Again, sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere but I couldn't find it:
Any idea what team size we're looking at?
I'm hoping for 8 but with scaling content...
Tue, 06/10/2014 - 02:16
#1
Team Size?
I don't think there has been official word, but the subject of team size did come up in another thread, though I don't recall which one off hand. On that note:
I too am hoping for a team size of 8. In playing GW2 with my friends, it is so frustrating having a team size of 5 when there are 6-8 of us online.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I vote for 10. Nice round number, slight step up from CoH like everything else seems to be (ie. more flexibility, more customizability, etc.). DEFINITELY not LESS than CoH under any circumstances. One of the things I really miss about CoH is the big crazy chaotic teams :).
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
The harder part with larger teams is balancing and developing content to meet the increased size. It may be easier to start smaller around 5, then patch later to 8 to 12. I would rather have the game out sooner with an update later for the team size. Don't get me wrong, I would consoder it a bonus if the size is larger without added dev time and can be large at launch.
An example of how it may work to release a team size increase later... suppose at launch any missions or instances are balanced for 5. Later to increase to 10, new dynamics may need to be added to make the npcs interesting at that point. Just making more of the npcs, with more hp and hit harder may be too boring. Dev time may be required for npc powers or mission triggers specific to handle or make it interesting for the larger teams.
Well, I certainly wouldn't be upset if we got 10 instead of 8 :)
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Larger teams can be interesting, but don't forget about the extra work it'll be for the support classes.
When I played my empath it sometimes seemed I was oblivious to everything but the team's health bars.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
+1
After CoH faded to black, after some time.. i tried Champions Online, but wasnt very fond of the team size. Its like they decided you can only have One of each AT on one team. I say... you should allow team sizes to have 2 of each AT, besides the Tank. ;)
Awe I saw team size my mind went right in the gutter :)
If its not 8 I wont be happy (it IS all about me right?).
Seriously if we cant start with 8, then 6 and we work up to 8 down the track. A team of 4 is just so.... Medieval (WoW/FFXIV/etc).
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I'm hoping for at least 8 as well - I mean it worked for CoH right? And if they want to incorporate the option to form Leagues (assuming we have content that will take advantage of such huge groups working together) that would be great as well.
Definitely agree with at least 8. Not sure about bigger unless it involves TF's or Giant Monsters. 8 was a pretty good solid number to have though.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Considering the amount of friends that always wanna be on the team, I really like the suggestion of a teamsize of 10, not to mention it would make for a more intense fight if enemies get harder/more numerous with each teammate. 8 is a solid number, but 10, TEN is so much better.
First off, @Venture, great Avatar!
I vote for 10, OR,
Leagues aka [Insert CoT analog here], groups of 3-5 teams of x members each. If we went this route, I'd accept a team number as low a 6.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
In the aide of democracy, here's a tally for votes.
Number of teams [u] at launch [/u]:
5: 1 vote
8: 4 votes
10: 4 votes
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Avatar by MikeNovember
I vote 10
10 is a good max team because it will make each player work a little harder in team play . Not to easy not to hard just right
i guess somewhere between 8 and 10. ;)
Man... some Stalwart Masteries are gonna LOVE more on team! ;)
Also, I doubt CoT will show the Players Icon in the Team Listing... it might take up allot of space. :P
ex: space used in CO for just one player.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/l8CPlq1.png[/img]
I wonder how it will look like in CoT. :)
Somewhere between 8 and 10 ?!?! Izzy will have lots of team invites :-)
You were doing nothing but healing? You do know that, if you used fortitude on people who took the most agro and then actually used your blasts that, teams would take less damage? And more recharge could mean fortitude on more people, and maybe taking dark blast might have helped cut down the amount of healing you did very significantly so you weren't doing nothing but healing?
Support does not nore should not mean healer.
Buffs and debuffs and crowd control implemented properly can keep the work load similar regardless of team size, and ensure healing isn't required for everything regardless of team size. Hell I remember the old mathematics of why healing sucked(by itself as the means to deal with damage);
Healers in CoX at 50 healed 200-400 hp/second, to average we'll go to 350/second.
A force field defender or dark miasma capping defense or flooring tohit would mitigate 90% damage.
To deal with a normal mob size doing 1000 damage a second you needed three healers. A single extra mob would out-damage the healing. However an alpha strike could hit for up to 4000+ damage, instantly killing some players.
