I'm Not Here to Powerlevel You

[Carnifax]

+4 Citidel? Ew Ew Ew.

[SeraphimKensai]

I straight up tell the whole team, "look I joined for either a badge or merits, I'm not here to carry the team", and give them a chance to find a level they can either contribute at or I walk, as most my toons are capable of soloing most TF's.

 

I'm probably more of an asshole than most people, so I understand where the OP is coming from on this post. I make it a habit to inspect each teammate like I'm a raid leader in WoW, from power selections to IO bonuses, and then watch how people play their toons the first mission.

[Call Me Awesome]

3 hours ago, Carnifax said:

+4 Citidel? Ew Ew Ew.

I've had teams that could crush that, but you're right, most would struggle.  A team of Incarnates with good buff/debuff stacking?  Sure.  A team of mostly at-level characters?  No thank you unless it's something stacked like 8 Fire/Rad controllers.

 

My approach is to first look at the team, AT's, power sets and levels.  Then I'll usually start at either even (if most of the team is at minimum level) or +1 and evaluate after the first mission.  If we're crushing everything I'll ask if the team wants to up the difficulty.  If we're struggling I'll suggest a lower difficulty.  Obviously a group that's used to working together will know what they can do from the start.

 

I'll also ask if the team wants to stealth where practical or if they want to fight through.  Most of the time they're fine with stealthing where possible but if they want to fight that's fine with me.

 

In all the years I've played I can't recall more than a half dozen times I've had to drop a TF due to a masochistic team leader running too high for the team to handle; I guess I've been lucky that way.

[Techwright]

4 hours ago, Carnifax said:

+4 Citidel? Ew Ew Ew.

 

6 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

I've had teams that could crush that, but you're right, most would struggle. 

 

 

I'd be fine running that with a team of incarnates who've spent time custom tweaking their enhancements, and who've played together long enough to develop a good teamwork pattern. (And, I'd add, are all in agreement seeing there's likely a notable time increase) But a PUG team likely is not a well-oiled machine. 

[Carnifax]

14 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

I've had teams that could crush that, but you're right, most would struggle

I'm just baffled as to why anyone would want to prolong a Citidel over pretty much any other non-shard TF. 

 

"Would you like extra razor blades in your broken glass sandwich?"

[Call Me Awesome]

1 minute ago, Carnifax said:

I'm just baffled as to why anyone would want to prolong a Citidel over pretty much any other non-shard TF. 

 

"Would you like extra razor blades in your broken glass sandwich?"

 

It's not my favorite but there's lots of TF's I dislike much more.  Synapse for example, and all the Shard TF's.  And Numina, those gray hunts drive me up a wall.

[Seed22]

18 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

 

It's AE.  AE farming has made AE babies believe that doing everything at +4x8 with only one level 50 or one well equipped character on the team to carry them is possible and even desired.  It's why you see so many lowbies on zone MSRs who believe that they have no to minimal negative impact on the MSR, and why you see so many level 35 PCs trying to get on ITFs and insist that it be ran at +4x8 with only one level 50 character on the team, even if that character is a Controller.

 

Most of the newbies that Homecoming does get are introduced to the game by AE.  They see so many people offering free AE farm PLing, get sucked into it, and then are warped into thinking that that play is normal and expected for the whole game, both in and out of AE.

Nah. You know there are +4/8 PI radio teams more than farms, right? Look, I know yall LOVE blaming AE for everything wrong ever, but well...take a second and look at that PI council farm radio team going before making a post like this. Will save LOTS of time and headaches

[Call Me Awesome]

1 minute ago, Seed22 said:

Nah. You know there are +4/8 PI radio teams more than farms, right? Look, I know yall LOVE blaming AE for everything wrong ever, but well...take a second and look at that PI council farm radio team going before making a post like this. Will save LOTS of time and headaches

 

Unless there's been a revival in the last year or so I'm not sure about the AE Baby thing.  Sure, there were HUGE numbers of them on Live back when AE first launched... there was a period where you constantly ran into level 50 characters who's players had never left Atlas Park.  That seemed to die out however and I haven't seen that much since.

 

I do unfortunately remember that era well, level 50 characters on an STF with no enhancements.  And no idea how to play.

