Where has team-play gone?

[Comp]

This is just a general discussion on why team play (for all realms) has deminished so much. With the thought of invasions coming, group team play MUST be stepped up a notch. Coordination is very important and without it...invasions will be a beeotch.

Lately here's my take.

Conjurers
Conjurers don't heal or give mana and if you get mana you have to ask for it over and over. Additionally, it seems if your not lvl 50 you don't deserve the heal or mana a conjurer would typically give out.

Conjurers are the support class of the mages and without them passing out heals, mana, DI's, dispells...the army will dwindle very very quickly. I think many of the newer conjurers coming up don't understand just how important they are to the success of a battle (not warjurers...conjurers).

Warlocks
Terroring without the warriors ready for areas is USLESS. This must be a coordinated effort and it seems we have lost this coordination. I remember once upon a time when Eli, Inkster would coordinate their areas with the likes of Peli, Snorlax, Aba, and a few archers with areas...and it would totally DESTROY an entire army. Terrors are key in a battle, but useless if they are just thrown willie-nillie.

MOD is another very important spell that MUST be used when the enemy is about to charge...not while they are 30m away. Conserve this spell and use when the charge is coming or when your army charges. This will allow two things. 1) If the enemy is charging they can not area unless they are DI'd and 2) If your army is charging it keeps conjurers from mass healing the dying warrior front.

Barbarians
Most barbs do well with areas so that's not an area of concern; however, onslaught is. What is the point of onslaughting yourself when chasing an enemy if you have a hunter near? Save the onslaught for the group or for a hunter with speed...and I guarantee you'll catch your enemy. I know when I'm being chased and I see a barb onslaught himself and miss his army I laugh my head off....cause I know you'll never ever catch me.

Knights
Most knights do well in-game...but let me tell you newer knights this....a knights place is defence not offense. An army will live FOREVER if the knights are good. Their protection auras are crucial for fighting as a team.

Marksmen
Range is your friend...and a proper DS is even better. Don't waste your time DS'ing a knight or another marksmen during a battle. Instead go for the core problem of the other team...their mage army. A DS'd mage MUST run or they will die very very quickly. So pick your targets out...and call the target. I know for a fact that I watch for a marksmen to call their DS target and I turn my fire to that target. This should be coordinated effor and if it is....the army will be torn apart quickly.

Hunter
....hmmm. Okay, I see this ENTIRELY too often. An army is fighting and it seems like they might loose...guess what happens - their hunter corp begins to disappear and run away. If you can't stand and fight with your brethern, then don't go to the fight....hunt. Hunters are extremely helpful during a fight...using camo to remove low-hp enemy from the battlefield is key. Use your cunning and evasiveness to draw fire from your enemy and don't be afraid to run to the front to "get their attention"...you have the evasion to do it.

Take this for what you will....agree or disagree it's okeedokee. I've been playing this game for quite some time and I can see the decline of team play every day....

[Znurre]

I would like to add some things.

Rushes

There are situations where a rush can give many advatanges, but everyone in the army might not have their areas ready.
What is then important is that everyone still follows the rush, because by attending you can ensure that:
The enemies get a harder job focusing fire on one or a few players.
You can still do very much impact without using areas, sometimes even more.It is also very important that the knights goes first, to drag attention from his friends.
Many knights have a problem with this, as I have seen several of them waiting for their mage friends even before starting to rush.
Ofcourse it is important to protect the mages with the auras - but only one knight is needed for this, and the barbarians usually don't survive a rush if they receive the attention.

The conjurers must follow and support the warriors in the rush - else it's wasted.
It doesn't work if they stay in the back lines supporting the archers, maybe 1 or 2 to give mana and a few heals - but not more.
The warriors rushing are those who will receive the most damage from both the wall and the enemies at the ground anyway.

It is however way better if everyone goes to the fort gate/wall, see section below.

