Teams and Tactics

Relatively new to the whole MMORP thing and I'm curious. I did a search but did not find anything covering this.

I've accepted a few invites to teams now and so far what I've gotten into was ... everyone running around head first into every thing, not really taking the time to look around. Just run in, bash the baddies and run out.

I personally like a more structured approach, a little caution, a plan. I like to do a thorough search of the place, see all parts of the map, do a bit of peaking around corners to see what I'm up against before I go storming in. Try to pull 1 or 2 of the baddies out of the main group so that I can take them on one at a time or in smaller groups.

Is what I've seen so far the general rule of what I will find, or can I also find others that think the way that I do?

This is one of the things that has kept me from accepting more invites to teams. I really don't like the "Storm in and hope for the best" Approach.

Depending on the group composition there may be no need for caution. For some players the rest of the team is just people to talk to while thrashing the enemies.

The enemies just aren't that tough and there are only a few missions where you need to be careful with what you do on larger teams.

This game isn't stuck in the mode of most MMOs where you have the tanker rush in and get aggro so the blasters can blast and the debuffers can debuff while a healer keeps the tanker alive.

Well, it depends.

Much of the gameplay in CoH deviates from what might be called "the norm" in MMO tactics.

We have specialized ATs Hero-side that do their roles exceptionally well... but they can also spread out to fill int the gaps teammates might bright to light. On Villain-side, the ATs are generalists who are designed specifically not to have those specific roles. They lean toward them, yeah, but can easily branch out into different sections.

It's fine to want heavily tactical teamplay, but in the way the ATs, powers, and enemies are designed in CoH, pulling a single foe out to bash on it isn't all that necessary (or wanted in many cases). Often times it's faster to do that run in and smash routine. That's just how the game is.

Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize

I've done mostly solo so far as a Tank and I've found that if I don't take the time to pull one or two at a time I end up at hospital or needing to take extended periods of resting and waiting before I more on or end up at hospital.

Maybe it's me, I'm new and just trying to figure things out. I've also only been on small teams, 2 or 3 and have not had any experience with larger teams.

I suggest when you find people who fight the way you like, to add them to your friend list. Tell them, via /t that you are adding them for that reason. On my old server, Liberty, I had some really good battle buddies. I'm getting there on Freedom, but I've become a bit of an altaholic which makes that difficult.

Rushing to fast us usually due to a fast tank. They'll run around with SS on and aggro a ton of stuff. Sometimes they can take it, often minions are leaving the mass the tank has made and heading toward the squishy blasters and controllery types. I hate this. It sucks. I'll do a "Hey, ty for team. I gtg." And then maybe check stuff at Wents until some is lfm.

Idiots are also bad. Level 8 controllers who think they're scrappers. A tank that rushes into a group and then retreats to where we're standing. [had this happen last night.] I've been on teams with three dead, four near death, and the tank rushes the next spawn with no endurance. Time to do the last two sentences in the above paragraph.

But sometimes you get on some rockin' teams. Lots of "Ready?" and "Wait for end" or "kneeling" said. We function as a team.

Even if you don't friend them, make sure to put a note on them. Click their name on the team list and you can give them 1-5 stars and put a note. It's a global too. I've played with an archer I'd given 5 stars and the note "Very polite and smart tank."

SGs are good too. The one I'm part of is all Farmers, which I'm not. I'm a mish/market person. But they can answer questions, as long as they are about things they know, like architypes or where to buy things.

Welcome to CoX. Go make a stalker.

I'm @Betty Gunbot and am usually online Freedom blue side nightly. I can usually get a good team together. Gimme a shout.

My question is this. When you are on those teams, did you have alot of death/team wipes. If not, then thats great. If my team can 'run and gun' that is just quicker rewards for me and makes it more exciting. Now if you are running into a problem, then you should step back and adjust to something more of what you were talking about.

Case and point: Was on a team that was smoking thru everything. Then we were in a lap map with the three level room that people call the room of death. They ran into thier and we wiped a couple times until we pulled to the door.
Council maps have a room of death too. These you have to be careful with. Other than that. unless you got hard content or hard rooms, just roll with it.

There is nothing wrong with liking tactical play but this game isn't really designed for it and under most situations it will actually slow down the team. If you want tactical play you can get it but you won't find it on PuGs, in general you'll need to find a group of players who feel the same way as you do and then crank up the difficulty (or play solo).