A force fielder/dark miasma would stop 900 damage by himself. The dark miasa had a little healing, about 250/second, exceeding the damage significantly and rarely healed. An alpha would only cause 400 damage/average, very easy to survive. Often the alpha would do nothing. In fact the team had two slots open for extra support for resistances or extra damage or crowd control to further mitigate that.
Lets go to a death room now, 10 mobs. Thats 10000 damage/second or alpha's of over 40000. With only healing, you'd need about 30 healers to deal with that and even then your past the team cap size and no damage would be done by the team.
A team with a force fielder, sonic resonance and say a dark miasma, could completely stop that. 10000 / 10 = 1000 damage per second, with maybe(far less often) an alpha of 4000 but then we can drop it further with 55% resistance.
1000 damage/second - 55% = 450 damage/second and alphas can only get up to 1800 damage(still far less often). Very easy for the dark miasma to heal enough to down 1-2 mobs and begin rolling the rest up once the situation has stabilized.
See, with proper buffs/debuffs we could go up to any scale of team size. In CoX the convenience buff allowed force fielders to apply the buffs to the entire league in two casts. Sonic resonance/kineticism and whatnot could buff entire leagues of 30 with ease and very little work as long as everyone kept near the person that buffer casted the buff on.
Note: Originally didn't make this scenario but I do give credit for the person who made this on the defender forums CoX way back.
I realized something today(5/8/2014) that many MMORPG players, are not like us who enjoyed CoX. They enjoy repetitiveness and predictability, rather then unpredictability. We on the other hand enjoy unpredictability and variety.
i guess somewhere between 10 and 20
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This is an interesting debate. Most often, I had the most Fun in a team of 2-4. However, there were events, most especially during zone events, when I wished the team size limit was closer to 20 or more.
I belonged to a SG that would hold regular events, where everyone who was Available might show up and the leader would shift us to League-mode, juggle teams, and then all of the teams would run the same TF in parallel. I often wished that regular content could be run by a... horde of heroes. Not some hard-mode purpose-designed Raid content, but... Hmm, I guess when you're talking 'repeatable missions', you end up talking TFs.
Okay, so imagine something like the Positron or Hess TF, but your group shows up with an Over-sized team, either simply by having an elastic team-size, or through League mechanics. When the team leader triggers the TF, the game takes note of your team-size and automagically Expands the TF's parameters to match. The Map expands to a larger size and the hordes of enemies become Teeming Hordes of Extra Nasty Elites! And, instead of just pushing the Boss into the lava and nuking him, the Huge Giant Monster comes to life and you've suddenly got a final boss Worthy of 20-leven heroes working in concert!
Or the TF converts into a pocket zone-event. So you can have your zone-event on demand, without summoning giant monsters to Atlas Park and scaring the newbies...
Does this make sense, or are you wondering if I forgot to take my Meds?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Since the minimum team size will always be 1 (solo) then we can only really expand upwards. 8 was good but given new tech and design ideas I'd go for 10 if they could do it in a reasonable amount of time. However we must remember that being touted as a CoH successor launching with anything less than what CoH had (teams of 8) might be considered a fail. I would rather see the game launch put off 3 months and have them do it right.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Teaming with more than 4 other people is like herding cats BUT I do want content that can take multiple teams coordinating to complete (not to mention that my Xbox controller has function for 4 team targeting mechanics before it gets a bit wonky).
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Ahhh.. what would have been nice is.. if you could Stream a Live Feed of another friend , but you couldnt actually join the team (since the Team was full, or TF was already started), so you could watch what was happening in a small panel/window through the eyes of your friend (well, at least you could control the Zooming in and out of the camera).
SG leaders could start their own teams, separate TF's, etc... and show one another whats happenin' in real-time ;)
Heh looks like a max team size of ten is winning then. Though I cannot stress the importance of the missions scaling if that is the case :)
Not to mention as well client performance as well...
For me, Team Size between 5 and 8 would do me ok. But I would also expect "big events"/Raids to require more than 1 "full size team" to accomplish the goal, so being able to form up multiple teams and have them all show in an interface at the same time would be nice as well.
The problem that I had with the team sizes was that past a certain size, it *appeared* that it became *easier* to run the content, even with mission scaling working in CoX....
Then you add another problem with large teams. Graphic straine all those particle physics! Not just on the computers but also you can see the chaos of a 8 Mastermind team then add two more...
