How to increase teaming

I think there are fewer team being formed now than in the past. I believe this game works at its most fun in teams. I think you can incentivize team building by giving a team of 6-8 players more drops or better drops or unique drops or perhaps a new type of drop you can only get in larger teams. I also think if you give the leader of the team a special reward for forming the team that would encourage people to make teams. But you'd only get these rewards outside of AE missions- those farmers get enough stuff already. Plus, you need to finish the mission to get the rewards- again, that would perhaps discourage farming.

I think there's some things on the way in i23 to improve teaming.

but I'm not sure if they're anything more than new Global channels for people to use, not I'm not sure they'll be of use.

I would like to see drop rates on teams improved, the difference between soloing and being on an 8 man in terms of things like Insps dropping is silly, and given how loopy the market is at the moment doing the same for Salvage would seem like a good idea too.

Doesn't have to be a 1-1 improvement but certainly could do with a little tweaking.

I agree with the idea that there should be a larger carrot to provide motivation for teaming - but although I can appreciate your perspective, I figured I'd share a few things.

1. There is already an XP bonus for teams of 8, as opposed to soloing.
2. The leader position for most iTrials and a couple of tfs can be a frustrating spot, especially in PUGs. I'd love to see some sort of motivating factor here - but this is what I think would happen if there were.

Players who have poor communication skills and inadequate knowledge of the trial/tf/mission objectives would jump in the leadership spot and create a lousy experience for their teammates that weren't familiar with the content. (and also a lesser experience for those that were more familiar with it)
I think that CoH is having some growing pains at the moment. Some folks really don't have a problem leading, but they are frustrated with some of the players not being willing to be led. A team leader gives direction, and yet one or more players do what they want to do, either ignoring, or completely missing the instruction.

The better leaders probably spend more time on Beta becoming familiar with the new content and share that knowledge with some of the more accomplished players on live (when it hits live). Those are the players that should get something special. I've no idea what.

As it is, there are already several badges for mentoring.

Yeah, I know, none of that helps a lot of players get the team they want when they want it. Maybe if we can increase our subscriber base, we might get that a little easier.

In the meantime, understand your servers ebb and flow of population size. If there's more than 100 unhidden folks on your server's larger global channels, you shouldn't have much trouble getting any team together.

I agree that a new channel might work for teaming. Right now it seems the Help channel is that channel but it gets mucked up with a lot of team requests and the Help requests get lost in there. Perhaps a seperate cross map channel for team requests is needed.

I see more players LFT than making teams. So anyone making a team is ok by me. You learn to lead a team by doing it and even the best of leaders get teams with a variety of abilities and playstyles. But that is exciting and fun. So any encourgement to start a team would benefit the game.

I have that on a tab and I don't see many players use it compared to the requests on the Help channel.

I believe each server has at least one active player-made global channel for forming teams.
Don't be shy, though! Start forming teams!

Ever since i21, Help is a nice secondary lft channel. Sad, but true.

I'm sure this is not a popular thought - but aren't free players given an option to pay a couple bucks for chat access?

The whole free to play - isn't it really free to pay?

I subscribe, because I think it's better value. I'm sure a lot of people have their reasons -financial or otherwise for not subscribing.

But, as a vet player, I find myself discriminating against the free player - because they usually act so desperate. "lft" , "lft" , over and over again. I look at their power choices and, because of free status, they have no bonuses. Some of you might regard SOs as adequate, and they can be - but overall, recharge is slower, regen is less, recovery is less, damage is less, everything is comparitively less. (compared to IOs)

I don't want to team with most of them. Some are returning vets who may be savvy about how to play their character, and anyone can usually pick these players from the rest, based on their chatter.

On the other hand, I fully realize that if I don't team with newer players and let them see how much real fun can be had, they may never subscribe. I just wish CoH gave people a better reason to subscribe other than more characters and incarnate content. (for those that have been playing long enough to unlock everything else. )

I feel like the line in the sand ought to be drawn at level 40 - just high enough where they can feel powerful - but not high enough to be fully developed. But, I guess that's another topic.

Whenever I can't find a team, I form one.