PuG: Purple is better?
By
Arctic_Princess,
Posted on: 2008-12-15 09:38 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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There's also the misconception that setting your difficulty to "Invincible" is just... better. Pff to that, I say! It's all just a false economy. Fighting higher mobs just means slower XPPM, and a far higher ratio of deaths, which further slows XPPM due to debt...
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I'm tired of arguing that on skype. Some people even think that, if the mission owner has got Invincible reputation and you don't, you'll get less XP bonus upon mish completion. Amazing how people who have been playing for years are totally deaf to some basic facts, it's easier to blame everyone else upon team wipes.
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The popular and delightful misconceptions people hold to be true in MMOs really would make an excellent book. It might even be amusing for a game developer to start incorporating some of these ideas into games so that you do get more XP while wearing a red shirt, or while the moon is full, or when the mob is standing in a river, or...
The really funny thing is that, even when a developer posts something explaining why some popular myth is rubbish, you still get people arguing until they're blue in the face about it. 
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Heh, I've even heard on Skype that slotting a Numina Heal/Rchg in Health is much better than a Heal/End because the rchg component makes the green bar recharge faster, or advicing to slot Brawl with Accuracy so Sand of Mu hits more often...
What amazes me the most is the predisposition of lots of people to ask for advice... only expecting to hear what they want to hear in confirmation, while quickly dismissing any reply which is not the expected one.
Heh, gonna try the red shirt one, who knows who might bite 
Edit: Oh, Shadowe, everybody knows that water doesn't reduce Shadowhunter's regeneration, it actually makes a yellow stain appear in the water and he's too embarrassed to keep fighting properly
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There's also the misconception that setting your difficulty to "Invincible" is just... better. Pff to that, I say! It's all just a false economy. Fighting higher mobs just means slower XPPM, and a far higher ratio of deaths, which further slows XPPM due to debt...
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If you suck, sure. 9/10 times Unyielding gives the best risk/reward ratio for me - and yes, both XPPM and IPM.
[/ QUOTE ]Agree with you Extremus. When my melee toons are comfortably defeating foes, I move them all to unyielding, as it gives better mob sizes that provide some sort of challenge, especially the bosses, EBs and named bosses.
Main 50 & Badger Nine Claws Claws/Regen/Body
Other 50's Ph10x Brute Unjust Law Tanker Samantha Urai Scrapper Codename 1250 Scrapper
Cepheus Defender Nilus Scrapper Electro Field Blaster S.PONGE Tanker
Moat of my toons are build to hit +1 or +2 levels max. Hitting +3 levels means missing quite a lot and dying even more for them. So when i enter a team that insists on fighting purple minions it is bye bye for me. I like to feel useful in a team.
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There's also the misconception that setting your difficulty to "Invincible" is just... better. Pff to that, I say! It's all just a false economy. Fighting higher mobs just means slower XPPM, and a far higher ratio of deaths, which further slows XPPM due to debt...
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I'm tired of arguing that on skype. Some people even think that, if the mission owner has got Invincible reputation and you don't, you'll get less XP bonus upon mish completion. Amazing how people who have been playing for years are totally deaf to some basic facts, it's easier to blame everyone else upon team wipes.
[/ QUOTE ]the best one are when you on a TF/SF and someone didn't change there rep down and look at it a go mental for it say what rep thy got it set at and not the team leaders as it don't show the leaders rep
On one of my three main (heroside) toons I have to say that yes, purple is better. I had a streetsweeping mission the other day (solo) and was soloing against clusters of three purples or two purples and a red without too much trouble (red Elite Bosses can be a pain to solo OTOH - and only my MM has tried soloing a purple EB (Bots/Traps with >40% defence on the bots - the EB didn't stand a chance)). The second of my main toons excels at debuffing and damage over time - if the mobs aren't purple they die so fast I sometimes feel like deadweight (and if they are purple with me around and a competent group they die fast anyway).
On the other hand, two of my main toons are trollers and the third is an offender. Buffs and debuffs galore - why would hitting or hurting purples be a problem? (My fire/psi blaster on the other hand cuts through low level stuff like a hot knife through butter but doesn't play much on the higher difficulties without a tank to hide behind).
