[csours]

Yes, I switched teams at work to be on a high-performing team. All the high performing people left the team for one reason or another. I still felt like there were interesting problems to solve, but my outlook became rather depressed for a while.

I don't know whether I should have stayed around after the high-performers left.

[otoburb]

The next best thing I miss from online team games was training newbies and seeing them perform at a high level (over time). The conversion rate was very low (20-25%), but if I'm being honest that made the reward all the sweeter.

However, I appreciate and understand that work place dynamics are the real world where external factors can play outsized roles and "performance" is often much harder to measure directly.