Making Teaming Easier

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There are plenty of ways that Teaming can be made easier and more appealing. You need to take the pros from CoX and put them into Champions. For example, a search function would be good, being able to see your teammates missions, etc. Not having these functions makes it difficult for teaming which discourages it all together.

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Search is always good. However it's not always effective.

I'd say let teammates get SOME form of reward even if they don't have or already finished the quest. This would motivate people to go on missions more even if they don't have the same missions.

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The way that it was in City of Heroes, you recieved the XP for finishing the mission after it finished, not when you return to the contact, and the entire team recieved XP for finishing it.

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I don't like the fact then when your on a team, you can't see the mission point. I have to like wait for the leader to get to the mission to know where I am going. They so need to change this

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Doing missions as a team is a huge pain, but its what I love to do in COX. No this is not COX but you need to make it so our leader selects a mission from any person on the team and it shows a compass on the screen (not the map). Also you will need to put in some sort of radio missions. Yeah I know you want us to go through the story but how many times do we need to go through that? Eventually you'll have to cut us loose with a radio so we don't get tired of the story when we did it 5+ times. You can always give a special reward to the characters who complete the story all the way through.

Just listen to the people when they tell you that the teaming needs work! It really does and I hope you guys figure that out and fix it soon. This game will be so much better when teaming is improved. I also can't figure out why you need a team of any sort to create a super group. Why not just charge a fee to start one and let the players take it from there. Maybe I'm missing something on that.

I do want to say that the game is great and has huge potential to be much greater. Just keep working on it and most of all listen to the ones playing the game! Nice work so far Cryptic!

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I must say, I'm fairly disappointed so far with team play. As a CoX vet, I've come to think of teaming as a central part of MMORPGs, and CO seems to be a step backward in this regard. Yesterday, I logged in to find 2 of my best CoX buds (and good friends themselves), both soloing, because it's just easier and they level up faster. When I did team up with one of them later, I could only share certain missions with him, I guess because he needed to complete a different one before he was eligible, and I couldn't help him with that one because I'd already completed it. This seems to be an unnecessary obstacle to team play. In CoX, you can always share a mission, whether you've done it before or aren't yet eligible to get it--you just don't get whatever bonuses you already got or aren't eligible for.

In general, I hope team play gets more love in the coming months. The 5-member limit for teams is pretty sad, but I can see why it exists, because spawns don't adjust to team size, so a 5-man team can pretty much steamroll through anything. Secondly, there is the "where is everyone?" factor. I miss the waypoints, and ability to select and follow them, from CoX. In addition, I've found that I can select and follow teammates, but if I'm flying, for instance, and my teammate's traveling on the ground, every time I hit the 'jump' button to maintain altitude, the "follow" function is interrupted. That just stinks.

I don't mean to diss the game--I'm really starting to love it in many ways. It looks amazing, the travel powers rock, and I'm starting to get the combat rhythm down. But so far, teaming is an issue. And what is an MMORPG where everyone's soloing? There are a lot of games I can play by myself without a subscription.

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Yeah, teaming is a little rough. You can help each other with missions, even if one of you has done them already. You just have to play follow the leader which is a little tedious at times. I would like to see some better implementation in the future. Part of teaming is meeting new friends to put on your list and I really haven't seen any opportunities for that yet. The only time I do team is so that someone won't have to wait for re-spawn to keep progressing. It is more of a courtesy work around right now than actual teaming.

My suggestion would be in the next major issue/patch to have new missions exclusively inside of bases/buildings/caves/etc and to make these missions spawn according to team size. I think this game needs that and the current missions. The current missions are really nice for when nobody you know is on and you just wanna roll through and gain some xp. But we need more team content and that is a given. I hope you all have plans for this in the future.

Thus far this game has way more of my attention than COX ever could.

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I'll just say that i think this is an area where the developers could take some ideas from what was done in LotRO with there teaming. i would sujest that you list; however, the teams that have still marked themselves as looking for members and what quests there leader has indexed (quests, plural on purpose).
Also, make it automatic to drop them from "looking for more" once they have reached there max for a team. (can't say as i've teamd at all in Champ-O as i've not played much, and i'm a lone wolf by nature, so i'm assuming that there is a upper limit to the size of a team).

Also hoping that you will be doing Raid size quests.

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Teaming at the moment doesn't seem to work that well as the share option is a bit rubbish too. Played in a small team last night and half then team had to wait outside the mish because the didnt have the leaders mission. PLEASE someone get that share option to work, its a team killer otherwise!

