How to do an 10 hour, 21 minute Posi (and a QOL change to help us not do that anymore)

Today I ran a 10 hour, 20 minute Posi task force. I would say it was “successful”, but it was soooooooo slow that I'm not certain it was. The “success” (ie: finishing it) was really a matter of being extremely stubborn, mixed together with an initial misunderstanding about how spawns are set and poor luck in PUG teammates.

We began with a full team for Posi in the morning. Four teammates quit fairly soon into the task force, for different reasons. Two who left were fairly skilled, but they eventually gave up because of problems caused by our two unskilled soloists. The two soloists also eventually logged out. But, ... some or perhaps all of those who logged out didn't quit the task force first.

For a while we were down to four of us. Still, having the two soloists leave was so helpful that the larger spawn size couldn't prevent us from progressing more quickly than before. Missions went quite smoothly with the four of us, even if a bit slowly overall because of the oversized spawns. We continued that way for a while, until two of the four remaining players needed to leave.

For the last several hours, there were two of us; my ice/fire blaster and a new person playing a claws / super reflexes scrapper. He seemed like an experienced gamer, but brand new to COH. His build was that of a newer player (no stamina), although he had a good eye for picking a balance of offense and defense in his powers. He had either no enhancements at all, or very few. He did, thankfully, have practiced brawler. Even more helpful, he was willing to listen.

And so, we worked our way through the last several missions one oversized spawn at a time; 2 bosses, 3 lieutenants, and many minions were the norm. There were also, of course, special spawns with other combinations. The good news is that my partner went from level 11 to 21 during the task force, and I made it from 15 to 22. The bad news is, well, you read the threat title already.

QOL suggestion ...

If the devs would put a 'Task Force Members” splashscreen into the GUI, usable for task forces, so that team leaders could access the list whether somebody was online or offline, and kick whoever had left, it would *really* be a nice QOL feature for task forces.

Possible alternative that might be a little simpler to implement:

Team members who disconnect/log off don't drop from the team window. Their name just changes to indicate they are offline.

Leader can then still kick them if desired/needed.

I support the suggestion.

As a workaround you can use “/kick playername”.

Never run Positron on a full team. Last time I had 8 players, we split in two teams of 4. Some people (probably not experienced in Positron) complained, but we gave deaf ears and started it anyway. My team had an ill/rad troller (me), two blasters and a scrapper. We finished in 1hr 36 mins. The other team had a kin troller, two scrappers, and I forget what else. They finished in 2hrs 10 mins.

I disagree with the notion that all 8-man Posi TFs are slow. My fastest Posi was with an 8 man team, and a PUG as well. The time was 1:45. And that was back when powers were capped at level 15 (so no Stamina).

My experience with Posi and other TFs leads me to believe that the time to complete has more to do with how experienced the players are with TFs as opposed to how large/small the team is, or how it is composed.

Players who don't know what they're doing, who don't cooperate, who don't fight and travel efficiently, who tend to go afk or obsessively shop or whatever ... these players are the ones who make TFs longer than they need to be, much more than any other factor.

The last two Posi runs I was on, both of them 8-man teams, one ran 3:01 the other 2:36.

Can't quite say that there were PuGs, everyone pretty much knew each other, but we brought along whatever character needed the badge, on both of them.

If the OP was having issues with two solo'ers, I would have given them the heave-ho, and reformed the team with two more players.

But an easier way to boot AWOL teammates would be nice.

I kinda wish people wouldn't post how fast they can do this TF, because that really isn't a help to new players. Out of all the TF/SFs in this game that one is definitely a "your experience may vary" situation.

The QoL suggestions are ok, but I would be pissed off if I disconnected or crashed and was kicked because of it. Maybe a timer could be added so that if the aforementioned happens, a player could have a chance to rejoin the TF/SF before an over zealous team leader kicks them.

True story about Positron. One day back in early 2006 (I believe, it was a while ago) I joined a pick up Posi on my main - an energy blaster. Within the first mission the leader - a dictatorial and bad player (very bad combination) - quit when the rest of the team seemed less than willing to obey his odd directions. Two of his friends quit simultaneously. That left three, including me. The other two basically said it was now impossible to complete and were contemplating quiting as well. I, being mostly crazy, told them it wasn't impossible and I offered to solo the thing and let them get the badge at the end. One thanked me but said no and quit. The other offered to help but after the second mission decided to take me up on the offer and logged out. I basically soloed it from that point forward, at +1, in about three or four hours or so.

Honestly, it was one of the easier Positrons I had run up to that point (I hadn't run it with my SG at that point, or I'm sure it would have been a cruise). I promptly decided to arm myself with some nukes and shivans and proceeded to solo Synapse, Sister Psycho, and I believe Bastion/Citadel before I decided I had enough task force soloing for the time being. Since then, though, I've always tried to complete task forces when the team disbands, as long as they do so in a way that allows me to continue running it. Unfortunately, that didn't work out nearly as well when it was an STF, but otherwise I often finish them.

I don't think that counts as escalation of commitment, though. I think its mostly goofy.