Forced Grouping

Vicatin

After all, these games genre's are considered to be massive, and multiplayer, so why so many instances?

 

Is there ever going to be a game released where grouping is required? I am somewhat tired of soloing to max level, running errand after errand for exp.

 

I dont mind zones, but instanced zones that have caps on the amount of players in them is just pitiful. It isnt massive at all. If you ever played EQ1, you will know what i mean.

 

It really is difficult to produce a game that i am describing now days. Due to the success of WoW, all other mmo developers seem to cater to this population that wants things handed to them, and a hand that guides them along their merry way through a trail of boring quests.

Quests are fine, but really, gathering 5 flowers, and then bringing them back to whomever requested them is just dull. Give us fewer quests; quests that actually count. IMO grinding in a group that relies on tanking, dps, healing, and crowd control, is much better than grinding through quests by yourself all day. Throw in the occasional named mob that drops loot that can be traded, even after wearing it, and you got yourself an MMO.

If anyone agrees with me, give me some feedback. If you disagree, flame on!

JimmyLegs

I'm not sure how it is today, but FFXI was indeed forced grouping from about lv8-10, depending on your class, to level 75. If you want to be in a group in order to level up and get through the game FFXI is the best option I would say. As long as it's still not the massive time sink and bad economy (I read that they fixed up the economy so that is a major plus if it is true).

nethervoid

Agree.  Maybe just make more quests group related after the first 10 or so levels.  Also for equipment to be tradeable after you use it, it would have to have durability and eventually break.

deviliscious

Most games allow for grouping, and require grouping as it is to do more difficult tasks in games. No matter how "forced " grouping is in a game you cannot force people to group with players they do not like. Maybe this is a personality issue. I have never had problems finding groups in games, I do have problems trying to get people that get on my nerves to go away. I would never wish anyone to be forced to group with some potty mouthed lil kid who thinks he is all big and bad.. I wouldn;t wish that on my worst enemy. So forcing people to group randomly would kill a game. Players need freedom, not be led around and told what to do. If you are having trouble finding groups, you have to speak up not just stand there and expect them to come to you. If you have personality issues that makes everyone not want to group with you , take a good look at yourself and see if there is something that you are doing that is putting people off, if so try to help yourself. No one wants to be grouped with whiners, complainers, little kids,  potty mouths, creeps, or people that never talk either.. so it is up to you to change, don;t expect the games to force everyone to talk to you, because it isn;t going to happen.

Vicatin

Originally posted by nethervoid


Agree.  Maybe just make more quests group related after the first 10 or so levels.  Also for equipment to be tradeable after you use it, it would have to have durability and eventually break.

Totally agree.

 

I think item decay is a good thing; a real thing.

But make it so the items last quite some time. Im talking at least 200 hrs of axe time. So that when you sell an item, its kind of like selling a car. But instead of asking how many miles are on it, you ask the durability. No repairing, just find the sweet spot where the item can go through 2-3 hands before its finally been wore to hell and breaks. I would love to hand down my half-beat-to-shit gear to some buddies or guildies, and let them use it.

Vicatin

Originally posted by deviliscious


Most games allow for grouping, and require grouping as it is to do more difficult tasks in games. No matter how "forced " grouping is in a game you cannot force people to group with players they do not like. Maybe this is a personality issue. I have never had problems finding groups in games, I do have problems trying to get people that get on my nerves to go away. I would never wish anyone to be forced to group with some potty mouthed lil kid who thinks he is all big and bad.. I wouldn;t wish that on my worst enemy. So forcing people to group randomly would kill a game. Players need freedom, not be led around and told what to do. If you are having trouble finding groups, you have to speak up not just stand there and expect them to come to you. If you have personality issues that makes everyone not want to group with you , take a good look at yourself and see if there is something that you are doing that is putting people off, if so try to help yourself. No one wants to be grouped with whiners, complainers, little kids,  potty mouths, creeps, or people that never talk either.. so it is up to you to change, don;t expect the games to force everyone to talk to you, because it isn;t going to happen.

I think you misunderstood.

I am not vouching for a computer program to shove you into a group with no option of leaving, and letting this 12 year old talk about your mother. Im talking about making content so difficult, that most of it is impossible to solo, so that you must round up some buddies in order to tackle it.

 

ianubisi

Social people will find other social people. A game does not have to require this interaction, it occurs all by itself.

If you can't find people to play with you have to ask yourself what it is about your personality that causes it to be so.

deviliscious

I disagree. sometimes people like to group sometimes they want to be left alone. even the most outgoing person gets sick of people sometimes. Now see when I start a game all I have to do is type once" I am new i don't know what I am doing on this game!!! can anyone help me? " and I have 50 people pming me wanting me to go do stuff with them. It may be in your wording, if you just say " looking for group " mostly you get  ignored, if you say " I wanna go beat the snot out of some monsters who wants to go?" people are more likely to respond.  You should not "have " to round up buddies to go, people should have the option to go with friends or not. That way you actually have people in your group that want to do things, not people that are pissed off because they feel it was forced upon them.

