Bad Habits

[Water]

I don't know how to word this without upsetting anyone/everyone or tempting some troublesome retort to my views in an attempt to nullify them. But it's like this....

 

....why join a team if you don't wish to play in one?

 

I have any number of characters who can solo TF's/SF's/Arcs etc and when I want to solo I won't play in a team. Contrary to that in this pretty easy game, we still have the 'glory seeker' - especially now with the large new influx due to our legitimacy. The glory seeker wishes to be on your team whilst not play as a team, even in a 'kill all'. They would rather away to the final objective as the rest of the team (up to 7 players) are transformed into the soloists' sweeping brush for 'those pesky required foes' thereby depriving our new influx from learning the game and its intricacies.

 

It only serves to show to a new player that once you you are fully slotted you can ignore your team mates and just take off to show off how 'GRAND' you are at the game with your 'ace' powers and enhancements.

 

STOP - solo the TF/SF if you want to, nobody cares and more power to you, but if you join a team play as a team.

 

 

 

[Snarky]

I have formed many teams.  Almost all for TF/SF. 
 

there is NO way to control players

 

when i am doing content i am casually aware of i am just as likely to be wandering around myself.  Nature of CoH

[cranebump]

I agree with the OP, but I believe their answer to why they join teams then run off is going to be related to maximizing rewards gain in the shortest time span, and they figure this is a faster way to do it. 
 

Or perhaps it IS just chest thumping. Hard to say, because there are often advocates of that style of play. I suspect we’ll likely hear from one in 3,2…

[Coyotedancer]

Welcome to the way the modern City is... 

Speed is king. Rush to the end as efficiently as you can. Get your reward. Move on.

 

I'm not sure exactly when that became 'The Way We Play Now' for everything, but speeding has been A Thing with TFs and such since the Live days.

[JasperStone]

HC players are kittens.....not puppies if that helps

[Clave Dark 5]

1 hour ago, Coyotedancer said:

Welcome to the way the modern City is... 

Speed is king. Rush to the end as efficiently as you can. Get your reward. Move on.

 

I'm not sure exactly when that became 'The Way We Play Now' for everything, but speeding has been A Thing with TFs and such since the Live days.

Speed isn't like some law of physics that everyone must obey, it's still a choice, as the bolded part of your quote attests.  😃  These are just greedy, weirdly-focused players, imho.  They turn a game into a job.

[Coyotedancer]

2 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Speed isn't like some law of physics that everyone must obey, it's still a choice, as the bolded part of your quote attests.  😃  These are just greedy, weirdly-focused players, imho.  They turn a game into a job.

 

I'm not attesting to anything the speedsters may think. I'm a devoted solo/duo player...  I don't really care what they do or why. 😜

[Clave Dark 5]

4 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

I'm not attesting to anything the speedsters may think. I'm a devoted solo/duo player...  I don't really care what they do or why. 😜

Not throwing stones at you, just those types.  Hence the 😃

[Go0gleplex]

Yeah. The grandstanding...preemptively attacking (and drawing aggro down on everyone needlessly)...rushing ahead to hit the bosses while everyone is getting stomped by ticked off minions...and so forth back in the old days is why I am pretty much strictly solo these days. It wasn't limited to just the PUG TFs but any PUG mission group it seemed...and I already have a short fuse for stupid. Ignorant I can deal with. Stupid however; Just nope! Feed 'em to the xenos and good riddance to bad rubbish I say. I had a couple good teammates towards the last couple years playing but RL got in the way and we lost touch sadly. If you can find a good set of teammates it does make things funner, wilder, and easier in the long run but one idiot with bean curds for brains is all it takes to curdle the milk as it were. 

[FFFF]

I was on a PUG Positron 1 last night, and the team was a MM (no idea on secondary), a Traps Defender, me (on Mo'Hawk my Electric/Storm controller) and the rest melee, a mix of scrappers, brutes and tanks. It was a pretty great setup. With the FFG, Steamy Mist and various Leadership toggles, the group was above the defense soft cap. No one took any significant damage in any of the fights...as long as we stayed together.

 

So the TF goes absolutely flawlessly. No one is taking any damage. Acid Mortar, Freezing Rain and other debuffs were making kill speed really fast. Anything that didn't die fast was either flopping around like a fish, locked down via a hold or trying to run away.

 

This is when one of the brutes gets cocky. He leaps out of our huddle and dives into a big group of Clockwork. Goes to red hit points immediately and screams "heal!". Well, I'm the only "healer" on the team with an O2 Boost single-slotted with recharge. I run to the edge of the protective huddle and heroically hit him for 60 points of healing, moving him from red to dark orange. Didn't help much, and one of the Canon Princes pretty much puts him into the dirt the next hit.

 

Now, that of course didn't teach him any lessons, and the sheer ease of the combat encouraged a couple of the other melee to follow his lead. They all face planted pretty quickly. Meanwhile, the characters sitting in the FFG/Steamy Mist peloton pretty much were still killing fast and weren't taking any damage. This repeated a few times, and few runs from the hospital later, everybody stayed huddled up.

