god's gift to soloist. I felt they didnt.

"God's gift"? Because I explained how solo-friendly the game was? Okay, whatever.

In the end it's all a matter of opinions and opinions will differ just as views, experiences, and the likes. I can respect that. Can you, it doesnt seem like it as you went personal nearly off the bat with labeling me, all of a sudden a negative person because my view is different not to mention trying to assign a way how I came to that conclusion like you are in my head and know me enough to say it was only because soloist wasnt shown favoritism. If you want to discuss this, that is fine but at least have the common decency and courtesy to leave the insults out of it.

I didn't insult you. I came to a conclusion that in regards to CoX you are looking back on it with a certain viewpoint, and that's what I talked about. I even said "in regards to CoX" in plain-English when I made my glass-half-full vs half-empty comment, which means I was talking about your view towards the game, not life. I guess you missed that.

If you want to discuss this, I suggest you read what is said just a little more carefully.

[JaguarX]

.

"God's gift"? Because I explained how solo-friendly the game was? Okay, whatever.

I didn't insult you. I came to a conclusion that in regards to CoX you are looking back on it with a certain viewpoint, and that's what I talked about. I even said "in regards to CoX" in plain-English when I made my glass-half-full vs half-empty comment, which means I was talking about your view towards the game, not life. I guess you missed that.

If you want to discuss this, I suggest you read what is said just a little more carefully.

I did read it just fine. Like I said, why is my view the half empty version but of course YOUR view is the half full? Because that is your view and anything opposite to that is negative? That is the insulting part about that insinuation. and like you reaction to my "God's gift" comment is how I feel about the half empty comment you made. Just because I said the game wasn't solo-friendly? Why cant a person have a different view without getting the negative end? It's not about half-empty or half full view. That is irrelevant anyways and only serves to paint a view in a negative light. Either way, the glass has water and air of equal proportions and that is all I'm saying. So you view it as solo friendly, fine. I view it as not solo friendly and that should be fine too WITHOUT the negative connotations.

[CG]

Just because I said the game wasn't solo-friendly?

I would have to disagree with this statement as well.  Task Forces and End Game required Teams.  Everything else in the game was soloable.  That's a whole lot more soloable content than team required content.  My rough guess would be 90%+ of soloable content, which makes the argument that the game wasn't solo-friendly hard to buy.

There were incentives to teaming the soloable content, for sure.  That's not the same as punishing or being unfriendly to solos.

not of the creative build your own super hero variety. We have, CO....that's about it. Depending on who is asked, COX may fit too. Besides those two well down to one, that is all it seems.

But really it's not too unexpected. Just kind of odd with the denial that it is focused on teamwork.

CO is an MMO as well.  There currently isn't a create your own hero solo game out there, but expecting an MMO to prefer solo play over team play isn't a reasonable expectation, IMO.

[corvus1970]

Indeed. After all, it does have that pesky "multi-player" bit in there.

[tigerbaby]

tch, a few weeks without CoH mobs to clobber on and you gotta start sniping on each other?

Hate to break it to ya, but CoH had benefits for both the soloist and for teams.  I feel sorry for those who only ever teamed and never knew the delicious pleasure of playing through story lines at absolute leisure, walking to the mission and battling a swath thru the mobs on the way, or playing dodgeball with purple-con mobs (good, good times!).  CoH was filled with intrinsic rewards for the patient soloist who took the time to stop and smell the roses (or clobber the paired Death Mages, as the case may be).  I loved the solo game, but also had a lot of fun teaming both on pickup teams and with my (tiny, but very dedicated) SG.  I was lucky to participate on pickup teams with some of the finest players in the game.

I had a ton of fun soloing Incarnate content from the dire announcement to the time the curtain fell, having opened and filled all my Incarnate slots to a range of tiers (Ion Jump got a lot of <3) and earned my first level shift.  I thought about joining an Incarnate pickup team 'just to see' but the rl situation at the time meant i could be called afk with no warning, so decided against it.

[corvus1970]

I feel sorry for those who only ever teamed and never knew the delicious pleasure of playing through story lines at absolute leisure, walking to the mission and battling a swath thru the mobs on the way, or playing dodgeball with purple-con mobs (good, good times!).

Ahhh, the joys of kiting!

[JaguarX]

I would have to disagree with this statement as well.  Task Forces and End Game required Teams.  Everything else in the game was soloable.  That's a whole lot more soloable content than team required content.  My rough guess would be 90%+ of soloable content, which makes the argument that the game wasn't solo-friendly hard to buy.

There were incentives to teaming the soloable content, for sure.  That's not the same as punishing or being unfriendly to solos.

CO is an MMO as well.  There currently isn't a create your own hero solo game out there, but expecting an MMO to prefer solo play over team play isn't a reasonable expectation, IMO.

Never said I was expecting it to prefer solo play over teaming but that doesnt mean I'm just going say that games are catering to solo players just as much as they do teaming when I feel that they do not. There really inst any argument about it or right or wrong as this is just about what I feel, how I view it, and my interpretation on how I feel and how it worked for me. I feel that it wasnt solo friendly. Others feel different. Cool. Still dont chance or wont change how I feel about it.

I know CO is an MMO that is why I pointed it out and it's a lot more solo friendly I feel than COX was. It doesnt punish solo players. Their TF equivalents, you can just go at it solo. It's not team gated. So yes there can be a game where you can team and solo without there favorites being played, like the system is even in CO. There is no huge extra bonus points for teaming. While solo dont get any bonus points, just standard. In CO it's all standard. A person can team but it wont be a big bonus for it.

But just as people point out it's crazy to say since COX shut down "Just choose another game there are plenty. It is jsut as crazy to say there are plenty of solo friendly choices out there when there isnt. Only about 1 currently.

[Victoria Victrix]

My experience absolutely mirrors Tibby's.

I had toons that I used exclusively to solo.  I had toons that had a solo build and a team build, and I would switch depending what mode I was playing.  The only thing I "couldn't" solo was the Incarnate Trials and the ITF and STF (later LTF) and the Lady Grey.  It wasn't that hard to solo the lower level TFs; you just got some volunteers to join, kick it off, and they all quit, leaving you in sole command of the TF.  With the proper temp powers and the proper toon/build you could solo AVs, after all.

And that gave you a chance to wander leisurely through the arc and read everything.  The XP might not have been as good, but the drops as a solo more than made up for it.

[corvus1970]

I had toons that I used exclusively to solo.  I had toons that had a solo build and a team build, and I would switch depending what mode I was playing. 

Same here. It was very common for me to have separate Solo and Team builds for certain AT's, like Defenders, Controllers, and Tanks.

[Samuel Tow]

Far as I'm concerned, City of Heroes fucked up with Incarnate content, and it fucked up big. The whole entire team was intended to be this massive team repetitive raid grind to the point where developers were gobsmacked that players wanted to experience the "end game" without engaging in impersonal clusterhugs. I know there's a strong audience for this, and I appreciate people's desire for huge teams and lots of action. But to make that the ONLY access route into what was an actual, legitimate storyline, and one presented as the continuation of the story? That was a bad idea. It created a bottleneck past which point I felt actually very unwelcome in the game.

Hey, you know that Incarnate storyline? You know how you can become a god and be awesome and rub shoulders with the greats? Yeah, you can't have that. Nya-nya! Shape up or ship out, forever-alone. Either you team, or you don't make any progress. Well, I suppose if you wanted to waste your life, you could beat your head against a wall and go collect Shards by yourself, but we both know you'll never get anywhere. I mean, seriously, what are you even thinking? You're not supposed to make any progress in this system unless you raid.

I will freely admit that Dark Astoria and Belly Vetrano's story were a MAJOR step in the right direction which gave me actually quite acceptable level of solo progression, but we had to raise such a stink to get it that many of us left with permanent resentment of the Incarnate system that never really got to heal. I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that much of the hate for Praetoria stems from people like me and our continual annoyance in how all the end-game content was about it, and yet we didn't get to experience any of it. In the entire time since I18, I ran ONE Apex TF and TWO BAF Trials, and I frankly hated every minute of all of those. To play a game which requires me to do that as the bottleneck to progress might as well be a game which requires me to hammer on my thumb to make progress - it hurts.

Yes, City of Heroes was an MMO, but it had developers smart enough to know that "MMO" isn't the same as "always teaming." In a persistent world populated with other people, it should still be as possible to do things on my own as it is in the real world populated with other real people. If I feel like going to the cinema or going for a walk, I don't need to gather a group of people to hold my front door open for me. I appreciate teaming, but I appreciate it MORE when it's done when and if I feel like it, rather than something that feels like a requirement. Of all the MMOs I've played, City of Heroes was probably the best out there which let me feel great without making me team, Incarnates notwithstanding. Every other one presumes that "team" is the default and "solo" is some kind of unwelcome outlier that... Well, you CAN do it, but you're not supposed to do it much. And if you do, well go play a single-player game!

