Team Composition - (off topic posts from Monthly Dev Update)

[Mastablasta]

I fear engine is overated. Imagine we get new engine tomorrow? What would change? How would daily life change for us current subscibers? Discuss.

For me Id still do the same things for same ammount of fun, yet with better graphics. Like watching an old movie on a new projector. Same old same old, only now in 3D. What needs to improve is gameplay.

How can you explain to a newbie that it will take a better part of a year to be effective in pvp? How? By default we loose all pvp players becouse of epic unfairness of current pvp mechanics.

And pvm? Despite epic population improvement. Problems are the same, if you play an "unwanted" profession you do not get team. Balance is needed.

Blood and guts of game plox.

No matter how balanced things are, you'll still have the discrimination of perceived problems. It's not a problem currently that there's some major disadvantage to certain professions, it's that players believe there are detrimental effects to bringing one. It has always been like that, but it has intensified greatly over the past couple of years, and player perpetuation of these beliefs will not be change with changes, even radical ones.

[blindio]

i dont choose teammates based on their profession, i look are they in range and if im doing inf are they clan/neut

[Mastablasta]

i dont choose teammates based on their profession, i look are they in range and if im doing inf are they clan/neut

Sadly that seems to put you in a minority.

[Ahndracorvid]

you can make 5-20 peoples game-experience more enjoyable if you stop being an selfish, narrowminded ass and pick proper professions for proper role.

Not sure if trolling...

[Otansaanpas]

Not sure if trolling...

all im saying that you shouldn't ignore team composition even if it means you need to leave less usefull professions to /lft.

Making statements like "I dont choose team members by their professions" means you are stupid and deliberately hindering team just so you can be friendlier and more "mature" on forums.
Besides nobody does that so Blindio is also a lier.

[Psikie]

all im saying that you shouldn't ignore team composition even if it means you need to leave less usefull professions to /lft.

Making statements like "I dont choose team members by their professions" means you are stupid and deliberately hindering team just so you can be friendlier and more "mature" on forums.
Besides nobody does that so Blindio is also a lier.

Actually people do it all the time, either when they are dual logged with an alt or teaming with org mates.

Also if the amount of xp you gain is important, which I'm assuming OP was talking about team missions or team xp. Then you only need either 1 220 of any prof to pull the Inf mish or 1 higher lvl twink to keep aggro when outside hunting hecklers at lower lvls. Rest of team you would want to be as close or lower lvl than yourself for more xp/sk gain. So for example in Inf mish if it came down to an extra 220 shade or a 210 engi you might take the engi if you wanted greater share of xp.

[smokex]

But if you wanted to run through multiple missions fast relying on the much higher experience mission reward at the end, you'd pick the kill a mob every second 220 shade..

[cybertron]

For inf mish, I'd jusy pick whoever was on lft to fill my team. Ofc the 220 shade or engi would be preferable but realistically I'll take whatever i can get. I'm not that elitist that I'd hold off running inf missions with whatever randoms rather than wait for the perfect all-star DD team

[Otansaanpas]

you might take the engi if you wanted greater share of xp.

so you choose your team mates aswell and pick the ones available that benefits you and your team most? welcome to horrible people-club!

[Ahndracorvid]

all im saying that you shouldn't ignore team composition even if it means you need to leave less usefull professions to /lft.

Making statements like "I dont choose team members by their professions" means you are stupid and deliberately hindering team just so you can be friendlier and more "mature" on forums.
Besides nobody does that so Blindio is also a lier.

I'm just getting a laugh out of the irony of you calling someone selfish and narrowminded for being more inclusive of the proportion of the population who aren't crats/docs/sols.

Arguably, it's exactly that sort of "holy trinity" mindset that could be called selfish and narrowminded, since it marginalizes a large proportion of the pool of players you can draw from for whatever you're doing.

[Mastablasta]

Once you have someone capable enough of tanking and someone capable enough to heal that tank, in any combination; strong tank/weak healer, strong healer/weak tank, or a spread, you can start to fill up the team with other spots. Or fill out the weakness in the healer with a secondary healer.

There's many ways to construct a well performing team in AO. There are a few ways to construct elite teams. If you only try to form elite teams, you will slow down yourself and everyone else. In the time it took you to pick out the correct lvl correct profession players, you could've done 3 missions with a team that was less than completely ultimate.

And you might've had stimulating conversations with that team and had experiences of challenge, panic, fun and amusement in situations that your ultimate team wouldn't even have noticed even with most of them watching southpark in a different window and playing their new alt out of noob island.

[Gorathon]

And you might've had stimulating conversations with that team and had experiences of challenge, panic, fun and amusement

This. Not enough of this in the game, and so very little of that is the devs' fault.

[Otansaanpas]

I'm just getting a laugh out of the irony of you calling someone selfish and narrowminded for being more inclusive of the proportion of the population who aren't crats/docs/sols.

Arguably, it's exactly that sort of "holy trinity" mindset that could be called selfish and narrowminded, since it marginalizes a large proportion of the pool of players you can draw from for whatever you're doing.

yep, although i don't do "holy trinity"-thingy what you say. i know my characters limits well enough to leave crats and soldiers out and pick something more usefull to team.

would you really pick mp over enf if you're going to pande? And if so, are you doing more good for the team than to the mp?

[Mastablasta]

would you really pick mp over enf if you're going to pande? And if so, are you doing more good for the team than to the mp?

That was never what the debate was about

[Ahndracorvid]

would you really pick mp over enf if you're going to pande? And if so, are you doing more good for the team than to the mp?

That was never what the debate was about

^ This.