Fort wall/fort gate

There is no range penalty in this game - which means that a mage or an archer can attack a warrior from 0 range and still be able to do this without any problems.
It is plain stupid to stand withing attack range from the wall, trying to kill archers and mages on the wall that will still only jump down when they get too hurt.

Your help is much more needed at the gate to stop enemies from comming out of the gate.
Usually it's a good tactic to let the mages and the archers that would not do very much impact on the gate anyway, attack the enemies at the gate while the warrior can focus on the gate.

If they stand close to the wall they can render the archers/mages on the wall completely useless! and force them to step out using the gate to make any impact on the fight, and then the army united will take care of him.

This way the conjurers can also stay at one place to supply both ranged and close combat characters with mana and life.

Selection priority

It is totally useless for an archer to attack a knight, let the warriors finnish the knights and attack their mages instead.
Make sure to look around you for wounded targets, and never hesitate to attack an already wounded target to ensure that he gets killed fast.

RP

Remember, RP is not everything.
It is better to play good - and earn a few RP - than to play bad, leeching RPs with areas and auras that won't help anyone anyway.

[Miraculix]

Conjurers give great support on bosses - guess what, it pays off, they always get the drops.

On wars, they always go for the reward, which is the RP. Support barely pays off, so they go for warjuring.

Nice posts so far btw.

[Tyr]

The biggest problems I see is when one or two enemies flees, sometimes up to half of the group gives chase. By the time they catch and they kill the one or two enemies the other half of the group they left was killed by a much larger group of enemies.

If just one or two flees no need to chase them that far. Just wait they will bring their friends.

[_dracus_]

Marksmen
Range is your friend...and a proper DS is even better. Don't waste your time DS'ing a knight or another marksmen during a battle. Instead go for the core problem of the other team...their mage army. A DS'd mage MUST run or they will die very very quickly. So pick your targets out...and call the target. I know for a fact that I watch for a marksmen to call their DS target and I turn my fire to that target. This should be coordinated effor and if it is....the army will be torn apart quickly.
.

Oh, believe it or not, I never thought of calling my DS target. Maybe because I still use DS as a defensive spell in fort wars. When I loose my range, I go DS on my ennemy. However, I think I'll try to call my target, to see the result.

[Ertial]

Good posts here.

Focussing is really helpful. I remember a time when we were having a battle with Alsius. When they rushed not everyone came, the people who were the easiest to select were the onslaughted barbarians. Although Znurre evaded my ambush, he was quickly ambushed by someone else. Thanks to Tear Apart, Stunning Fist and more he was dead within seconds. Meanwhile most of the conjurers were standing in the group just out of our range protected by some marksmen.
This could have gone a lot better for the poor barbarian if he had received some more support. If he could have casted one of the dangerous barbarian area attacks the Alsius could have defeated this side of the Syrtian army.

The most important thing is indeed, like the subject of the example also said, is to make sure people don't charge on their own. That's deadly.

Tyr made a good point, chases are often the cause of the disintegration of armies. People should stop the chases after two people training while they're being attacked at the front of the group. It is very, very dangerous.

Another thing that can ruin the defence of an army are warriors or archers with SotW that run into or through the group. People turn to attack those targets or flee, resulting in the collapse of the front.

This is a good example of over-focussing. It's useless to concentrate the whole army around two or three people that will evade a lot of the attacks initially until their buffs run out.
It's just not worth sacrificing your army for.

[Znurre]

This is a good example of over-focussing. It's useless to concentrate the whole army around two or three people that will evade a lot of the attacks initially until their buffs run out.
It's just not worth sacrificing your army for.Exactly!
I forgot to add this into my post - but this is also very, very important.

[Eli2]

It has been like that for months now.

The good old days ... i wish they were back.
:wish:

[Miriya_PS]

Great posts, I can only hope that people think more about teamplay strategies and less about RP.