In short, City of Heroes was and is the only MMO which ever made me feel welcome. Because most of the others have the frankly insulting attitude of "If you don't want to team, don't play an MMO!" Meh. The G of MMORPG stands for "game," and there's nothing wrong with liking the Game without liking the Massive Multiplayer. At least, not any more so than there is with liking the Massive Multiplayer without liking the Game.

[corvus1970]

Far as I'm concerned, City of Heroes pancaked up with Incarnate content, and it pancaked up big. The whole entire team was intended to be this massive team repetitive raid grind to the point where developers were gobsmacked that players wanted to experience the "end game" without engaging in impersonal clusterhugs.

I know there's a strong audience for this, and I appreciate people's desire for huge teams and lots of action. But to make that the ONLY access route into what was an actual, legitimate storyline, and one presented as the continuation of the story? That was a bad idea. It created a bottleneck past which point I felt actually very unwelcome in the game.

While I don't feel as strongly about it as you do, I do agree that it was a major error to make that play-style a key to the whole system. It was in marked contrast to virtually everything else within the game, and I cannot imagine how the Devs failed to anticipate such strong, negative reactions.

In fact, the biggest reason WHY I didn't do anything more than briefly dabble in the incarnate pool until the final 2 months of the game was because of this: the need to stand around waiting for a raid to begin. Granted, it did improve quite markedly after the new DA was rolled out, but as you said, the damage had already been done for some.

Of all the MMOs I've played, City of Heroes was probably the best out there which let me feel great without making me team, Incarnates notwithstanding.

Also agreed. And that was my whole point earlier: you could solo the whole game from 1-50, and have a good time doing it.

In short, City of Heroes was and is the only MMO which ever made me feel welcome.

I think you just hit upon a major aspect of why I enjoyed CoX so very much: I felt welcome. The game's overall mood, play-style, AND community felt very warm and comfortable, and did so from day 1. Thus far I have yet to feel that way about any other MMO I've tried, and I've tried 3 others: STO, CO, and DCU.

[Nightmarer]

If you're still with me, the reason I'm posting this is that I hope the Plan Z options will include the aspects of CoH that incentivized teaming and leave out the aspects of WoW or CO that disincentivized teaming. I think the ease of teaming made for a more relaxed gaming environment which allowed the community to blossom.  You could work with almost anyone in a mission and you didn't have to be wary about whether the other player was be trying to pull a fast one.

Also worth adding to everything you said the teaming interface where team leader could select anyone's mission and make it easily visible for everyone else in the team.-

I've had pretty much the same experience when I've been playing The Secret War.

The game looks wonderful but the teaming mechanic is pretty poor.

Afraid only played TSW a bit in beta myself but that seems to be the trend for every other MMO out there, happens in WoW, Age of Conan, Rift and SWTOR, much easier and faster lvling by yourself and using dungeon finder when possible, despite dungeon finder being a tricky tool since in said games (especially in WoW) pugging can be an awful experience, a really awful one, far more awful than anything I have experienced in 6 CoH years.-

That is a good question there.

COH had a good teaming system for those interested in teaming and games that placed great emphasis on teaming.

Then again not everyone is interested in that much teaming or emphasis on teaming as much as COX placed emphasis on it.

In fact, I personally felt that since the difficulty selection changes, teaming was just for either fun and social purposes or to push certain AT's / powerset combos who had a harder time soloing since soloing on x8 gave more XP and better rewards and faster than 8 man teaming so I feel that said emphasis was somewhat lifted.-

[JaguarX]

Also worth adding to everything you said the teaming interface where team leader could select anyone's mission and make it easily visible for

In fact, I personally felt that since the difficulty selection changes, teaming was just for either fun and social purposes or to push certain AT's / powerset combos who had a harder time soloing since soloing on x8 gave more XP and better rewards and faster than 8 man teaming so I feel that said emphasis was somewhat lifted.-

Yeah a perso ncould tackle X8 if they were on a tank/brute/scrapper or an IOed out build which, according to most statements in the past was optional and the game was balanced around SOs. The average run of the mill SOed out toon probably couldnt solo max settings.

To me soling X8/4 and soling AV/GMs and the likes it was more like what Sergev said with "Every other one presumes that "team" is the default and "solo" is some kind of unwelcome outlier that... Well, you CAN do it, but you're not supposed to do it much. And if you do, well go play a single-player game!"

In CO, you can effectively on a run of the mill charcter solo just about everything even their TF equivalent without having to build a team just to solo a TF to trick the team block and etc. You can  choose Atfershock or Whiteout and just jump right on in without so much as having to send an invite or searching for fillers.
I never said soloing wasnt possible, I siad it didnt seemed to be encouraged at all. Teaming got the perks while solo got none. You get on an 8 man team and you get more xp per mish than a solo person running same mission. And unless you had a special kind of build and or uber build and spent a lot on IOs which is supposed to be optional, then soloing an AV on an SOed out toon with any build probably wasnt going to happen because AVs was meant for teaming it seems. If a person did five missions standard setting comapared to a team that did 5 same missions standard setting, the members of the team will come out further ahead in level progression than the solo person. Teams were favored heavily in COX from my understanding and my view of it. like I said earlier, could you solo, sure but you dont get anything extra like the large amount of extra you get when teaming. Solo players were left with the basic, while teaming got the advanced track. It seems apparent why people team in the first place. In CO one of the first thing that some people say is that people dont team. Well because the perks for teaming and less content is tema gated. People dont seem to team for the hell of it, but because in COX the rewards were far greater than soloing, on top of the pigeon hole a person found themselves in when selecting ATs if they wanted to solo.

If people really teamed for the "comraderie" and socialization like they state, then what was the point of havign the bonuses for teaming compared to soloing? What was the point of having teaming be a quicker way to level than soloing? Why wasnt it even and why team gate any content? Probably because people dont team for those reason as much as they let on imo. It's about the rewards.

[Nightmarer]

but because in COX the rewards were far greater than soloing, on top of the pigeon hole a person found themselves in when selecting ATs if they wanted to solo.

If people really teamed for the "comraderie" and socialization like they state, then what was the point of havign the bonuses for teaming compared to soloing? What was the point of having teaming be a quicker way to level than soloing? Why wasnt it even and why team gate any content? Probably because people dont team for those reason as much as they let on imo. It's about the rewards.

I'm sorry but this is the bit I don't get, why were the rewards far greater on teaming? that's probably the case for Incarnate Raids, but again, for regular content, soloing at +8 gave better rewards soloing, not necessarily at +8/x4 aimed to certain AT's and not needing soloing AV's/EB's, +8/x2 which a wider range of AT's could achieve gave better xp than a team of 8 at x2 since not all teams played on x4. Granted not every AT could solo at +8/x2, but most could if you knew what you were doing.-

Can't see rewards being better on teaming than soloing, in fact I think they were worse. Soloing at +8, you got every single recipe drop for yourself and yourself alone while on a team the chances got split by the number of team mates. When soloing, foes gave more XP than on teams, although the team got the bonus of added foes, again, playing at +8 you got the added foes bonus plus higher XP per foe.

No idea how it works in CO since I don't play it, I'm just genuinely curious about why do you keep saying rewards are greater teaming than soloing, as far as I've experienced, it only happened so on Incarnate Trials which were a small part of the whole CoH game experience.-

[JaguarX]

I'm sorry but this is the bit I don't get, why were the rewards far greater on teaming? that's probably the case for Incarnate Raids, but again, for regular content, soloing at +8 gave better rewards soloing, not necessarily at +8/x4 aimed to certain AT's and not needing soloing AV's/EB's, +8/x2 which a wider range of AT's could achieve gave better xp than a team of 8 at x2 since not all teams played on x4. Granted not every AT could solo at +8/x2, but most could if you knew what you were doing.-

Can't see rewards being better on teaming than soloing, in fact I think they were worse. Soloing at +8, you got every single recipe drop for yourself and yourself alone while on a team the chances got split by the number of team mates. When soloing, foes gave more XP than on teams, although the team got the bonus of added foes, again, playing at +8 you got the added foes bonus plus higher XP per foe.

No idea how it works in CO since I don't play it, I'm just genuinely curious about why do you keep saying rewards are greater teaming than soloing, as far as I've experienced, it only happened so on Incarnate Trials which were a small part of the whole CoH game experience.-

Because when running 8 man mission solo, 5 missions, got good level progression (level 40). Now on another level 40 and running those same 5 missions was a lot further in the level progression on the 8 man team due to the xp bonus for teaming included. Actually did the 5 missions on the team first and since it was even conned, that is what I set the 8 man solo play for the mission for the level 40 I soloed with. Even when later I did it with a level 40 at 8man/+2 level, still it fell short compared to the amount of xp gained to when I did it 8man team 5 missions even conned.