[gamingglen]

32 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

 

Unless there's been a revival in the last year or so I'm not sure about the AE Baby thing.  Sure, there were HUGE numbers of them on Live back when AE first launched... there was a period where you constantly ran into level 50 characters who's players had never left Atlas Park.  That seemed to die out however and I haven't seen that much since.

 

I do unfortunately remember that era well, level 50 characters on an STF with no enhancements.  And no idea how to play.

 

I'm surprised we CoH players haven't meme'd these things and numbered them, yet. 

 

Like AE#1 : "How do you get out of Atlas Park?"  (I'm not one to go look for the proper picture.. I'm not a memeist. 😉 )

[Call Me Awesome]

1 minute ago, gamingglen said:

 

I'm surprised we CoH players haven't meme'd these things and numbered them, yet. 

 

Like AE#1 : "How do you get out of Atlas Park?"  (I'm not one to go look for the proper picture.. I'm not a memeist. 😉 )

At the time there were a few "AE Baby" videos floating around.

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Carnifax said:

+4 Citidel? Ew Ew Ew.

 

Citadel +4 should not be a struggle for a TF that is expecting it... it may be LONG, but most exemplared lvl 50 builds should not really have a problem. My experience with the non-AV missions in (lower level) TFs run at higher difficulties is that it is usually the ToHit difficulties and the Control durations that offer the biggest challenges. Synapse at +4 is much worse. Positron 1 & 2 at +4 can be a horror show.

 

As for the OP: I agree that running TFs as advertised, and asking on-the-fly regarding difficulty changes is the way to go.

 

I have a few minor peeves, specific to way a very small number of players approach the Penelope Yin TF, relating to advertised expectations:

• When advertised as a "defeat all", and in mission one it is revealed that this includes Prison Doors (?!), don't start crying when players start opening all the doors in the final mission.
• When advertised as a "defeat only what we need to defeat" don't be surprised when groups of freaks are skipped in the first mission.

[Techwright]

On 3/19/2021 at 7:40 PM, Techwright said:

The idea of running it on max is a misconception that the setting equals maximum XP.  Missed hits, multiple deaths, and lower DPS all contribute to a LOWER XP/minute than running it at a far more comfortable +1 or +2.  And the risk of resignations might end the TF, especially when the guy with only 1.5 hours free realizes this is going to drag in far beyond his time budget.

 

Aaaannd...then this actually happened to me.  I'll not name the TF, but deep in the first mission, the lead state they'd prefer the XP to speed and cranked up the difficulty.  Halfway through, we ended up losing people who quietly turned a corner and quit, and the TF ended up taking 1 hour more time than usual.  I had the time to keep going and hung in there, not for the lead, and not for the XP, but for the other teammates who got suckered as well and were just hoping to finish with a badge.

[JnEricsonx]

On 3/19/2021 at 4:33 PM, Apparition said:

 

 

It's AE.  AE farming has made AE babies believe that doing everything at +4x8 with only one level 50 or one well equipped character on the team to carry them is possible and even desired.  It's why you see so many lowbies on zone MSRs who believe that they have no to minimal negative impact on the MSR, and why you see so many level 35 PCs trying to get on ITFs and insist that it be ran at +4x8 with only one level 50 character on the team, even if that character is a Controller.

 

Most of the newbies that Homecoming does get are introduced to the game by AE.  They see so many people offering free AE farm PLing, get sucked into it, and then are warped into thinking that that play is normal and expected for the whole game, both in and out of AE.

Yeah, I admit when I join a 50 4/8 team, and I see people on it that are sub 30 or worse, I'm like...why?

[Ukase]

On 3/20/2021 at 10:06 AM, Seed22 said:

Nah. You know there are +4/8 PI radio teams more than farms, right? Look, I know yall LOVE blaming AE for everything wrong ever, but well...take a second and look at that PI council farm radio team going before making a post like this. Will save LOTS of time and headaches

I don't disagree, but I think the point was, new characters/players start in Atlas. They find themselves being invited, sometimes randomly, without a tell. They go in the mission and are level 17 to 25 in short order, depending on the size of the team and the map. 

Some farmers even tell the new players to visit p2w and get 2xp, and neglect to explain that there's no influence as a cost for the "free" xp buff. 

If somebody wants to farm, that's great. The economy needs farmers to keep things inexpensive. But there's absolutely no need to level up any new, inexperienced players who have never fought Frostfire. 

