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[Poll] Preferred gameplay styles (solo vs group)
sifudoja
Member Posts: 142
I wanted to get an idea of what everyone thinks about this. What is your preferred gameplay style, and if a new game was being made, which styles would you rather have the game designed around.
By this i mean, which content should the game have, and also which should be more successful overall, and which should be favored, having greater rewards such as gear, reputation or skills, whatever the game uses for rewards to progress your character.
Comments
I voted for Solo + small group (4th option) but solo preferred.
I became sort of weary of raid and heavy progression based games. I don't like the 'stress' it brings to the game. Not that I mind a raid, but it has to be pretty zerg-like and not much strategy involved, keep it simple, and I'll join for fun maybe, you know.
Just log on and play a bit solo or group if I see someone that wants to join up, you know. I guess I'm a 'casual' gamer now
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I haven't had the best experiences with grouping and raiding in the past few games i've played, but i would prefer 3, having both styles equal and giving the players the freedom to do what they enjoy most, not for the loot but for the reward of enjoying the gameplay itself.
I've spent alot of time lately soloing, but i still love to group just as much, just not with anyone who i come across though. I enjoy to group with actual friends, and share the game with people i enjoy having around. I don't like forced grouping at all, and i hate when games make it so that you can't succeed without raiding or leeching off of guildmates in order to progress. I also don't when games reward people based on how much time they spend raiding regardless of how good they actually are at playing the game or how much work they trully put into it, and allow guilds to run their 7 year old sisters through all the content and give them an advantage over other players who don't particularly enjoy grouping.
If niether style is favored, people are allowed to play the way they enjoy, and are rewarded for doing so with the enjoyment they get doing it, instead of doing what the game makers lead you to do by placing superior rewards at the end of certain tasks. I will always enjoy soloing and grouping with friends both, but i don't think anyone should be less successful if they work just as hard regardless of which gameplay style they choose.
after farming wow for over 1 year i have no need nor want to raid every again...its not for me....big reason i cant wait for war is the lack of raids that will be happening and since it is pvp mostly game i will feel right at home
In my opinion, most games don't do group content and leveling well. So I go for solo content. The only game I played that had good group content in my opinion was guild wars.
There's no option for me. *cries*
I like small - medium sized groups. I don't like to solo much (I do like some solo content, just not leveling), and I do not like 'raids'.
I think most mmo's should have lots of group work in it. That is kind of the point of playing online, to play with other people. Some of my favorite times playing an mmo was grouping in FFXI, but it does have more then its share of downsides.....I used to have dreams about sitting around in FFXI waiting for a group..... but when everything came together it was great most of the time.
My opinion matters to everyone...
Is it? I don't know.
Maybe some just want to chat in an mmo and group when the possiblity is there, but solo mostly. Maybe some just like being in a big living world.
I'm not a big fan of the 'forced grouping' and 'meaningful content' "stuff". There's a market for casual games that too, they can be challenging too, and have a good story, they don't have to be WoW clones really. Not everyone want to group / raid all time.
I didn't vote, because I think you're asking the wrong question (at least for me).
On any day of the week, I'd prefer to engage MMO content in a group., hands down.
The problem is GETTING a group. Game developers are lazy about this. They have no problem throwing canned "group" quests or content at you, but they provide no fluid mechanism for finding a group to do it or getting the group together in the same place once it is assembled.
In my opinion, group content should draw players to it, so that when you find yourself facing it, you can't help but have others around you doing the same thing. Do I know how this could be done? NO! But I don't get paid to come up with such ideas....I pay for other people to come up with them.
Ok, I'll take a crack at it:
Currently, group quests are typically doled out by quest NPCs that just happen to be dispersed around the environment. You get the quest as a solo player, and then you need to find other players to do it with you.
I think it should be the other way around. FIRST, you form a group. THEN, the quests find you when you say you're ready.
