I > Team

Ok small rant. My latest pet peeve on teams has been the "one man armies", people who seem to have such an elevated self-worth they seem to ignore the fact they are on a team or even worse act as if the team is only holding them back.

They rush ahead on their own and start soloing, even when most of the team hasn't even arrived. This is only fine if you are in a horribly slow team with a few airhead members. Otherwise its just plain rude I think.

Sure its *great* for them, but then the team isn't working as a single coherent unit.

Also they tend to seperate from the team, and at the same time lead a few poor individuals away who no doubt can't survive on their own like they can. Then the rest of the team has to mop up the mess as they push on.

Its really annoying, I like my teams to work as a team, not as a bunch of over-enhanced over-ego'd group of individuals because that only leads to deaths and sours the mood.

/Shield scrappers are the worst at this with their insta-nuke power, or Illusion/ Controllers who run to the end of the mission and start trying to solo.

Anyway I will end my rant here before I go on too much.

I don't mind people who are IO'd out, I have a few myself. But when you enter a team, play as a team. It doesn't matter how good you think you are, if you are trying to run off and solo then you are making it harder for the rest of us.

I dunno.

Sometimes you have such a good team it's just silly overkill to pit all eight members against one group. Better to split up and go thru the mission quicker imo. Granted if it's one person who can do it and the other seven will have trouble with a group, it's not such a good idea.

If i see the rest of the team are fine, i can go take on a diffrent group and we'll fight twice as many, which might be a more appropiate challenge for that team.


Sure there's people who have no regard for being in a team. But at the same time, i don't think it's always bad to separate.

Kick 'em from the team if they can't follow the leader. What's the problem?

I tend to ignore people that demand everyone stay together all the time thus slowing down map kill speed and holding back those that have no reason to hold back.

However, when the team leader requests it, I'll stick with the team or quit the team if I find that they're moving too slowly and thus causing my playtime to become boring.

Perhaps such slow and needy players should learn to become more self-sufficient so that they don't drag down the rest of us.

It's about utilizing your teams strengths. If you have some folks who can run ahead and solo the mish, then devise a strategy to take advantage of that.
Because, when you can solo the mission, it's not much fun to "play down".

When I do a pug SF, I usually run a toon who can solo the whole thing. My team my rules, right? Yes, but...
It isn't fun for people to have to hang back. Some even feel like they're leeching. So the winning proposition is to find something for everyone to do that fits their abilities.
For example, on the 1st mish of the Silver Mantis, I ask people who don't have the stealth and survivability to surgically hit the mish objectives to start clearing the map on their way to the last room where the tattoo artists are. The folks have some good play experience and they're doing something useful--it's a lot easier to run the artists through an empty warehouse than one that still has battles going on.
If there's someone else who has the stealth and survivability, we split up the objectives.

Different teams need to be played in different ways, imho.
This just requires some creativity and awareness on my part when I am the team leader.

I think you put that very well, all_hell.

Eh, it can happen from time to time. There have been a few times where the team has been behind me consistently, and all of a sudden they're no longer there when I hit another mob, making me wonder where they ended up (usually they decided to go after another mob). It's really only a problem if it happens consistently. Most good teams will have someone good starting them out on each mob, and then you can remain cohesive (though I've learned to check my maps for what teammates are doing from time to time).

And I would also say that a good Tank or alpha soaker should be running off before a mob is finished off. That way, you can round up the next mob and have them nice and ready for when the next team shows up. The last 1-2 survivors don't generally need the whole team's attention.

Usual solutions to the problem you mentioned is to suggest a strategy. Most people like having a strategy and respond well to suggestions. If they get annoyed, it's a surefire sign that they're not going to be a great teammate, anyway.

OP: I agree with you on some points and disagree in others, and it all comes down to this line

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peacemoon /Shield scrappers are the worst at this with their insta-nuke power, or Illusion/ Controllers who run to the end of the mission and start trying to solo.

The Illusion Controller is a support class, and even though he may be capable of soloing everything, he shouldn't run off and leave his teammates without the mitigation he provides through his control and the buffs/debuffs from his secondary.

The Scrapper (especially /Shield), on the other hand, doesn't provide much in the way of support, and actually works better as a separate entity. I would even say that his main contribution to the mission is to run off and clear his own area of the map. That way he doesn't have to deal with some trigger happy controller who uses his AoE immobilizes before the mobs are tightly packed around said /Shield Scrapper, which would lower the benefit from AAO, or be too spread out for the radius of S-Charge or any other AoEs he may have (Scrapper AoEs have tiny radiuses), or the slowpoke Tanker who complains that the Scrapper gets to the mob first and grabs more aggro than him, or the opposite overly aggressive Blaster who nukes the spawn before the Scrapper can get to it.

So in conclusion:
Good Idea: A Scrapper running off to solo the map and clear everything
Bad Idea: A support class running off to solo, leaving his teammates without his buffs/debuffs

Meh. I see where you're trying to go with this and I agree to the spirit of the thread. Teams should act as teams and not a bunch of ragtag soloists.

Teams I'm on or running are usually steam rolling because we kick the people who cause us grief and accept that some people can blaze a trail of carnage on their own in a map.