Recipe drops, the good stuff had greater chance of dropping in team gated events, like trials. For exmple ITF. Good drops, but made for teaming. Solo, at least in my experience which from my experience I am talking about from the start, not many good recipes drop when I'm solo. And the places to get the good drops come from team gated stuff.

Even at the beginning, you couldnt do the sewer trial without a team. Quick way to level. Compared to the solo choice of the regualr missions, which even then at that point a normal toon pre-14 wouldnt be able to tackle +8 mobs. But get on 8 man team, and those levels melt buy quickly. Doing the sewer trial dropped SOs prior to the level that a solo player would be able to obtain them. A solo player would be required to buy them if they was available on the market and assuming they had the cash while teaming gets them for free enough and in many cases more than enough to fill all the slots. Another gift drop to teaming none for solo.

20-35, a solost person is stuck with the normal way of leveling with contact mission hoping to not run out of missions. Team required especially on hero side TF, you can do the six TFs only (non-speed run and killing everything in the path) with a trial or two to cover any slow down like debt in between, which requires a team of course, unless you trick the team gate, and end up level 36 no problem and on top of that a buff. Another gift to teamers, none for solo.

Hami-made for teaming, and drops some of the rarest stuff out there. Gift to teaming none for solo. Dont think there is even a single instance of solo oriented play that drop anything equivalent to the stuff you get from Hamidon, which is designed for team play. Gift for teamers none for solo.

Even the end game like incarnate while a small part of the game, doesnt mean all soloist get to 50 and then ice their level 50 toon. That was definately made for teaming. Another gift for teaming and none for solo ,especially for one thta wanted to expand their powers and partake in the end game content. It seemed that solo players were nearly locked out the end game content with scraps beign fed to them while teams got the real meat.

Some of those are a few example of what I'm talking about.


In CO you solo or team, the rate of leveling is about the same. A solo player in CO can get just about as much and as good of gear as people on a team can get. TF equivalent content in CO is not team gated. In CO it's reversed. With most stuff not teamed gated and with about much stuff as COX put solo and teamers on an even keel is about as much stuff in CO tha tis team gated (only alerts and maybe Nem con and maybe a few other items but in CO, a person can solo without being limited or watching people fly through levels because they simply teamed. It's a small bonus to team there but it's not a great bonus. Like I said in the above statement. 5 missions solo even conned 8 and still was behind in the amount of xp gained compared to 8 man even conned with 8 man team.  I feel solo players got shafted and treated red headed step child in COX. Almost like it was frowned upon. I mean they could have made solo only TF equivalents wit hequal rewards  tha tteh teamed ones get. Or solo content where incarnate progress was the same as teaming. And chances at rare drops that was otherwises team gated equivalent content. But they didnt. They favored teams. and teamers gotr rewarded greatly for it while solo players got left in the cold and thrown a rotten bone here and there and was expected to be satisified with that bone while they gave all the meat to the teamers. In CO everyone gets the meat solo or teamers. People can team if they choose but they wont get the filet mignon for doing so, while solo players are stuck with old cold McDonalds chicken nuggets. I think they should have evened it up a bit and then I could say "yes, COX was good to solo players." But that isnt the case for me so I cant pretend it was otherwise when it wasnt.

[tigerbaby]

I think it is important to remember that we did not all play CoH for the same reasons.  For me, the rewards of soloing were intrinsic, I didn't need a carrot on a stick to motivate me to continue, I did it because it was enjoyable and no-hassle.  I had no desire to 'level fast' for the same reason I don't read the last page of a novel first.  Soloing was where one could take on a seemingly impossible task and win, and that -in itself- was reward enough.

I teamed with my SG because they were the people who introduced me to the game (around issue 2, iirc) and we stood together on the steps of Atlas Park when the world ended.  We didn't team because of in-game rewards, we teamed because it was a fun thing to do once or twice a week, if nobody had rl commitments or a migraine.  Funny thing about this kind of teaming, it's not the steamrolling and fast levelling that was as fun or memorable as when things went absolutely, spectacularly wahoonie-shaped, often resulting in mass debt and faceplanting.  Good. good times

I suppose something I'd have missed out on soloing, if I hadn't teamed, was comparing the unique, random output of a Grav Controller using the 'Propel' power   And the complete hilarity of a teammate mis-targeting and accidentally teleporting her rl partner off the side of a cliff...

I did pickup teams if somebody sent me a /tell while I was soloing and I had the time to commit, was up for a change of pace, and my 'lag' du jour didn't seem too hideous.  For me, the biggest 'reward' from these was the opportunity to team up with players I knew and respected from their forum posts, either by server or AT discussions.

Playing CO, one of my objections to the game is I am levelling *too* fast - in CoH the levelling pace had become pretty frenetic, particularly at low levels, but at least when I 'dinged' I usually had a good idea of what power I was 'needing' most (and often it was a deliciously excruciating choice between 'fun' and 'useful') or where some slots were required.  In CO, I am still guessing even at level 20 

Until my SG friends come over to CO, I probably will not bother with any team content.  One 'incentive' to teaming in CO that has not been discussed is the in-game vox comm...I guess I need to dig out the mic and hope the cats haven't chewed the cords, before my girls are ready to meet up ::sighs::

I also don't like that when my CO character is defeated...I don't care.  I don't think it's a matter of debt or loss of '*', it's just I am not engaged with my soloing CO toon in the same way I was in CoH...event if their fingers do move and eyes blink.  In fact, come to think...I don't think I have yet to truly 'scrapperlock' on any objective in CO    I'm giving it six months, maybe I should roll a blaster or something...

[JaguarX]

I think it is important to remember that we did not all play CoH for the same reasons.  For me, the rewards of soloing were intrinsic, I didn't need a carrot on a stick to motivate me to continue, I did it because it was enjoyable and no-hassle.  I had no desire to 'level fast' for the same reason I don't read the last page of a novel first.  Soloing was where one could take on a seemingly impossible task and win, and that -in itself- was reward enough.

I teamed with my SG because they were the people who introduced me to the game (around issue 2, iirc) and we stood together on the steps of Atlas Park when the world ended.  We didn't team because of in-game rewards, we teamed because it was a fun thing to do once or twice a week, if nobody had rl commitments or a migraine.  Funny thing about this kind of teaming, it's not the steamrolling and fast levelling that was as fun or memorable as when things went absolutely, spectacularly wahoonie-shaped, often resulting in mass debt and faceplanting.  Good. good times

I suppose something I'd have missed out on soloing, if I hadn't teamed, was comparing the unique, random output of a Grav Controller using the 'Propel' power   And the complete hilarity of a teammate mis-targeting and accidentally teleporting her rl partner off the side of a cliff...

I did pickup teams if somebody sent me a /tell while I was soloing and I had the time to commit, was up for a change of pace, and my 'lag' du jour didn't seem too hideous.  For me, the biggest 'reward' from these was the opportunity to team up with players I knew and respected from their forum posts, either by server or AT discussions.

Playing CO, one of my objections to the game is I am levelling *too* fast - in CoH the levelling pace had become pretty frenetic, particularly at low levels, but at least when I 'dinged' I usually had a good idea of what power I was 'needing' most (and often it was a deliciously excruciating choice between 'fun' and 'useful') or where some slots were required.  In CO, I am still guessing even at level 20 

Until my SG friends come over to CO, I probably will not bother with any team content.  One 'incentive' to teaming in CO that has not been discussed is the in-game vox comm...I guess I need to dig out the mic and hope the cats haven't chewed the cords, before my girls are ready to meet up ::sighs::

I also don't like that when my CO character is defeated...I don't care.  I don't think it's a matter of debt or loss of '*', it's just I am not engaged with my soloing CO toon in the same way I was in CoH...event if their fingers do move and eyes blink.  In fact, come to think...I don't think I have yet to truly 'scrapperlock' on any objective in CO    I'm giving it six months, maybe I should roll a blaster or something...

Cool stuff.


What the meaning of this "scrapperlock"?

[Septipheran]

Add me to the list of people who liked to solo and team equally. When I first started playing COH I had a very very bad computer so I ended up soloing quite a bit just to alleviate lag. As I upgraded my hardware I started to team more and more, but still soloed regularly. I loved the myriad of options for playing in COH.

I'm starting to see the dullness in CO, but that's what not having 8 years worth of content will get you. They do have the comics and adventure packs as well as lairs, but it's just not the same as TF's, SF's and trials in terms of frequency of use and accessibility. The alerts are done frequently and the ques never take long, but they're so short that it's next to impossible to feel like you're cultivating any real "team" environment. The most level of chatting I ever see in those is the occasional "grats" when someone levels at the end. Even DFB which was very short by COH standards encouraged/facilitated a higher level of team interaction than alerts do.