I believe that the lack of teamplay is in part Players' fault and in part NGD fault. There is not a actual reward for good Teamplay, and RP junkies can not think "If we play better we last longer and we get more RP". They often are happy just killing one enemy before dying.
But it would be too long to write about that, and I am not at the level to do an analysis of players' minds.
--------------------------------------
So I rather speak about Support Conjurers. I am a Support conjurer, but I can not play that way because I have to level. There are lots of reason why Conjurers can not level as Support, to name some

*Buffs and Heals gives little or none (amazingly this is not fixxed yet) EXP. I am used to get 1 EXP +GRP for a couple of Heal Ally and some Synergy bonds.
*Buffs and Heals (or its cooldowns) last for minutes, but the Conjurer only get EXP for the first creature the ally kills and only if the ally kills it while is being buffed.
*Since auras are the only possible way to get EXP as Support you need a good party to level using auras. And also an specific spell config.
*Some allies do not want for conjurers to help because they think they level faster alone. (you do not believe me? In the Spanish forum there is a thread asking for /Ignore_Buff command)
*Some allies actually accused me of "Stealing EXP" using auras to level. Or ask me to decided between using auras OR attacking the creature.
*Leveling in party with some damage dealers, they just kill the creature without letting me participate at all. And then ask me for mana to kill the next creature.

There are some more reasons, but I think I made my point clear about this. You may notice that is not only NGD's fault.

I HAVE TO use my Warjurer config to level (which I hate) and when I want to go to war I simply do not have the tools to help and do my share.
This happens to every conjurer leveling in the war zone. Some of the new ones, do not even want to be support, because they never learned to use those skills and they have months of practice with the offensive config.

This also happen to me using my knight. I decided that she would be a defensive one, and half of the time I can not find a party to level. So I have to change my config.

[_dracus_]

Great posts, I can only hope that people think more about teamplay strategies and less about RP.

I believe that the lack of teamplay is in part Players' fault and in part NGD fault. There is not a actual reward for good Teamplay, and RP junkies can not think "If we play better we last longer and we get more RP". They often are happy just killing one enemy before dying.
But it would be too long to write about that, and I am not at the level to do an analysis of players' minds.
--------------------------------------
So I rather speak about Support Conjurers. I am a Support conjurer, but I can not play that way because I have to level. There are lots of reason why Conjurers can not level as Support, to name some

*Buffs and Heals gives little or none (amazingly this is not fixxed yet) EXP. I am used to get 1 EXP +GRP for a couple of Heal Ally and some Synergy bonds.
*Buffs and Heals (or its cooldowns) last for minutes, but the Conjurer only get EXP for the first creature the ally kills and only if the ally kills it while is being buffed.
*Since auras are the only possible way to get EXP as Support you need a good party to level using auras. And also an specific spell config.
*Some allies do not want for conjurers to help because they think they level faster alone. (you do not believe me? In the Spanish forum there is a thread asking for /Ignore_Buff command)
*Some allies actually accused me of "Stealing EXP" using auras to level. Or ask me to decided between using auras OR attacking the creature.
*Leveling in party with some damage dealers, they just kill the creature without letting me participate at all. And then ask me for mana to kill the next creature.

There are some more reasons, but I think I made my point clear about this. You may notice that is not only NGD's fault.

I HAVE TO use my Warjurer config to level (which I hate) and when I want to go to war I simply do not have the tools to help and do my share.
This happens to every conjurer leveling in the war zone. Some of the new ones, do not even want to be support, because they never learned to use those skills and they have months of practice with the offensive config.

This also happen to me using my knight. I decided that she would be a defensive one, and half of the time I can not find a party to level. So I have to change my config.

From my very small conjuror experience, supporting a party is very efficient to level up. Heal, buff, and mana gives lots of EXP to me.

[Miriya_PS]

From my very small conjuror experience, supporting a party is very efficient to level up. Heal, buff, and mana gives lots of EXP to me.
It might be good, but you go faster and you do not depend on finding good partners being a Warjurer. And you can also level in party (I use Summon, Life, Staff Mastery, Mana and Sorcery, but I can not specialize on Support as I would like).
And as I said supporting a party it is the only way I found to level as Support. But to support a party you need a party willing to be supported. If you support one player only, will not get half you will get leveling by yourself.

