Emerald_Star

It would be great to have you join us. I know RL doesn't always work that way. If anyone is interested we'll be meeting in Cap at the Ferry at 6:30pm on Sunday. We're running Dmitri Krylov's arcs.

It sounds like you might want to check out Combat Engineers (www.combatengineers.net). We're a bunch of long time gamers (30- & 40-something) who enjoy playing CoH (and a bunch of other games) for fun. Some of us are "native" to Freedom and others took advantage of the server transfers to make a new home. We organize at least one TF each week and it's always posted on our forums. You're welcome to join a scheduled event any time you want.

This is tonight. Hope to see you there.

The third of 6 TFs needed for the Task Force Commander accolade (level 20+). It's fairly straightforward and 50 merits is a nice payoff. Please follow this link to sign up. http://www.combatengineers.net/phpBB...cd60d3c919b14b

sign me up! Flint Brimstone fire/stone brute (lvl 47)

We had a good run on Sunday and got up to lvl 10-11. This coming week we meet in Port Oakes and will start with the Atlas bank mission. There are still opportunities to join if you have a toon that's around lvl 10 (or at least 5). Follow the link (http://www.combatengineers.net/phpBB...cf5fd194932d83) if you're interested.

There are a few spots left on this one - hope to see you there.

There are still 2 spots available. We meet at Kalinda tonight at 6:30 pm central. Look for Steady Stone.

Date: Tuesday, March 30

Time: 7:30pm central

Location: St. Martial

Level: 35-40+

Please follow the link (http://www.combatengineers.net/phpBB...4c32b514de63e3) to sign up.

The Dark Combat Engineers VG is starting a leveling group on the villiains side, the Dark Sappers. This group will start at level one, and meet every Sunday night at 6:30 Central time. We will try to run for three hours or so each Sunday. The goal of this group is to reach level 50 by running regular story arcs.

If you join this group, you need to be committed to showing up. Sometimes real life is more important, but if you cannot show up three out of four weeks, that is not very committed.

This type of group has two advantages.

1. If we get a group of eight or so people to show up every week, it can be a very fast way to level up, even if you are only playing the character once a week.

2. It gives you a chance to level up a character that you might not normally level, because you know you will be on a team.

The team needs to be balanced, we would prefer to see at least one of each AT and having some healing and debuffs/buffs would be nice.

If interested, please sign up in the Combat Engineers forum http://www.combatengineers.net/phpBB...9c8748fbab0fb2 and list what power sets you are bringing, so we can insure balance. If we get a balanced team to show up, we can level at an alarming rate.

The group is starting on Sunday, the 28th and we would like to see at least 8 with a few alternates. Currently we have 4 signed up.

This character needs to be in the Dark Combat Engineers VG.

I wish I could do all these without reaching the spouse aggro cap, but I can do some of them. Some of the other ones I will try to make, but can't commit to them. I suppose you can put me down as an alternate for #4, 5 & 8.

1) Justin Augustine: Sparky McSapper (e^3 blaster)

4) Mender Lazarus (Villain): [alternate] Flint Brimstone (fire/stone brute)

5) Moonfire: [alternate] Dirtnobyl (earth/rad troller)

6) ITF: Flint Brimstone (fire/stone brute)

8) Mender Lazarus (Hero): [alternate] Kinetic Gargoyle (stone/EM tank)

9) Silver Mantis: Flint Brimstone (fire/stone brute)

If it's a scheduled TF, we usually start gathering around the contact 15 min before the start. The SG leader usually brings a tank named Steady Ice Smash, so you can hit him up for an invite to the team. Thursday nights we have a crew doing Mission Architect missions (not farming) in Atlas and we usually have room for one or two more. Hope to see you soon!

I'm in an SG that runs TFs regularly (at least once or twice a week). If you're interested, we post the schedule online http://www.combatengineers.net/calendar.htm You're welcome to do them with us.

I'd like to thank everyone who is organizing the raids - great work! I haven't been able to make it on Wednesday nights lately and wondered if anyone is willing to do one on a Friday or Saturday night. I seem to recall those being well attended. Even though I have participated in numerous raids, I don't feel prepared or organized enough to actually lead one otherwise I would just post it here and see who shows up.

My apologies to the rest of you reading this thread. A better response would have been to suggest ways to help noobs learn how to succeed in PuGs.

