why doesn't the single player game of CoH work for you?

I do both and enjoy both teaming and solo. I do understand what your saying about the early game's insistance to "educate" me with trips to learn how to change my difficulty. I have gotten around that with new charcters using the DFB trial and the DIB. So basically below twenty I team so I can skip all that.

Things I enjoy solo, or on team include .. The arcs in the RWZ. The Field Agnet Nance Arc in Talos. Special Agent Adair in Talos. Montaque Castanella's arc in Steel (so I can team later on the ITF). The two new arcs in Steel .. Graham Easton and Laura Lockhart ( Graham's actually awards a Tsoo Scorceror Pet that can eb summoned five times).

Now some depend on the characters but with a strong Brute, Tank or Scrapper I enjoy soloing Tina McIntyre and Maria Jenkin's arcs in PI... nothing feels better than knowing you kicked the butts of every Praetor that works for Emperor Cole

I rarely solo - when I do I tend to get bored after two or three missions. If I can't find/form a team fairly quickly I'll usually just log off and play something else rather than start soloing.

I'm actually not a very social person though - I almost never go out, and arguably have no friends - so I'm not sure it's the social element per se that I'm after in teaming.

I think it's more the interplay of multiple (player controlled) characters, the extra variability and unpredictability that brings, the usually faster pace (though I'm not a fan of the speed run), and all the synergies that can develop, both through powerset interaction and different tactics people bring.

It's also kinda why, while I'm only really interested in teaming when I play CoH, I'm not so keen on the trials. Adding more people starts out making things more interesting and complex when teams are smaller, but after a certain number it just turns into a big generic mush. Adding one more person to a team of four can change the dynamic in interesting ways and potentially let the team handle significantly stronger challenges (or indeed, hindering their progress if the new addition doesn't work out so well). Adding one more person to a league of twenty, eh, it's not even noticeable, however good/bad a player they are (unless they've gone to the extreme of deciding to troll the league by deliberately triggering trial fail conditions).

I think what I enjoy most about the slower pace of soloing (and within small teams... I think my sweet spot is generally found within 1-4 characters... 5 and 6, depending on the power sets) is that I feel more like I am watching panels of a comicbook.
I get to see each and every thing. The character(s) get to shine. Each and every enemy and strike and miss and blast and whatever can be noticed and enjoyed.
Beyond the great amount of choices for looks and powers with varying approaches and affects (and effects, hehe), the little random elements of combat is what I love the most in this game. Even if they are mathematically inconsequential, the positioning, the falling, the flailing, the running and all the overall ragdoll physics and options at all of our fingertips, and at the AI's disposal, are enormously consequential for my entertainment and enjoyment.
When I'm playing solo, or on smaller teams, I feel like I really get to enjoy all of that much more than when an 8 (or higher) person team mushes a bunch of FX on top of a large group of faceless enemies for a few seconds before we move on to the next.

Thems just my preferences and tastes.

I really enjoy the game from the standpoint of making a good show with each and every combative interaction.

The single player game works great for me! I'm never on long enough or consistently enough to be much good for team content, most of the story arcs are written around a single hero and solo'ing ensures you'll get to read the whole story, and running them is a great way to learn all the ins and outs of a character, for that faraway day when I've run through every last story arc and start joining the trials and task forces.

The single player game does work for me. It works extremely well for me.
I very much enjoy running content solo (and in a small team).

It lets me down when it comes to the Incarnate level stuff, but <shrug> I'm not a solo only player. I like most TF/SFs, often lead teams and enjoy PUGs.

I find the Incarnate trial stuff only worth doing for the rewards. I seldon think it matters which character I use, it's a mass particle blob of buffs/debuffs/AoE that renders AT, build and IO choices into meaningless desicons for the most part.

The incarnate solo/team stuff in DA I find a lot of fun. But so slow and painful that I do the trials for the rewards, (which I hate having to repeat multple times each characters) and then take my time doing the DA Arcs.

Electric-Knight and Pauper: What you said.
(Though a full team of friends can also be fun. Strangers... sometimes not so much.)

I solo more often that not.

But that's because I play villains. I don't think there's enough players on redside to form a team.

I teamed a little in the first few years of the game, but then I got tired of that, and I've been playing completely solo ever since. Most of my 14 level 50 characters never teamed. I've completed two TFs and zero trials.

The missions could actually be pretty tough to solo early on. The bosses didn't downgrade to lieutenants (not a big deal, but still), missions were often front-loaded (with the nastiest enemies staring in your face as you entered), and AVs didn't downgrade to elite bosses. You had level gaps if you were playing entirely solo, where missions would run out, especially in the upper 30s. You couldn't drop or autocomplete missions, so your three mission slots could fill up with unsoloable missions, especially once you reached the 40s. Things have improved immensely since then.

The lower levels fly by these days, there's a glut of soloable content in the 20-30 range, and a good variety after that.

There are MMOs that let me get to the end solo easier and faster, but that's not really a good thing. CoH keeps me entertained playing a character much longer.

I solo far more often than not.

