Author's Note
Teaming used to be a huge strategy, however, with the recent update to the game, anti-teaming mechanisms have been added. This does not make teaming impossible, just extremely hard. The guide below is pretty outdated now and the newer guide will be posted underneath it. Basically the new mechanism causes you to lose 100 mass/sec when doing one of the following activities:
--Rapid exchange of mass between 2 players (rapid pressing of "W")
--Eating a virus and feeding someone your loose mass (Virus farming = impossible)
--Cross teaming in teams mode
Ultimately this will remove most noobs from the teaming scene but I'll post new guides once I have this figured out. My idea is that teaming is only possible now with single splits. That means that you and your teammate both split ONCE and feed the smaller parts to each other maintaining about the same size while still having the benefit of being in one piece. One piece of you should not be enough to activate the teaming tax as it basically mimics what happens when one cell is chasing another one. I will have to do research in the meantime but when I'm back I'll make a new guide underneath this one. The strategies section still applies and can still be used.
LIyang's guide to teaming in FFA
If you are on this page you are probably wondering what teaming is, or for some older players, you may understand teaming and are here to learn exactly how to do it. If you understand teaming, you can skip the following paragraph as I will be explaining the concept to people who don't understand it.
So, what is teaming? The best way I can explain it is when two cells become one. This may seem confusing at first so I suggest you watch this video to understand. If you watched the video I'm sure teaming needs no further explanation. To those who did not, a better explanation for teaming is when two cells who agree not to eat each other help each other out instead. This help takes the form of, ironically, eating the other person. However, you only consume part of the other person. In other words, two cells become one cell that can split indefinitely and come together whenever they want. Once again I say to watch the video because a picture is worth a thousand words.
How do I do it?
So now you are probably wondering, "How can I achieve this?". Anyone who has played this game for a decent amount of time will have seen teams in action and evidently, that is what has led you to research this topic. Contrary to some people thinking that those who team are noobs and have no skill whatsoever, anyone who has ever tried to team can understand that it is not easy. In fact, most people who try to team are only doing it because they saw a team on top of the leader boards. Because of the amounts of bad teams I see, I am making this tutorial to show you what a good team should do and why they are on top of the leader boards when you're not.
The first step in teaming is obviously finding a teammate. This is not an easy process because most people really don't understand the concept and so most people end up wasting their mass trying to team with complete noobs who have no idea how to play the game. The two rules you should follow while trying to find a team is to team with people your own size and only have one teammate. Allow me to repeat ONLY TEAM WITH PEOPLE YOUR OWN SIZE AND ONLY HAVE 1 TEAMMATE. The reason is quite simple. Someone who is too small will not be any good to you because you have to feed them so that they can eat you. This makes both of you vulnerable because you will both be smaller than you were originally. The only time you should team with someone smaller is if you know they're good. The second rule is only have one teammate. Once you get big, everyone will be throwing mass at you. Don't team with them. They only want to team with you because you are big. In other words, they want to leech off of your success. Don't pay attention to them, be a jerk and murder them if they are worth it.
Strategy
Okay so the most important part of teaming is the strategy. I'm going to go over most of the main ones and maybe some more obscure ones could be added later. I will split the section into advanced and basic strategies. I recommend you practice the basic ones before the advanced ones. Most of these I learned in one game from an extremely good player. I can say that I was a huge noob at the time. After practicing these, I found that my skill increased dramatically.
Shooting Viruses: These are huge and will help you and your teammate a lot. If you don't know how to aim viruses or are just bad, I suggest you practice in an FFA game. Get to 300ish mass and then locate the really big people. Shoot some viruses at them. Notice the distance the viruses travel and also keep in mind the distance you travel to them. Most people make the huge mistake of accidentally hitting the virus they're shooting at after it's been cloned. This usually leads to your untimely death. The more advanced strategy that you can try is the split shot. You split off to the side and spam "W" usually giving the other person no time to react. This should only be done with a teammate, however, because split in half you most likely cannot eat the person you just shot the virus at.