On a personal note I loved Incarnate trials. I can see why some diehard soloists wouldn't enjoy them, particularly if your machine lagged all the enjoyment out of them. I was in this boat for a while. I think the dev's did a perfect job of reconciliation when they began to work in solo Incarnate stuff though- obviously we never got to see the solo path come to full fruition, but they were definitely on the right track in my book.

[corvus1970]

On a personal note I loved Incarnate trials. I can see why some diehard soloists wouldn't enjoy them, particularly if your machine lagged all the enjoyment out of them. I was in this boat for a while. I think the dev's did a perfect job of reconciliation when they began to work in solo Incarnate stuff though- obviously we never got to see the solo path come to full fruition, but they were definitely on the right track in my book.

I really came to enjoy the BAF and TPN trials. Those were a lot of fun. Lmabda was fun if you had the right people running the show. The other trials failed far too easily for my taste.

[Nightmarer]

Because when running 8 man mission solo, 5 missions, got good level progression (level 40). Now on another level 40 and running those same 5 missions was a lot further in the level progression on the 8 man team due to the xp bonus for teaming included. Actually did the 5 missions on the team first and since it was even conned, that is what I set the 8 man solo play for the mission for the level 40 I soloed with. Even when later I did it with a level 40 at 8man/+2 level, still it fell short compared to the amount of xp gained to when I did it 8man team 5 missions even conned.

Recipe drops, the good stuff had greater chance of dropping in team gated events, like trials. For exmple ITF. Good drops, but made for teaming. Solo, at least in my experience which from my experience I am talking about from the start, not many good recipes drop when I'm solo. And the places to get the good drops come from team gated stuff.

Even at the beginning, you couldnt do the sewer trial without a team. Quick way to level. Compared to the solo choice of the regualr missions, which even then at that point a normal toon pre-14 wouldnt be able to tackle +8 mobs. But get on 8 man team, and those levels melt buy quickly. Doing the sewer trial dropped SOs prior to the level that a solo player would be able to obtain them. A solo player would be required to buy them if they was available on the market and assuming they had the cash while teaming gets them for free enough and in many cases more than enough to fill all the slots. Another gift drop to teaming none for solo.

20-35, a solost person is stuck with the normal way of leveling with contact mission hoping to not run out of missions. Team required especially on hero side TF, you can do the six TFs only (non-speed run and killing everything in the path) with a trial or two to cover any slow down like debt in between, which requires a team of course, unless you trick the team gate, and end up level 36 no problem and on top of that a buff. Another gift to teamers, none for solo.

Hami-made for teaming, and drops some of the rarest stuff out there. Gift to teaming none for solo. Dont think there is even a single instance of solo oriented play that drop anything equivalent to the stuff you get from Hamidon, which is designed for team play. Gift for teamers none for solo.

Even the end game like incarnate while a small part of the game, doesnt mean all soloist get to 50 and then ice their level 50 toon. That was definately made for teaming. Another gift for teaming and none for solo ,especially for one thta wanted to expand their powers and partake in the end game content. It seemed that solo players were nearly locked out the end game content with scraps beign fed to them while teams got the real meat.

Some of those are a few example of what I'm talking about.

Still at a loss about the "xp bonus for teaming". As far as I'm concerned, when teaming, you got less XP per foe but it was largely compensated with the amount of foes spawned in the mish. That got nullified when playing at +8 difficulty.

Agreed on the sewer trial part and I already admitted Incarnate Trials also favored teaming, never said anything about icing lvl 50 chars and no clue where did you get that from no matter how much I re-read my previous post.

Also, as far as I know (and of course I could be wrong), I don't recall ever reading that recipe drop rates were increased on team events so can't see the teaming advantage there. Agreed you couldn't get HO's either unless you were in a team, but I wouldn't qualify HO's as a greater reward, especially after Synapse fixed them.-

I purposely disregarded the CO stuff you keep throwing at me since I'm not interested in CO at all.

In any case, as I said, I was genuinely curious about your statements and where did they come from but now I guess I have an idea about it.

As you say you made made progression measurements on different chars doing same missions and stuff so I guess, yeah, CoH favored teaming over soloing after all.-

[Minotaur]

I really came to enjoy the BAF and TPN trials. Those were a lot of fun. Lmabda was fun if you had the right people running the show. The other trials failed far too easily for my taste.

Only trial I ever failed more than once in a blue moon was magisterium, 100% on TPN/MoM/DD, only lambda failures when going for badges or Marauder decided for no obvious reason to jump over the wall, BAF almost never failed. Keyes I rarely did because I disliked it.

Still at a loss about the "xp bonus for teaming". As far as I'm concerned, when teaming, you got less XP per foe but it was largely compensated with the amount of foes spawned in the mish. That got nullified when playing at +8 difficulty.

At x8 solo/with 8 players, the XP multiplier means you only had to kill stuff twice as fast rather than 8 times as fast on the team to get the same XP, most teams kill 3 or 4 times as fast as one player, hence more XP/minute

[Nightmarer]

At x8 solo/with 8 players, the XP multiplier means you only had to kill stuff twice as fast rather than 8 times as fast on the team to get the same XP, most teams kill 3 or 4 times as fast as one player, hence more XP/minute

Aha, still, seems it's not something set in stone but yeah, the norm on any decent team would mean more xp per minute so I stand corrected.-

Thanks for the clarification.-

[JaguarX]

Agreed on the sewer trial part and I already admitted Incarnate Trials also favored teaming, never said anything about icing lvl 50 chars and no clue where did you get that from no matter how much I re-read my previous post.

Because I didnt get that part from your post. You asked how I came to this, and I answered and incarnate is part of it not a large portion of the game over all but a big portion of the "post-50" gameplay where it seemed like the logic was that all solo players throw out their 50s as soon as they hit 50 and have no interest in the incarnate stuff. it was as if the incarnate stuff was designed without given a single nod to solo players with the solo contacts added later, which from my understanding sure wasnt a very efficient path to incarnate. A cold chicken nugget compared to the filet mignon that teamers got.

I purposely disregarded the CO stuff you keep throwing at me since I'm not interested in CO at all.

The CO part is important for comparison of how it could have been more equal for solo and teaming. Kind of there to show what I'm aiming for as far as teaming/solo reward balance where it doesnt feel like no love for solo people. And part of where this is coming from, as you asked.

[Nightmarer]

The CO part is important for comparison of how it could have been more equal for solo and teaming. Kind of there to show what I'm aiming for as far as teaming/solo reward balance where it doesnt feel like no love for solo people. And part of where this is coming from, as you asked.

Then it's my fault since I should have clarified the bits I was curious about were the "xp bonus for teams" which Minotaur already explained and the recipe drops part, none of them are related to CO but I should have been more clear.

Again, I guess, yes, COH favored teaming over soloing and from there it's just a matter of personal preference.-

[JaguarX]

Then it's my fault since I should have clarified the bits I was curious about were the "xp bonus for teams" which Minotaur already explained and the recipe drops part, none of them are related to CO but I should have been more clear.

Again, I guess, yes, COH favored teaming over soloing and from there it's just a matter of personal preference.-

ah.

[corvus1970]

Only trial I ever failed more than once in a blue moon was magisterium, 100% on TPN/MoM/DD, only lambda failures when going for badges or Marauder decided for no obvious reason to jump over the wall, BAF almost never failed. Keyes I rarely did because I disliked it.

I was on a Lambda that failed because the teams sweeping the warehouse and labs got super-confused and failed to clear out everything, and I think they screwed up the acid use as well. We ended up being swamped by so many War-Walkers that we couldn't stay alive long enough to defeat marauder. That was not fun.

I was on two Magi's that failed, and after that I just joined the farming runs for it. A single DD which failed, and I was on 4 MoM's, 2 of which failed, and two UG's that failed, and that was frustrating because its a long one. In the second UG, the group stood around for 6 minutes inexplicably before attacking the Avatar of Hami, and we ended up running out of time when we finally engaged.

[tigerbaby]

[JaguarX]

[Septipheran]

I was on a Lambda that failed because the teams sweeping the warehouse and labs got super-confused and failed to clear out everything, and I think they screwed up the acid use as well. We ended up being swamped by so many War-Walkers that we couldn't stay alive long enough to defeat marauder. That was not fun.

I was on two Magi's that failed, and after that I just joined the farming runs for it. A single DD which failed, and I was on 4 MoM's, 2 of which failed, and two UG's that failed, and that was frustrating because its a long one. In the second UG, the group stood around for 6 minutes inexplicably before attacking the Avatar of Hami, and we ended up running out of time when we finally engaged.