 

No one died again until we ran into the copies of ourselves. Note, kill the storm controller copy right away. He (me) used Freezing Rain on us as the opening move and we wiped.

[Lunar Ronin]

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Welcome to the way the modern City is... 

Speed is king. Rush to the end as efficiently as you can. Get your reward. Move on.

 

I'm not sure exactly when that became 'The Way We Play Now' for everything, but speeding has been A Thing with TFs and such since the Live days.

 

Yeah, it started late on live, and greatly escalated with the dawn of Homecoming as people played other online games during "the snap" and acquired "bad habits" from those other games.  Now it's all about speed and rewards, dang everything else.  I've noticed that it's mostly younger (35 and younger, yes I'm old), players.  It's just how many of them play.

 

It's frustrating.  I've led many TFs/SFs and specifically advertised them as kill most, only for people to join and try to force speed on the team.  I've either kicked them, or they rage quit when I less than gently remind them that we're not speeding.

[SupaFreak]

I can say I'm guilty of branching off from team ONLY when it's apparent they are fine without me and damage output is excessive as a squad and that's only on non-support characters.  I always stick with main squad with support characters.  You branch off, you better be able to handle it.  I understand when others do it and, in my mind, they're doing it for the same reasons I do.  Sometimes players like me feel it's not really beneficial to stick with the team when excessive damage is being dished out.

When I'm forming and leading and someone does that, I'd personally never kick them but I do say we're not going to speed this unless a majority wants to.  I didn't form as speed, we're not switching to speed unless it's a collective agreement.  They complete the mission for us too soon... they can wait outside, soak up the XP, continue to solo or join us.  No harm, no foul on my end.

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, JasperStone said:

HC players are kittens.....not puppies if that helps

Unpredictable and dangerous 

 

[MoonSheep]

this is frustrating, but it’s second in line to people who play support ATs who rarely bother to use any of their buff/debuff powers and instead sit there hitting things for 22 damage with weak defender blast powers instead

 

or tanks without taunt - cmon, bless us with your aggro holding abilities

[sbloyd]

I am absolutely guilty of forging ahead of the bulk of the team when grouping.  I main a Warshade and need live targets... and far too often a roving murderball melts entire spawns before I can finish firing off my self-buff.

[ZemX]

5 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

or tanks without taunt - cmon, bless us with your aggro holding abilities

 

No Tanker is without taunt, though some are without Taunt.

[MoonSheep]

49 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

No Tanker is without taunt, though some are without Taunt.

 

i like the subtle nuance there

 

i think it’s a great power to pull enemies away from squishies that may have left the main aggro pack

 

playing a team tank is an art and a skill

[skoryy]

15 hours ago, Water said:

It only serves to show to a new player that once you you are fully slotted you can ignore your team mates and just take off to show off how 'GRAND' you are at the game with your 'ace' powers and enhancements.

 

I'll just say we've had this discussion here before multiple times.  Twenty years of combined player experience plus incarnates plus cheap IOs equals players being able to solo or at least soften up anything.  Hence the new hard mode TFs.  If you really want team play, that's what you should be looking for.

[ZemX]

2 minutes ago, MoonSheep said:

i think it’s a great power to pull enemies away from squishies that may have left the main aggro pack

 

I agree and nearly always take it for that reason, but the truth is that it's possible to maintain aggro without it.  It just involves more hustle.

 

It's not the way I do it, but it can be done.   It's a good example of the sort of difference people should tolerate on PuGs.  Embrace a little chaos.   Not too much.  Definitely do not tolerate speeding on a declared "kill most" for example.   But in general expect people won't do things your way all the time.   For example, I'd love it if Controllers would keep that AoE immob in their pants more often... but I never actually expect it.

 

It's the PuG life!

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, sbloyd said:

before I can finish firing off my self-buff.

We are not here to judge you, strange tentacle thing. Laugh, yes. Judge, no.  Mostly no.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

 

No Tanker is without taunt, though some are without Taunt.

They have a word for Tankers without taunt

[sbloyd]

4 minutes ago, Snarky said:

We are not here to judge you, strange tentacle thing. Laugh, yes. Judge, no.  Mostly no.

I'll show you! I'll show you all!

 

...how suboptimal Warshades are.

[ZemX]

5 minutes ago, Snarky said:

They have a word for Tankers without taunt

 

Coincidentally, I use the same word to describe people who think Taunt is necessary rather than merely useful.

[Snarky]

16 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Coincidentally, I use the same word to describe people who think Taunt is necessary rather than merely useful.

[Go0gleplex]

I dunno. Given I play solo, taunt is pretty much very low on my priority list for powers. I think I have only one brute with it and I almost never use it.  Now...if in a team, yeah, Taunt is an essential.