In general though the way the game mechanics work the primary tactic lies in forming a team that provides mutually supporting abilities (and there is a LOT of flexibility there). Once you've got that it pretty much becomes time for berserk charging. Maybe you toss the tank in first to take aggro but a lot of times even that much tactical planning is unnecessary. For example if the Tank is slow my Traps Defender will often go in first on a team, I simply toss off Seeker Drones to take the alpha and then rely on my force field generator to protect me from the follow up attacks until the rest of the team gets its act together.

If the team is diving into group after group with no deaths, complaints or close calls, the tactics are correct. You win, they lose.

This is more likely to occur on higher level teams, with experienced players, with lower difficulty settings, with easier enemy groups.

However, if this approach is resulting in significant downtime due to deaths, then new tactics, like your suggested pulling, may be in order.

(You know about the inherent "Rest" power that everyone has?)

People vary drastically in what they define as "good xp/min", "fun", or "minimal causalties." Some folks don't care how often they die, and some don't care how much xp they get, and some don't care how much mission downtime their is.

If you aren't liking how the team is functioning, start with suggestions on tactics, and what your concerns are.

At low levels especially, taking a breather once in while to use the Rest power to get back health and endurance is perfectly fine.

As a team member, you have every right to bring up concerns in the team channel, and suggest tactics. You also have every right to leave a team.

You can also form your own!

First off, welcome to the game and to the forums, Hube02!

There's some very good advice so far, and likely much more to come. All I'll say is to echo what a few have said about CoX not really needing to go too far into tactical stuff, but that doesn't mean that some teams (usually more experienced players) can take a somewhat tactical approach to their combat situations.

I think it really depends on many factors (the mission environment and objectives, the team makeup, etc.) -- just don't think that there's NO call for a tactical approach in CoX. Like others have said, it's just not as important as it may be in some other MMORPGs.

Welcome Hube.

I think what you experienced was probably a group of players that have been playing this game for a long time. When I first started, I made a tank and played exactly as you described -- look around corners, pull some, take it slow. Now I play run and gun because I have better tactics, knowledge, and skills. I know what powers to take and how to slot them, which bad guys to take down first, etc.

I think it's fine to take it at your own pace. Find a group that likes the same pace or at least is willing to slow down and show you the ropes.

I hope you have fun!

To go with what SerialBeggar said already, a couple more questions:

What server are you on and when do you typically play?

Your best bet for a slower pace to let you explore more of the game might be to start a static team with those parameters (not going to rush, need to take time to check out the scenery & make sure we understand the strengths & weaknesses of our foes).

You can probably find volunteers for such a team (perhaps in your server forum below, perhaps here), even vets who like looking at the game with fresh newbie eyes from time to time. Heck, it sounds like something I might be interested, depending.

Generally, this game isn't hard enough to need much planning or tactics- everyone can make their team contribution without having to talk it over, buffing and debuffing and damage dealing and whatever. And most experienced players know what they're going to be up against and can deal with it- most of the enemies in this game will go down just as easily to the usual tactics.

Death is a slap on the wrist, making gamebreaking builds is easy, and the enemies are dumb. There's not much to worry about.

A lot of players like to blow through missions quickly, but some are more tactical. I prefer tactical gameplay myself. A buddy and I went through all of the Faultline missions bit-by-bit and had a great time--COH is much more fun when played through systematically. You're more than welcome to join us on the Virtue server, and we would be glad to start a static team with the aim of going through the game systematically. The invite goes for anyone.

Welcome to the City, Hube.

Personally, I have the tactical mind of a small, rabid mammal and my favorite strategy is the ever popular Scrapper anthem, "Kill Everything and Go Home!" but I do appreciate you have a different playstyle, and you're trying to enjoy the game and see everything and plan out accordingly.

There's nothing wrong with that. As was said before, use your friend's list and find people who think and play like you do. Advertise in your server forums. Start a Super Group /Villian Group dedicated to the way you play. Seek recruits on the forums to join you.

You'll be surprised at how many players, both new people learning the game, and vets who want to try something different, will join up with you.

If you're nervous about forming an SG, there's nothing wrong with soloing, but you'll miss out on the social aspect of teaming. Depending on your slotting and powers, Tankers can solo well, someone I work with made a Willpower/SuperStrength tanker just to solo with when my fiance and I aren't on.