Things like this happened to me when my main server was Protector- it was a big part of the reason that I switched most of my essential characters to Freedom. I don't think I ever failed anything again, barring maybe a run or two when new trials first came out, and some failed badge runs where the trials themselves generally succeeded.

[corvus1970]

Things like this happened to me when my main server was Protector- it was a big part of the reason that I switched most of my essential characters to Freedom. I don't think I ever failed anything again, barring maybe a run or two when new trials first came out, and some failed badge runs where the trials themselves generally succeeded.

I don't blame you. Unfortunately the incidents I mentioned all unfolded over the last 2.5 weeks of the game's lifespan, and all happened on Virture.

[Septipheran]

I don't blame you. Unfortunately the incidents I mentioned all unfolded over the last 2.5 weeks of the game's lifespan, and all happened on Virture.

Hm, I still logged in just about every weekend when Freedom had some semblance of a population after the announcement. The weekend before the shutdown I got consecutive successful BAF, MoM, TPN and MAG runs in. I never spent much time on Virtue so I don't mean to speak with any definitiveness at all, but I always saw it as a very casual, everyone gets a trophy for participation kind of server. Not that there's anything wrong with that attitude, but in my experience it doesn't do a lot to prompt consistent success in game content with a risk of failure.

[corvus1970]

storied tha twas also available to teams. I think in the entire game there was maybe one or two things that teaming was not allowed. The prae arc where you had to decide which side to take but then how many things and storyline were siolo players locked out of ? Many.

Actually, soloists were able to enjoy the majority of the content without having to team. This has been stated several times in this thread. There were certain types of content that required teaming (which nobody has denied to my knowledge), and you are fixated on that smaller stack of content at the expense of the larger body.

even when flashedback, still, my main point again, is that teaming was rewarded much more than the soloist. Plus there was badges that required teaming like all the TF badges. The rest of these badges that is supposedly a gift to soloist outside the explore badges, were mostly badges that you had to farm anyways and dont see how in any way that is a gift, not to mention didnt add to any stats. COmapred the accolades like TF commander where you had to do TFs to gain, which required a team.

Freedom Phalanx Reserve (+10% Max Health), Portal Jockey (+5% Health +5 Endurance) , and The Atlas Medallion (+5 Max Endurance) were all achievable solo. Sure, it could certainly take more time when it came to the defeat badges needed for some of those, but it could still be done.

If a team wanted to they could easily slow down and enjoy the moment.

Sure, they could. But doing so was the exception, not the rule.

But a solo cant get the rewards of the teaming bonus, or just waltz up to Posi and start the tf or gain incarnate stuff anywhere near the rate of the iTrial teams. Or even solo itrials for that matter.

It is clear that you are fixating on TFs that were clearly not the majority of the available content. Evidently that sort of content, the faster reward-drops, and the faster gain of XP while teaming seems to be something that you feel was more important and thus made you feel pressured. That's your prerogative of course, but its misleading to keep stating that we're wrong for talking about just how remarkably solo-friendly CoX was.

Also, I believe you mentioned running out of contacts in an earlier post. That was indeed annoying... until the Radio missions were introduced, and provided a fix: run a few radios, get a safeguard, succeed at safeguard, get a choice of a new contact.

Anyways sooo what does this scrapperlock mean? Doesnt look like something that can be found in the local dictionary.

Paragon Wiki is there for a reason:

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Scrapperlock

[JaguarX]

Actually, soloists were able to enjoy the majority of the content without having to team. This has been stated several times in this thread. There were certain types of content that required teaming, and you are fixated on that smaller stack of content at the expense of the larger body.

Freedom Phalanx Reserve (+10% Max Health), Portal Jockey (+5% Health +5 Endurance) , and The Atlas Medallion (+5 Max Endurance) were all achievable solo.

Sure, they could. But doing so was the exception, not the rule.

It is clear that you are fixating on TFs that were clearly not the majority of the available content. Evidently that content and the faster gain of XP while teaming seems to be something that you feel was more important. That's your prerogative of course, but its misleading to keep stating that we're wrong for talking about just how remarkably solo-friendly CoX was.

Paragon Wiki is there for a reason:

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Scrapperlock

well actualy you chose to fixiate on the TF portion only . As I stated numerous times it's about the rewards differences between solo and teaming with the team content lock out. Tf commander cannot get solo and as I also stated getting that badge alone can take you from level 10-36 easy with a buff on top of that. Solo players are locked out of that. Not to mention the other TFs they are locked out of. Teaming have all the access to the badges and accolades and all of it can be teamed but not all of it can be soloed. And those badges that you mentioned very easy to get when teaming and as I said, when solo you basically had to farm for some of them. And no where in any statement did I said anyone was wrong. This isnt even a wrong or right situation. I'm just stating what I seen and experienced and felt. Nothing more nothing less. There is nothing to be right or wrong about. It's my opinion. Nothing more or less. I mean every little thing isnt about being wrong or right or proving wrong or who's right. Sometimes things should be taken as just opinions and view of others. Nothing more nothing less. Everything doesnt have to turn into or be turned into a wrong or right discussion. You feel that soloist got the best in the world, I feel they got shafted. Who's wrong or right? It isnt about that. It's different opinions

And I do not automatically know that every single word out there is on Paragon wiki or automatically that word in particular is on there or would be available on there. Wouldn't it have been easier to just say the definition instead of having to be snarky about it? Or just posting the link about it would have equally suffice. But you couldn't help yourself could you?

Edit: Let's leave the personal insults out of the discussion.

[corvus1970]

Its clear we are never going to agree on the matter of teaming versus soloing, no matter what arguments are made.

I'll save us both the aggravation and simply refrain from addressing your posts on the matter.

And I do not automatically know that every single word out there is on Paragon wiki or automatically that word in particular is on there or would be available on there. Wouldn't it have been easier to just say the definition instead of having to be snarky about it? Or just posting the link would have equally suffice. But you couldn't help yourself could you?

While I'd heard the term before, I wasn't familiar with its meaning. And so I thought "I wonder if its on the wiki?", and sure enough, there it was.

[JaguarX]

Its clear we are never going to agree on the matter of teaming versus soloing, and I'll not be addressing your posts on the matter any further.

While I'd heard the term before, I wasn't familiar with its meaning. And so I thought "I wonder if its on the wiki?", and sure enough, there it was.

That is perfectly fine with me, because this wasnt even meant to be an agree or attempt to agree on anything. It was that some stated their opinion about something and I stated mine. It shouldnt even had t be turn into a big discussion about my opinion. But I figured well hey, they must be curious about it so I might as well go. But it seems that you in particular want to t turn it into something else, right versus wrong or trying to get someone to agree. Yeah this isnt going anywhere with you and dont wish also to discuss this subject with you any longer. That we can agree on.

And if you had to look it up yourself too, then the snark  wasn't called for. When I hear an unfamiliar term I'm sorry but the first thing that comes to mind is look it up in dictionary not paragon wiki. It wasn't in the dictionary so I asked. If you first go to wiki, that is you and your logic. If you couldnt just posted the link then I would have rather you not even posted that information at all.

Well anyways hope you have a good day.

[Septipheran]

If there was no rewards disparity for soloists there would be no incentive to team... And then COH would've been like Champions.

[JaguarX]

If there was no rewards disparity for soloists there would be no incentive to team... And then COH would've been like Champions.

yeah, more than likely, probably. I always thought people teamed because that is where the greater rewards were and without it there wouldn't be much teaming. Sure some people probably still would do it because that is what they enjoy, and that is the direction that the game seemed to cater to, the teaming with the incentives as without it, really about how much of the population would actually team just for the fun of it?

[tigerbaby]

[Nightmarer]

yeah, more than likely, probably. I always thought people teamed because that is where the greater rewards were and without it there wouldn't be much teaming. Sure some people probably still would do it because that is what they enjoy, and that is the direction that the game seemed to cater to, the teaming with the incentives as without it, really about how much of the population would actually team just for the fun of it?

I personally only teamed for the fun of it (except for Incarnate Trials and certain TF's). Being most my chars Brutes/Scrappers, soloing was fun enough plus I had two accounts so I could PL myself anytime I wished, yet sometimes I felt sociable enough and teamed up just for the heck of it. It also depended to an extent on the AT I was lvling at the moment since some AT's (maybe I should say some powerset combos to be more accurate) were way funnier than others on teams but in any case, main factor to decide whether I teamed or not was my mood.

[JaguarX]

[JaguarX]

I personally only teamed for the fun of it (except for Incarnate Trials and certain TF's). Being most my chars Brutes/Scrappers, soloing was fun enough plus I had two accounts so I could PL myself anytime I wished, yet sometimes I felt sociable enough and teamed up just for the heck of it. It also depended to an extent on the AT I was lvling at the moment since some AT's (maybe I should say some powerset combos to be more accurate) were way funnier than others on teams but in any case, main factor to decide whether I teamed or not was my mood.