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
I would like to see what could be accomplished with a new game designed from the ground up with no raiding content. If all the time and attention spent on raids went into FUN solo and small group content, it could be a mighty fine game. I have nothing against raids personally, but spend the vast majority of my MMO time soloing or in smallish groups. Solo content seems to be added as an afterthought in most games after the masses demand it
And, as always I disagree that if someone wants to solo they do not belong in an MMO! Soloing in a living, interactive world with real people is very different than playing a scripted single player RPG. Plus, there is always the option to group when willing and able. When grouping/raiding is pretty much forced, I soon move to another world.
I totally agree with the people who say playing mmo's is not for the sole purpose of grouping. MMOs are also for the purpose of playing in a semi dynamic player driven world, regardless of which gameplay style you choose to play. I could spend every day of the rest of my life inside my house playing videogames, and even if i never saw another human being again, it would be alot better than living on the moon. There are billions of things other people on earth do that indirectly affects my life and makes the world a better place to live.
I also don't think it's fair to push people to group against thier will, for the purpose of giving the people who prefer to group someone to play with. I don't enjoy grouping with strangers and don't get along with everyone in the world. Grouping is great when i'm grouping with people i like. But if you don't have friends to play with, it isn't the games fault. If you have good social skills and treat people well, as long as a game doesn't push everyone into guilds for the sake of progression, you shouldn't have any problems finding like minded people who also enjoy grouping that you can play the game with.
Dippy11, sorry for the poor selection of choices. I was sort of thinking small group / solo covered that choice, being that the content would be soloable, but there is still room for small groups to do the same content at a faster rate. And if you meant unsoloable content that required more than one person to be possible, that it would fall under the group / raid selection. Anyways your post still made the point very well, and even if the poll doesn't reflect it, the actual posts will say alot more. Thanks for sharing your opinion, i wish i would have made a better poll i guess, at least it's better than the last one of it's kind that i took part in where there were only two choices, Raid / Group content only or Solo and Group / Raid content. Guess i overlooked the fact people may enjoy grouping and not enjoy raiding at all. Sorry about that.
It always boggles me when people do try to play that "if you want to solo don't play an MMO".
The biggest MMO in existence.. isn't WoW... its caled LIFE.
When I walk outside most people I see.. I don't want to "group" with.
In the real world when I want to be social... I don't just walk up to random strangers.. and say.. let's go kill some rats in the sewer... (well I did that once but.. it didn't go over to well).
I mean you get to know people etc... its called being "social". The problem with MMO imho is that they try to force people who aren't compatitble into groups.
I like to solo.. I like to duo.. if I can find a "good" group I like to group. Heck I don't even mind raiding if the people are fun.
If the group sucks or people aren't fun.. yes I want to solo.
I don't think it should be a mystery.. that people would feel that way. I tend to shut off general chat in games because it makes my IQ drop and I don't have much to give away. Honestly when I look at general chat in most games.. I wonder how anyone would want to possibly group with a large portion of an MMO's population.
I don't really have a "preferred" play style...
I do believe.. that an MMO should support all manner of play styles.
That's a really good point too. All things being equal, i don't really have a preferred gameplay style either, but the important thing to me is the freedom to play as i choose, and not be a failure in the game for doing so. This is kinda what i meant with choice 3. Both being in the game and being equal in terms of progression and success , and not making one or the other a better path to reach the goal at the end.
I like 2 person teams. and content that requires 8 or fewer people.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I hate games where you HAVE to find groups to develop your character. I enjoy grouping but devs shouldnt make it mandatory
If grouping isn't slightly more rewarding than solo play, people will not do it. It's that simple.
Therefore, I vote for both solo and group content, with groups favored.
There are plenty of raiding games to choose from -- I don't think we need any more of that nonsense.
Chronicles of Spellborn will be what you are looking for then.
Originally posted by Antarious
The biggest MMO in existence.. isn't WoW... its called LIFE.
When I walk outside most people I see.. I don't want to "group" with.
Good point.
