Why don't people start teams?
By
Aces_High,
Posted on: 2009-07-24 16:24 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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If you persuade, say, a 3 person team or a 4 person team to enter the first mission, every single one of them will quit if you don't have a 6-8 person team by the time they finish the first mission ... and they expect you to carry your weight on the team while you're scrolling through the /search window and corresponding with 10 or 15 potential team recruits via simultaneous tells.
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*Raises hand, opens mouth...*
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There are people who can multi-task that well. I'm not one of them.
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Ah. Nevermind.
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People care a great deal about XP efficiency, reward, and risk avoidance. They also resent 5 minutes of travel time more than they resent 45 minutes of standing around while the team leader recruits. As a result, it's possible to recruit a team for AE boss farms. It's possible to recruit a team to grind /newspaper and police radio missions, if (and only if) you promise to stick to Freakshow when you can get them, and Council as your only fallback. It's usually possible to recruit a team for task or strike forces. Zone story arcs? Double (at least) your expected time to recruit. Classic CoH story arcs, mayhems, safeguards, Ouroboros, street sweeping in hazard zones, anything in a PvP zone? Forget it, never going to happen, period, no matter how long you spend trying to recruit.
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You have to prepare beforehand.
I pretty much have a perpetual tab of 'ParagonWiki' open so I know exactly how far along a contact is, whether the contact will have more to add, and where the contact will take me if they don't have more to add. Write it down. Same thing with an AE team--build a list of ArcIDs you intend to run ahead of time and outright state that you have a list ready.
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That said, I dislike having to make my own teams but it doesn't mean I won't do it. That's not to say I'm necessarily a leader or a follower, I'm more of a loner. However, I hate inefficiency more than I prefer being a loner--so there the teams come in, i16 with two dimensional difficulties probably won't help this.
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And in regards to "worrying about team balance"...
Learn to shotgun your mitigation and support needs. How? Well... Make assumptions.
Red-side: Assume ALL untried...
1) Brutes are sissies, regardless of buffing you have guaranteed to provide.
[---]a) Subset, if the Brute is Energy Aura, it will not be a sissy, however, it will also have negligible aggro/grouping control.
2) Masterminds will NOT buff the team. (I also ignore them because I will not fight with MMs and their worthless pets to get through a damn door. There are additional things but I won't get into them here.)
3) Corruptors will only have one shield at most and they will use it at the beginning and maybe during a lull before an AV or something.
4) Stalkers will be played and built poorly.
5) Dominators will be incapable of permanently mitigating an entire spawn by themselves, EVEN IF they are Earth Control.
6) VEATs will not have TT:M or if they have it, they will not use it. They will also have a habit of taking alphas and proceeding to die. Be very wary of Crab Spiders and Night Widows because of this.
[---]a) Fortunatas tend to be clear of the most egregious of these sins. I think trying to craft them in Mids' scares most people away.
Blue-side: Assume ALL untried...
1) Tanks will be woefully incompetent in how aggro control and "group flow" dynamics function.
2) Scrappers will have all of the Scrapper forum confidence but none of the competence.
3) Controllers must be the parents of both idiot MMs and idiot Doms. You will not get buffs that aren't AoE or green number generating and even if they are Earth Control, they will not be capable of mitigating an entire spawn. Additionally, as they go up in level, they will, without a doubt, immobilize 16 mob spawns in such a way that a Fireball (or equivalent) will hit a MAXIMUM of 5 targets.
4) Defenders... Well, I'm just going to use the word "heal0rz" here and leave it at that.
5) Peacebringers will use KB in all the wrong ways.
6) Warshades will single-form, most likely human. Their performance will thus reflect this.
7) Blasters... Honestly, it's hard to screw up a Blaster. Even if their build or playstyle is moronic, they still generate what you want from them, which is damage.
So how do you solve these problems?
Well...
- If a single Dom or Controller is incapable of handling a spawn by themselves...get two.