Cool stuff.

[CG]

no. I really never heard of the term scrapperlock. Not sure how other people do it but when I ask a question it means I dont know and interested in knowing the meaning.

And my comment about that you quoted of mine wasn't about the link. It was that statement before it. It came off as a bit condescending as if I was suppose to automatically known that scrapperlock, a word I never heard of ever before was supposed to be defined on paragon wiki.

It's the first two links that come up in google when you search on the term.

Guess some people cant help themselves or stop themselves from being a "male piece"

The irony here is astounding.

[JaguarX]

It's the first two links that come up in google when you search on the term.
The irony here is astounding.

As I said before the first place I went was the dictionary. Second I typed the word into the search engine.
The definition didnt come up for me, especially Paragonwiki with scrapperlock.


Look, it was just a simple question, about a word I never heard of that it seems I'm supposed to be born knowing since it is used very often in everyday speech. If he or anyone else didnt want to answer the damned question just dont. That'll teach me about asking about a word I didnt know especially when it comes to game slang since it's supposed to be common knowledge what every single game term is supposed to mean. I'm not looking to turn this into a big deal because it isnt worth it. Already was irked about the condescending tone or the first answer, and this reaction as if I'm not supposed to ask what a word mean and the assumption that I'm supposed to know what it means, and that paragonwiki came up first thing on my computer which it didnt. I rather just drop it. If a perason cant bother to answer my question without being a dick about it, then it is best to not answer it at all is what I'm getting at. It was too easy to post scrapperlock-(definition) or hell even just the link would have done without coming off as if I "Should have known that it was on paragonwiki". WHen the only difference between us was that he just happned to know that it was on paragonwiki and looked it up. While one, paragonwiki didnt come up in my search engine, two, I havent been on paragonwiki in over 1.5 years so of course I wouldnt think to even look there in the top  5 choices, three I never heard of the word every before in my life so why would have paragonwiki be the first place I look? "Hey never heard of this word, better check paragonwiki." I'm sorry not my line of thinking.

If the case is look up for your self then 99.9% of the questions on this board shouldn't exist since the answer exist online somewhere and they could just easily just look it up. Just like when someone ask me what something means I dont say "That is what a dictionary is for." I just tell them what it means and leave it at that even if I think the word they asking about is supposedly common knowledge as I think that is the nice and most of all respectful thing to do without the added extra "You should know what that means" words and or tone.

I dont see the irony here as I wasnt a "male piece" to him when asking the question. In fact the question wasnt even directed at him but it seemed he couldnt help himself from taking that opportunity to be a "male piece" to me. So where is the irony? That is a rhetorical question. 

[CG]

I dont see the irony here as I wasnt a "male piece" to him when asking the question. In fact the question wasnt even directed at him but it seemed he couldnt help himself from taking that opportunity to be a "male piece" to me. So where is the irony? That is a rhetorical question. 

I do not think that word means what you think it does.

I would have had him hold the snark and just not even bother posting the link.

If you couldnt just posted the link then I would have rather you not even posted that information at all.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just say the definition instead of having to be snarky about it? Or just posting the link would have equally suffice. But you couldn't help yourself could you?

An example of a rhetorical question: Is someone who resorts to name calling when others don't agree with them a "male piece"? 

[Sekoia]

Please stop with the name calling, directly or indirectly.

Please assume the best. If someone asks a question, assume they honestly don't know how to find the answer. If you wish to tell them how to find the answer for next time, that's fine. But try to do it politely.

Please assume the best. If someone seems to step on your toe, assume they did it accidentally. Plain text doesn't carry tone. What sounds like snark might actually not be.

If someone actually is snarking, please don't let it devolve into a series of back and forth posts that takes a thread off topic.

Please consider the current off-topic conversations in this thread closed and try to steer yourselves back on topic. The topic here is "teaming".

Thank you kindly.

[JaguarX]

Is someone who resorts to name calling when others don't agree with them a "male piece"?

Just seen Sekoria post so I deleted what I said addressing the quote.

I just asked a simple question about a term I never heard of. If asking a question about a term I never heard of is not welcomed here, then I rather just have been told, "Asking about terms you dont know about is not welcomed here." and I would have left it at that and kept that in mind for future reference. Sorry for asking a simple question. My bad.

[CG]

So, is anyone from one of the Plan Z's frequenting this thread?  Would you be able to comment on the team/solo aspects of gameplay that you have planned?

[dwturducken]

My feelings on teaming/soloing aside, the general tone of this thread turned me away from it by the middle of the second page. And I usually have found myself in agreement with the two belligerents.

[JaguarX]

Thinking back, I think I might have over reacted a bit. I appologize for that. I let my slight ire get the best of me that time and win that round.  Next time I wont bother asking anything. I just stick to what I know and my opinion and any word I dont know or understand I'll just ignore it to prevent snark replies and it causing an issue where there shouldnt be any.

[corvus1970]

So, is anyone from one of the Plan Z's frequenting this thread?  Would you be able to comment on the team/solo aspects of gameplay that you have planned?

I'd be very interested to hear this.

[tigerbaby]

Thinking back, I think I might have over reacted a bit. I appologize for that. I let my slight ire get the best of me that time and win that round.  Next time I wont bother asking anything. I just stick to what I know and my opinion and any word I dont know or understand I'll just ignore it to prevent snark replies and it causing an issue where there shouldnt be any.

When I come across a word I don't know, or am unsure about, I right/click it and let Google show me what it has to reveal; sometimes it leads me off surfing into interesting new things i did not know before.

I should have been more trusting that the question was sincere, but I've been led down the path before.  Sometimes it's so hard to read intentions from strings of text, but it is also this ambiguity that makes literature what it is, /em shrug

What *is* interesting, though, that Paragon Wiki's definition of 'scrapperlock' is team-focused, and my interpretation more reflective of my solo experience.  tch, scrappers always getting the bad rap on teams...but I must confess there were whole classes of villian mobs I had no idea debuffed or mezzed until I encountered them on teams, because they could not overcome TB's toggles.  I know some pickup teams were not getting what they expected from Tigerbaby, whose build was 'take a licking and keep on kicking' combined with 'disorient express' as damage mitigator, not big DPS like scrappers are 'supposed' to be.

I think some players' solo vs. team experience also has a lot to do with their prior experience in other games - or lack thereof, in my case.  People who enjoyed or have a lot of experience in team-oriented games seemed to want to operate in that paradigm, even if it sometimes didn't exactly 'fit' CoH (like 'we need a healer' as the answer to repeated wipes against Malta /em heavysigh).

[JaguarX]

When I come across a word I don't know, or am unsure about, I right/click it and let Google show me what it has to reveal; sometimes it leads me off surfing into interesting new things i did not know before.

I should have been more trusting that the question was sincere, but I've been led down the path before.  Sometimes it's so hard to read intentions from strings of text, but it is also this ambiguity that makes literature what it is, /em shrug

What *is* interesting, though, that Paragon Wiki's definition of 'scrapperlock' is team-focused, and my interpretation more reflective of my solo experience.  tch, scrappers always getting the bad rap on teams...but I must confess there were whole classes of villian mobs I had no idea debuffed or mezzed until I encountered them on teams, because they could not overcome TB's toggles.  I know some pickup teams were not getting what they expected from Tigerbaby, whose build was 'take a licking and keep on kicking' combined with 'disorient express' as damage mitigator, not big DPS like scrappers are 'supposed' to be.

I think some players' solo vs. team experience also has a lot to do with their prior experience in other games - or lack thereof, in my case.  People who enjoyed or have a lot of experience in team-oriented games seemed to want to operate in that paradigm, even if it sometimes didn't exactly 'fit' CoH (like 'we need a healer' as the answer to repeated wipes against Malta /em heavysigh).

Yeah I remember that feature. On my old computer I did that on the regular but on the new one, that feature doesnt seem to be available. No hard feeling towards you. Sad that some people used that tactic though to get on some people's nerves though and make it harder to tell a legitimate question from one that is just there to start mess. 

yeah my playstyle is similiar to what you described but didnt play many scrappers. All deleted as soon as it got 50. So I played scrappers through and through and thought about deleting each one earlier but kept getting "oh it's gets better, wait until level 20." then "...level 30", "...level 40" "...level 50" so I went and scrappers wasnt my style regardless of the powerset. So I played like that on tanks and brutes. Get in do damge while taking damge until there is nothing left alive. 