I got tired of reseting my spells every time I could not find some decent allies to level. Maybe is because of the time of the day I play, but half of the time I can not find people that want to level WITH me, sharing EXP.

I do not want to make this a thread about conjurers, but the things I said I think are some of the reasons why there are more Warjurers now.

PS: I should take some pictures from people asking me not to help or accusing me of stealing EXP. But the thread about /Ignore_Buffs command to prevent "EXP stealing" actually exists.

[LenaRosemberg]

According to my little experience in lvling a conj in inner realm, efficient ways are
_full support in a huge party.
_support/zarkit/staff mastery with a least one range class in a small party
_full mana and life support to a marks with zarkit/SM.
_zarkit/SM with another zarkit/SM conj.

Some people are really happy to lvl up with conjs (or at least with me :sifflote: ) but some are just stupid.

I know lot of conjs are too much warju and not enougth support. But that's not a reason to yell at them in game, saying that nobody is healing, begging for mana and stuff. It happened once at Stone, I was full support, healing spells, DI and mana com' always in cooldown, doing some sancs to go healing the warriors at the door and about a half dozen people yelled against conj. Guess what I've done ? /ignore.
By the way, giving mana is not as easy as giving life. There is no 'V' mode for mana ;) And once you start giving mana, you start having mana issues too (at least when you're "low" lvl). And if you're low lvl (with something like 19 life, 15 staff mastery, 15 sorcery), you don't have steal skin and it's harder to go near warriors so they're in mana com range. (And steal skin doesn't protect you from marks).

Speaking about marks, I don't see the point in saying "I'm gonna DS X". Because DS is such a visual spell you really can't miss it. And marks have a really nice local area so it's sad to stay 25+m away from front line 24/7.

[G40st]

From a conjurers point of view:

- In a fort fight, the ones that gets most rewarded is the one that spam the most areas, more areas = more rp.
I have conducted alot of tests to verify this and all i can say is that with only using areas and the occasional heal ally i get sometimes 2 times more rp from a fight then i would by using only heal ally and regen ally and the occasional area.

- Most people are going warjurer because its the only way they know how to play, you can't level as support anymore (well you can but its not worth it compared to going warjurer), The amount of XP you get from heals and passing mana is total bs. So many conjurers go warjurer and then doesn't know how to heal and then people complain.

- Worst thing i HATE, yes i used the word hate, is people demanding health and mana from me. I will heal who ever i see needs it and since heal ally has a 10 sec cooldown i can't use it all the time.

- And yes, there is alot less teamwork in some realms lately but in Ignis i think its going along just fine, maybe the areas needs some more coordinating but they work just fine at the fort door ;)

[makarios68]

I know a lv 50 support healer who recently spent over an hour from start to finish supporting others to kill the dragon.

Just before the dragon died he got killed himself, and he returned just as the dragon died.

He got nothing - no xp, no gold, no gems.

The rewards for support healers must be increased/fixed.

EDIT: (and to the point of the thread) - i agree with comp that Alsius teamplay has left a lot to be desired lately.

However, you must be careful about stating as a matter of fact that a certain class must be played in only one way.

For example: yes, it can be annoying when you feel you aren't getting heals and buffs from support classes (namely, conjurers and knights) - however, these classes can be fun to play as attacking classes too. These classes were designed deliberately to be either defense or attack.

So if someone decides to play one of these classes for attack, it is their choice, and however annoying this might be, we must respect the right of people to play their chars as they wish.

IMO Alsius' main problems are twofold atm:

1. Realm imbalance: we are almost always outgunned.
2. Lack of attacking co-ordination: i am forever seeing our army trickle into an attack, instead of properly regrouping for a more effective and co-ordinated attack.

