Make a option for larger teams 8+

Okie right now we can team up to 8 people. Yippie! Great it's fun I like big teams, but why not let us make League's, Legion's, Syndicate's etc...

Yeah I know we have Super Groups, but wouldn't it be cool to have a Super Group team with up to, say 20 members, on the team at the same time? Maybe make some new instance missions that were EPIC in scale that would require more heroes/villians working together to stop some really powerful Good/Evil force that needs to be stopped (like the Giant Mechman in the Volcano in Striga!!!)

I'm not talking a raid or invasion type incident it'd be more like a Task Force so it would have it's own map and not smush the unprepared Mobs in Atlas when the Giant Mechman was spawned...

What do you guys think?

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The game is currently balanced around 8 man teams. If content can be made that is balanced around larger teams, then sure, but only the devs can say if it's feasible.

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Geez. Eight is unwieldy enough, but if you're willing to sit and wait for members 9 through 20 to show up, then who am I to deny you the option.
I like options.

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Well it would be a planned event such as a Task force. I just think it would be cool to have a "Secret Wars" or an "Avengers-Justice League Team-up" type event. Something so powerful it takes two teams (at least) to be able to defeat it.

It would be a good way to add more in game content, and maybe low or mid-level (Doom Patrol-Teen Titans Team Up) content as well. More badges, new maps, and Epic foes!!!

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Geez. Eight is unwieldy enough, but if you're willing to sit and wait for members 9 through 20 to show up, then who am I to deny you the option.
I like options.

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I'm just wondering what the lag would be like. Zones are big places and they get Laggy as heck during events and raids. Mission maps are much smaller.

What would a cave be like with 20 people trying to fight in it.

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Lag? Not sure what you mean.

<Wonders aloud about 20-person MM team running Gang War)>

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Dang you guys and your points!!!! SIGH!!!

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Don't worry about me, I'm just here to humor people

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At least someone does lol

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I think the issue is that the spawn system doesn't know what to do for more than an 8 person team on the highest difficulty. Lag and unwieldiness aside, the devs would have to figure out what size enemy spawn is needed for 9 through whatever person teams, and I think that effort would better be spent elsewhere.

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Well it could be like a taskforce and only be able to start it when you had a certain number of people?

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I think the issue is that the spawn system doesn't know what to do for more than an 8 person team on the highest difficulty. Lag and unwieldiness aside, the devs would have to figure out what size enemy spawn is needed for 9 through whatever person teams, and I think that effort would better be spent elsewhere.

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I don't think most of the maps in the game could even handle much larger spawns than we can get now.

As for a supergroup-sized TF, the Cathedral of Pain is right up your alley, OP, whenever it gets put back into the game.

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I think the issue is that the spawn system doesn't know what to do for more than an 8 person team on the highest difficulty. Lag and unwieldiness aside, the devs would have to figure out what size enemy spawn is needed for 9 through whatever person teams, and I think that effort would better be spent elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ] I say double the size of the mobs for each person more than 8 until the map is saturated.

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Lag, space and vision are my main concerns for any team larger than the current maximum. Spawn points can be retooled (though given that Vernon's arcs still have the pre I7 bugged spawns, it may not be simple), but that won't solve the real problems.

Lag is a big factor. Graphics lag is the immediate concern - too much geometry and and particles bog down and overheat your system and, much more plainly, lag you into a slideshow. The developers have stated a few times that they specifically made spawns smaller and made them swell up by replacing minions with lieutenants and bosses, rather than purely in size, though that may have relaxed over the years. There's also network lag. If your connection is anything but very fast and perfectly stable, a large battle will tax it and you WILL lose packets, ping time and ultimately connection to the mapserver. There's also server-side lag to contend with. The servers are made to handle thousands of people at a time, just not thousands of people IN THE SAME PLACE. I remember years ago being part of a Hamidon raid that crashed Victory twice as close to 200 people started entering the Hive, back in the day. Crashes take a LOT of load, but it doesn't take all that much to cause server-side lag, such that a 10-second recharge power takes 60 seconds to become available and queued powers take 10 seconds to fire even though they are ready. Rikti Invasions already produce this.