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Performance concerns are a good reason to limit a team size. As for scaling, I already expect some kind of scaling system to be implemented in the game. There is a possibility it could break down over a certain team size where the challenge does not increase enough to justify the rewards. I'm ok with a ten person team, but less than 8 would bother me.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
Throwing another idea out, trying to think outside of what we know for door missions handled by a single group. What about teams greater than 16? For example suppose you have some kind of supergroup or coalition task force that kicks off four simultaneous missions. You must complete them all within 15 minutes, and hit the big red bitton coordinated within a 30 second window. What would you see as the max size for these types of events, interface, and is there a hierarchy? How about large world events, do you have a raidlike team interface to let people join and leave on the fly? On the exteme we have games like Eve with 100s of folks in a fleet.
I like a bigger team size because--with mission scaling--it does not preclude any smaller team size. Solo, duo, stop recruiting at 5, whatever you like. Have ot your way.
Since team size is effectively a type of CAP, the smaller it is, the less options and flexibility we have to play the way we like. The bigger they can manage development-wise the better because with scaling that actually means more teamsize options.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Performance needs to be a consideration but so are the solutions such as having a "Reduce other player particle effects" option. You could even have it automatically turn on when on a team larger than X (you define what X is).
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Yes. CoH had this and it worked perfectly. Giving players as much refined control over fx as possible was a great move they made in the game because people have different tastes. For example, my wife and son played too, and each of us was different.
My wife hated ANY lag and would happily set the graphics as low as needed to eliminate lag. I had a minimum level of graphics I liked and I didn't mind putting up with a little lag to keep things looking the way I liked them. My son pretty much didn't care either way as long as lag didn't mess up his ability to play well.
So, as much as possible, put it in the players hands.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Dude, triple-post.
I vote for 10+.
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
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Yeah, that will be a must-have no matter what the number turns out to be. That way the "if it's more than X it gets 'unwieldy'" folks can just make their teams of X or less and still have a good experience.
For my own part, I am in the camp of wanting a max of at least 8, but if they can go higher, I am fine with that. I do think you can run into some scaling issues as you go up because it is hard to predict how different players and powersets will interact (and those synergies will be a significant factor in the team's effectiveness), but that is not an argument for limiting team size, imo. It is an argument for having various difficulty sliders and whatnot that a team leader can use to adjust things to the experience their team wants to have. And, obviously, the team lead can also opt to further limit how many folks they will invite, regardless of the game's max for team size.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
Tips on how to play an empath in CoH are a bit moot at this point, but thanks, I guess.
I realize there were many different types of support, and the "defenders =/= healorz" horse was beaten to chunky salsa on the CoH forums long ago. The empaths, in my experience (and I grant I may not have done an optimal job as it wasn't one of my preferred sets) had a lot more micromanaging to do on a large team when things went sideways. That was the only point I was trying to make. Sorry if it was poorly phrased.
Personally, I would be thrilled to have teams of 8 to 10.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
Sorry :/. That was embarrassing. Need to stop posting from my new phone :P.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
The problem that could arise is at a certain team size scaling may start to fail What I mean by fail is there is no further increase in challenge for the team, but there is a continued increase in XP and rewards. Just being able to turn up the difficulty would not solve this problem for two reasons. Fist of all, though it may make it more dificult at +1 or +2 , the rewards would still be out of proportion to the challenge. Secondly, you have those who would not increase the difficulty and go with the "fast & easy" rewards.
Obviously, there is much that needs to be worked out first before a max team size can be set in the first place. Just bare in mind having a mission scaler does not mean larger parties are viable.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I think CoX got it right with 8-person maximums on teams, and then leagues of teams after that. 8 is enough (pun intended), 8 is a power of 2, 8 is "the new black" because it was the old black.
One thing I'd like to be able to do is divide a full 8-person team into 2 "lances" of 4 each, for doing stuff that requires the team to split up. Each lance could have it's own chat channel, etc. The leader of the 8-person team could assign a "lance corporal" of the lance he's not in, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
The consensus seems to be 10... How about we turn it all the way up to 11? One better!
It's odd. I only just remembered how small a team of 8 felt when I first started CoH.
I came from SWG and teams there could be up to either 12 or 20. I can't remember now. I'm getting old!!
Of course, "missions" there barely deserved the name and with the exception of some very late instanced stuff were mostly open-world encounters... go to a pile of leaves in the middle of nowhere and out pops a large herd of critters scaled to team size. Some based loosly on Star Wars canon, some not.
Guess it all depends what you get accustomed to, but I really don't like the very small team sizes that seem so common now.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."
I prefer the team size change depending on the content. With the max team size scaling from 6 to 12. But that's just me.
Good is not something you are, its something you do.
