Is there any way to make teams less boring?

[Galaxy Brain]

4 hours ago, Luminara said:

Leprechaun Hanukah?

 

Leprechanukah *

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, Herotu said:

Fear. Fear is the way. Hank nails it on one of his recent videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCh5vto8JFstb9Sma9zV25g

 

FEAR is how you squeeze magic from players. We're the sponge and fear is the juice.

 

We're not afraid of the enemies anymore. Back on live, .....

 

 

Before anything else, this screams out for

 

And with that out of the way....

You're not entirely wrong. 

• Half the reason I used to love Diablo 2 Hardcore and Diablo 3 Hardcore was the massive adrenalin rush you can get from a permadeath mode, in danger on a character you've invested a lot into.  There was that kind of "Holy Crap! Almostdied almostdied almostdied almostdied" from narrowly avoiding a bad car collision, but without any risk of getting ACTUALLY killed or maimed in real life. 
• Among the most memorable moments in WoW was back in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, on our first kill for Sindragosa on 25 man mode. We'd been struggling on her for weeks (we were still learning how to switch from casual mode to raider mode) and finally, finally, we won, and we had exactly TWO people standing at the kill, and one guy keeled over from a DoT 2 seconds after the kill.  The guild erupted in vent cheering and in relief, but all of us were in stark fear only moments before.  Counting down the health bars and saying "oh my god, no not again, we're so frickin' close!!!".

On the other hand, there's some games I play where I want to be terrified, and some I don't. 

City of Heroes, I do enjoy some clean stompy arcade-y beat up the bad guys fun. Especially when work really sucked that day. 

 

So, I guess fear is fine.... if it's controllable. 

If people can know, up-front, are you signing up for the Bumper Cars, or for the Scream-For-Your-Life Roller Coaster?

[Erratic1]

Couldn't help but think of this thread on last thing I was doing.

 

Started a new Tanker and was at the point of wanting to run Posi 1. Recruited people but could only find three others, a Defender, Brute, and Stalker. So we decided to try to four man it. Granted we did not turn the level up or anything nor put any impediments on ourselves. But you know how things go with new characters with limited abilities.

 

We had someone go down on  first mission where it wasn't clear that we were not engaging every group, just those directly in path to objective. After that it wasn't too bad, but I worried about Oranbega, zombie ambush, and the final mission. Oranbega was no problem. Zombie ambush was no problem. But final mission...

 

...started off well with us sticking together. Got to the point of heading in and the question was asked if we should clear around door first. I said sure and two of us went to do so. But someone had already opened the door. Life totals got thin but never so bad it look like a wipe. We pulled it off without losing anyone. Inside door wasn't bad but then comes the shadowy duplicates.

 

Duplicates had me, the Tanker, eating inspirations like candy. Shadow brute and stalker hurt, oh how they hurt. But we managed the entire run with only that one loss in 34 minutes.

 

 

Take from the above what you will. Fear of dying added to fun? Sure. Limited team size added to fun? Sure. Limited abilities added to fun? Sure.

 

Not saying I am on board with mandating anything because sometimes you want/need to wade into a sea of enemies and vanquish them all. But sometimes you need it to be a challenge too.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Erratic1

[Luminara]

7 minutes ago, MTeague said:

So, I guess fear is fine.... if it's controllable. 

 

Fear of what?  Seriously, how do you think the development team is going to frighten us?  Tax audits?  An in-game housing crunch?  Forcing us to trade in our capes for aprons?  We grew up.  We're not frightened of arbitrary penalties in video games.

[Galaxy Brain]

I think more missions like the SBB that encourage smaller team sizes would be cool, as what many folks experience is that past a certain number on a team each individual does less and less (like 6 would be max).

 

Part of it is the psyche of "well we need a full team cus the max is 8" simply because the max is there. Letting go of that can do wonders. 