In my opinion you shouldn't be forced to do anything in a game. If you want to solo, do so; if you want to group, do so. However I don't think we'll such a game for some time, most games now are farmfests that force you to play either group or solo. I voted for 4th alternative as that is the thing I prefer. It's fun to group and all that, but sometimes you don't got anyone to group with or don't want to and then it's always good with some solo content.
I chose the first option, solo+small group favored, but honestly I don't want raids to be in the game at all. Because I don't believe devs would put raiding in unless they intended to show favortism towards raiding.
I could live with the "everything is equal" option if it really worked out that way. I just don't believe that it ever would. Because who in their right mind would put up with the miserable, boring, tedious, headache of raiding if they didn't have to?
When it comes to solo and small group play I mostly prefer small groups over solo. Solo definately needs to be an option but I think things should just be a little easier if you group.
With grouping the big drawback, of course, is finding a group. The ideal thing for me would be if I could log in and pretty quickly hook up with some people and have fun without a lot of BS. I remember back in the early days of EQ (before any of the expansions) it was like that for the most part. You could log in and go to the nearest popular hunting spot and usually get in a group pretty quickly. Oh, there were bad nights when you didn't have any luck but usually I didn't have much problem finding groups, and I wasn't playing one of the highly desirable classes (warrior, cleric, or enchanter).
The early days of EQ were almost like casual grouping really. You didn't need to plan ahead. You didn't need to get people from your guild to agree to go to such-and-such place. You just had to show up in a zone and announce that you were LFG and you could usually hook up with some people in just a minute or two. That was fun. Even though the game was shallow and probably did incalculable damage to the genre I really do miss those days when it was just simple fun.
I didn't vote because you didn't have the right option available for me.
Solo only, no grouping at preferred.
Seriously, unless I'm playing with RL friends, I have no desire to group, ever in MMOs. This is not to say that I have never grouped (I have, lots) or that I have not enjoyed my grouping experiences (some good, some bad). It's just that, for some reason, I am utterly resentful to ever being forced to group, even once, for any iota of content. It just bugs the shit out of me.
For example, I played City of Heroes for three solid years and did only 2 task forces, one of which was required for respecs. If they had had a solo option for them, I would've done them all, many times. And City of Heroes is extremely flexible for solo vs group play, moreso than any other MMO I've played.
Look, if you are the type of player that prefers grouping, great! But I fail to understand why forced grouping is so commonplace in MMOs today. I've seen the argument: "If you don't force people to group, they won't". Doesn't this imply that people would, given the choice, rather solo?
How many times have you seen an MMO released only to say in future patches "we are adding more solo content".
Lack of soloability is why I quit Wow at level 70, it's why I quit LOTRO, why I will never play Fury, and so forth. Make stuff scale, whatever, but make games (MMO games!) that can be completely and totally soloed. That's my wish, anyway.
P.S. - For those who might say "why play MMOs to solo?", there are tons of reasons.
Solo content hands down. I want to explore and have such an open terrain that I feel like when I have found some dungeon off in the middle of nowhere I am the first to have ever been there. Mind you there may be a 3 page walkthrough about it on a webpage somewhere, but if I don't read the web pages I feel like I am accomplishing something on my own. I used to love Asheron's Call for that very reason. And instancing sucks. If you are having a problem with people camping that new dungeon, then make the quest unrepeatable and make the boss only drop its whatever for flagged chars. There's lots of ways to work around that kind of issue...instancing just sucks.
I don't agree with the statement that if grouping isn't rewarded better than soloing, that noone would do it.
First off, if that were the case it wouldn't be a problem anyways. If people have the freedom to do as they like and NOONE grouped, then at least everyone would be happy doing what they like. But that simply isn't the case. Lots of people group and play with other people because it is fun. Even raiding is fun when you do it with people you like, raids are epic, and if the game does it right that epicness is reward enough to get you to do that. Anyways, look at games like Oblivion, a totally single player game, but tons of people still wanted to have the multiplayer aspect added to the game and followed the multiplayer mod being developed for it for quite some time, hoping someday they would be allowed to play a great game and share it with thier friends. You definatley can't say that a single player game requires grouping, but people still want to.
