New n00bs

I have noticed a trend that started in City of Villains that seems to have intensified with the new Going Rogue content with the influx of new players. I think it would be best to compare it to the tactics that the opposing sides used in the Civil War. This is a generalization of course, so shoot me after I get this out. The older way of playing, when debt meant more in the earlier issues of City of Heroes, tended towards completing the mission with the minimum of casualties. Tanks would pull aggro off teamates. Scrappers would finish spawns before aggroing the next whole room. Teams would play to the buffer and debuffer's strengths. It was more like the coordinated attacks by General Lee of the South with outnumbered forces usually.

Now it's more like General U.S. Grant, a war of attrition. Wipe in room one. Wipe in a tunnel. Maybe four wipes to complete a mission, and then the team leader says, 'Good job.' Wakies are necessities. Pulls mean instead of fighting the whole room at once, the team fights all of the room at once in the previous room that was just cleared. Say what?

I am not crying over dying more than other teammates. The whole team keeps wiping. Progress is measured by completing the mission, and defeats are just part of advancing the content. Maybe team leaders could be given a new inspiration from the mission contacts: ritalin for the ADHD players that just want to run in, pull with a nemesis staff blast, or the level 12 tank that runs around a tunnel chamber full of ghouls. Hello? Ghouls are easier to kill, spread out with focused fire and knockback has come back in fashion.

Am I totally out of the loop? Has the day of tactics given way to the fact of blind keyboard mashing?

Firstly, even a team of veteran Navy SEALS would wipe at least three times per mission in Praetoria.


Secondly, if you're still alive, then shooting you didn't work and you owe me a new monitor.

There are too many different powersets with vastly different synergies and play styles. It's not so much the people don't try to use all their tricks to play safe, it's just that more often than not their tricks are useless because of the other people on the team have powersets that don't utilize them or even completely negate them.

An example is you have a tank that uses defense, but your buffer can only boost resistance and doesn't have good heals, and your ranged characters use knockback sets that keep knocking enemies out of the tank's taunt aura. If everyone plays to their best in this situation, you are still going to have a lot of issues.

A good team isn't about the right mix of players or ATs, it's about the right mix of powersets, and it's fairly rare that a PUG is going to have that mix. When it does happen though the hardest missions are a breeze.

It doesn't really matter though. Debt really isn't an issue, and wipes are more like quick breaks. Hit the mission full force and take down as much as you can before wiping, then repeat, it's probably faster exp than playing it safe, even with the debt.

You obviously never played with the Pingus. Even back during "the older way of playing" we would push difficulties as far as we could. Individual team members fell frequently, teams wiped rarely, but having no debt badges was considered a sign that you weren't trying hard enough. If you thought there was a chance you could pull something off it was encouraged that you try. Debt meant little compared to succeeding at something completely insane.

The thing is that half the team could drop and the rest would still keep pressing forward as they got back up and into the fray; the occasional team wipe acting as a rough guide to how far things could be pushed with that team composition. Of course that only set the line to immediately be pushed past. How far and how fast you could go was far more important than worries about debt. Team wipes are bad since they slow you down. Individual teammates falling, on the other hand, means you can use Fallout, Vengeance, Rise of the Phoenix, etecetera.

Shurg... as always give it time and people will get into the swing of things with the new content.

While I agree there is a lot more wiping in P land even my friends and I are starting to get the swing of stuff and wiping a lot less when with new toons. The new content is really anti-rush most of it seems to work better with the clear a spawn then recoup then move on then the rush from spawn to spawn of some of the older content.

Yes good team building and overlap of stacking powers has a big impact. I'm not saying my Tank/Brute is going to turn down a buff that does not stack it is after all better then no buff at all. But I can see where at lest in the new missions well formatted teams will work better then more random pug teams. But then again that was true before just not as bad becuase you could muscle through with a pug on old content and its a bit rougher with the new stuff.

All in all yeah give it time things will work out as people learn or relearn the ropes there is light at the end of the tunnel. Worse comes to worse get your friends together and build complementing toons.

Other discussion aside, I think the new enemies are throwing new and old players for a loop. Old players used to low levels of Hellions and Skuls are now getting hit with tough low-level mobs. I haven't died as much as I have been in Praetoria in years.

Hell, I ran one of the new Unai missions with Anti-Matter's Clockwork with a small team and was surprised at how tough it was. Once we started adapting and thinking rather than running on auto-pilot, we actually started rolling.

Smart playing and teamwork is definitely vital in the post-GR world. Kudos to the Devs for stepping things up a notch, even if it means tough missions and teaming for awhile. Now if the villain arcs had only received the same treatment as the hero arcs... I'd be much more pleased. Granted, villains had much harder content/enemies than heroes did.

Oh, and much love M_Bill

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You don't need anything particular on a team to be successful in this game. When I form teams I invite the first seven people to say yes.

Outside of specific extreme encounters, if you(general you) need a specific AT/powerset then you're doing something wrong.

Stacking different types of mitigation is awesome.