Well, I've finally started to get some more social gameplay in. Now that I've raised a few toons to decent levels (20s) and gotten the lay of the land, I'm homing in and settling on a build and playstyle that suits me very nicely for now (will eventually be mainly PA, but has Force flavour at the moment, with Sonic Device-buffed Force Eruption as current bread and butter), so I'm starting to be able to pay more attention to my surroundings :)

And I've noticed that 8 times out of 10, if you just blind invite people who are in the area of a shared-world mission, they'll accept, because they know it makes sense to do it together. When this works, it's very nice. It's a different mechanic from the one I'm used to in CoX, and I've been bemoaning the loss of the easy PUG-ing that marked CoX, but while I still want more of that, I'm a bit happier with the teaming possibilities in this game than I was a week ago. It is possible for a casual player to find social gameplay in this game, there ought to be more, and it ought to be easier to join and form, but the picture isn't as bleak as I first thought it was.

I think this mechanic would work even better in the setting it was originally designed - for hard content as EQ was, relatively, and as Vanguard initially tried to do in its ideal form, in which teaming up while chancing to meet up at a quest spot is almost obligatory. But it works fairly well as is, even with solo-friendly quests, or would, if the teaming interface was slicker, and there were a few more perks to doing it together.

(Btw, couldn't we have shared world missions where the local area spawned more mobs if the system "noticed" a team at work in the area?)

Also, I would suggest a mechanic like this: I always liked the team buffs you received as a Kheldian in CoX. Analogous to that system, you could have people in teams getting buffs from each other in the powers they share (representing shared know-how and mutual training in a team context). Or perhaps you could divide it by energy, melee, etc.

Just a mild buff to the stats broadly (don't want to make all the encounters too diffcult to solo!!!), just some incentive to know that doing it together has a known practical advantage. The buff could be stronger in instanced content (representing a prior team talk and pep-talk, for example).

I hear you. I dropped $250 on Champions and to this point do NOT feel I am on the way to getting my money's worth. I LOVE the character designs, the freedoms, the powers, etc. I do NOT like that I just solo everything and if its too hard come back later.

I have a level 30 Power Armor/Gageteering guy and I am having to do lvl 34 quests. No one ever wants to group to do anything on Monster Island, and if they do it is for just the one quest and then their attention goes elsewhere.

I dare mention WoW, but if I knew I had an hour or two to play, I could log in, go to the main city, and wait for a group that was LFM. In city of heroes PUGing was so easy, and random missions were abound. Here is like you only group to do the instance once and then never do it again cause they are over so quick.

The current grouping state of Champions is making me question purchasing Star Trek Online. I tried looking at the SG forums, but I dont know what I want, and most groups turn out to be nothing like there ad, whenever I get on I am the only one online.

I dunno, just kinda discouraged and this seemed like a good place to rant instead of starting my own thread. :D

I feel the pain of the above statements. Im a Co lifer and I dont feel like keeping CO on my hard drive.

Today was my first day with the game (Xmas) and the server has been down all night. I did get to play some this afternoon which was cool but the more I hear about this being a solo based game the less interest I'm having with it. What is the point of paying $15 a month for a game online that you play solo. COH was great because of the team work. I'm thinking of doing the demo here seeing how that goes over the next few days and if I don't see where the this is more team based I'm taking the game back. I got it for Xmas but havent opened it so I can return it if need be. I was hoping for a COH up grade but the more i hear the more concerned I become.

That is the #1 thing that killed Age Of Conan IMO. I played that game the first free month, almost hit max level, and realized I didn't group once. There was no need, I could take down swarms of enemies by myself.

I really love Champions, I love the look, the powers, the quests, the locations, the structure. I just get tired of doing everything by myself. I have games like Fallout 3, Dragon Age:Origins and Oblivion if I want to run around by myself and get lost in a world.

Maybe it's time to reactivate Warhammer while I wait for ST:O. (which I know will be a smash hit cause its star trek. Just like LOTRO isnt very good, the awesome community makes it good.)

Between the Steam sales and D2D sales I was hoping Champions would see a huge boost in players and there will be more then two 30 man Monster Island instances in the coming weeks.

Its not CoH at all.