- If you are stuck with nothing but Stalkers, Scrappers, Night Widows, or Banes that fulfill the above descriptions, drop the difficulty and grab more of them. Idiots en masse can be a force to be reckoned with.
- Etc., because I'm bored and I'm tired of making this wall of text. If you get this far, well, I'll just say figure it out yourself.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
I have a great system for how I play - I generally solo during the week on one of my soloable characters (scrapper, stalker, tank, MM, etc.), lead teams on my teaming characters (def, controller, etc.) on the weekend, and follow on a team (with a corruptor) during regular team-up on Sunday afternoon.
...I forgot what experience means.
I don't start teams because I'm a shy, reclusive type with no people skills whatsoever, who finds the stresses of leadership actively corrosive (and who is awful at it to boot). The challenges involved in the dynamics of doing missions as a team appeal to my analytical bent, but don't ask me to be the one in charge of herding all those cats in the same direction. Whenever I get the star the game just stops being fun for me - I just don't have the temperament to lead and deal with the inevitable human idiocy that will be involved.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
I dont start teams out of a combination of 3 things:
1. Selfishness
2. Guilt
3. A General Dislike of Others
Specifically, I tend to be selfish and so I do what I want to meet my gaming goals. If I happen to want to get a character up a couple levels, or do an arc, or do whatever I want, then that is what I want to do. So, if I invite someone and start a team, they HAVE to do what I want to do. Because I'm a bit of a [censored].
Because, NO, I dont want to help you with your Maria Jenkins arc right now. And no, I dont really want to go to crey's folly and kill 30 DE. And no, I dont really want to run over to some other zone and fight rikti or zombies. I mean, who even turns on their Hero/Villain event message to be bothered by such things anyway. And NO, I certainly dont want to do a task force with you. That takes, like, an hour. Maybe 2.
I have a job and friends and social obligations and so this next 2 hours is MY private time, one of those little moments where I get to do what *I* want. Finally!
But that makes me feel guilty, as I said, for being a bit of a [censored]. Or more than a bit of a [censored]. If someone gets on my team and they suddenly want to change directions and do other stuff, guilt makes me feel compelled to do it. So, I'm THINKING all the "no" stuff above, but I usually (with regret) go along and help. Next thing I know, I'm out 2 hours because of guilt.
Now, I make an exception for people I actually know pretty well, and also for most of them, my goals correspond with theirs anyway. But its an exception.
Occasionally, I decide to team with someone when I'm not sure what I want to do. I figure, that'd be a good time to meet someone and do what they want since I cant decide anyway. But invariably, I get tired of being on the team with a stranger for more than 30 minutes.
All I can do is chalk that up to my 3rd entry, the general dislike of people, or at least strangers.
So, really, you dont want me starting a team or even being on your team (tho if I do get on, I'll stick it out and give it my best, out of guilt, so it wont be all bad).
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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Nobody will settle for anything less than a 6 person team. They would rather stand around for another hour, if that's what it takes, than enter a mission door with fewer than 6.[*]If you persuade, say, a 3 person team or a 4 person team to enter the first mission, every single one of them will quit if you don't have a 6-8 person team by the time they finish the first mission ...
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Dude, I know. OH MAN I hate this. Honestly, thats one of the reasons I dont like teaming, even when I am NOT the leader. You cant just try to get past your own reclusive nature and hop on a team of just 2 or 3 people. No. Because someone is going to want to bloat the team size up to something crazy, and will insist on standing around until it bloats up real good.
Bah humbug!
When I *am* indecisive on what I want for the evening and therefore join a team, I HATE it when this happens. Cant we get just a good little trio going or something?! But NO. NO you cant.
*spit*
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
putting a team together is work.
keeping a team together is work.
It's a bother I happily live without.
And I have lots of fun solo, so my motivation is low.
I'll team with friends (zero effort, guaranteed compatibility) & join the occasional PUG if I have time.