This is not preschool, and we don't need the teacher to pair us up. Noone should ever have to pay $15 a month and then sacrifice thier freedom so that some other players will have someone to group with. If you don't have anyone to play with, then you have to go that extra mile to make new friends. It isn't the devs responsibility nor the other players to make sure you have a group. Your $15 entitles you the right to access the game and have the opportunity, but 15 bucks does not cover access and friend rental fees.
Anyone remember that movie ''The Toy '' starring Richard Pryor? Wonderwheel! Yeah, not how mmos should be designed. I don't care how much money you spend, if you want friends you are going to have to learn to treat people right, and learn social skills. Maybe if you pay other people sub fees for them they will at least pretend to be your friend and play the game with you sometimes. But i pay my own fee, and don't want to group with people i don't like just to succeed.
Truthfully, if games didn't force grouping, then the LFG channels and interfaces wouldn't be cluttered with people trying to get rewards and it would probably be alot easier to find like minded group preferring players because they would still be there while the rest of the people wouldn't bother, so if you ask me forced grouping is what causes the problems finding groups to begin with, and not only that but it also funnels tons of people who don't really even want to be there into your groups which makes it so hard to find a ''good'' group.
I solo much more than group, but like both (when the group is decent.)
That said, I don't have a problem with elements of a game being group only. The existence of uber bosses that require groups to bring them down adds depth to the world. And, a well-organized group should be rewarded for taking down a hard boss, because it is an accomplishment to get 5+ people working together.
I think the real problem comes into play when characters developed through group play have access to items/skills that are inaccessible to solo players, and solo players wind up as the stepchildren. If you have to have instances, I would like to see a series of solo instances at "end-game" that parallel raid instances. Give solo players their own challenges with comparable rewards - places you can only enter solo. Make the objectives require a great deal of skill and thinking, rather than spamming a few class-specific skills in a crowd of other players. I think raids/group dungeons and high level solo content can coexist. It's just that it would require twice the effort (expense) on the part of the developers.
And, I definitely agree that MMOs are great for soloing. Something about having other humans roaming about makes the world breathe, even if you don't interact with every single one.
I don't have an issue with 'grouping' with players to play a game. I rather enjoy seeing how combo's of certain character classes work together.
I do dislike 'forced group' gameplay. And really... I hate PUG'ing. Grouping isn't bad.... but PUG's... no thanks.
I'm sure there are thousands/millions of great people out there that play the game(s) I play(ed), but they seem to be more and more difficult to find.
I typically run into the child who has been turned over to the MMORPG (the MMO now being the babysitter) OR I stumble across the very young player who doesn't know anything about the game... and so they hound me for the rest of my days, each and every time I log in, just to chat and/or show them where things are. No thanks, in either circumstance.
Then there are times when I really need a group, but all I see in open chat are discussions of 'mothers', 'Chuck Norris', 'how g@y or stupid some other random player is', 'how much more uber some random player is than anyone else... and their mom... or dad... or their mom's dad'. So, I avoid even asking for help.
I know there's no way to do it, but there really should be a way to filter levels of maturity. Anyway...
The hatred for PUG's has resulted in... owning several accounts. I run myself through instances... using my high level character to pull my low level character(s) along.
Overall... I would say that I 'prefer' group play, but I rarely get to enjoy it... unless it's when I group my own alts.
I voted for option 4. I don't think any type of gamer should be favoured over the others. There's nothing wrong with people being able to do whatever they want to in a game. If I like a game but want to solo, I should be allowed to. If I want to group, I should be able to do that too. Swapping and changing between the two depending on my mood also adds to convenience. Of course, quite a bit of content will need to be added in order to keep players from getting bored - meaning that two birds are sort of killed with one stone. We are ensured many things to do, and we have the freedom to choose how we want to play.