[Znurre]

I know a lv 50 support healer who recently spent over an hour from start to finish supporting others to kill the dragon.

Just before the dragon died he got killed himself, and he returned just as the dragon died.

He got nothing - no xp, no gold, no gems.This is the same for every class... it sucks.

[Jedi-x]

I have to totally agree with Comp, Wudy, Znurre and the others from Alsius..... Our realm has seemed to loose the whole concept of teamplay. The last few fort fights I've attended, have been a total "noobfest", and I've spent most of my time back at the alter. It is a simple thing to remember, CO-ORDINATION ...... I always save my areas to follow teammates area, not only does it help to diminish an enemy army, MOST of the time it isn't evaded near as much, and the area spell is almost a total success. It gets very frustrating, and lately hasn't been worth my time and effort to help, as I seem to be giving away RP's instead of really doing anything to help destroy an enemy army. Like Comp, Wudy, Znurre and others I myself have been playing for some time now, and remember the time when Alsius was outgunned as we are now, but we usually came out on top of the fight, due to organization. Granted, as in the other realms, we are starting to see newer and younger players coming to the fort battles, but it just seems that they don't have the "team" in mind when they fight, they are only out for the elusive RP.
I long for the days of old ........ we were a small army, but a force to be rekon'd with.

Just my 2 cents.

[Lycra]

Reason because you don't have any conjus, but tons of warjus is because hunters of Alsius don't works there job. To be a hunter is not only hunting in syrtis and Ignis parts of wz but it is all so protecting your part of WZ and all allies in it. :(

[Jedi-x]

Maybe some of the hunters you know are that way, some of us do primarily just that. My hunter is parked for the purpose of protecting leveling newer realmmates. Some of us hunters, spend all our time patrolling our own lands, and not the other realms, I even try to protect those leveling near me when on my other characters. Just yesterday, I was killed trying to protect a conjurer, without any heals mind you, when I was almost dead to begin with.
It must be this way, during certain times of the day, but this is not the case during the time of day I play. I always see our Hunters, at least the higher level ones, patrolling our lands.

Good day

[Angelwinged_Devil]

From my very small conjuror experience, supporting a party is very efficient to level up. Heal, buff, and mana gives lots of EXP to me.
yep this is true, it does give a lot of xp, not only to the conjurer but it helps the total grp xp too

[makarios68]

Reason because you don't have any conjus, but tons of warjus is because hunters of Alsius don't works there job. To be a hunter is not only hunting in syrtis and Ignis parts of wz but it is all so protecting your part of WZ and all allies in it. :(
Myself and my clan spend most of our time doing exactly that: patrolling the Alsius saves and main gate and killing enemy hunters and hunting parties.

I wish there were more of us, to tackle the bigger Syrtis hunting parties that frequently scavenge RP's around Trell save.

[Comp]

Reason because you don't have any conjus, but tons of warjus is because hunters of Alsius don't works there job. To be a hunter is not only hunting in syrtis and Ignis parts of wz but it is all so protecting your part of WZ and all allies in it. :(
Alsius hunters primary requirement is to above all protect the realm. I rarely leave alsius with my hunter and I spend most of my time going from gate->trelle->pp->pinos market->orc camp. This is the same for our entire clan...and it is actually a requirement to be in the alsius hunters...realm first.

Oh...and If our team-play ever picked back up you better believe I'd drop my pet and become that sneaky rep shot delivering hunter I was once known for. But alas....one rep shot only gets me killed :(

[Lostican]

Wow, lots of good points here. Some of it, I never thought of. I am fairly new to RO (since April) and have managed to get two of my charecters to 50th lvl. (hunter and a conjur)

Being a support conjur there are some problems that may lead to many of the points made here in the forum.

IN THE FORT

If you come in the fort to get healed, don't stand in the middle of the group. Spread out, much easier to get a click on you. I will heal you, may take a minute, but I WILL do it. Also, don't ask for DI, wait 5 seconds, then go out the door. Many times my DI has been ruined because the warrior who asked for it did not wait for mine to cool.