I think changing the max team size might not really work well for regular missions. "Oh look the next mish can only support 6 players - sorry 3 other guys gotta kick ya." Now - for specific Raids/Trials or similar special missions - as long as it is advertised this shouldn't be a problem. After all - Hammi could take a full league of 48.
Well, right... I think that is pretty much my opinion above, as well. If they are aiming at a spiritual successor to CoH, the potential power and playerskill interactions will inevitably vary so greatly that there will be significant opportunities for folks to have an easy time of it, if that is what they want, just as they did in CoH. Depending on how powers differ from CoH (for instance, if they added diminishing returns for debuffs) the potential for steamrollers could be reduced, but I wouldn't expect it to go away.
I do expect they will have a diminishing return on the team size to reward scale, as CoH did (eight was not the optimal size in terms of the raw multiplier), but there is a limit to how far that can go (as there was in CoH) before it gets too onerous for non-optimal-yet-large teams.
Well, let me say up front that nothing will solve the problem of "it gets too easy for other people I am not playing with", but that is not the problem I was concerned about. I was thinking about people who used "I find it too easy" as an argument to limit maximum team size below 8. I'm saying they can address that problem through the use of difficulty sliders (I'd really prefer CoT to add more sliders, like an AI nastiness one, but there's probably a maintenance cost/benefit they'll have to consider there) and by limiting how many they invite... as long as the game provides them with those options.
I am all for them figuring out ways to reduce reward if they feel like the risk/reward is out of control on larger teams, but I am not in favor of then removing the option for reduced risk, for folks that want a romp simply because they like romping. I just want them to also support (via the sliders) those of us who enjoy large team interactions but are not looking for a cakewalk.
Global: @Second Chances
SG: Fusion Force
"And it's not what I wanted
Oh no, it's not what I planned
See it's not where I thought I'd be
It's just where I am"
One thing to consider is that, all other things being equal, a larger team will require more enemies, and more space in which to fight. Leaving aside the programming and computational load issues, more foes and bigger areas will render AOE effects that much more effective in comparison to single-target effects.
I don't pretend to know the perfect balance point between single-target and AOE abilities, but there were a number of high-profile debates in CoH about moving this point towards one end of the spectrum or the other. (IMHO, CoH was just right through most of the game's duration.)
It might be a good idea to keep this point in mind among the cascade of effects that flow from permissible team size.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Yeah - that's why I think keeping it at 8 for regular teaming might be a good idea - it's established - it works - and it feels comfortable. MAYBE as high as 10 if testing works out and the building codes allow it ;^p (think of the mess if most of those 10 are the pet class - those hallways get closed up real fast.).
Big raids/trials/TFs on the other hand could probably support larger team sizes - and if so then open it up - either by simply raising the cap or establishing a CoH-style League.
I am not convinced more enemies is the right answer to larger teams. Maybe a different composition of enemies in my mind.
For example, if Magneto knew the entire X-Men group was going to storm his secret base, he wouldn't throw more Toad power minions at the group. He'd go for quality. Pull out the minions that are ineffective, put in powered up Sabertooths, stolen sentinels, traps that can dampen or neutralize your powers, teleportation technology/mutants to split the team, and other controller like mutants that rallied to his cause that can tilt the playing field in his favor.
In CoH terms, this would be like taking some of the normal troopers out of the mix and putting more sappers and stunning villains that can crowd control. That wasn't done as to a degree as I think it could have been vs full 8 person teams, but you get the idea.
This doesn't have to be a increase hit points or number of baddies type of encounter. Instead lean toward different battle dynamics that wouldn't be there at all with single player or small teams. The faction the large team is going against is going to bring out their best counter measures best suited for this threat.
I love that idea zine !!!
If the team Leader can change the Difficulty, then fine. You have to remember, you have to make it so that your DAD or GranDad could play this. if its too difficult, well... lets say it has to just be difficult enough that they can SOMEHOW manage. ;)
Team max size 10 is my vote. It becomes easier to count who you have for raid size content.
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That is one point I don't think I would have thought of.
That said, I think ten is the ideal choice, with 8 and 6 being alternate choices.
Although I could see missions designed for teams of 4 or less, and others being designed for more than the normal maximum size. For City of Heroes, I often thought it would be interesting to have outdoor missions with a giant monster, designed for say 2 or 3 normal groups, maybe based around facing sixteen heroes instead of eight or less.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
Ah ,the good old days of charging into a battle with people to your side...good times, that's the thing about game with a strong community , you get a really good group, and if you level up with that group and grow with that group ,that's normally your group to the end.
excuse me...i am going to go cry now.
emotions aside...I think 4 is to little and I'm sorry..but 10 is just a little to much for me 8 is perfect. and 6 is also just fine.Unless I'm teaming with super group members.