If it weren't for the creativity some of our players show in mission creations within the AE framework, I'd suggest they shut it down. XP is better outside of AE anyway, provided you have the right missions geared towards your farmer's strengths. 

[Gulbasaur]

On 3/19/2021 at 8:33 PM, Apparition said:

AE farming has made AE babies believe that doing everything at +4x8 with only one level 50 or one well equipped character on the team to carry them is possible and even desired. 

My AE baby story:

 

I once duo'd with a fairly friendly, chatty fire armour brute. He'd been told they were easy to level. We were fighting Sinclair... Maybe? Baddies Praetorian Manticore. The one that gets harder as you go because he level shifts.

 

The poor little blessed thing couldn't take two hits without getting downed while my fortunado stoically stab-stab-stabbed. He rezzed about four times and got downed each time. At one point I had to go AFK and answer the door, leaving my attack on auto.

 

He thought the whole thing was funny, luckily.

[Turric]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:04 AM, TygerDarkstorm said:

This must be at least somewhat server dependent regarding zone MSR's. On Everlasting they're typically hosted by Chaos United and are intentionally advertised as a means for lowbies to join to grind experience. We generally seem to end up with plenty of high level people to smash through the MSR regardless.

 

Don't get me wrong, I see where you're coming from. The MSR thing just threw me off, but I'll attribute that to differences between servers.

 

My limited, anecdotal experience also has not resulted in too many instances like the OP's, so I guess I have been lucky. Speed runs generally seem to get advertised as such, and since I don't like those, I don't sign up for them. Most of the TF's/SF's I run don't seem to go much past +2, and usually the lead asks if we're ok with that or the group as a whole asks to ramp it up a bit because we're just slamming through the content. And no, that's not me saying stuff like what has happened with the OP never happens; I am sure that it does. I guess I have just gotten lucky.

 

 

On Indom, the MSR raids are very well run (who ever Mrs. is on the forums). There are no provisions against bringing a toon 35+ however it is stated that it isn't a power level and so they must at least play their toon and contribute. Lately, we have been doing them in the instance, which I think cuts down on the number of less than 50 toons (that is my assumption anyway). I have been on well over a hundred of those raids, and there are definitely some nights when the damage is lacking and there are lots of lower level toons dying, while there are other nights when everyone brings their tricked out 50+1 toons and it is easy street.  I like MSR raids because I use them to get exactly 1 vet level for one of my characters.

 

As to the OP, I feel your pain. A situation similar to that has occurred to me, however when I spoke up about turning down the diff, the leader did so. I was a little put out because the first few missions took far longer than required, but I quickly forgot about it and moved on. For most of those TF, I run them only for the TF Commander Accolade so I am unconcerned about xp or money and therefore would prefer to get them over with quickly. That is mostly because I've run them so many times. But I am cognizant that there are new players so I usually ask in chat if there are any first timers aboard.

[SuperPlyx]

About the AE thing, I farm and will occasionally open it up for anyone to join. But I try not to get anyone who is new to the game or just learning. 

I try to be cryptic in the lfg: "Ffarm, in PD, pst"... My hope is a new player will not understand that and if they send tells asking questions I most likely won't team them.

[Erratic1]

8 hours ago, Ukase said:

I don't disagree, but I think the point was, new characters/players start in Atlas. They find themselves being invited, sometimes randomly, without a tell. They go in the mission and are level 17 to 25 in short order, depending on the size of the team and the map. 

Some farmers even tell the new players to visit p2w and get 2xp, and neglect to explain that there's no influence as a cost for the "free" xp buff. 

If somebody wants to farm, that's great. The economy needs farmers to keep things inexpensive. But there's absolutely no need to level up any new, inexperienced players who have never fought Frostfire. 

If it weren't for the creativity some of our players show in mission creations within the AE framework, I'd suggest they shut it down. XP is better outside of AE anyway, provided you have the right missions geared towards your farmer's strengths. 

 

I enjoy the game, have my favorite mission arcs, don't 2*xp outside of DFB, never request a farm (though quite happily join PI +4/8 which are not really meaningfully different...humans are strange about what they find a difference in), and admit annoyance at LFG being spammed by people looking for farms to join. However....

 

Influence is optimally generated nowadays by playing the AH market. Who cares if you do not get influence while levelling when you'll generate it like the US Treasury prints money. If xp is better grinding "real" missions, you have to factor in getting groups and travelling between missions. AE there is minimal travel time--exit, start next scenario. The farmer who invites who doesn't care that you are sitting safely at the entrance (heck, prefers you to be there), and poof, you're level 30 in an hour. 

