To team or not to team?

[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]