With the healer thing. lol yeah I seen that alot. 90% of the time it wasnt lack of healer and usually ended up with a pissed off healer. And noooo one wants the healer of all people pissed off. Tactics had ot be changed. One tactic wasnt always a fit all to all situations and team make up. Sometimes it meant targeting the sapper first but if a person have an electric armor or better yet, more than two people have electric armor then the sapper is usually low priority and then maybe the Zeus thing has to be targeted first. It's about finding what works for the team at the time. There were some tanks of mine especially that just didnt work well with other teams and did marvelous on some teams. Some teams need something with taunt (I always give fair warning when claiming an invites. "Oi! This bloke have no taunt so if that is what you are needing, I must pass up this invite and kick me now.") Tactics. Underrated in some teams I've been on.

[tigerbaby]

Yeah I remember that feature. On my old computer I did that on the regular but on the new one, that feature doesnt seem to be available.

yeah my playstyle is similiar to what you described but didnt play many scrappers. All deleted as soon as it got 50. So I played scrappers through and through and thought about deleting each one earlier but kept getting "oh it's gets better, wait until level 20." then "...level 30", "...level 40" "...level 50" so I went and scrappers wasnt my style regardless of the powerset. So I played like that on tanks and brutes. Get in do damge while taking damge until there is nothing left alive. 

With the healer thing. lol yeah I seen that alot. 90% of the time it wasnt lack of healer and usually ended up with a pissed off healer. And noooo one wants the healer of all people pissed off. Tactics had ot be changed. One tactic wasnt always a fit all to all situations and team make up. Sometimes it meant targeting the sapper first but if a person have an electric armor or better yet, more than two people have electric armor then the sapper is usually low priority and then maybe the Zeus thing has to be targeted first. It's about finding what works for the team at the time. There were some tanks of mine especially that just didnt work well with other teams and did marvelous on some teams. Some teams need something with taunt (I always give fair warning when recieveing invites. "Oi

I'm a Mac (ab)user, so it might be a Mac thing (yes, I have an extra reason to be PO'd about the demise of CoH!) might be a browser function, too.

Tigerbaby was my first character and -by sheer luck- the one that 'fit' me best: (mostly) single-target scrapper, and the madly overpowered /regen of the day that allowed me to learn the game without accruing so much debt I never levelled.  Even after repeated 'nerfs' applied to his secondary, there were only a handful of situations in which he needed a healer, on teams having a 'healer' was more of a convenience than anything.  But with Malta, the Sappers' ability to drop his toggles represented a real problem.

On paper, a Brute was better-suited to my playstyle, but as it seemed to work out in practice, while Brutes were enjoyable and i think I played them well, I always had the most fun on Scrappers.

There is another type of team dynamic: the 2-player team, which is very different from both soloing and large teams.  In CoH, it seemed that almost any combo of 2 players could potentially work together, but there were some that really shone in synergy...or even more in hilarity.

[JaguarX]

I'm a Mac (ab)user, so it might be a Mac thing (yes, I have an extra reason to be PO'd about the demise of CoH!) might be a browser function, too.

Tigerbaby was my first character and -by sheer luck- the one that 'fit' me best: (mostly) single-target scrapper, and the madly overpowered /regen of the day that allowed me to learn the game without accruing so much debt I never levelled.  Even after repeated 'nerfs' applied to his secondary, there were only a handful of situations in which he needed a healer, on teams having a 'healer' was more of a convenience than anything.  But with Malta, the Sappers' ability to drop his toggles represented a real problem.

On paper, a Brute was better-suited to my playstyle, but as it seemed to work out in practice, while Brutes were enjoyable and i think I played them well, I always had the most fun on Scrappers.

There is another type of team dynamic: the 2-player team, which is very different from both soloing and large teams.  In CoH, it seemed that almost any combo of 2 players could potentially work together, but there were some that really shone in synergy...or even more in hilarity.

2 man teams. Some funny stuff can happen. Like I was on a tank and had this young blaster that kept pestering me about wanting to team up. So I we joined up and get in mish. I'm about ready to go in and do my thing and he types "wait, let me tank." "I responded, so what am I going to do?" his reply, "You be the blaster." lol. So this dude is tanking with his blaster and doing a good job considering we was playing +2/X4 and here I using hurl and various other temp ranged powers on a tank while this guy is using his melee stuff and we are just steam rolling the enemy, although he was doing most of the damage since hurl was only up every so often and I just healed him with heal other when he needed it and kept it moving. It was weird, we probably could have been moving faster but who cared, we was having fun. What turned into a team of supposedly one or two missions endedu pbeing two story arcs whis way just doing various odd and crazy things that on a more serious minded larger team we could not get away with. One mish we went through both using only brawl, then another mish only aoes and so one what what ever crazy idea we could think of that was taboo.

[Kuriositys Kat]

2 man teams. Some funny stuff can happen. Like I was on a tank and had this young blaster that kept pestering me about wanting to team up. So I we joined up and get in mish. I'm about ready to go in and do my thing and he types "wait, let me tank." "I responded, so what am I going to do?" his reply, "You be the blaster." lol. So this dude is tanking with his blaster and doing a good job considering we was playing +2/X4 and here I using hurl and various other temp ranged powers on a tank while this guy is using his melee stuff and we are just steam rolling the enemy, although he was doing most of the damage since hurl was only up every so often and I just healed him with heal other when he needed it and kept it moving. It was weird, we probably could have been moving faster but who cared, we was having fun. What turned into a team of supposedly one or two missions endedu pbeing two story arcs whis way just doing various odd and crazy things that on a more serious minded larger team we could not get away with. One mish we went through both using only brawl, then another mish only aoes and so one what what ever crazy idea we could think of that was taboo.

 And this little gem  of an example shows what was wonderful about the teaming options on City. *sigh*  I miss doing stuff like this.

[MaidMercury]

To me, the game was more interesting with fellow players to Team with.
solo is o.k. if that's your option.

CoH brought out people's imaginations. It was part Detective work, part neighborhood watch,
and part fashion show. It wasn't like hanging out in a chat room in the real world, talking about stupid topics like sex jokes, politics, everyday events, etc...

CoH was a virtual chat room in another world, with zones to either normal places or very different worlds, Oroboros, Cimerrora, etc...but no matter how bizarre, a place where we could make some differences.
The Coffee Talk videos connected us as players to GMs, CoH felt like it belonged to all of us.

[Samuel Tow]

I'd be very interested to hear this.

Well, you'd have to get someone involved in the actual game systems to tell. I'm mostly involved with Lore at the moment, but as far as I'm concerned, the Phoenix Project, at least, should end up having a decent balance between solo and team play.

On the nature of playing for rewards or playing for fun, I never really played for the XPs in City of Heroes. I loved seeing my awesome creations kicking ass, and rewards were just a means to move me through the game. However, as such, I was forced to concern myself with the rate of reward because I wanted to move through the story and I wanted to see some progression on my character. The Incarnate and ESPECIALLY the Ascendant storylines in City of Heroes interested me greatly, but much of the content that these stories revolved around was rather difficulty and expecting me to have Incarnate powers, or at least one level shift, which I never actually saw in City of Heroes. When I'm required to reach some "level" before my story can progress, then rewards become relevant.

Here's the thing - once you boil a game down to "you must be this tall to ride," you're essentially turning it from a toy into work. No matter what I might enjoy about it, I'm forced to abandon it and "work" until I can unlock the next tier. The fact of the matter is that for most of its run, City of Heroes let me play MY game MY way, and it was glorious! Then all of a sudden the Incarnate system started twisting my arm and telling me I should play another way, and that's why I resent it as much as I do. Time would have undoubtedly made things better with additions of soloable Incarnate content, sure, but the original idea of RaidsRaidsRaids was simply wretched. You take a game which is partially as popular as it is for its customizability in crafting your own experience and you crowbar it into the mould of standard MMO raid grind? If that's not missing the game's whole point, I don't know what is.

Solo is fun because the solo experience is controllable. I can pick my difficulty, I can pick my missions, I can pick my characters, I can pick my fights, I can pick my pace and, if I were so inclined, I can walk away from the computer for 90 minutes to go watch Van Helsing that just started on TV. To quote Wolverine: "I go where I wanna' go!" Teaming is always fun, sure, but it's fun in a social way that, to me personally, is emotionally draining. Solo play is whatever I want to make it, and that freedom and independence is how I rest my brain.

[tigerbaby]

Well, you'd have to get someone involved in the actual game systems to tell. I'm mostly involved with Lore at the moment, but as far as I'm concerned, the Phoenix Project, at least, should end up having a decent balance between solo and team play.

On the nature of playing for rewards or playing for fun, I never really played for the XPs in City of Heroes. I loved seeing my awesome creations kicking ass, and rewards were just a means to move me through the game. However, as such, I was forced to concern myself with the rate of reward because I wanted to move through the story and I wanted to see some progression on my character. The Incarnate and ESPECIALLY the Ascendant storylines in City of Heroes interested me greatly, but much of the content that these stories revolved around was rather difficulty and expecting me to have Incarnate powers, or at least one level shift, which I never actually saw in City of Heroes. When I'm required to reach some "level" before my story can progress, then rewards become relevant.