[Snarky]

Just now, Luminara said:

 

Fear of what?  Seriously, how do you think the development team is going to frighten us?  Tax audits?  An in-game housing crunch?  Forcing us to trade in our capes for aprons?  We grew up.  We're not frightened of arbitrary penalties in video games.

This is why all the reality TV shows are filled with young adults.  Try a "Real World" with real 50 year olds.  Not a ton of drama.  Sure if you get a mal adjusted and/or crazy few, or put in a mix of people that harbor a ton of predispositions to not liking certain other peeps you get drama.  But pick normal fully grown people.  Huge waste of money looking for anything entertaining to film.  No fear.

[Xeph]

32 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Fear of what?  Seriously, how do you think the development team is going to frighten us?  Tax audits?  An in-game housing crunch?  Forcing us to trade in our capes for aprons?  We grew up.  We're not frightened of arbitrary penalties in video games.

 

That's a good point... they're calling it fear but maybe that's too strong a word for the reality of it. I mean bottom line most of us when playing a character we enjoy we avoid dying as much as possible. I'm definitely not afraid of my character dying but I always feel pretty good if I got through the night without kissing the asphalt.

 

The trick is finding the balance of challenge that's right for each individual. So not fear per say... but a challenge. If your character strolls into a group of +4/x8 and mops the floor with them without even using a long cooldown, you're definitely not challenged. No fear, no excitement... you're just mowing the lawn honestly. If only mowing the lawn had more explosions...

 

But once again we're back to the same stupid point I keep making, "Is it fun?" - some people do enjoy mowing the lawn so... more power to them. 🙂

 

42 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I think more missions like the SBB that encourage smaller team sizes would be cool, as what many folks experience is that past a certain number on a team each individual does less and less (like 6 would be max).

 

Part of it is the psyche of "well we need a full team cus the max is 8" simply because the max is there. Letting go of that can do wonders. 

 

Yeah great point. SBB is a good example of how fun a smaller team can be. I'm still not for reducing the max team size. But maybe if there were a couple more events or arcs that followed the same premise it would at least make the community as a whole a little more aware.

 

But honestly why not leave it up to us in the community? I feel like there's about a 50/50 split here in this discussion. But if the half of us that support smaller teams just went out and started making it happen - it could work. And if it's actually a good thing for the game, people will just start doing it naturally. If not - no harm done!

[Snarky]

End Drains....Malta Sappers, Super Stunners, Devouring Earth....some of the Shadow Shard mobs.  This will slow your roll real quick.  But without changing the game if you start increasing the number of end drainers all you will do is encourage teams to have one or two specific AT/powertypes.  Which is the road to WoW rigid structure

[Coyotedancer]

I'm very much in the camp that believes that if you want a more interesting teaming experience, try running small-team style with a trio or a quartet rather than an eight-member wrecking ball. It really does change the pace and the feel of the game without taking anything away from either the soloists (Who'll really get the short end of the stick with many of the ideas that get floated about either nerfing player characters or massively buffing the mobs and requiring certain powers/ATs to counter added gimmicks-) *or* the people who dearly love their zen-mode farmers, TF speedsters or joining one of those steamroller PI Smash Teams.

[Peacemoon]

14 hours ago, Peacemoon said:

My honest suggestion is to try do things in small groups. 
A balanced group in CoH generally only needs 4 people, of any AT. The fact that teams can go up to 8 isn’t really required anymore.

 

Keep it tight, play with a small team, do lower level content, set the difficulty high, and enjoy having to strategise to win 🙂 

Just quoting myself but one suggestion I have is to make TFs extra rewarding if you do them in a team of 4 not 8.

 

This would incentivise people to try it out, and compensate for the extra time it would take to complete the TF.

 

This is probably one of the CLEANEST ways of adding more optional difficulty to CoH!

[Peacemoon]

10 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

Couldn't help but think of this thread on last thing I was doing.