But I've been here five years without ever forming a team myself and don't feel like I'm missing anything.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Has the game just become the City of Wallflowers?
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I hope so, because then I'll have a lot of company.
(Wait, does that make sense?)
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Its always been the city of wallflowers, least on Infinity. Before AE you could see seven people in broadcast at once looking for team and if you suggested they form one you'd get zero response.
Hell, go to Atlas and it STILL IS. 9/10 people wont even lead an AE farm themselves, they'll spam that theyre lft in the hope someone will pity them and take them on a farm.
Not to say I'm the worlds biggest fan of leading morons, but I have little problem with creating my own tf/sf teams and forming them outta people from my globals.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
You all should really team with me sometime on Justice. My teams always rule. Always. I haven't had a single failure yet.
Red-side: Assume ALL untried...
1) Brutes are sissies, regardless of buffing you have guaranteed to provide.
[Scaredy-cat Brutes and Tanks are a big - and funny - problem. I cannot understand why anyone afraid of taking point would roll either, seriously.]
2) Masterminds will NOT buff the team. (I also ignore them because I will not fight with MMs and their worthless pets to get through a damn door. There are additional things but I won't get into them here.)
[I intensely dislike teaming with 95% of MMs out there. At least 95% of them have 50% of an idea what they are doing, if that. Years of seeing these people in action has lead to intense dislike, much as it has for Storm Controllers.]
3) Corruptors will only have one shield at most and they will use it at the beginning and maybe during a lull before an AV or something.
[Corrs like me have 1 or none shields because they are just that sick of people complaining about them. *respec* So I can see your point, but just think about it from their POV. I dislike endless complaints, but that is just me.]
4) Stalkers will be played and built poorly.
[they're also never invited to team - even the excellent ones are not invited - so not sure where you're seeing this. 
]
5) Dominators will be incapable of permanently mitigating an entire spawn by themselves, EVEN IF they are Earth Control.
[Well, you know those PToD....]
6) VEATs will not have TT:M or if they have it, they will not use it. They will also have a habit of taking alphas and proceeding to die. Be very wary of Crab Spiders and Night Widows because of this.
[This truly confuses me: people refuse to run TT:M! Why?! Why take a power you never plan on using?! My VEATs log in, turn this on and it stays on till I log off. Its not rocket science; but nobody wants to run it. Frankly I would kick someone who refused to run it after a few polite requests.... if I were leading a team, that is. lol.]
Blue-side: Assume ALL untried...
1) Tanks will be woefully incompetent in how aggro control and "group flow" dynamics function.
[You have great Tanks and you have Tanks with 0 idea of what they are doing... and few examples in between those extremes. Also, level 1s and level 50 tanks are expected to be equal in ability. Truly, Roffle.]
2) Scrappers will have all of the Scrapper forum confidence but none of the competence.
3) Controllers must be the parents of both idiot MMs and idiot Doms. You will not get buffs that aren't AoE or green number generating and even if they are Earth Control, they will not be capable of mitigating an entire spawn. Additionally, as they go up in level, they will, without a doubt, immobilize 16 mob spawns in such a way that a Fireball (or equivalent) will hit a MAXIMUM of 5 targets.
[I have a level 28 Empath. After playing her, I realized just how much many other Empaths are ignoring half of the set: they spam the AoE heal and that should be good enough...! LAME. One of my SG leaders is Illusion/empath and he never touches his secondary. I only realized that after I started playing one myself.]
4) Defenders... Well, I'm just going to use the word "heal0rz" here and leave it at that.
[I'm just gonna use the words "SB-crazy and with the impulse-control of the average chimpanzee" and leave it at that. This is one SB-sermonizing bunch of people, and it gets old. I play about 5 Defenders at the current time, and even I say this.]
5) Peacebringers will use KB in all the wrong ways.