The split feed: This is a common strategy and really easy to pull off. When your teammate is on someone their own size, most noobs will start spamming "W" at their teammate hoping to grow them big enough to eat the other person. This is a terrible way to go about it because the mass may be missed and the other person may get some. A much better way is the split feed. All you have to do is press space when your teammate is closer to you than the opponent. If the opponent is closer, you will feed the opponent. This should be pretty obvious to you. After you split half your mass into your teammate, they will usually be big enough to eat the other person leading to both of you gaining a lot of mass. The split feed can also be used TO HELP YOUR TEAMMATE GET INTO SPLIT SIZE. This is usually what distinguishes the good from the bad. If a good player sees that their teammate is not big enough to split and eat another cell, and are close enough, they will feed mass to them with a split to MAKE THEM LARGE ENOUGH TO SPLIT ONTO ANOTHER CELL. This is huge. You must be able to notice the opportunities that are presented to you and your teammate. Your teammate should also be smart enough to notice what you are doing. Getting them into the right mass for the split usually coincides with the next advanced strategy. The more advanced strategy for this one is the double split. It is the same thing as a split feed except you quickly press space twice, feeding your teammate 75% of your mass when you are BIGGER then them. This is the biggie. When you are bigger and capable of eating your teammate, you double split so that the part that is already coming out splits again making it the perfect size for your teammate to eat. I know that I've spent a lot of time on these splitting strategies, but they are extremely important and you should know them.
Sacrificing: This is not as much of a strategy as something you should be aware of. When you are smaller than your teammate your main goal should be to protect your teammate. This includes sacrificing your mass and body for your teammate. The most general form that this takes on is when your teammate is trying to escape a bigger cell. If there is a virus in the way, take it for your teammate. You can always give the loose mass to your teammate.
Abstract Strategies
Here is for anyone who has a strategy/idea. Feel free to post it here and/or ask about ideas in the comments. I will try to be as active as possible. Also, I will be adding more topics later. Many Thanks to the contributor underneath me. I think they described it extremely well and that you should read it.
A Wikia Contributor's add on :)
Basics of Teaming
- Teams gain mass only by eating other cells. You will split an arbitrary amount of times (within the limit of course) to eat as many other cells as possible. Once you are done splitting, you will feed all of your individual cells except one to your teammate. Your teammate will (hopefully) eject enough mass to fairly distribute the mass gain. Or, your teammate will split multiple times and feed you most of their mass. You can also eat as many viruses as you can if the conditions are met (see virus section [1]) before feeding your mass to your teammate.
- Teams will help each other with viruses. When your teammate is being chased by a cell much larger than your team's combined mass, you can feed a virus into the enemy cell or eat viruses obstructing the escape path of your teammate. Or you can eat viruses to gain mass if in a position to do so. When your teammate is split by a virus, they should let you eat all of their "loose mass" (all of their mass except for their biggest cell.).
- I do not agree LIyang when it comes to the amount of team members. I suggest having 1-3 teammates (excluding you). More team members mean more possibilities regarding viruses and other cells in different directions. However, having too many teammates will be difficult to manage, and having a civil war would be a high possibility at all times.
Additional notes:
- Watch out for "Loose Teaming". I describe loose teaming as two large teams trading a little bit of mass. When they do so, it is most likely a peace treaty rather than a full-on team invitation. If you feed a lot of your mass to another team, they will likely eat your whole team and feed the mass gain to their own teammate(s).
- A team member can be a lot more valuable than the one time mass gain that eating a cell will provide. These people will eat you at the first chance they get, and may even trade mass with you to fool you into thinking that you have a team with them. Stay alert for suspicious actions that your possible teammate makes (i.e. splitting very close to you when they have more than twice your mass, not giving back most of your mass after you give some mass to them, etc.)
- Don't team when your mass is below 750. When your team is small, exchanging mass via ejecting mass is very difficult due to the high maneuverability of your cells, hence often missing with your ejected mass and letting other cells eat it up. There is also a high risk of both of you being eaten, as two medium-sized cells hanging near each other make a very good target for a large cell.