Teaming is fun! We’ve incorporated the best suggestions from beta players and the best ideas from other MMORPGs into our team play. The result is very satisfying already, and it’s only going to get better from here.
You’re not forced to join teams
Most parts of SoH can be played solo. Right now, the only exceptions are our two large raids. They contain spectacular fights and give good loot, but players who’d rather solo can earn the same items elsewhere. So, when you do join a team, or a raid league, you know that everyone else chose team play over soloing. They aren’t being forced or pressured into it.
Team sizes are flexible up to 10
No mission requires a specific team size. Team sizes are flexible up to 10 members. Bigger teams face bigger enemy groups with more elite foes among them. The most challenging battles also scale in this way, rewarding advanced team compositions and tactics, but the default difficulty leaves plenty of room for experimentation.
Our devs have done a lot of combat balance testing while on teams. There’s always more to improve, but missions like Prize Crew are now quite fun for any team size… and quite challenging, if the team leader turns the difficulty up. Do not expect to succeed on the higher difficulties without dying a bunch!
Enemies on default settings aren't too bad, though.
Teaming has its benefits
It takes time to form a team, and coordination gets harder the bigger the team is. So the total experience, dust, and items earned are modestly increased the larger the team is. The number of team members determining your bonus is shown under your health bar. Mouse over it to see your team boost.
It's satisfying to see the number go up as the team grows.
Leaders get extra rewards
Team leaders get a slightly larger bonus than team members on the same size of team, but they also have more responsibilities. In raids, the team leaders report to a league leader, who gets another small boost, as thanks for organizing the entire raid. Again, the goal is to balance the reward with the extra effort of managing a group. Leaders can also transfer leadership, set the mission’s difficulty for everyone, kick troublemakers from their team or league, and teleport everyone in the same map to their location to help keep things organized.
Raid leaders get additional extra powers.
"Time to run!"
You can team up with anyone thanks to sidekicking and mentoring
Team members of different levels are raised or lowered to one level away from the leader, so every player can make a difference. If you are sidekicked, your number of powers does not increase but the powers you do have do more damage.
Team leaders set the mission difficulty for everyone in General Settings. The difficulty level must be set before you enter the instance. This setting adjusts not only the difficulty, but the rewards. Greater challenge, greater rewards.
Each level of difficulty is a big change.
Your reputation matters
There’s no matchmaking system in SoH, intentionally. Most teams will be formed by talking in broadcast chat or within your supergroup. This design makes it harder to silently speedrun missions with strangers. It encourages making friends organically by doing missions together. Friendly behavior will give you more people who’ll want to do other missions with you later. The SoH community is amazingly nice and helpful overall.
"If Gold is here to tank, we can focus on maximum damage."
Inviting players to your team
There are several ways to invite people to a team:
• You can click the social button under the compass at the top of the screen to see and invite anyone nearby.
• Right-click on a player, or on a targeted player’s portrait in the upper-right, to invite that person.
• For distant players, you can type the chat command /invite with the target’s name instead.
The other options are all useful, too.
A world designed for teaming
Ever felt that the rooms were too big when playing solo? Now imagine the same room with 10 players, their pets, and a matching number of enemies. Or better yet, try it. It could be quite crowded.
"You could fit a whole football team in here... and they will, on higher difficulties!"
Where is the rest of my team?
As a team member, you can find your team on the map (Press M) and the minimap; they are the little green dots. But instead of running back to them, you can use the universal power Regroup to teleport back to your team leader.
The team leader also automatically has the Assemble power to gather his or her team to them.
Some universal powers are just for fun, but others are critical.
Different builds and powers are better for solo or for teaming
Every possible hero has some ability to fight alone, and some ability to fight on a normal team, but even within the same powersets, some are much better at one playstyle. For example, AoE powers like Fireball and Flash of Insight are very strong on a big team, with many allies to buff or heal and enemies to burn at once. But single-target powers like Plasma Bolt and Jinxed are great in intense solo fights.
Aiming heals where the team will be in two seconds takes some skill.
It’s easy to follow the story as a team member
Unless you choose to disable voiceover audio, you’ll hear the mission contact’s spoken dialog from anywhere in the game, even if the team leader walks away. In addition, each spoken line is recorded in the special dialog tab of the chat window, so you can read it at any time.
Future Developments
We hope to add options to directly invite people in your supergroup, the SoH name for guilds, and in your friends list. But for now, the other three methods all work.
We also have more QoL improvements queued up for release.
"A glowing enemy? Everyone, use some infusions!"