[Hate teaming with these types, and KB will probably lead to my one Kheld eventually being deleted when I need her slot for something more fun to play. WORST EVER KHELDS: ones who refuse to turn off Group Fly. Ones who insist on using team-TP to place you where THEY want you mid-fight. I absolutely DETEST this.]
7) Blasters... Honestly, it's hard to screw up a Blaster. Even if their build or playstyle is moronic, they still generate what you want from them, which is damage.
[Blasters: the best fun to be had in CoH. At least, imo.]
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Idiots en masse can be a force to be reckoned with.
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Truly sig-worthy 
QR
I don't start teams because I don't want to be team leader. To me, the team's leader should lead (not tell everyone what to do, but also not just do nothing when everyone is running off doing their own thing instead of working together, even though that often leads to some hilarious face-planting by other team members). not just be an invitation sender.
I "lead" at my job and I've run a tabletop FRPG for the last 30 years, so when I play CoH I just want to relax and, if I team, let someone else run the show.
@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.
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7) Blasters... Honestly, it's hard to screw up a Blaster. Even if their build or playstyle is moronic, they still generate what you want from them, which is damage.
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It's hard to screw up a Blaster... I think my brain just backfired while forming that thought...
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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7) Blasters... Honestly, it's hard to screw up a Blaster. Even if their build or playstyle is moronic, they still generate what you want from them, which is healing badge credit for rezzing them.
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Its far easier for people to be followers then leaders.
In my experience as a guild leader, most people are quite happy to sit back and let others do the hard work of leading and organizing while they sit and complain and nitpick about inconsequential stuff.
Amusingly these people are also very intolerent unless you know them personally. They'll get up and leave teams over a little thing and not be very understanding despite the fact you are doing all the hard work. As someone who knows how hard it can be to lead, I'm usually the first(and only) person to jump to the defence of a leader under pressure by a group of whingers.
Leeches, all of you :P
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Amusingly these people are also very intolerent unless you know them personally. They'll get up and leave teams over a little thing and not be very understanding despite the fact you are doing all the hard work.
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Luckily, there's always more people out there.
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As someone who knows how hard it can be to lead
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Wait, wut? Hard? Huh?
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As someone who knows how hard it can be to lead
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Wait, wut? Hard? Huh?
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Sorry, that should be "As someone who knows how hard it can be to lead well" :P
As opposed to how easy it is to just join someone elses team and not really have to do anything, of course.
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In my experience as a guild leader, most people are quite happy to sit back and let others do the hard work of leading and organizing while they sit and complain and nitpick about inconsequential stuff.
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That's assuming people want organisation and leadership to begin with. I think it's fair to say that not all of us do. I, for one, am happiest when a leader isn't NEEDED. Such an exercise would be, say, a team on which everyone can take care of himself and where even lack of team play doesn't lead to failure because people CAN perform without being helped. This doesn't mean team play isn't possible or doesn't happen, but merely that it isn't NEEDED.
I like a team of all Scrappers or all Blasters. Everyone is good at looking after his own [censored], and even if you NEEDED support, there's no-one to give it. When you know that you don't need to depend on anyone else and that no-one else depends on you, that's when I have the most fun. That's when I can start cracking jokes, high-fiving my team-mates, competing for more kills and so on and so forth.
If people want to lead, they're free to lead. Just as long as it's accepted that some people do not want to lead, be led, or be in an organisation where someone is led by someone else, or in an organisation at all.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I go through periods where I put together teams, and I go through periods where I just don't want to. If it's during the week, I'm usually starting to burn out in the evening after working all day. I have a drink ,start to veg out, and would really rather let someone else lead the team. It does require ongoing work to keep a team going. I don't like sending blind invites, so I always send a tell first. As people drop, you have to find replacements. Some people don't mind doing it and just do it like second nature. That's not the case with me. I have to be in the mood to. Like right now, I've been running around all day, had a bit of a stressful experience earlier, and just want to take it easy. I'll probably play my blaster as I won't have to constantly be worried about trying to maintain aggro with my tank or keeping the team healed and the mobs debuffed or held with my defenders/controllers. I really don't feel like leading others at the moment, so I'll see if I can get on someone else's team.