Sovrath

Originally posted by Vicatin


After all, these games genre's are considered to be massive, and multiplayer, so why so many instances?
 
Is there ever going to be a game released where grouping is required? I am somewhat tired of soloing to max level, running errand after errand for exp.
 
I dont mind zones, but instanced zones that have caps on the amount of players in them is just pitiful. It isnt massive at all. If you ever played EQ1, you will know what i mean.
 
It really is difficult to produce a game that i am describing now days. Due to the success of WoW, all other mmo developers seem to cater to this population that wants things handed to them, and a hand that guides them along their merry way through a trail of boring quests.
Quests are fine, but really, gathering 5 flowers, and then bringing them back to whomever requested them is just dull. Give us fewer quests; quests that actually count. IMO grinding in a group that relies on tanking, dps, healing, and crowd control, is much better than grinding through quests by yourself all day. Throw in the occasional named mob that drops loot that can be traded, even after wearing it, and you got yourself an MMO.
If anyone agrees with me, give me some feedback. If you disagree, flame on!

Well, I don't think you need to be flamed and I certainly commiserate with your plight, however I think you have a few things wrong and I also think your tone is rather condescending and dismissive as you make certain assumptions that to my mind are just not true.

Players are not looking for things to be handed to them. They are looking for "light" entertainment. A game such as WoW easily caters to casual, generally "non gamer", players who just want to sign in for a short bit, have an adventure or two and sign out.

A good many of these players are NOT looking to live in a world, spend hours looking for groups and have to deal with players (once they get the group) that are less than stellar.

So because of this WoW is popular. No worries, it's all good. There are certainly other games out there.

However, there have been many other games made that did cater to more hardcore or in some cases, more tradtional gameplay and no one played them. Ryzom comes to mind. Heck, Vanguard, though it has issues, is very playable now. Final Fantasy? DAOC perhaps?

But game players are very fickle and have short attention spans it seems. If the game is not their idea of "the perfect game" they say "what else is there?".

This makes it very hard for developers because they have a lot riding on each game. In order to mitigate possible tragedy they try to cater to all but definitely cater to players who they know might not be as fickle.

I bet your company makes the same decsions every day no?

Find one of the older games or one of the recent games that are a bit group oriented and just play them. There are more games coming out each year and eventually you will find something that is a better fit.

However, it's like any relationship, there is good and there is bad and you need to just come to terms with the bad or move on.

Meanwhile, games such as wow have found a large audience which will eventually pump more money into the genre. This in the long run is a good thing but "yes" there are issues as well. As I've stated with other posts, look at music.

I bet if I looked at the music you listen to I couuld probably roll my eyes as it's probably pretty generic stuff. However, being "me" I wouldn't because I don't see myself as "better" than others and accept the fact that if you are listening to it then there might be some merit to it. But most popular media has a level of the generic in it and most people don't like experimental or anything that forces them out of their comfort zone.

Gamers are just experiencing something that Artists, writers and musicians have experienced for hundreds of years. You just don't know it yet.

nethervoid

Originally posted by ianubisi


Social people will find other social people. A game does not have to require this interaction, it occurs all by itself.

While many have said this exact thing, it is untrue, and proven so.  This is the case in the leveling piece of WoW.  If solo and grouping have equal rewards, people will solo.  People gravitate toward the path of least resistance.

IMO a game should have easier grouping than soloing, this will then promote grouping and still leave soloing viable for those who either don't have the time at that moment for grouping or who don't like grouping even if they do have the time.

An extreme example:  if you could solo a raid dungeon or raid with 25 people and the rewards were the same, what would you do?  What do you think most people would do?  Even the socialites would solo the dungeon most of the time.

On that thought, it's really up to the developers to make a convenient grouping system that is both easy to use and quick to use.  Make obvious grouping locaitons or sub-communtiies geographically.  EQ did this rather well with people forming up at zone boundaries of dungeons.  People who wanted a pick up group (nobody really had a problem back then with pick up groups, because by the time you were doing dungeons the game was so hard you pretty much had to be good if you were that level - the death penalty saw to that - and wow how we've lost that, but that's a whole thread in its own right) zoned into the entrance of the dungeon and asked in chat if any groups were looking for more members.

Again the problem with the current EQ model stems from having too many dungeons and not enough players.  If you want to promote ease of grouping, you must have a lot of players on as little group content as possible.  While that sounds counter-productive (limiting content on purpose), you risk spreading your grouping population out too thin when you are overzealous with how many dungeons you have.  People then have problems finding groups when groups are spread so far around your world.  Better to expand current dungeons to accept higher levels, deeper down in the dungeons than to add completely new dungeons.

