The Joy of Pick-Up Groups

I know, these days, it sounds like a complete oxymoron.

With the passing of the Winter Lords, which were basically some giant monsters set up in town that gave huge xp to teams of lowbies, we have temporarily a generation of level 20s-30s who are complete and utter morons. They should have grown out of this in their teens or single-digits already, but alas for tacitly allowed power-leveling.

It's gotten so bad that I'm staying away from random pick up teams for a while, and just spending some time soloing and catching up on my mission story arcs. And making influence (money) by selling enhancements any time I want to isn't a bad thing either.

But lest we forget, it IS pick-up groups that make the game fun. One aspect of it.

Because after all, if we play it like a single player game, eventually, we will exhaust the content or get bored repeating the same old punch maneuver over and over.

If we play it with a small, tight group of friends, that's quite enjoyable, yes, but you grow complacent, comfortable and elitist. No one else can compare to you, you have developed your own set of tactics, and you're not going to share them with anybody either. Who needs the bother of training some random Joe newbie?

And then you get bored with that small tight group, or they go off and play other games, and suddenly you're lonely and CoH isn't fun any more either.

You see, pick-up groups have the random element. They are...unpredictable.

Usually and sadly (more often than not these days, thanks to Winterlord and Christmas present noobs), PuGs are random to the point of being horrifically bad. So bad you need to tear your hair out at how clueless all these other people are.

But hey, they give you great stories to tell about the car wreck later to other friends. Or a blog if you have no friends! (*hem, what does that say about me*)

One caveat is that sometimes, your tactics and the other guy's tactics don't gel. Then both will consider each other stupid and dumb, but really, we're just playing different games. Agree to disagree and promise yourself you'll never team with him again if you don't like his playing style.

And once in a great long while, the PuG is a success. There will be many groups where you -can- get kills going and no one dies too often, and there will be those rare groups where you can crack funnies and enjoy yourself WHILE killing all the mobs and no one dies unless they make a stupid. Which they realize. And stop doing that.

And yes, I live for days like those also. It's another kind of rush. The teaming rush. No one knows each other, but somehow everyone knows their proper function and role and it works.

It's another thing I liked Natural Selection for. Hopefully its beta 6 will give that part more life.

Long story short, pickup groups don't always suck. Sometimes, any way.