My view is that 'the bigger the PuG gets the lower the rep should go.'
Which tends to be the opposite to SG teams.
Let me try to explain....in many PuGs only half the team bother looking at each others powersets, the half that aren't as informed tend not to get the team tactics 'right'. Also when you play with a team of people you don't know there does tend to be a 'lot' of hanging about wondering if it's ok to carry on while someone is AFK. It's issues like this a good leader will overcome whereas a poor leader will only inspire threads like this.
Whenever i set a "team carnage" up (basically whenever im leader) i always go by these simple rules.
Difficulty level: Unyielding (2nd one iirc?)
Level of team: I MUST be the highest level player there by at least a level. This is so that everybody on the team is getting GOOD xp.
Type of mission: Something thats different. Whether its the hollow repeatables, a story arc, an ouroboros tf . . . anything. Although sometimes i do do radio missions if my contact hasnt given me the call option yet.
I only set up these kind of teams when i play a character that i KNOW can stand the heat of tanking a big mob (regardless of AT im on, people whos teamed with me know that i tank whether im a defender or scrapper xD). What this usually does then is maximise the mob count and keep the kills rolling.
While i may not be getting awesome xp due to them being white/yellows to me, the team is! Therefore the team steamrolls through missions creating nonstop kills (thus the term team carnage) gaining myself constant good xp and keeping the team happy since theyr lvlin quite a lot and are nonstop in the action.
Now to me, thats how a team SHOULD be. Dont think iv ever had anyone on one of my teams complain about it being "too easy". As long as theres a sense of a challenge (which there is, since theres a death every few minutes but awesome xp keeps them in team 
) and nonstop action, people are happy doing whatever you say 
(in a non mastermind kinda way of course).
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
I once had a team of 8 Corruptors, we walked though big purple mobs with 2 - 3 Tanks (Freakshows) in seconds, and this was at level 22.
Saying that, I went from 22 - 30 with that group in an evening, so it may have just been a good group. But my point is, it depends on who you're teaming with. Some groups will get more XP/S on purple mobs than on yellows, and some teams the other way around.
I have had experiences like that.
The other day I was in a team of 6. Three blasters and three scrappers.
I didn't even had time to see what colour the enemies conned before they were a mess on the ground. It was hyper-accelerated fun!
tl;dr
Team with a Kinetics toon and purples will go down like greys.
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tl;dr
Team with a Kinetics toon and purples will go down like greys.
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Yup, Sister Psyche TF on 7 Blasters and a Kin is one of the funniest we've ever done, even funnier than Synapse with 7 Scrappers and a Kin
I am gonna post on this as I am a fan of relentless. For me and everyone I know its not really to do with the xp - its the fact the game is TOO EASY. Even when I solo I throw it on relentless. Its nothing to do with xp at all - some of us actually NEED the challenge. And yes this is PuG's too not just teaming with regular SG mates etc. If it is a team of all my SG/coalition/global mates it never goes below vicious or we'll all fall asleep from boredom.
The fact that people are going for the "I must get the optimum xp per minute to level up ASAP" is really very sad. I personally enjoy playing this game for the games fun factor, its the "lets go kick some bootay and have a good laugh" element of this game thats keeps me playing like the loon I am. Also worth noting every char of mine can happily solo relent and are actually all team specs specifically. Naturally if it is too hard for the teams overall lvl range (be they lackies or just a bit lower), then the diff will always drop, no point having the lower peeps on ya team getting turned to mush every 5 mins (except on my pain corr as I notice I am addicted to Starfrenzy's Conduit of Pain's super buff ^^).
In my opinion its more common sense really and more about enjoying it, but sadly this game lacks any new mish type modes so once you got your 5th or 6th lvl 50 the game for me has got a bit easy. Thats why I love cranking it up all the way.
The real thing here is whether the rest of the team is having fun, because if they ain't then I won't either.
Sometimes its just one guy whose lead picking a team that will have his mobs high to them and then he gets his arcs done. In fact that's almost exactly what it is.
For people its "I am in a team" or "I like a good fight" and "it looks like good xp".