Here's the thing - once you boil a game down to "you must be this tall to ride," you're essentially turning it from a toy into work. No matter what I might enjoy about it, I'm forced to abandon it and "work" until I can unlock the next tier. The fact of the matter is that for most of its run, City of Heroes let me play MY game MY way, and it was glorious! Then all of a sudden the Incarnate system started twisting my arm and telling me I should play another way, and that's why I resent it as much as I do. Time would have undoubtedly made things better with additions of soloable Incarnate content, sure, but the original idea of RaidsRaidsRaids was simply wretched. You take a game which is partially as popular as it is for its customizability in crafting your own experience and you crowbar it into the mould of standard MMO raid grind? If that's not missing the game's whole point, I don't know what is.

Solo is fun because the solo experience is controllable. I can pick my difficulty, I can pick my missions, I can pick my characters, I can pick my fights, I can pick my pace and, if I were so inclined, I can walk away from the computer for 90 minutes to go watch Van Helsing that just started on TV. To quote Wolverine: "I go where I wanna' go!" Teaming is always fun, sure, but it's fun in a social way that, to me personally, is emotionally draining. Solo play is whatever I want to make it, and that freedom and independence is how I rest my brain.

I agree with your motives for soloing, but I am most confused - you make it sound like there wasn't any soloable post-50 content?!  What was I playing with Tigerbaby, then, to earn him his Empyrean Merit nyan-cat rainbow-butt aura and all those nifty Incarnate powers and level shift?

River of Dreams: Tibby's new Ion Judgement thing is sick!

(NB: River of Dreams is the ice/storm Controller TB teamed up with most often.)

[johnrobey]

Heh, it's late and I have insomnia presently, so instead of logging into our favorite MMORPG I'm reading and posting here.

I think the point about soloing not being as rewarding vis-a-vis loot and XP is valid.  Solo play was great though for seeing ALL of an arc, reading all the contact's info etc.  I really like the Ouroboros flashback for letting me experience all of an arc without diversion.  I also liked doing some solo play to figure out best strategies for a given toon prior to teaming up.  I also count my player enjoyment as being inherently more valuable than in-game rewards.  With the advent of Hero/Villain merits, I could (and did) faithfully "grind" my 5 hero/villain missions per day on various toons (as much or little as I liked) to earn the "A" merits to then buy that expensive purple recipe or whatever.

Personally, I liked the incarnate system even as I had many friends who didn't care for it.   "Grinding" the Incarnate trials was never a huge deal to me, since I often enjoyed the players on a given league, even as I accepted that often my toon would fall in "the laggy maze of death" during the Espionage portion of the Lambda sector trial, etc .  Going to the hospital, waiting a few seconds, maybe buying some inspirations, then getting back in the action felt personally okay.

Almost always when a friend or sgmate got online, we'd team up after a brief discussion about which characters or even servers we wanted to play on.  While I liked CoH solo, I liked it even better when teamed (omitting some truly terrible pickup teams) especially with friends but even random pickups were often good and how I meet my CoH friends, other than the RL pal who got me playing CoH.

Even before Incarnate, for some game didn't begin until level 50.  For others, 50 was it, so time to make a new alt.  I enjoyed playing low level characters as much as fully IO'ed 50's.  I can't speak for other MMORPG's but CoH did an outstanding job imo in catering to a wide range of playing styles and preferences.  I'm still wishing I could just log in and play - and I'm looking forward to the day when that's possible.  /em holdtorch

[Samuel Tow]

I agree with your motives for soloing, but I am most confused - you make it sound like there wasn't any soloable post-50 content?!  What was I playing with Tigerbaby, then, to earn him his Empyrean Merit nyan-cat rainbow-butt aura and all those nifty Incarnate powers and level shift?(NB: River of Dreams is the ice/storm Controller TB teamed up with most often.)

There wasn't until Dark Astoria, no. Grinding out pre-50 missions for Shards that never seemed to drop doesn't count. Dark Astoria was the first step forward, and I assume many more would have come, had the game been given time. Beladonna Vetrano's mission was a good example.

Why I seem critical, however, is because many of the Dark Astoria missions were balanced for ridiculous difficulty. And no, it's not just that "Incarnates are supposed to be stronger." How do I GET stronger when the only content to do that in expects me to be stronger already? Expects me to be using complex intricate Inventions builds for defence cap? Even at the best of times, I could only ever play the Incarnate game with any degree of comfort with only a select few powersets. Super Reflexes? Not without piling a ton of Inventions defences on top. And even then, I got run through the ringer.

And it's not "just" difficulty. It's also the practice of spawning HUUUGE spawns on top of me, or sending multiple spawns to fight me at the same time. That "Defend the Midnight Mansion" mission with the four Elite Bosses is just absurd, and I felt like slapping whoever designed it upside the head... And that's not even Incarnate content.

It's not Dark Astoria's fault. The developers simply assumed I was a lot stronger at one point, and started making the game much, much harder on my old difficulty, all the while rewarding me not much more for it. I'm fine with people wanting their game to be challenging, but that's what the difficulty slider was for. What it WASN'T for is spawning x4 spawns in my missions set to x2. What it WASN'T for is spwaning +3 enemies in missions set to -1 (keep trucking, Tub Chi). Somewhere along the line, the whole game got far too difficult for me to play and still enjoy it, to be quite honest.

But here's the catch - in regular content, I could always stick to the old 2004 missions that had ordinary spawns, didn't have ten ambushes every time I sneeze, didn't have multiple huge spawns, didn't have four elite bosses at a time. I could stick to the old content that was easy... But for Incarnates, there WASN'T any old content. It was all new stuff designed for much stronger characters than I had.

---

The thing with solo play isn't just what "possible" to run solo. It's technically possible to solo AVs and Giant Monsters. It's what I can solo and actually have fun doing it, and much of the game started getting uncomfortably brutal towards the end. There's a reason I stopped playing Blasters altogether - boy that was stressful to play. But towards the end, I was considering dropping entire powersets from the ATs I liked, such a SR, Energy Aura and so on. They were a right pain to play in Incarnate content.

[Samuel Tow]

Almost always when a friend or sgmate got online, we'd team up after a brief discussion about which characters or even servers we wanted to play on.  While I liked CoH solo, I liked it even better when teamed (omitting some truly terrible pickup teams) especially with friends but even random pickups were often good and how I meet my CoH friends, other than the RL pal who got me playing CoH.

For me, it's completely the reverse. When teaming was fun, I could play it for a while, but I would have quit the game years ago if that's all I could ever do. Say what you will, but I've always enjoyed playing alone most of all. Not because other people bother me, not because of rewards or mechanics or pick-up groups or whatnot. For me, entertainment is the sweetest when experienced alone. I can have fun with others for a while, sure, but afterwards, I need to rest my head and not speak with anyone else for a couple of hours. I'd come back from a hard day at work dealing with my students and my colleagues and then just shut myself in a room and play a single-player game for two hours straight.

Any game I can't play by myself is a game I can't play period, since most of my gaming happens alone anyway. I will team, of course - it's a lot of fun. For a while. But unless I can be by myself and rest, then the game stops being fun and turns into a chore, because there's only so much "socialisation" I can take before I need to recharge.

[Lady Luck]

I always found teaming to be one of the more fun aspects of COH but aside from a few situations I also liked that it wasn't required.
I liked seeing the creativity of people whether in their character concepts or in the banter of the team.
Everyone always seemed to be looking for teams but no one ever seemed to want to form teams.
I had no problem starting teams and keeping them full. You only needed to keep your contacts up to date.
During the final months of COH, I ran full teams nearly every night to help people get to 50 who never got to 50 and made some great friends that way.
Other MMOs seem to discourage teaming or at least make it difficult to find a team.

[CG]

Everyone always seemed to be looking for teams but no one ever seemed to want to form teams.

I noticed this as well, but generally when I saw a couple of requests I would just start a team.  It was never really a problem to keep going. 

[Ceremonius]

Well on Zukunft (german speaking server) it was like: whenever you wanted to go afk or had some other businesses -> you got a team.
After about 20 minutes half of the team was afk . But you'll just need 3 people get the ITF finished. A brute who knows how to tank, a good healer for the brute and a scrapper who knows what he's doing...well mostly....not .

But we survived and made the ITF with just 3 people instead of a full team....not master, but we made it . And nearly without kissing the ground. Well the scrapper (me) died serveral times, but due to regeneration and those winter temp powers (forgot the name wich revives you with dmg and knockback to enemies - was it knockback?) it wasn't such a big problem.

Ahhhh.....good'ol memories