[Otansaanpas]

oh.. i though the person i quoted said

i dont choose teammates based on their profession

we all rest seem to do just that.
then i added that best way to keep everyone in team happy is to pick functional team members and you all agree on that too.

thinking about oneselfs own look on forums and saying he doesnt care who is on his team, means he has no respect to the other team members feelings. so yep, selfish and narrow.

[Eventsbyjill]

Otansaanpas, I totally get what you're saying and agree. While it is nice to just choose 'whoever', the reality is that there are some things (many things) in game that require 2-3 key profs to be present in order to reasonably complete. My main, for the longest time, was my MP and while her damage is great (far superior to many people playing various classes) she cannot be subbed in for a tank in some of the more challenging encounters. Even though she can tank just fine, sometimes being able to hold aggro off of more damage intensive classes is the bigger problem.

So yeah, I agree.. if someone just willy nilly picks people without any consideration for what is needed to accomplish a task then they are being thoughtless, selfish and wasting people's time. Ultimately, like with most things in life, you have to bring the right tools (in the strictest definition of the word)/instruments to get the job done.

This. Not enough of this in the game, and so very little of that is the devs' fault.

Going to agree with you and Masta and disagree a bit as well. Community was always a big selling point for me with AO. It is the reason why I chose AO over Neocron back in 2004 when I was seeking out a new online game to play. That being said, most of the reason why the game has gotten to the point of not being as social as it was 'back in the day' is indeed the dev's fault or could've been preventable had they implemented certain things ages ago.

AO used to be about the journey. The best friends I have in game are folks I can remember playing with throughout the levels. People that I played with in content prior to being endgame level like the old Merc camp raids are people I still talk to, play other games with, keep in touch with regardless of anyone's AO subscription status.

Nowadays, that content is so obsolete/not needed/boring/redundant that it is all about getting to 220 so that you can begin to play with other people. Then when you get to 220, you find that if you aren't one of the fantastic four professions that you really aren't even needed in a team. It creates a very elitist and anti-social gaming environment and I can tell you that is indeed the fault of the devs. No one wants to be anyone else's charity case. I used to do tons of raids for the public but I can tell you that when I needed to gear up my own toons.. I didn't do public raids. I privately coordinated with 3-4 friends and we farmed our stuff with our various combinations of the fantastic four til we all got what was needed. Then, when I was bored and felt like being helpful, I'd organize raids for 'the other people'. It isn't ideal but it is what we were left with. Again, that is the fault of the game development company. It isn't like that in other games I play/have played.

TLDR: I think the devs have a lot to do with the social issue and that players simply reacted to the environment which they were provided.

[Pomidor]

Jill, I can't agree more with you. Pacing of the game is way to fast as it goes to leveling (guess how...).

Few days ago I was rising my new toon - doing solo missions and admiring blank RK, then i meet few guys to do team missions, we did it. And another day too. But once they went for some kite team at borgs (I was lvl 66 that time) I was not able to team with, because of few hours of doing nothing (afk leveling ftw - and it was dual loged dude with 220 enf and NT to level his other toon... and he took along 3 guys I have meet). Later on, they were olike "omg, this game is so boring..." Figures.

Most players that stayed with AO are those who actually experienced game like it ment to be. Vast majority of them are now bored and seek fastest way to level.

Dailies are not good either, becuase I have learned, that many newcomers after reaching 100ish level are doing only dailies and has multiple toon just to be "busy" duging 3-4 hours a dayplay. I doubt it was ment to be like this - players used to discover their toon and world of AO during play time, not just to log x tons for x dailies, because its easiest way w/o effort to level them. (Hell, I have friend who is logging like 10 or 12 characters just for dailies and all playtime is about this).

[blindio]

i dont subcribe to the idea that any proffession is useless, i cant play nt's worth a damn but i know thats my issue and my of lack patience for using their toolset properly, ive seen people of every proff bring something to a team, yes some professions need balancing a little but till that happens i dont want my alts of a certain to be ignored so i try not to ignore other people, i also liked the dailies when first introduced as it was newish content now i occasionally do them but seen as ive ony 1 220 after about 7 years you can probably tell how much i enjoy powerleveling toons

[Eventsbyjill]

i dont subcribe to the idea that any proffession is useless <snip>
ive seen people of every proff bring something to a team, yes some professions need balancing
<snip>

No profession is useless, agreed, BUT.. and this is the important part.. regardless of whatever/whoever else you have in a team, there are encounters that the overwhelming majority of non-veteran players cannot get done without having an enforcer, crat and doctor in the team. Yes, there is the minority (plus the vets) that can either make do with what they have OR recognize which encounters are best done without members of the fantastic four (crat, doc, enf, sold) but again, they are the minority. In AO, really any game, you generally want a tank, heals, some form of crowd control and damage dealers.

That being said, let me digress a bit here. When I used to do Ely heck teams back in '04/'05, we didn't need an enforcer and we didn't need a doctor in order to survive. What we needed was a team of folks that knew how to use their toolset. Because, for instance, a trader can heal better at that level than a doctor. And a MA can be a great tank. Heck I cannot remember how many times my MP served as primary healer on a team. But with today's environment of people levelng so quickly (not even using powerleveling routes like kite hill), they are missing out on essential parts of their toolset, essential nanos and the experience of how to use them. So, what you're left with are people that have to get the fantastic four in their groups in order for them to succeed because they simply haven't learned how to make do otherwise. In essence, because they don't know how to play their class properly, they become useless and most simply aren't willing to take a gamble and risk getting an uber-noob when they need someone that knows how to play.