Remember.... for every person that likes to lead teams, you need seven other people that don't.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
I've found that this is the case for MOST teams, Sam. People, at least in this game, tend to lead themselves pretty damn well.
They just need someone else to pick the missions for them.
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3) Corruptors will only have one shield at most and they will use it at the beginning and maybe during a lull before an AV or something.
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It's true. My Dark/Dark Corruptor doesn't have any shields.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
I prefer to follow than to lead. Plus I always seem to struggle to put a team together unless it's a Rikti or Zombie team in a busy zone.
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Because I'm a misanthrope. Now, any other questions, dirtbag?
All kidding aside, I rarely lead teams because I feel like a cruise director when I do. I'm probably overreacting, but I worry if the team members are satisfied with the XP, the choice of missions, the general pace, etc. I like things done right, and I'm not confident to in my ability to lead properly.
It's weird, but the team leader role ends up seeming more like a waiter at a restaurant in my mind.
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Yeah, I get that. I make a team, and suddenly I start feeling like I've got to work for everyone else. A good leader listens to his team mates but does what they think is best, I listen to them and do what they want, which can cause problems if they disagree
Plus then there are the backseat leaders, who don't make a team but still tell you what to do. You could kick them, but then I feel like I might look like a bit of an idiot hole and then my team jumps out, and even if they don't what if I can't replace them?
You can ALWAYS replace them. Seriously people if you have jerks on your team, just get rid of them. They will find their fun somewhere else. It's NOT your job to make their time fun, it's their own.
Seriously, read my guide to PuG TFs in my sig. Hell, with all this talk, I'm considering making an updated version just for running teams in general.
There seems to be a lot of fear and misconceptions about leading teams here.
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I've found that this is the case for MOST teams, Sam. People, at least in this game, tend to lead themselves pretty damn well.
They just need someone else to pick the missions for them.
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To a large extent, yeah. When I team with friends, we usually don't even care who has the star, because we generally decide whose string of missions we'll do at the start and we just need someone who's on the ball to pick them as they come up. The star is usually with the person whose missions we're doing anyway. As we usually stick to missions from the highest level team member (to a maximum of 2-level spread, anyway, that's what SK is for), that in itself is rarely a choice.
I generally like teams where the only meaningful choice is "What are we doing?" HOW we are going to do it and what the team is going to look like doing it isn't something I enjoy making matter. If there are problems, people are dying, it's taking forever and so forth, then maybe. But most of the time I just like to assume everyone can take care of himself and work towards the common goal
Really, just trying to find people who will respond to your tells is the major hurdle of putting a team together. Again, it's that "I want people, not bots" argument coming back. Having played other MMOs, though, I can safely say that our players are, by and large, a LOT more open to communication. I'm currently moonlighting at Dragonica, and it is HELL AND HIGH WATER trying to get ANYONE on the team to speak up and tell you what the hell is going on. I think I'm supposed to follow the leader around in absolute silence and kill what he's attacking.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'll be honest, for me, it has nothing to do with leading, following or responsibility and has everything to do with time. I rarely get to play for more than 30 minutes at a sitting. Enough time for a tf is a rare commodity. Forming a team myself or even being only the second or third person to join a tf team that usually takes a long time to scrounge up enough players to start spends a considerable amount of time I can't afford.
Typically, I join teams, especially task force teams that are just looking for one last teammate. Which means I solo a lot of newspaper missions.
I will not rest until we have in-game throwable pies!
QR
I start teams for TF/SF/Trials exclusively. Don't have the slightest problem doing it. Justice for All, our server channel is a very easy TF recruiting tool. I really don't see the point in teaming for missions, but I'll join a mission team.
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.