 

People have different tolerances for what repetition is fun for them. I enjoy the entire 1-50 run and have only minimally done end game activity. I may have two characters who have their Alpha and Judgement slots filled and no others even with a small raft of 50s. I need breaks from my characters, but I see other players who have run their Veteran levels up on a character into the stratosphere. I asked one player I've bumped into because they host run the TFC taskforces all the time just how many merits they had. 50,000 merits on a single character is an inconceivable amount to me. I can barely drive myself to reach a thousand intentionally. Some people may be endlessly fascinated with end game and building their version of Omnipitus and for them, forgoing the earlier part they have endlessly done (or not) is their choice.

 

All this to say, "Different strokes for different folks" (hopefully I've planted a earworm--yeah, I'm that old). It does not hurt me how someone else chooses to have fun.

[Neiska]

My two cents for what its worth ~

 

1. People are free to play the game as they like within the design, philosophy, and tools provided. Given that everyone has the same access to all of these things, it can be considered generally "fair" with only time invested and personal tastes accounting for differing favored things.

2. That said however, just as you are free to play your way, so are others. Both people are free to leave, as well as free to start their own groups where they can set the difficulty rating, levels required, and so on.

For example, someone "could" make a DFB group where level 50 is required. I am in no way saying this is a good idea, only remarking on that it is possible.

3. Different people will enjoy different things. This is normal, I would say to be expected in fact. And I think its something of a fools errand to try to control or micromanage this.

4. With #3 in mind, some people will like challenging themselves. Or it could be as presented, people looking for a carry. What I disagree with is the presentation that assisting and helping others is somehow a bad thing. No one is "making" or "forcing" anyone to do anything, as everyone is free to leave and form their own group for whichever activity they prefer. If the fully geared, incarnated, and leveled folks leave that +4, I suspect the remainder will have difficulty anyway, and will either have to wait and fill the slots, or lower it to something more in line with their current character advancement.

5. Personally, I have no issues against AE. A friend of mine spends a great deal of her time making her own missions, bosses, and things, just as some people do bases. I use AE myself, most often to farm or powerlevel a new at powers combo I am curious about. But I find the insinuations made that people who use AE require handholding to be of somewhat ill taste, and beneath everyone involved.

 

Just my mere humble opinions.

[Carnifax]

I'd the opposite of this. An ITF where we lost both our Tanks before the 1st mission finished (basically just as we got outside again). That left us as 6 : Two Blasters, a Scrapper, a Sent, an Ice/Stormie corruptor and my DP/Kin corruptor. 

 

So it looked like it'd be a shitshow. But the leader said "Right, we're going around the backway". We did that, triggered Sister S but at the same time also triggered the Seafood Special. We held those off as long as we could* while Sister Sol very.... slowly.... did her thing, got Mish Complete and then dropped diff so we could reasonably easily finish between us (think we ended up on +2). 

 

* Dwarfs were fine til the stupid Squids got involved and cascade-stripped my Defenses

 

 

[TygerDarkstorm]

5 hours ago, Turric said:

 

 

On Indom, the MSR raids are very well run (who ever Mrs. is on the forums). There are no provisions against bringing a toon 35+ however it is stated that it isn't a power level and so they must at least play their toon and contribute. Lately, we have been doing them in the instance, which I think cuts down on the number of less than 50 toons (that is my assumption anyway). I have been on well over a hundred of those raids, and there are definitely some nights when the damage is lacking and there are lots of lower level toons dying, while there are other nights when everyone brings their tricked out 50+1 toons and it is easy street.  I like MSR raids because I use them to get exactly 1 vet level for one of my characters.

That's why I said I attribute it to differences between servers. I have done the MSR's on Indom as well; both before they were instanced and after. I mentioned Everlasting simply because ours are advertised for all levels to join, which the poster I responded to claimed that lowbies join MSR's thinking they don't negatively impact the raid. I only brought it up because not every server/person who runs MSR's thinks that. 

[Ironblade]

On 3/19/2021 at 4:20 PM, Zeraphia said:

More of a rant here, but I just don't understand some of these people. Leader starts a Citadel TF,

There's your problem right there.  I hate that TF.  I run it once per character for the accolade and never again.