1. Communication. If someone isn't familiar with other ATs strengths/weaknesses, let them know. Not having a PB or WS, I didn't know how how important it was to eliminate quants/voids until someone explained it to me. Not everyone knows that pulling is more effective when you can get a mob out of the line of sight of other mobs before smacking them down. Don't expect everyone to know these things. Share your knowledge.

2. It might be better for noobs to join teams to get the experience before creating their own. It won't take long to see the difference between good teams and bad ones and what makes them so.

3. Pay attention to strategies that work and under what circumstances they are effective. The more you know, the better your teams will be. Listen to members of a team who have been through those missions before.

What makes this game great is people's willingness to help others, whether it's teaching noobs or joining forces randomly to fight the invasions. Keep up the good work!

[edited] One more thing, some people have so much experience with various maps they can just run ahead to the next room/elevators. Even using the map, newer players may not realize what flight of stairs/tunnel will take them to the rest of the group. Don't leave people behind!

How so? It looks like a list of things to do and not do, which seems fairly balanced. Depending on your style some of the advice will work well and some should be disregarded.

Where in my post did I say I expected to get invited to the perfect 8 player, perfect mix of AT's you ignorant ? I've given plenty of noobs help figuring things out, as I had help when I first started, but you wouldn't know that. You just assumed I haven't, which is why you're a [Censored], and a dumb one at that. I've been on a lot of different teams and always give the bad ones a chance to come together, but if I'm racking up debt and nothing changes, I wait until the end of the mission before leaving. I have NEVER had a good experience with the situation you take exception to. Maybe you have, but I don't really care.

I tend to disagree with the people who don't allow leveling between missions. Granted, it delays the start of the next mission depending on how far they have to go and how fast they travel (if you need to leave the zone to level up, don't do it!) There is usually someone in the group who can TP them back. Picking up a new power it is often worth it. At odd levels, where you just get slots, definitely wait until Yoko breaks up the band. In rare (and wonderful) occasions, you're on a great team and level up twice. Is it really so unreasonable to let them take care of business and hurry back?

As for leader ettiquette, my pet peeve is the leader who passes you the star, tells you to find people and then demands the star back after you do the dirty work. I usually only stick with them for one mission unless the rest of the team works well [the team I recruited lol]. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask people to check their friends list or SG partners for recruits, but the leader should ultimately take responsibility for filling out the team.

I prefer to solo, so I rarely create my own teams. That being said, I really enjoy a good PuG. In my experience, whether you get a blind invite or a tell doesn't really indicate anything how it's going to go. I've had mixed results from both. Some insights that I haven't seen posted on this thread yet:

The bad.
1. Beware of leaders who pass you the star, tell you to find people to join the team and then demand it back after you do the dirty work. I'm fine checking my friends or SG list for recruits, but the leader should take responsibility for doing the team search. I usually don't stay on these PuGs very long, especially if we get wiped.

2. If someone invites you to a group and you discover there are only two of you, then they ask if you have any missions and can you find people - run like hell. If you wanted to form a team to run your missions, you would have done that yourself. While getting your missions picked is an important reason why people join a team, most people assume that an invite means there is already a mission selected that has to be run before theirs gets picked.

3. Leaders need to communicate (at least) basic info. Some of them just take off and it isn't clear if they are returning to contact, heading to the next mission or just hunting randomly. I had someone invite me and I asked where we should meet, with no reply. A few minutes later they said "are you coming?" because I didn't realize the mission was set.

4. As bad as things might be, make an effort to finish the mission before you quit the team. The xp at the end can take a big bite out of the debt you picked up and there are other people on the team besides the idiots who get you killed.

The good:
1. Some of my most enjoyable moments were on good teams. Joking, chatting, etc. develop a sense of camaraderie and makes communication easier in the heat of battle.

2. Some teams can just blast their way through missions, so ride that horse as long as you can. Most teams need some sort of strategy along the way. Pulling may take longer, but there is a lot less debt then just jumping into a mob that draws aggro from the two other mobs you didn't see around that corner...

3. Well balanced teams are nice, but not always necessary. I did the moonfire tf with 4 blasters, 2 scrappers and a healer. We tore through the missions pretty fast. Never underestimate the usefulness of damage dealers. That said, get at least one healer for your group or you're likely going to end up in debt.