--Formerly Jorortis--
Note: Jorortis is still a character of mine and is still going to be in the super group, not Demirus, at least not yet...
Well, it would be maximum team size, not mandatory team size. It would still let you do teams with less.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
I really wouldn't want the maximum team size to be any less than 8.
Lotro had 6 and it still wasn't enough. Don't get me started on 4 man teams...
40 people! Can't have fun unless you have 39 other people freaking out because they just downed one of the most awesome bosses in history.
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I'm all for raids, had a few of those moments in LOTRO, Helegrod iirc was a 24 man raid with one boss giant that was so big. The group went nuts when we took him down, then got wiped on the trash mobs in the next part cus we were all so distracted. :)
Used to love the COH incarnate Trials as well...
I personally like 12, but I like big/epic battles so 16 is even better =) But of course this is just my opinion and I do not want to bring out the crabby cakes in anyone. That being said, if you don't like larger teams then please play a team size that you are comfortable with. There were many times that I mostly played with my two best friends, yet other times I wished there was room for more than 8. If there is an option for larger than 8 or 10 toons on a team I think it would be fun. Please be open minded enough that others may want large teams but it does not mean that anyone should have to play on larger teams. For instance, I don't mind anyone playing in small groups but please don't tell me that is how I should always play. If this game ends up with bigger team sizes, I would be thrilled.
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
Normal Content = Max Team Size 8
Raid/Trial/Epic Content = multiple teams working together like a League/Alliance/etc (8x2, 8x3, etc) or increase Team Size by a multiplier (x1.5, x2, x3, etc as appropriate)
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I pointed out you could employ teams smaller than the maximum up above.
We're not commenting on your personal playstyle, dictating how you can, should or must play though. We're commenting on the game's development.
I think you're making a common mistake here by confusing the two and treating suggestions on development as a personal attack. It usually comes across sounding like, "I don't want you to state any opinion that might influence the game's developers in a way I don't approve of."
Keep in mind, the maps have to be designed with the maximum team in size. The potential maximum size of a team is something a game has to be balanced around. And again, we're commenting on how we want to see the game developed. Besides, most of the objections to a larger team are based on concerns about how it would affect gameplay, not on simple personal preference, as you imply.
Not that it matters. If someone is concerned about forming smaller teams when the game itself allows for much bigger teams, they have every right to ask the developers to consider a smaller maximum team. Yes, it would affect your gameplay experience, but it would affect their experience too. Saying “Just make your own smaller team” is good advice, but it does not negate their right to ask for a smaller team maximum during the game’s development. (Although I don’t think anyone has asked for smaller teams for that reason yet.)
If you want a bigger team maximum, it would be more productive to argue for that instead of saying "Nobody ask for a smaller team size than what I want, because it might affect my game if the devs implement it!"
There really is no need to add in “Don’t tell me how to play” in response to a suggestion. It just reads as an emotional response. The whole "we reserve the right to have an opinion" thing and all...
J
Also..
Ohh.. how about "Titanic Team?" That'd be awesome!
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
Just going to put my 2 cents in, I only briefly scanned the rest of the thread so I apologize if this point was already made.
I put my vote in for 8+. I would rather have a larger maximum team size because it technically appeals to everyone: those who want a smaller team can have one, and those who want a bigger team can have one as well. It's a win-win situation. I'm not sure what the animosity is with this suggestion because everyone has a chance to be happy, whereas if they decide to make it 4-5 max then only some people are happy and the rest are not?
As far as I was concerned, 8 seemed to work really well in CoH, it allowed much more diversity and you had the chance to play with a lot more people if you wanted to (and no one feels "left out", which is sometimes the case in games where team sizes are much smaller).
I'm also hoping that CoT will have something like the League system in CoH, it was super convenient and it made doing group events much easier.
CoX had teams, and then teams-of-teams called Leagues. If CoT doesn't follow that model in some way and ONLY has teams, then I think the upper limit on teams should be like 24-48. If there will be leagues, then make the team size like 8, and set a maximum on the number of teams that can be in a league, I say.