Why? Because the average player likes to chat , go afk, and just do what they want to do. They don't market much, so they can't just stealth past mobs and go kill the boss to satisfy mission objectives. (they can't afford the stealth proc, I guess.) They end up..just dying. And laying there.

The mission says Defeat Heracles -- why in the world would I slog through 40 or 50 goons when it's not required?

The reason I seem to be in such a hurry is because I know at the end of the mission, I get a bonus. The sooner I finish the mission, the sooner I can start the next one, and get another bonus. And finish the arc, get yet another bonus.

No, I don't think going solo is as fast leveling, but I do finish two or three missions before the big team of 8 finishes one. For me, teaming requires someone to do the recruiting. Even on Virtue, I've waited impatiently for a leader to try and fill the team - during prime time, no less. It's silly to stand around doing nothing, when if I were solo, I could be done already.

For me, the solo play of this game works great -it's the team play that needs work. Why do I have to have 5 to do a task force? There's nothing that tough about Clamor. Why do I need 8 to do Manticore?
Positron used to require more than 1, but when they put it in ouroboros, one player is allowed to do it -same with Sister Psyche.

The teaming is where the game needs work. I wish I had a solution - because even cross server teaming sounds like a pretty awful experience.

I know most of the names on my server's global channel. If I'm going to do a task force, I'd like it to be with folks I know, not people I don't. I don't care for the lfg way of teaming either. Suppose I want to do itf as fast as possible, but get queued in with a level 35 player who wants to kill everything? That's not fun for me.

For me, teaming is something I do to get the rewards I want - i.e. incarnate salvage, so my toons will have an easier time soloing.

SSAs? Always solo. Why team? I can be done with SSA vol 1, ch.1 in 7 minutes or so. Get my merit, and move on.

Hero tips are arguably good teaming content, but only because sometimes, the rng doesn't want to give me any more tips.

Badge hunting makes for a good teaming as well. Chasing down 333 croatoan ghosts is not my idea of a good time.

Eh, I'm sleepy, but I guess you get the point.

I solo exclusively. You're all moving furniture for my game world as far as I'm concerned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex The mission says Defeat Heracles -- why in the world would I slog through 40 or 50 goons when it's not required?

Because that bonus at the end of the mission is utter peanuts. A single Boss gives more XP, and since at around level 15 I'll set the difficulty to 0/+2 with bosses I'll be taking out a lot of them. Only an end of arc bonus is meaningful, and that will also be basically nothing compared to the amount of XP you'll have picked up from crushing every enemy on the way there.

You're not levelling fast entirely because you're not bothering to fight those goons. An AT effective for solo play, the best being a Brute, practically powerlevels itself just by unstoppably crushing everything very quickly.

I rarely solo. Generally just if I'm doing stupid scrapper tricks like soloing AVs or something like that. Outside of that, I'm at least playing with my wife, and I prefer to be on teams of 6-8. The XP gain is too slow solo, and I enjoy the chaos of a big team a lot more than soloing.

It seems to work fine for me. I only have two solo-related issues:

1) I think the advancement rate between team and solo paths should be balanced out a bit more. Sometimes I do feel I'm being "punished" a bit for not being on a team in some circumstances.

Recent example: I parted ways with a team on a 15 scrapper. There was another 15 scrapper as well. Two hours later, after constantly running missions. I had just dinged 16 when I bumped into her, she was now 21. This was just running papers, no trials of TFs.

Even account for setting differences, this seems a bit off. 1.5x, even 2x I could see as resonable, but 3-4x comes off a bit punitive

That said (and without starting an Incarnates conversation) the Incarnate solo path is an insulting joke. I've grown to expect some disparity between solo- and team-based rewards, the advancement of solo incarnates is glacial at best.

2) I still feel that an AT should generally be able to solo any mission, and with all due respect to some of the forum elite, there ARE missions that can't be solo'd, at least not without some extreme measure (billion inf builds, etc).

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets

... Hit it ...

I solo an awful lot, because I like to take things at my own pace, not have that pace dictated by the team as a whole.

When I do team, it's either for the occasional iTrial, or a friend or two on a lowbie wants to come along and earn some XP faster than they can solo. The fact that I solo my L50 blaster at 0/x7 helps.

I solo exclusively 100% of the time and none of my 10 level 50's had a problem reaching max level.

The bigger question is 'why doesn't the team game of CoH work for you?'
And my response would be:
1. I don't want to share the drops
2. I don't like negotiating roles
3. I like solving in-game problems and determining strategies on my own
4. I can wipe my nose without needing a team to help
5. I have extremely low tolerance for bickering, politics, petty jealousies, etc.
6. I like setting my own pace for play
7. I feel more like a hero on solo but more of a minion when teaming
8. Teams are for those not skilled enough to do things on their own
9. Teams remind me of those despised high school and college cliques that only the it people could join
10. I prefer being in control of my own destiny and not having it be dependent on the actions/inactions of others. "I am the captain of my ship and the master of my fate".
11. It really doesn't matter to me if team flunkies get more and better stuff faster. I'm not keeping score or trying to keep up with the Joneses.