Anyway, I could write a thesis on this topic alone...have to get back to work!

deviliscious

Originally posted by nethervoid


 
 
While many have said this exact thing, it is untrue, and proven so.  This is the case in the leveling piece of WoW.  If solo and grouping have equal rewards, people will solo.  People gravitate toward the path of least resistance.
many people do group in wow.. it is all about choice.
An extreme example:  if you could solo a raid dungeon or raid with 25 people and the rewards were the same, what would you do?  What do you think most people would do?  Even the socialites would solo the dungeon most of the time.
yes because you can do the dungeon more times and faster with a group. If you do it solo it takes more time to do it once. You can do more dungeons faster with a group therefore, there is already a benefit to grouping.
On that thought, it's really up to the developers to make a convenient grouping system that is both easy to use and quick to use.  Make obvious grouping locaitons or sub-communtiies geographically.  EQ did this rather well with people forming up at zone boundaries of dungeons.  People who wanted a pick up group (nobody really had a problem back then with pick up groups, because by the time you were doing dungeons the game was so hard you pretty much had to be good if you were that level - the death penalty saw to that - and wow how we've lost that, but that's a whole thread in its own right) zoned into the entrance of the dungeon and asked in chat if any groups were looking for more members.
I preferred games before in game grouping.. I liked the good ol days where you took people in your group that you know, have hung out with and actually get along with. You are all on headset and it makes for a better overall expierance. making areas in games where peopel can actually get to know one another is the problem, not forced grouping.

 

nomadian

great avatar

WoW really has a sparse grouping game below 60, unless you're a hardcore masochist that likes playing 10 hours before finding a group it is pretty difficult to find one.

But, in part, that's because of its design of the game. It appeals a lot more people by having solo and group choices, but especially appealling by being able to play exclusively solo. Additionally when people are on the level-grind to the top they are split up and divided by levels, or quests that they may have already done, or even by area and then further by specific class requirements for groups for instances.

Another mmo for example, D & D Online, I think sounds to have a more grouping-core to the game by especially being the basis of the game and having little to divide people. I mean, if you have absolutely no barrier or little barrier between players then the number of groups that can be made is obviously a large number. You have 1000 people on a server all available to be grouped up, and that is just no waiting time. Obviously its unrealistic to have no barriers, people need to differentiate themselves and have achievement, but having a reduced barrier and you open the gates to much more grouping, and those that want to solo can very easily do so without impacting grouping numbers.

Incidentally, grouping doesn't have to be like the current iterations of like WoW or Everquest. Some people have said some interesting stuff about how people in UO grouped.

Vynt

There was soloing in EQ1, even into late content, but it was better to group.  Grouping just needs to offer better experience than soloing.  I would say rewards, but grouping usually has better "rewards" in terms of loot, but before end game, most people rather go for the faster exp.

I just think grouping needs to be perhaps 3x + faster than soloing, that way soloing is still viable for a person if they are only on for an hour or 2.  If exp is the same or even slightly better for grouping, you will still have more people soloing so they don't need to deal with possible idiots, hehe.

With enough incentive to group, people will be less inclined to solo, and thus more people will be looking for group.  About midway in development for EQ, I remember that a lot of people started to solo because it was faster.  Then exp bonuses were added based on the number of people in your group.  The more you had the better exp you got.  Saw a lot more grouping with only necros soloing and perhaps a few others.

So basically just need a system like that so you don't lose exp because you add that 3rd or 4th person

LondonMagus

If you think about it statistically, a game that had forced grouping for everything would alienate new players & also be full of areas that were effectively ghost towns.

At the beginning everyone is at the same level so it shouldn't be difficult finding a group, but a few months after launch, most players have reached higher levels & newbies are much thinner on the ground. Once you throw 'Time Zone' variance into the mix as well, that mandatory group is going to be hard to find & you will be stuck with whoever is available, regardless of how anti-social they are. Suffice to say, too much forced grouping in the early game stages is a bad idea.

Once a game has been out for a while & assuming it is successful, there are usually expansions. This reccreates the newbie scenario, since most players will wnat to try out the new areas & it will be virtually impossible to groups in the less popular original zones leaving them like ghost towns.

If you think about it, games are a voluntary leisure activity so if you force someone to do something they don't like they will just play something else. The game designers know that there is a big market in casual players who often don't have time to spend hours looking for groups & then feeling obliged to keep playing longer than they planned so as not to let other players down.

It's hardly surprising then that the game designers follow the money. Even when new games claim that they will try to create a better community by encouraging grouping, the usually end up making the game more solo friendly quite quickly because they can't afford not to.

