Generally my fight with the Cogs went like this: I would either join up with other players who were already in combat or other players in the area would join me in the middle of a fight. Each player would choose their gag and then wait for everyone else to finish with their decision in a turn-based battle. After the players used their gags, the Cogs would either die or they would attack a player.
During the battle, sometimes players would use gags that healed other players' happiness. The healing only works on other players, not yourself, so this is an incentive for people to team up with others and not engage in battle yourself.
After the battle, each player involved in the battle would then get their gag experience points and/or complete their task(s). Usually the players would not talk to each other and just go their separate ways after the battle.
Perhaps it was because I only had weak gags, but I felt that having few gags was limiting in creating a strategy for fighting the Cogs. It makes me wonder if it is possible to later on solo harder Cogs if you are unable to heal yourself in battle. Also, players can only use the EZ Chat during battle and not type even if they enabled it. This makes it more difficult to talk to other players and come up with a plan if necessary. Choosing from the list of available phrases also takes a while unless you are familiar with the entire list.
And also, way too many people kill-steal by doing absolutely nothing while I use my hard-earned jellybeans for the gags.
I'm not sure how much time you spent in-game, but, from what I've noticed, creating a strategy and then executing it is nearly impossible, as people generally do their own thing, regardless of orders issued through Speed Chat and what have you.
ReplyDeleteThis may stem from the fact that few people listen to Speed Chat due to its generic, limited nature, or it may be one of the flaws of most MMORPGs; from my experience playing Guild Wars and Atlantica Online, people in PUG usually don't follow orders well, doing their own thing, and only in a party where you're used to the other players, and often when you're hooked up using Ventrilo, Skype, or any other VOIP service do collaboration actually take a turn for the better.
I agree that any true team work would not be possible without maybe having a party system but I guess in this way, Disney thinks they're protecting the kids?
ReplyDeleteThe same happens in WoW with PUGs; they're unreliable and never quite listen. I also don't think Disney wants to implement a guild system for players to regularly meet up and therefore, all players in Toontown must will be PUGs.
A party system and a guild system would help with some of the problems in the battle system.