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Difficulty settings and team competence go hand in hand, but somehow there are always people who do not get this. Our SG mainly consists of all the toons of five friends plus a few toons from people we like. So, most of our SG teams consist of five people, but we usually invite a few more to get spawns for a full team no matter what those extra players bring to the table (as long as they are nice as a person) and we still steamroll through missions on any difficulty possible. If you are very lucky and end up in a PUG like that (where people and their toons work extremely well together) purple is better, because you defeat enemies roughly at the same pace but get higher rewards for each one.
However, I find it very optimistic, to say the least, to expect such a performance from every random PUG. Actually I think a PUG is quite decent when they perform well on medium difficulty. And when you do a few more missions with them you can always pick a higher difficulty when you think that things are too easy after the first one or two missions. But forming a PUG and doing invincible/relentless missions of the highest character right away is inviting disaster. That way a team that otherwise might have had a fun ride at medium difficulty often enough turns into a bunch of frustrated beings who do not want to team with each other ever again.
In the worst cases the team leader is, like Shannon said, some guy who wants his story arcs done and refuses to pick a lower difficulty despite most of the team being of lower level, because "it's good xp". There is only one advice I can give to people who realise that they ended up in such a team: leave at once and write down the leader's name (or even better: use the ingame rating system) to make sure not to accept any team invites from him anytime soon.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
Loving this thread! Some great arguments on both sides. I'm just going to wade in here with my own preference though, so let me know what you think.
I'm going to repeat what some people have said so far: what does the game mean to you? Is it the challenge of finishing a story arc and accomplishing something, or is it the XPPM you receive?
For me, levelling is the bonus I get from enjoying good story arcs (and there've been some corkers on here since I got back a couple of weeks ago). At level 8 I pumped myself up to Tenacious, just to make things a little more interesting. Now I'm going to head up to rugged at level 16 to see what's going on. The thrill of heading into a mission and having to face off against 2 red lieutenants and a purple boss is the challenge, of 'does my build work?', 'am I hitting the right combos and inspirations?'. There really is nothing more satisfying than wading in to a mob that should throttle me, and end up the victor with about 3 HP left! That's excitement.
Wading into a mob of blues/whites tends to become bloody miserable after a while. As a cl/reg scrapper I can take a fair amount of punishment and give a lot more back. With mobs of blues and whites there is no challenge.
I don't have a problem with Invincible/Unyielding later on - for the majority of my own characters I am happy that they can help out/do damage at those levels.
My gripe is with teams at level 6 or so who think the higher diff settings are better. I remember leading a mission in The Hollows a few years back and we had been facing wipe after wipe under the previous leader. So I picked one of my own missions (set to either Heroic or Tenacious) and braced myself for the inevitable 'Mobs are blue/white/yellow'. Needless to say four out of six people levelled during the mish (it was pre-10 and we had a lower player in the team so no room for sidekicking).
I think, in general, veteran players will find things easier and so are more likely to play on higher difficulties and succeed. Newer players, even if they aren't new to MMOs, won't necessarily know that Tsoo do nasty things to your recharge, tohit and cause much knockback and stuns or that Council, in large groups, will swarm with cone and aoe attacks cutting ill-prepared teams down to size.
That's my experience and opinion anyway.
It does totally depend on how well things go.
Sometimes its enough to make a Saint scream flaming hellfire and throttle people with his floor length beard. The team will be rubbish, the leader will refuse to lower the setting, the group will split at every turn and suck horribly. Quitting tends to ensue.
And then, sometimes, you get a group that would put any games SAS teams to shame. They dont talk much at all, except the 'gz's' and less frequent 'whatcha need?' for a wake...but they go through mobs or reds and purples in the blink of an eye, obliterating them as easy as they would yellows or whites.
Crab Spider/VEAT teams are exceptionally good at the latter, especially at slightly higher levels, where the mass stacked team buffs make a mockery of both the Purples higher hitting skills AND their inherent defences, due to the Spider Leadership trio. That and the horrendous ammount of AoE just means death
Its more a case of Purple CAN be better. Even on PuGs. But it does depend fully on the team.