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I must say, I'm fairly disappointed so far with team play. As a CoX vet, I've come to think of teaming as a central part of MMORPGs, and CO seems to be a step backward in this regard. Yesterday, I logged in to find 2 of my best CoX buds (and good friends themselves), both soloing, because it's just easier and they level up faster. When I did team up with one of them later, I could only share certain missions with him, I guess because he needed to complete a different one before he was eligible, and I couldn't help him with that one because I'd already completed it. This seems to be an unnecessary obstacle to team play. In CoX, you can always share a mission, whether you've done it before or aren't yet eligible to get it--you just don't get whatever bonuses you already got or aren't eligible for.

In general, I hope team play gets more love in the coming months. The 5-member limit for teams is pretty sad, but I can see why it exists, because spawns don't adjust to team size, so a 5-man team can pretty much steamroll through anything. Secondly, there is the "where is everyone?" factor. I miss the waypoints, and ability to select and follow them, from CoX. In addition, I've found that I can select and follow teammates, but if I'm flying, for instance, and my teammate's traveling on the ground, every time I hit the 'jump' button to maintain altitude, the "follow" function is interrupted. That just stinks.

I don't mean to diss the game--I'm really starting to love it in many ways. It looks amazing, the travel powers rock, and I'm starting to get the combat rhythm down. But so far, teaming is an issue. And what is an MMORPG where everyone's soloing? There are a lot of games I can play by myself without a subscription.

Very well put!

What stinks for me is the fact that I work 40+ hours a week and my online friends will get ahead of me in levels which makes it impossible for me to team with them since I can't do their missions and get the completion credit. I don't mind doing it later on my own but while we are all online I want to join them rather than being alone! I want to share my gaming experience with others. I learned quite a bit about the game by being on a team. When I log in today I will be back on my own :( keeping me from enjoying the game as fully as I'd like to.

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COMPLETELY AND WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE!

I play with my boyfriend and his 2 friends in real life.
we find outselves waiting for each other to log on to play so that we don't get ahead of each other in missions or levels.
I will play an alt until they get on or whatever and so will everyone else. WHich really bites because i obviously would like to play my main hero but don't want to be so far ahead in missions that I don't know which end is up and whos doing what.

Which brings me to another point and a suggestion I've already posted: Add a number or some indicator next to the Mission in the mission log to let us know WHO in our team has the mission! (example: If i were in a group with 4 other people, so 5 total, next to the name of a mission in the mission log could say (4) showing that 4/5 people have that quest. )

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Another voice in agreement here.

The seamlessness of teaming was one of the great appeals of City of Heroes for me. In fact, I rarely if ever soloed in CoH, and that kept me subscribing for 3+ years.

Champions suffers from the 'open world themepark' syndrome, where missions are not instanced, mobs don't scale to the team, the mission objectives are competed for by other individuals and you effectively level faster by burning through missions solo rather than joining a team.

Even though several people might be at the same point in their quest chain, they don't team because they feel they'll be slowed down by the other team members. It should be the other way around. I hear there are added xp rewards when teaming, but it just doesn't cut it. Sadly, xp/min is a big driver for many players, and unless teaming gives greater xp/min, many people will solo.

I like the suggestions here. I think Champions can draw a lot of inspiration from LotRO and CoH (although why I'd have to say they could learn from their previous game is perplexing). Things like giving every team member the quest xp reward (as long as they're around for most of the mission) regardless of whether they have the quest or not, more instances with scaling difficulty, more 'random' missions like CoH radio missions, better team interface with waypoints etc.

Soloing should be doable, but I'd like to see it such that there's no reason *not* to team.

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Champions suffers from the 'open world themepark' syndrome, where missions are not instanced, mobs don't scale to the team, the mission objectives are competed for by other individuals and you effectively level faster by burning through missions solo rather than joining a team.


The tips say that there's an XP bonus if you're teamed, but I'm guessing that's for defeating mobs which is paltry XP to begin with.

Jayne: Let's see. 10 % of nothing is.. carry the nothing.. divide by nothing... aw hell...

As long as xp is tied to mission completion and cannot be earned in any way for repeating quests, they have effectively destroyed XP as a motivator to team.

Likewise the SK functionality is useless because if I'm SK'ing mywife to me to play she will not advance her character. Only if I SK down to her will she do that and only at the expense of my advancement. THis is NOT a step forward and on my list of reasons to NOT become a lifetimer.

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The seamlessness of teaming was one of the great appeals of City of Heroes for me. In fact, I rarely if ever soloed in CoH, and that kept me subscribing for 3+ years.
Yup. I made real friends in that game, and some of them have bought into CO with me, and playing the game is the way we socialize. But we're having trouble getting our act together in CO, for the various reasons listed above. It's just darn difficult to team in this game.