 

Started a new Tanker and was at the point of wanting to run Posi 1. Recruited people but could only find three others, a Defender, Brute, and Stalker. So we decided to try to four man it. Granted we did not turn the level up or anything nor put any impediments on ourselves. But you know how things go with new characters with limited abilities.

 

We had someone go down on  first mission where it wasn't clear that we were not engaging every group, just those directly in path to objective. After that it wasn't too bad, but I worried about Oranbega, zombie ambush, and the final mission. Oranbega was no problem. Zombie ambush was no problem. But final mission...

 

...started off well with us sticking together. Got to the point of heading in and the question was asked if we should clear around door first. I said sure and two of us went to do so. But someone had already opened the door. Life totals got thin but never so bad it look like a wipe. We pulled it off without losing anyone. Inside door wasn't bad but then comes the shadowy duplicates.

 

Duplicates had me, the Tanker, eating inspirations like candy. Shadow brute and stalker hurt, oh how they hurt. But we managed the entire run with only that one loss in 34 minutes.

 

 

Take from the above what you will. Fear of dying added to fun? Sure. Limited team size added to fun? Sure. Limited abilities added to fun? Sure.

 

Not saying I am on board with mandating anything because sometimes you want/need to wade into a sea of enemies and vanquish them all. But sometimes you need it to be a challenge too.

 

This was a lovely read. I have had a lot of fun in the past doing TFs with just my husband. It definitely makes the game more interesting for me to play in a smaller team like this. 

[Clave Dark 5]

11 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

Couldn't help but think of this thread on last thing I was doing.  [snip]

 

This reminds me of a recent run with a new Dom.  For some reason, we kept losing people as the TF went along (partly could have been because one guy kept doing a Leroy Jenkins all the time) and when we got to that last mission, we were down to a five person team.  But as we'd been an eight person team when we started, we had to fight eight duplicates anyway (my Dom was two of them in fact).  That was fun to finally actually clear!  Which we did after just a couple of wipes.

[Carnifax]

18 hours ago, skoryy said:

I've been playing FFXIV for the past five months now, and I can count on one hand the number of times the roulette runs had more conversation than 'hello' and 'tyfp'. 

This was always my experience with other MMOs as well. They felt like I was mostly soloing. Even in groups. Hello and GG and nothing in between.

 

Plus most groups were more like single mission things, queue for something solo, get assigned to a random group. Do it. Disband. 

 

Or Arrive in area. Join in on the dogpile. Complete the event. Move on 

 

Never played one with the same PuG ethos of CoH.

[Clave Dark 5]

I have done some PUGs like that (basically zero chatter), but those did stand out to me for being such; usually a joke or something will always fly between each mission on a TF.

[Haijinx]

13 hours ago, Snarky said:

This is why all the reality TV shows are filled with young adults.  Try a "Real World" with real 50 year olds.  Not a ton of drama.  Sure if you get a mal adjusted and/or crazy few, or put in a mix of people that harbor a ton of predispositions to not liking certain other peeps you get drama.  But pick normal fully grown people.  Huge waste of money looking for anything entertaining to film.  No fear.

Oh there's plenty to be afraid of amongst 50 year olds too. 

 

Adult is a title far too easily bestowed I think. 

 

But the 20 somethings at least look good while they do their petty stuff.  

[Darmian]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

But the 20 somethings at least look good while they do their petty stuff. 

"But the 20 somethings think they look good while they do their petty stuff."  Fixed it for you.

[Lunchmoney]

On 3/25/2021 at 7:13 PM, Apparition said:

Yep.  I know over a dozen people that stopped playing Homecoming over the past year and a half due to the lack of new endgame content.  Only so many times that you can do MLTFs, LRSFs, Dr. Kahn TFs, BAF Trials, Underground Trials, etc., and not get bored.

 

 I am sure that once new endgame content is added to Homecoming, they will be back.