There's also the matter of flatout land area available in most missions. I was once on a team of four Masterminds, and between us, our henchmen and the lobby guards of the Talos Island Mayhem mission, we jam-packed the lobby such that it was almost impossible to move around, and that was back in the days before pushable henchmen. That's a team of four, some without their full range of henchmen and fighting a spawn that wasn't really full-size. A team of eight is even worse, and it would have to squeeze past much smaller maps, like blue caves, sewer bulkheads, office building doors and so forth. It's bad enough on an 8-man team now, a team even bigger than this, with the potential of overflowing pets, henchmen, temp power summons and so forth, it would just make certain maps flatly unplayable. Even a single Mastermind causes problems in caves now, and it's not rare you'll see multiple on a team if the team leader is not a jerk.

There's also the matter of visibility. Large teams tend to have an overabundance of special effects. Heal auras, forcefields, Dark debuffs, Rad debuffs, Poison debuffs, damage auras and so on and so forth. That's before we take into account the many, many effects that attacks are constantly generating, both from the team and from the enemies. After a certain point, actually SEEING anything in the pea soup of effects becomes difficult, making targeting difficult and picking an appropriate target pretty much impossible. That's whit eight people. With more, it just becomes far too much, both throwing strategy out of the way when you can't see past the reach of your arms and throwing off the point of the game if all you're doing is looking at your powers tabs.

For special occasions with less graphics-intensive enemies on less graphics-intensive, wide open terrains, maybe I can see this. If there's enough room to house all players, pets, NPCs and NPC pets and enough objectives to kind of spread them around, then sure, I don't see a problem. But not as an extra difficulty setting or an expansion to the regular team size.

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Before you suggest higher than 8-man teams...

Try cramming more than 8 Masterminds with full summons into a mission. I'll bet you the game engine will be crying for mercy.

Food for thought.

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The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)

Virtue Forever.

I'd also point out that, unlike super-groups in COH/V, super groups and teams in the comics are usually pretty small, just a few people. For one thing, super-beings do such unique things it's frankly awkward to keep large groups of them together without blatantly wasting their potential. Imagine the super-speeders and flyers having to stay tied to Professor X's wheelchair. And then there's the issue of coordinating what they're doing -- "You 500 heroes! Take the left flank!" It winds up being more like a military thriller than a comic book.

But the real reason is that super-powered beings are spectacular and unique, and a big crowd of them tends to dilute their flavor.

Plus it's hard to cram too many characters onto the big splash page without making the cleavage too small to concentrate on.

Lastly, anything that can't get done by EIGHT SUPERHEROES...well, it ain't gettin' done, pard.

That said, I don't really have anything against the idea, just noting that large teams are uncommon in the genre for pretty good reasons.

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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog

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Lastly, anything that can't get done by EIGHT SUPERHEROES...well, it ain't gettin' done, pard.


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Except Hamidon or the Rikti Ship Raids.

I think the OP is really asking for a better raid team option. Right now, in our two multi-group encounters, groups have to use the existing chat options and don't have the other benefits of being on the same group (some buffs are group only for example).

I really think it would be cool if we could have a better raid system for things like Siren's Call PvP. I think that whole mechanic would be better if all the heroes and villains in the zones could link up in some way.

Thus I would amend the OPs idea to allow six groups to link up into a raid. Each group would be semi-independent, and whole raid teams would only be allowed in zone sized instances.

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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

YIPPIE EVILGEKO!!!

Thats what I mean. No eightman team is going to take down Hami.

I want A Giant Robot that no 8 heroes can defeat on their own. If your worried about video quality make the map it spawns on a Ocean map! It's wadding in from Striga to come destroy Paragon City and you have to stop it! Then the Devs could just do the upper part of the Robot to so even less demand on the game engine.