Champions suffers from the 'open world themepark' syndrome, where missions are not instanced, mobs don't scale to the team, the mission objectives are competed for by other individuals and you effectively level faster by burning through missions solo rather than joining a team.
Just wanted to point out that in CoH, outdoor mobs scale up too. I don't see why they shouldn't in CO too. That, plus easier mission sharing or even "setting" the mission, would make this problem go away. In fact, if the devs are smart, they'll steal the new "super-sidekicking" idea from CoH's upcoming issue. I don't want the game to turn into CoH--I like just about everything else about it--but right now CoH is kicking CO's butt in the teaming department.

(although why I'd have to say they could learn from their previous game is perplexing).
This.

Soloing should be doable, but I'd like to see it such that there's no reason *not* to team.
This again. As it is now, teaming is actually being discouraged by the game. This is a bad idea even from a profit perspective. I didn't get my 36-month badge in CoH just because the game was fun, but because I made friends--friends I wanted to "see" and Skype with again next weekend, and the next. These social relationships are the heart of any MMO's longevity. With teaming being such a headache, CO may find its subscribers dropping off as they get bored, without a few close SG mates to keep them coming back.

I hope someone with some clout at Cryptic is reading this thread, and noting the rare player unanimity regarding this issue.

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I think the more people respond to this thread the better the odds of a fix on teaming. If you feel the same way please post! We fought to get the lifetime and 6 month subscriptions back up and they did listen. If you feel strongly about things in the game you have to say something. We stand strong in numbers and at this point I think CO is listening to what we want the most. If this thread is not a strong one then the odds are against us. I feel a strong urge to get this fixed as soon as possible. Even if Cryptic announces that they are going to work on it will make me feel so much better. Any of you Developers come across this please post so we know your out there :)

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This is probably the biggest thing that needs to be addressed in this game (IMO).

I mean, if I happen to miss a day of playing with my friends I am screwed. Because now I have to catch up on all those missions they did when I was off just so we can share missions.

All this does is cause one or more of the following:
1: encourages solo playing
2: makes it so you need a toon to play when your friends are not on
3: you want to play a curtain toon but the friend you were playing with isn't on that day, so now you have to sacrifice playing what you want to play or not play at all

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wow... as i'm reading i'm thinking up more points and they keep getting taken out of my mind. This thread hits the problem with several good answers and devs please please please listen.
The xp mechanic especially, I got 4 xp for killing a henchman a level higher than me.... I need to kill 10,000 more to level up. yea.

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devs please please please listen.

Please. Please. Listen.

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I hope that the teams get sorted out soon, soloing is is getting a bit samey now.

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Everything in this thread tackles the major problem of the game at the moment. The griefing, power imbalances, and other stuff are really side line things until this gets fixed.

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Well here's a few helpful things that I've both come up and seen before by others so I'll put em here.

-Allow for player placed waypoints and a compass on your mini map. I noticed if you click on your map you get a little X this should act as your own way point, otherwise, selecting a teammate should point you to them as well so you don't get lost. Minimap only helps so much.

-How about the ability for the team leader to place a special X of his/her own to show people the mission they are choosing, that way, everyone can then just set their waypoint to that point.

or: Allow anyone the ability to set their own X that the leader can then make a priority.

or2: Allow people to set their mission as priority (have each player's mission pop up as a different colour on the leader's map) and just let them select that so that everyone can see where it is and what they're doing.

-Allow people who are on teams to get the exp completion bonus, but not the item reward unless they also have the mission (at which point they can just turn it in for their own reward anyway) No matter what the level of the mission, your recieved exp should scale for your true level (if you're sidekicking)

-Have higher level people who sidekick down get a scaled down exp share depending on the ammount of levels different, however, give them a higher mission complete monetary value so that higher ups would be encouraged to help lower people in order to afford stuff.

-Have mobs inside unique missions scale acording to the team size and what rank they are of mob. (minions would scale the least since everyone wants to trounce them anyway, but higher ups woulc scale and become harder and harder, exp and cash would go up a little too obviously)

That's all the ones I can think of right now, but it should help a lot I think. Take of them what you will and improve if you want!

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I'm also a Strong supporter of better team play in CO!
Quite a few of my sg came over from CoX to play this, though we now seem to be playing continous solo missions, when we used to team pretty much all of the time. I know its early on but as others have said it is one of the more important issues.
Oh until teaming is looked at, it also makes the supergroups a bit pointless, its just a gloryfied chat channel.....with a bank.

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/agree with everyone

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I spent a night playing with some high level friends and all I got was a bar of EXP.....that's it...and my real level was 14 and the SKed up level was 24.

I can understand slow leveling but we did a ton of stuff that night and I felt it wasn't almost worth my time but I had fun because I was with my friends.

But this same situation for pick up groups and strangers. No one is going to want to team up because I can see how many players would feel this is a waste of their time.

So I agree, they need to tweak things a bit to motivate people to team up more and maybe make it worth their time.