COORDINATION

Funny that a realm that is the smallest in numbers is talking about team play. Imagine being in my realm! There are so many of us sometimes I can't even keep track of who I did DI/bless weapon/etc. to. IF any realm has a chance at team play, I'd say the snow folks would have the easiest time with that. If you guys can't play as a team, then I guess its impossible for Sytris to do it. Sometimes, we can't even get a group of 7 to stay together, especially when I watch our hunters and barbs get WAY far in front of me. Then they get killed just as I catch up!

SO HERE IS WHAT I DO

I will heal if you are 20th OR if your 50th. To me, this is a RPG game, I will rez or heal anyone at anytime reguardless if they want it or not. (ex. someone leveling) I'm a healer, its what I do. Conjurs are first on my priority list to rez, but after that, its whoever is closest to me. I don't have time to check to see who is 50th and who is not. But! If two are laying dead in front of me, I will pick the one that suites the battle best. Most of the time, its the one that is higher level.

I also keep my dispells on lvl 5. This is the best way I've found to keep from getting trampled in a stampede. (unless I get caught in the enemy areas) I love the feeling of standing a group back on thier feet after Ignis has layed them out with 3 area spells.

Last but not least, STAY CLOSE TO THE FORT! Stop chasing when the enemy retreats. I can't heal you if you are out of range.

Just my spellweaving perspective.....Happy Halloween! :bruja:

[bigjim]

Alsius hunters primary requirement is to above all protect the realm. I rarely leave alsius with my hunter and I spend most of my time going from gate->trelle->pp->pinos market->orc camp. This is the same for our entire clan...and it is actually a requirement to be in the alsius hunters...realm first.

Oh...and If our team-play ever picked back up you better believe I'd drop my pet and become that sneaky rep shot delivering hunter I was once known for. But alas....one rep shot only gets me killed :(

I remember that old Comp. ;)

[_dracus_]

Lycra you are being a bit harsh on the hunters of Alsius. I see some of them doing the job quite good or at least trying (I'm thinking of Wudy, Compost, xio, and some others). I saw you the other day (you might remember my hunter "dracus"). I was tracking someone else that the reason you lived. At your level I wouldn't wonder Alsius WZ alone.

[DkySven]

Compoundious, next time you want to launch a repetition shot, warn me. I'll rush first and distract them so they are fighting em when you suddenly appear out of camouflage.

[Heglin]

Compoundious, next time you want to launch a repetition shot, warn me. I'll rush first and distract them so they are fighting em when you suddenly appear out of camouflage.


I have a few ideas too, but then i have to get back to my old active self and a few warlocks would be needed (that class is on the verge of extinction).

I'll change my knight setup today, since we might get quite good tank team action soon :)

Team-play isn't completely gone, on those rare occasions when a war party consists of atleast 75% good (and above lvl 45), not totaly RP horny players then there's okay team-play.

[Inkster]

Alsius hunters primary requirement is to above all protect the realm. I rarely leave alsius with my hunter and I spend most of my time going from gate->trelle->pp->pinos market->orc camp(

Yea I noticed yesturday when i was near the Gate, teapot was doing a great
job in helping to defend the lower lvls against a large party of greens.

Edit: after my extended break from the game, i have noticed that the teamplay had actually improved on what it used to be, everyone pulled together and made the gameplay quite enjoyable.

[impp]

I agree the team play must be better.

On conjos, I level as a warjuror because its quicker but reset for war to lots of healing and mana - many more RP that way.

The problem usually is that all the hunters and warrior run off in a frenzy and forget the healers who get slammed by the SOTW'd hunters and buffed up barbs. I know in my clan is styris the rule is hit the conjos first. If you want us to heal and buff, protect us! We have low HP, low damage without a summon and are slow.

SC from a lower lvl barb takes out a lvl41 conjo in one hit. When it's Yoseba we die twice.

Imppy