Going with the "no leagues" concept for a second, if this is the mode they go with, I would still like to be able to subdivide a larger team into groups of 4-8 people (I called them "lances" above) for the purposes of being able to better organize things over chat. The overall leader can chat with the entire team, or just the leaders of the lances, or just his/her own lance, etc and the lance leaders can talk to their own lance or the team leader, etc. I feel like this model is as good as the one CoX had. There is some utility in being able to sort a large group of players into bite-sized pieces for the sake of splitting up and regrouping later, etc.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
On the smaller team side of things, if there is an option to hot join someone's team in a looking for team interface, it would be nice for the team leader could specify the max team size if lower than the max. That way folks can hot join to that self imposed max and not allow others beyond that.
I dislike the idea of strangers auto-joining my group in progress. I like the idea of my LFG Flag automatically putting my name in a pool that team leaders can pull from. I dislike Queues for content, especially if the Game is deciding who gets on the team based on some rule of thumb, like the 'Holy Trinity'. I seriously dislike it when there's no transparency or choice in these auto-generated teams. I can't say, 'Oh, look, Uberguy is LFG. If I get a team, I'd like to join with him.'
Actually, it would be useful to have a whole blanket of flags that could be set in any team-building interface, where particular preferences could cause certain characters to be highlighted. A LFG player could tag themself with the sorts of content they liked and the roles they enjoyed. It would be useful if one could tag 'relationships' between characters like/dislike +1/-1, something short of friend/ignore, based on past experiences. These flags could associate teams more quickly, as the team-building interface filtered and prioritized the characters being offered a team-leader.
On the other hand... There have been plenty of times when I'd have happily joined the first couple of idiots to come down the pike on some sort of instant-PUG mission. So that ought to be an option - 'Bam! Instant PUG'. What I wouldn't want to have happen is for a happy trio to be held in limbo, while the system searches/waits for that perfect fourth to show up. Let us See the LFG system at work and decide if three (or two) is enough, or if we want More. There ought to be a mechanism for concatenating multiple small teams into a larger one..
This same system could be useful for building a TF. TF leader could poll the system for players LFG and willing to TF, then send a 'TF available ping' to them. The player can decide if they want in, or not. (There should be a way to temporarily set themselves as 'unavailable' and block the system from flagging/pinging them.) If they're already on a team, the TF Builder could/should allow inviting the whole team at once.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Does size really matter :-)
;) I was actually talking about C'Thun, but your immediate assumption it was me only PROVES the glory of the Nightmare!
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In terms of teaming and LFG id Like to see something like this:
You and your friend want to team and don't mind having others along for the ride. The TL opens the LFG Interface and ticks 'Open Team'. The TL can then also tick for what they'd prefer or need. So if they have two Corruptors (using CoH) they can select Prefer Def/x or x/Def if they want a Tank/Off-Tank. If they dont care then they don't tick anything.
Sure this will limit SOME teams and restrict some players from joining but then if you are forming an ITF and have 7 in the team with no Tank/Brute/Scrapper and you REALLY WANT a Tank/Brute/Scrapper then you don't want to open the slot up for another Blaster.
This allows the PLAYERS to determine who can join the PUG, not the game. If after waiting x mins no Def/X or X/Def shows up then you change your filters or keep on waiting.
Also allowing a Level filter (Min/Max). Running the ITF then you don't want anyone less than level 35.
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That would be quite useful, especially in the sense of two teams merging rather than one team having to be disbanded and then each member re-invited.
Warcabbit has stated that they intend for this to be a thing. In fact, they want the system to work so that you are more likely to find yourself in the same shard as people you like and away from people you dislike. He floated the idea that a 'troll shard' might develop if enough such people get flagged/downvoted/whatever.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
This is how Eve Online does it with their fleets.
You have your squads, and a squad leader (10 people + leader).
You can then have 5 squads into a wing... with a wing leader.
You can then have 5 Wings into a fleet. With a fleet commander.
You can set it up so that the fleet comms are "open" to all, or only the relevant leaders can use voice chat. This is with the *ingame* voice chat. Most fleets also tend to use Teamspeak/Ventrillo/Mumble servers on top of this...
But this is because fleets might not necessarily be made up of people from from corporation/alliance, but instead be *multiple* alliances all in the same fleet.
The fleet commander can also name each wing/squad with a unique name.... I used to name mine the "I see dead People" squad.... not because we died a lot, but because we tended to get onto a lot of pod kills, cleaning up after the big heavies did their job.
To me the thing is--let US limit the team size if and when we want, just like we did in CoH. Yes, there is going to be an upper limit that the designers need to set on team size for general content just so they can handle things, but don't give us any unnecessary limitations other than that.
I really don't like the duo-only, 4 only, 6 only teams in DCUO, for example. Sometimes I like to duo. Sometimes I want a small team. It's a way of customizing playstyle and scaling difficulty of content. But why would I want it locked in to general or specific content any more than necessary?
