Opinion: teaming is a good part of this game

I don't really use reddit, but I know that it has the stereotype of hive-minding against people and downvoting them into oblivion, so I give this as a reminder that this is just my opinion. you are perfectly within your right to disagree with me, and me disagreeing with your opinion on the game isn't a personal attack against you, so don't take it like that and bury what I have to say with downvotes just because you personally dislike teaming please.

I have been playing this game since early 2018, so over 6 years now, and have always loved the game for what it was and the niche it fits in gaming. I have also had many friends that have played this game, as well as used the in game text chat all the time to chat to people. From my experience with the majority of the games player base, it seems like most of them either like or don't mind teaming, with a vocal minority being very outspoken against it. However looking at this subreddit, I see that most people here seem to be part of the minority that dislike teaming. I will not speculate on the reasons as to why this is the case, I only wish to point it out as I am worried that the developers will get a warped view of the communities views on teaming from this reddit, and might try to implement a feature in the future to ban it.

firstly I would like to start by making a suggestion to the dev team on the odd chance that they see this. Although I wouldn't personally like it, if you guys are ever planning on removing teaming from the game, and want to gauge the communities interest in that with a poll, please do the poll in the game, and not on the subreddit, since it would give a much more accurate view of what the player base wants, since the active users of this subreddit make up far far less than 1% of the total players.

Now onto the reasons I'm probably going to get some pushback for this post; why I think teaming is actually a good part of the game. Teaming in this game is something that every single person who has played this game has had to deal with. Whether its through being on a team, or getting teamed on, there is most likely not a single player of this game that has not dealt with teaming at one point. The reason for this is how this game is designed. Although I absolutely love this game, the combat in it is very trivial in design, with it often being 2 animals bumping into each other, and the stronger one wining. The nuance comes from how situational every single fight is, where the amount of health you are on leading into the fight, the amount of boosts, the environment, and the people around you determine how every fight goes, with the biggest part being the animals around you. Situational awareness is the name of the game in deeeep, and in the majority of cases the winner of a 1v1 isn't either of the people fighting, but the person who 3rd parties the fight. This game design fundamentally rewards teaming, since most fights are decided before the first hit is even dished out, making them less mechanical and more strategic, having those who would 3rd party you instead be an ally of you and help you win the fight is the natural development of the game. This is why teaming is so much more common in deeeep than almost any other game I've ever played, even other games that don't punish teaming. Intentionally or not, deeeep is a game that is basically designed for teaming. And playing deeeep without making allies is kind of like playing stellaris or hearts of iron without teaming. You can do it if you want, but it feels counter intuitive to be mad at those who did team for beating you.

Another thing to consider is that certain animals in this game are basically designed for teaming. Take the stonefish for example, the animal that I main. The stonefish has very low health, and damage, with the point in its playstyle being slowly leaching your enemies of health when winning, and being able to escape almost any situation when losing. Due to the stonefish's weakness, it almost never starts fights with full HP animals, and basically exists to 3rd party fights. An animal like this basically forces you to team with it, since it benefits off of being around you to attack in your fights, and is sneaky enough to avoid you killing it, there are many situations where you will end up pseudo-teaming with a stonefish regardless of if you want to or not. If this game was just giant squids, whales, and cachalots, the argument for banning teaming would be a lot stronger, but there are so many animals in this game who's playstyle isn't direct combat with everyone, and they would become borderline unplayable if the game turned every interaction into a strict 1v1.

Now I know it can be annoying to get killed by teamers, but if we are to take a step back and think; what is the alternative, I think most people would quickly realize that any restriction wouldn't be feasible. If an orca and a whale swim past each other in the ocean, and neither decide to fight because they both don't want to take the risk, is that teaming, and should that be banned? I think most people would say that isn't teaming, but now imagine if they do decide to fight, and an alligator comes across the fight and decides to help the orca kill the whale since the whale has higher xp, and after the fight the crocodile leaves the orca alone since he doesn't want the fight, now is it teaming? my point in this paragraph is that what counts as teaming and what doesn't isn't a clear line in a game where most t10 interactions result in no attack occurring, and trying to restrict teaming will either be ineffective, or force you to take fights you don't want to in fear of being banned for teaming.

My last point is the different game modes in this game. I have seen a lot of people saying "teaming shouldn't exist in FFA since TFFA exists for that" and although I understand where they are coming from, I think it is a big misguided. The same point could be brought against people who are anti-teaming, since they seem to want all fights to be 1v1s instead of 2v1s or more, there is also a game mode for that. Also to add to that point, 1v1 has an EU server, but TFFA doesn't, which means for EU players who hate teaming, they can always play 1v1, but EU players that like teaming can't really play TFFA, so FFA is their only option. This point only applies to EU and not to NA, but I thought I should include it anyway. Lastly teaming in TFFA and teaming in FFA are fundamentally different experiences. When you team in TFFA, you are actually on a team, but in FFA, you are just around animals who haven't attacked you. The nuance of accidentally hitting your own teammates, knowing who you can and can't trust, and having to deal with infighting is probably my favorite part of deeeep, and these are factors which the strictness of TFFA's teams removes, with teams being a thing you have to manually join, and teamkilling disabled.

I would like to thank anyone who read everything I had to say. Regardless of if you agree with me or not, I appreciate you taking the time to hear my 2 cents on the situation, and hope that any disagreement can be voiced civilly in the replies. At the end of the day we are all just gamers who love a game, and there is no reason to turn to snarky comments against each other for a difference of opinions on how the game is played.

Last thing, I would ask that anyone who is replying to this please actually read what I have said before replying, and don't just jump into the replies to call me wrong and farm upvotes.