You don't need to be forced to group to enjoy being in other people's company anyway.

nethervoid

I don't think anyone is saying grouping should be forced, but I think WoW has taught us that if you give no incentive to grouping and it would have to be pretty big because of the 'work' involved most times in setting up a group, people will solo even if they don't really mind grouping or even if they like it.

Vicatin

Right, That is the problem in WoW, the grouping sometimes seems like a big hassle for little reward. I think a lot of it goes back to the pace of the game. In Eq1 in took quite some time to kill a mob, in WoW it takes only a few seconds to down one.

I  dont mind a slower pace, where it takes 2 minutes or so to kill a named mob. (single group) Just looking for more challenge i guess.

 

elvenangel

I've always considered forced grouping of any kind ... well rather lame.  Thats not to say I dont like to group because I do enjoy it when I'm in the mood for some social interaction.  I always loved EQ1.  I didn't see it as 'forced' grouping in that game.  You could easily find something to do without a group, but the urge to group was strong because of the incentive to group.   WoW has incentives to group but its only at end game these days and only for players who want to spend X hours & Days repeating that area until they get some gear.  

 When EQ2 came out I thought this is going to be awsome...but it wasn't...the game was forced grouping..you couldn't hardly do anything without a group.   I'd spend way more time LFGing for a group than actually doing anything.   It broke my heart a bit...and ultimately I went to WoW...of  course when I realized their direction for end game I becamse horribly disenchanted and pretty much temporarily retired from MMOs. 

MMORPGs should be all about choice...do I want to group today and go into dungeons or siege on an enemy keep?   Or do I want to solo today and just poke around at some crafting or minor quests.    You can't force people to group...its to alienating to those that are trying to get into a game.   If Dev's could find better incentives or methods to get people to group without even thinking about it...MMOs would contiue to feel like MMOs.   I think RvR games are possibly the closest atleast for Me anyway of a group game that doesn't force you to group..it just helps too group.

declaredemer

I agree.

 

Quests

1. Collecting flowers, tusks, pelts, etc. is painful. 
2. Most are not fun, and they often feel like a job.
3. I like the option to quest, but just that - the option.
4. I would be happy with doing away with cheap quests and just keeping epic quests.

Groups

1. I enjoy grouping.
2. It should not be difficult to "find" a group.
3. Group content requires coordination, so it should be more rewarding;
4. But solo players should be able to obtain comparable gear from quests, crafting, etc.

Solo

1. I like solo content.
2. Too much makes it feel like a single player game.
3. A good balance among solo, group, and raid content is necessary.
4. Solo content is not necessarily "easy" but it is easier than grouping.

Raids

1. Raiding is sometimes fun.
2. All the time causes burn out, like doing boring quests all the time.
3. Raid content should be "cool" like dragons, and group content should be cool and fun like abandoned castles, crypts, etc. 
4. Raiding is not necessarily "hard" because the coordination is often repeatedly clicking "macros" or just zerging it.

 

LondonMagus

Originally posted by nethervoid


I don't think anyone is saying grouping should be forced, but I think WoW has taught us that if you give no incentive to grouping and it would have to be pretty big because of the 'work' involved most times in setting up a group, people will solo even if they don't really mind grouping or even if they like it.

Look at the title of the thread.

CleffyII

I think forced grouping depends on the games design.  I have played games were grouping becomes just a pain.  Usually you end up with a leech kinda deal and no real benefits, or the interface just isn't there for it.  However, there is a string of mmos where you instinctively find yourself grouping instead of running from it.  Games like Dungeons and Dragons Online, Mabinogi, Guild Wars, and Requiem have just something in them that makes people wanna group and when you do there is a benefit to it.

Vicatin

People will take the easiest path, the path of least resistance. If soloing will level your character just as fast as grouping, then people will solo. However, if grouping allows for quicker exp, better loot, etc. There is an incentive to group, which in turn forces people to find/start a group, gain friends, start guilds, and build a community.

I always thought the community of WoW was lacking, because you can play the entire game to 70 single player and never have to get in a group once.

I go back to mentioning everquest because it had some solo content in the early levels, and hell even some classes could solo at the later levels. Some people hated the fact that druids, necros, wizards, (im sure im missing some) could solo, and other classes like warriors were unable to do so, but that is what brought the uniqueness to each class. Every class had a role to fill.

Games i have played lately balance a lot of the classes on their dps and/or ability to take damage. Why? Take for instance in WoW, a mage can only wear cloth armor, yet they can boost their armor with spells that puts them on par with armor of a leather wearer... Or priests who get shadowform and can put out DPS that is on par with a "dps class"

 

Dhaeman

Soloing should always be a possibility because most gameworlds will run into population problems at some point or another. To entice players to group more often offer better rewards and faster leveling from quests that require grouping. You have to incentivize people to group or they just won't do it.