Freedom and customization are two of the fundamental principles of CoH and so it's spiritual successor. We can't have TOTAL freedom and customization or it would be an unworkable developmental nightmare, but why have less than possible by locking in small team sizes or binding it to certain content.
Anything other than max-manageable team size for general content doesn't really make any sense. AND that's what CoH had. Back then in CoH, 8 was all they could realistically manage at first in general content. You'll notice they increased it for other content later as they were able.
8 minimum, but more if possible for the game.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I personally don't like large teams because most of the time it's unnecessary and you're just stepping on eachother's toes anyway. That isn't to say there shouldn't be large teams as an option but 8 feels natural and even then, I think the content creators could be imaginative with team tasks. If we're talking about mainly-instanced missions, how about simultaneous instances that may start out as 1 instanced mission but then a task pops up that needs some of your team to rush off to bust through a hide out to deactivate a doomsday device while another part of the group fends off the boss of the operation.
So, give the players a reason to have large teams before just tossing out team caps of 10+ or whatever.
As for needing teams to finish such content, make it scale so simultaneous tasks occur when the manpower is there and when it's not, it just occurs in sequence, one instance after another.
I'm sorry if I misrepresented myself. I wasn't meaning to directly reply to anyone, just wanted to voice my opinion and cast my vote for larger teams, anything north of 8 is good. My plea for asking anyone not to rattle the sabre for smallish teams was not just out of passion. The nice thing about having larger team caps is that it wouldn't restrict those who like smaller teams. On the other hand, if the max team size is smaller it does restrict those who like more. Then again, I always want more. If you gave me pie I'd want ice cream too =) In reality, I'm just happy that someone actually read my post =D
I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.
I'm on the 8+ end of the scale as well. 5-person teams are so *tiny* after CoX. And while I'm perfectly happy to occasionally duo or trio with people, having the option of a full ten-hero squad would be awesome.
There's two competing "problems" to solve with team size maximums.
The larger the team size, the less individual contributions matter.
The larger the team size, the greater the load to be carried (creatively, balancing, server resources, etc.).
Personally, I like the notion of Team 6 for most nominal content, which can then be expanded into Double Team 6 (for 12 total) on content that is intended to be handled by groups ... such as Task Forces and Strike Forces and so on. You can then extend that into Leagues of 24, 36 and 48 for World Raiding content (Hamidon, Rikti Mothership) and Instanced Raiding content (Incarnate Trials).
With a max team size of 6, you don't ever feel like you can just simply let the rest of the team carry you and everyone has to contribute what they can. It allows individual members of the team to "shine" in a team context, without being overpowered by the "crowd" aspect of being on a Team and feeling like what you're doing isn't contributing all that much.
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I dunno. I see your point, but I kind of feel the opposite about it.
Some nights I wanted to really be on and carry the team as an awesome Tanker or Healer and didn't mind carrying the coasters, and some nights I didn't want that pressure and just wanted to contribute but not push that hard or be that critical to the team. And on an 8 man team I could see my contribution if I pushed, and still be valuable if I coasted a bit.
Maybe CoH hit the sweet spot exactly.
Maybe 6 is too "alright, everyone has to play their roles and be on" and 10 would be too "meh, doesn't matter what roles we have, just show up and dial it in".
Maybe 8 is the middle ground that lets you shine or lay back a bit depending on your mood?
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
+1.
6 is too close to 5, which i thought was too small.
10 might be too much, depending on how most of the indoor missions are structured.
Wider passageways, Higher Ceiling heights (to allow for camera rotation repositioning for optimal angles to watch your toon fight), etc.. need to be a consideration too.
I would vote 7 as the MINIMUM, but would really like to see 8, 9, or 10 be the max (all depends on the majority of the missions layout and structure).
When i played Champions Online (very little), the 5 players per team felt like the game was telling me... "No, you cant pool your abilities and become Ubber in the later game, and face off with the ULTIMATE Villains/Heroes." And i resented it, even if they didnt mean it to come across that way. :P
In the Later levels, I want to feel the AVENGERS epic-ness, not BATGang Friday Night Gotham Alley Brawls! :/
+1 to your +1, and I agree with your points. More reasons why CoH kind of hit the sweet spot with 8.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Yeah, Team 8 does allow for a more "relaxed" and less demanding sort of full group gameplay, where no ONE player is so critical that if they faceplant there's no one else available to take up the slack and fill the smoking shoes. So in that respect, you get the "individual shine" of a 6 player group, but with the redundant fallback of having an additional 2 players along in case someone goes down. Redundancy, in this respect, is an advantage to be cherished, rather than a burden to be thrown overboard.