But most of all remember, don't hesitate to speak up in teams. You're paying the same subscription fee as the rest of us (except those with 2 or more accounts *cough*) and you should get to play the game the way you enjoy. Quite a few people are willing to hold back if you explain you're new and want to enjoy the game for the game's sake, not to rush by in a blur.

Thanks all, I do appreciate the comments, even the pointers about how to build the hero. I'll figure that out as I go and figure out what's best for me. I'm mostly concerned with the tactics though and understanding the logic behind something that, from my experience so far, doesn't work.

As far as my experience goes with teams so far they have not been successful in the "run and gun" tactics as you call them. From my other RPing I would call this "dash and bash". What I've seen is, I get invited to a team. The person that did the invite says "Follow Me". Not much else in the way of communication, even when I try to initiate it. We enter the building (or a cave or whatever), the others run off without telling me what direction they want to go so my Tank is left following behind rather than in the front where I should be. The "Squishies" (as I've learned to call them from reading these forums) run into the fray, I try my best to take the heat off them. Usually they die (because they're squishy) or we all die. Next I know I'm either standing there by myself being pounded on by 10 baddies or I'm waking up in the hospital and the "Team" has disbanded without so much as a "bye".

I have tried to voice my concerns to these others and the general response is "We know what to do" or "Just follow us an kill the spawn".

This is at low levels, I've been experimenting with different types of builds so I haven't gotten any of them above... I think the one at the highest level is about 16.

So, my experience thus far with teams and the "run and gun" mentality has been not been pleasurable. Not to mention the fact that I just get kicked from said team without a word and when I try to send tells to the others, 9 times out of 10 I get no response whatsoever and the other time I get something like "I gotta log, see you later." which I never do. I get the strange feeling I'm being blamed for the failure even when there was really nothing I could have done. If you're playing a squishy and you run into a mob you've gotta expect they're going to beet you senseless.

Your experience mirrors mine when I started playing about a year ago. PuGs were really hit-or-miss, with little in the way of tactics except for bullrushing and pulling, and a bad wipe or two would disband the team.

All I can say is that things will change for the better as you get higher in level. Low level teams don't always work well since people are still getting used to their characters, or simply may not be very experienced players. It's doubly worse for you since Tanks do not mature until fairly late in their progression, around the thirties. So there isn't much you can do for your team (or for yourself if your team fails to support you) until then.

Finally, don't be discouraged by a few deaths. Death in this game is a slap on the wrist at worst. As long as the team doesn't wipe, the occasional defeat doesn't mean anything.

I guess for me it is definitely more about the journey than the destination, as others have said.

Also, I am finding that part of the problem with running in is my inexperience. I'm now making different choices about powers and enhancements and it has made a marked improvement in my ability to just run in and start bashing. Suggestions posted here that have led me down this path. For instance, I thought that it would be more important to decrease the recharge time than to increase accuracy on attacks, however, as someone pointed out and I have learned, it don't do know good to swing a lot if you never hit what you're aiming for. However, I like finding these things out through trial and error, I learn more when I make the mistakes myself. I'm also, in the current hero I'm getting to like to forgo power pool powers entirely in the early stages. Rather than take one of these as soon as they became available I'm focusing more on the primary and secondary powers that come with the class. With this change I've found a marked improvement in what the hero can survive. Drawback is that it's slow getting around.... but then again, that's all part of the Journey. I guess, unlike most, I'm not really in a hurry to get to the destination and more interested in taking in the scenery along the way (something else someone posted here).

As far as what server I'm using, currently Virtue, I tried Triumph, but found it quite dead. I felt like I was the only here on and I actually did a search late one night to find out that I was indeed the only person on the server. I just found the idea of that disturbing. The reason for Virtue is the person that introduced me to CoH, who was my daughter. We've done some stuff together, but she's on to play with her friends and doesn't want to hang out with me unless they're not around.

@Bill Ramey, How would I go about finding you or your group?

What I'm really interested in is getting in some teams that see things a little like I do (I don't expect anyone to see things exactly the way I do) to get a bit of experience of what it's like to be on a team that takes a more tactical approach.... not to fast, not to slow. I wouldn't even mind a bit of RPing thrown in as well. I've been RPing since... Uhm... Herhm... quite possibly before some of the people here were born. Just haven't had any experience with MMORPG before now.