However, If that scrapper, or whoever, takes off into the wild and faceplants, it's their meaningless stat called debt. If I see that the person or persons breaking off are causing the rest of the team more work via more aggro and less concentrated damage, then I tell them to back it up and smooth the ride. If the person is just not understanding the concept of knowing the capacity of the team's abilities and we are having death issues or it's just not fun, we use the kick button.

My Ill/Kin plays mostly support. If we decide to stealth a mish, then I will run to the end, but I'd rather play through.

I say, if people are able to go off soloing spawns for your team, the difficulty isn't high enough. If that doesn't work, then obviously, you don't need a full team to tackle the mission and 4 players or a trio is enough.

Basically, set it up so you *have* to stick together or result in defeat to most and/or slower completion.

On one hand, there's no "I" in TEAM.
On the other hand, you can't spell T-E-A-M without M-E.

TEAMWORK is an anagram of ME-AT-WORK, meaning that I'll be doing half the work while the rest of the team lolligags down some other corridor.

I like that BBQ. It's soooo true.

My scrapper is a one-person wrecking crew with no regard for spawn sizes or hurt feelings. How should I change my playstyle to accommodate a team, knowing that sticking with the team is a waste of my abilities, the team's abilities, or both? I'd far rather see self-sufficient characters acting as such.

I agree that it's no fun when someone rushes off to solo the end boss while everyone else is still en route to the mission door, but I don't see a problem with someone trying to take on something the group hasn't gotten around to yet. The worst thing that happens is the would-be lone wolf dies, and even then it's only a problem if they whine about it or it ruins a master's run. Regarding teamies chasing lone wolves: If you follow someone obviously hellbent on taking on an eight-man spawn alone, you deserve what you get, be it glorious victory or shameful and embarrassing defeat.

Can I agree and disagree?

I have nothing against zoning in to discover that the team has started on the first three or so groups. Yes, if I zone in and they're a floor away, it's a problem, but I don't really expect sir blaster and miss scrapper to just hang around making faces at the mobs... especially as it can take some people five minutes to zone in (or, back in the old days, it could take a mastermind three minutes or so to get all her pets up- aggh, masterminds that refused to summon on the run and insisted on waiting to summon their six ninjas annoyed me horribly).

I know the maps pretty well by now. Particularly on default-alls, a character popping down what's likely a one-way hall to catch the three lurkers, or even going left when most go right in one of those standard squares, doesn't bug me. Same for defeat boss missions that we want to do fast but don't have a true stealther. If they're intending on fully splitting (hey, you go right, I go left, we'll see where we end up), I really prefer if they say 'Hey, I'm going to check down this route, k?', but honestly, as long as they don't faceplant and expect help and wouldn't be more useful elsewhere, I don't care.

(People who split, die, then whine for someone to come give them a rez or a Wakie should be kicked. Quickly. Especially if they do offer something to the team.)

My two mains are a katana/wp scrapper and a bots/dark. Both can generally do pretty good at soloing a whole mission and I run them at +2/+8 (...although I avoid archvillians). If the team has a lot of ranged DPS and a tanker on his feet, the first is generally just as good wandering off random corridors as she is staying with the group- and hey, she can self-rez from two different sources, she has wakies and breakfrees, so if she dies, it's her own dumb fault. Well, mine. It isn't always true, but say- particularly when you're leveled down to do an old taskforce with it's gazillion kill-alls in the same map over and over again... well, helping out the group doesn't mean standing on my heal.

On the other hand, my MM, even though she's even a better soloer, she's also support. I stick with the group. I've been known to try and get people going faster if there's loligaggling (Mastank! charge!), but I don't split her off save for in really unique circumstances. If a random stalker wants to wander off down a corridor and prove the awesomeness of his assassin-strikes, though, he can go have fun with that. Again, though, if he dies I'm not going to chase after him to rez him (...although I may recall him for venge-bait).

Does it really matter, though? Above all, if the person leading wants us to stick together, I stick together. If the person leading wants it done quick and split, I split to where I need to be. Communicate with the group, and things go right.

Also, anyone who splits during a mayhem deserves blacklisting. That is all.

I think it's a matter of determining the playstyle of the team. There's a rather large faction in the game that thinks anything not done at the fastest speed possible is a waste of their time. There's a smaller, but still large faction that doesn't care how fast you go and even some that prefer slower to faster. It's only a personal observation, but the second group seems to be a lot better at communicating and adapting with each other while the first group seems to just assume that their playstyle is everyone's (always exceptions, of course). When you mix the two types together, it takes a lot of communication to get everyone on the same page, and often it just turns out they shouldn't be playing with each other.

So, as others have mentioned, it's pretty much the team leader's job to say "stick together" or "hurry hurry hurry" and up to the players do decide if they want to be on that team under those conditions (or, if they won't, and still stay on the team, risk getting kicked). I've quit a lot of teams after one mission (politely, of course) just because the rushrushrush method is quite often less fun for me.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

1. If you are not meshing with your teammates' play style, you should quit so you can join a team (or create one!) that meshes with your play style. Additionally, don't get pissy/whiny if you get kicked due to your play style.

2. If your teammates are not meshing with your play style, you should quit so you can join a team (or create one!) that meshes with your play style. Additionally, don't get pissy/whiny if you get kicked due to your play style.

That's my take on it. I don't care if you're going too fast or going too slow, if you're not doing what the team wants to be doing, you should quit to do what you want to do without interrupting the team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.