So yeah, Team 8 really does hit a really good sweet spot.
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Although I prefer your later comment about 8 being a better sweet spot, I do think if they go a route like this, there'd have to be content you could properly finish quicker than the Task Forces of City of Heroes. I would hope for have individual stories and if possible, storylines, that would allow for double sized teams (or at least larger than the norm.)
Because I could definitely see appeal in limited content aimed at a smaller team. You could have tighter balancing and stories/ rooms specific to a smaller team, and so on.
(Although that - and anything bigger than Task Forces - seem like they would be best served until there is time for MWM to master the 'base' content.)
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
To be fair, most of the Task Forces and Strike Forces were written EARLY in the game's development (and it showed ... hoo boy did it show!) where the idea was to have really BIG production pieces be the norm for Task Forces.
[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dr._Quaterfield_Task_Force]Dr. Quaterfield Task Force[/url] anyone? [b][i]*24*[/i][/b] consecutive mission objectives?!!? Most of the early Task Forces comprised somewhere around 15 (Synapse) to 20 (Numina) consecutive mission objectives. Later Task Forces, such as [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dr._Kahn_Task_Force]Dr. Kahn[/url] truncated this down to only 5 consecutive missions ... which was of course fully exploited by Players in the case of the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Katie_Hannon_Task_Force]Quick Katie[/url] runs, which only had 4 consecutive mission objectives. Likewise, the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Imperious_Task_Force]Imperious Task Force[/url] was quite popular simply because it only had 4 consecutive mission objectives also, allowing for relatively quick runs that didn't require 4 hour blocks of time be reserved to run it.
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I am hoping for 10, with the number of enemies scaling up dramatically as your team goes from 1-10.
Also, a global difficulty setting for teams might be good. Perhaps you get more xp if you set it harder to test your limits.
I liked 8-man teams. When you get larger than 4/5, the usefulness of single-target characters starts to significantly degrade. At the point of 8-man teams, single-target builds were pretty marginalized in their utility. Beyond 8 players, full AoE teams are more likely to be the only viable option, which may result in denying content to a significant number of character types.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
i remember in a interview somewhere, that 8 was the offical max size.
What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau
I recall that warcabbit mentioned 8-person teams in an early interview, but there was no context to indicate whether that was a decision MWM had made, whether he was using that example because it would be familiar to CoH players, or both. A maximum size of 8 is the likeliest scenario because of the aforementioned familiarity, and sounds all the more reasonable given the arguments raised against larger team sizes.
A good point. This should have occurred to me, considering how superfluous I could feel on teams with my dark melee scrapper. It was all I could do to go at the enemies, hit tab, hit an attack and hope I was close enough, and hit quickly enough, to get in a lick or two before the AoE storm flattened everything.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Until you hit the AV anyway, then single target DPS was more useful, especially when they upped the regen rate of the AVs (though rad defenders 4tw as well!)
i liked 8 man teams on the hardest difficulty where we'd be getting swarmed by mobs, especially if i was teamed with supergroup members as it just made me feel like my toon was actually a super hero.
That's an excellent point. I would hope if regular content is limited to under 8 heroes, they would have something for more heroes as short as a single mission, in addition to 'task force' style content designed for it.
On the other hand, I could also see the game being designed around larger teams but allowing some special content for say, only one hero. Or teams of 4 or less. Assuming they can justify it in story better than some of the parts of City of Heroes that required two players to click a glowie at the same time.
But yes, you are right in pointing out Task forces got much more casual and user friendly as the game went on. I think the game was richer for having both in it.
The *Force stories also got more varied and epic feeling as they went, in my opinion.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
I agree - 8 does seem to be the "goldilocks zone" for team size.
However - I also liked the Leagues that you could form in COH during big events/trials - so I think something like that could be a boon in certain situations.
Indeed - the group I was with powered through the four Shadow Shard TFs over the course of a weekend - man it was tough. Many of the very early TFs were a bit of a pain to run. The newer ones really did show an improvement in the TF-formula; easier to finish in a night at least.
"Convert to Raid" is an awesome option from Wildstar
Crowd Control Enthusiast
"Convert to Raid" is an awesome option from Wildstar
Crowd Control Enthusiast
It is indeed. Although other "raid centric" games tend to have this ability as well...
I *honestly* cannot remember how it was done for CoX though and the I-trials though.
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