Conversely I'm pretty sure I havent explored all of the game content yet, let alone the "endgame" stuff. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Lunchmoney

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

This reminds me of a recent run with a new Dom.  For some reason, we kept losing people as the TF went along (partly could have been because one guy kept doing a Leroy Jenkins all the time) and when we got to that last mission, we were down to a five person team.  But as we'd been an eight person team when we started, we had to fight eight duplicates anyway (my Dom was two of them in fact).  That was fun to finally actually clear!  Which we did after just a couple of wipes.

About a year ago I was on a Posi1.  It had been a little rough (PUG) as quite a few were back then.  I was on a Dom, and I carefully let Dom build and did not use it as we struggled through the final step/door and lobby fights.  As we went to fight the Duplicates I popped a couple yellows, hit Dom, and hit AoE Hold.  It was over.  Cleanup on aisle 9.  They never moved.

[Bionic_Flea]

The solution to most problems in this game is to find like-minded people who enjoy playing the way you do.

[vibal]

The venn diagram of players who have a commentary about team dynamics and players who refuse to lead teams seems to be a perfect circle. I religiously form my own teams as I've had numerous instances where other people's fun seemed to be hampered by my play. I make sure to advertise quick runs and even started posting a disclaimer before heading out. There's no pressure to keep up with the players who are pushing ahead.

 

The reverse of this is that I'm consistently confused by the "Any TP?" players. SS and a stealth IO is capped stealth. Anybody can ghost missions. 2 million inf is laughably cheap. The difference is that I don't begrudge those players the game they're playing. They apparently don't care to >shrug<, they're still welcome to join up get xp and merits.

 

It takes exactly as long to build a team for a TF exactly how you like as it does to join a TF out of LFG. If you want to 4 man a +4/x8 ITF and sweep through, you only need to find 3 other people. Being upset about random results in a random group that you joined on a random day seems.... counterproductive.

[Snarky]

Why we overpower stuff?  I just joined a PUG.  Decent leader seen around.  3 respecs speed (treespecs) I joined.  i need badge progress.

 

Get to tree room.  Why are these mobs +4?   Crap....  Long dead silence.  I suggest reset relog....long dead silence.

 

This is why we run everything with max toons.  We got years of this stuff we been dealing with

[Herotu]

15 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Fear of what?  Seriously, how do you think the development team is going to frighten us?  Tax audits?  An in-game housing crunch?  Forcing us to trade in our capes for aprons?  We grew up.  We're not frightened of arbitrary penalties in video games.

I get that, but fear of wipe is plenty.

 

Inconvenience, disruption of flow and a  five  two minute run back are enough to give players a reason to care. And don't say nobody cares because if that were true, they wouldn't be cobbling together all these complicated, fancypants builds. Heck, they wouldn't be playing at all!

[Lunchmoney]

2 hours ago, vibal said:

The reverse of this is that I'm consistently confused by the "Any TP?" players. SS and a stealth IO is capped stealth. Anybody can ghost missions. 2 million inf is laughably cheap.

😃I am reminded of a TF I did a while back, can't even recall which one, but I was on a toon that cannot stealth in any way at all! The rest of the team continued to race to the boss rooms while I just cleared the opening rooms while repeating in chat that I don't stealth. No one had TP and no one wanted to not race to the end so I just carried on regardless. 

[golstat2003]

14 hours ago, Carnifax said:

This was always my experience with other MMOs as well. They felt like I was mostly soloing. Even in groups. Hello and GG and nothing in between.

 

Plus most groups were more like single mission things, queue for something solo, get assigned to a random group. Do it. Disband. 

 

Or Arrive in area. Join in on the dogpile. Complete the event. Move on 

 

Never played one with the same PuG ethos of CoH.

 

Which is precisely why I find it absurd when folks claim there is better teaming in other games than this. Having played many of the numerous modern mmos (and some ancient ones) they and I DISAGREE.

[Dahkness]

Make a friend with similar play style as you. Invite randoms, then carry the team 🙂 ez pz