The other idea I had for a large team instance was a Alien Invasion with a Space Battle! Empty Black blackness (with Stars of course) wouldn't be to bad would it? The heroes would have to work together to defeat the Planet destroyer/Towed Asteroid/ Mega Cannon defended by Alien ships. Just a Dream I know but geez I think it would revive Super Groups in the game at the very least. My thinking is to make these missions SG only with the contact being the Base control panel... Think TROUBLE ALERT!!!! TROUBLE ALERT!!!! hehe

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Lag, space and vision are my main concerns for any team larger than the current maximum. Spawn points can be retooled (though given that Vernon's arcs still have the pre I7 bugged spawns, it may not be simple), but that won't solve the real problems.


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Not a problem for raid encounters, which is what I think the OP was getting at.

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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

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Lag, space and vision are my main concerns for any team larger than the current maximum. Spawn points can be retooled (though given that Vernon's arcs still have the pre I7 bugged spawns, it may not be simple), but that won't solve the real problems.

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Not a problem for raid encounters, which is what I think the OP was getting at.

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"Not a problem" is subject to debate. A couple of days ago my game crashed upon arriving at a Rikti Raid mosh pit. The one I attended later the same day caused my video card temp to spike. The last Rikti Ship Raid I attended was a slideshow and several times caused server-side lag that made it highly uninteresting. And I still remember years ago when, while fighting the Hamidon, most of the participants along with the Hamidon himself would simply disappear because we hit the actors on screen limit.

And I don't have a weak machine, lemme' tell ya.

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20 people is to many? Geez can you even boot into Atlas Park?

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Lag, space and vision are my main concerns for any team larger than the current maximum. Spawn points can be retooled (though given that Vernon's arcs still have the pre I7 bugged spawns, it may not be simple), but that won't solve the real problems.

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Not a problem for raid encounters, which is what I think the OP was getting at.

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"Not a problem" is subject to debate. A couple of days ago my game crashed upon arriving at a Rikti Raid mosh pit. The one I attended later the same day caused my video card temp to spike. The last Rikti Ship Raid I attended was a slideshow and several times caused server-side lag that made it highly uninteresting. And I still remember years ago when, while fighting the Hamidon, most of the participants along with the Hamidon himself would simply disappear because we hit the actors on screen limit.

And I don't have a weak machine, lemme' tell ya.

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The Hive only allows 50 people in zone precisely to deal with this issue. The Rikti Ship raids are somewhat problematic, but in any event this is not an objection to the OPs idea.

We already have raid encounters intended for multiple groups. Creating some infrastructure around those raids is an entirely different issue than fixing lag. When I said, "not a problem" I was responding to your specific point which was directed at putting multiple groups in mission instances. Right now, raid instances like Hamidon's Hive is INTENDED for multiple groups and so your objection is not well-founded there.

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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

The easiest way around spawn size for a team larger than 8 players would be to scale the mobs themselves not the numbers. Move every class of mob down a notch or two, or three.

Bosses become the new minions, EBs the new LTs, AVs the new bosses. I suppose GMs could be the new AVs. This at least would make the content interesting and playtesting could fine tune it. The only questions is that of rewards. I'd suggest normal game drops and Merits. How many Merits and how often these could be run I have no idea. Frankly I feel it should be a little on the low side since I see this as level 50 content so any risk is minimal at best.

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- Abraham Lincoln

Well, my objections were visibility, lag and land area. A well-designed "raid instance" can and should provide sufficient land area and a well-designed raid monster would be big enough that visibility isn't such an issue. I'm not sure lag is as easily solvable, as I sometimes lag even with just 8 people around, though I suppose simply zooming out so I'm not seeing all the particles full-screen might help.

And, yes, for specific raid content (whether I agree with the NEED to have such or not) I can certainly see such a system to assist in management. I'm not sure too many events currently call for that, but some kind of inter-team communication system that's more than just broadcast or DIY global channels would definitely be good.

My objection was more to the act of having more than a full team of players in the same spot, but I suppose you're right - it's more my disagreement in having these than an actual unsolvable problem. Barring ship raids, effort HAS gone into making such events playable, and as long as they are playable, I've no objections to a multi-team organisation system to make playing them easier.

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