I won't play a game where I have to spend 1-3 hours lfg before I can do any grinding or questing. Sometimes I wonder if the dictators of the world are conspiring to divert people from playing online gaming by boredom techniques.
I think some people think that if a game doesn't require grouping then people won't group. That isn't true. People will group if they want to. There is strength in numbers. However, if my regular grouping associates aren't available I don't want to sit around staring at the lfg board.
WoW is a good example because it is possible to level purely solo. However, there are quests which require a group. I think that it is a good model.
When my guild bailed out of AoC, about 15 of us went back to FFXI. You really start to remember what it was about MMOs that got you interested in the first place as an old timer. A real sense of accomplishment, a challenge, and bosses that are tough without gimmicks.
I think 90% of you all may be missing the point of this thread. It's not that we should making grouping forced per say but give MAJOR advantages for grouping over soloing. Like 5-10 times more experience and/or loot. And un-instanced dungeons to explore. Where you CAN explore solo but you won't see all the content without a good group. This is pretty much the way old EverQuest was. There were classes that could solo to max level but grouping made things so much easier and you had a blast while doing it. It is true that we don't need a game where we sit around for 2+ hours seeking a group. We need a game where we can solo for 2+ hours while seeking a group thats gonna put soloing to complete shame.
Actually I think you are the one missing something. If you make solo play essentially unproductive you are seriously neutering.
This is what happened in EQ and many people hated it.
What you are missing is that people want to log on and make progress. Real progress. Solo or in a group 5-10 times is so punitive that in comparison people will not feel like what they are doing is productive and that will be the kiss of death to any RPG based game.
Rob Pardo understood this about EQ1 back when he used to play it and he purposely designed WoW with this in mind.
I understood this about EQ1 from taking a look at its design and my previous experience in MUDs. That is why I avoided EQ1 like the plague.
What you are proposing is forcing a group players and a style of play that is unproductive. This is possibly the worst thing you can do to an RPG. As soon as an RPG feels unproductive it is dead.
Keep in mind this about what is true in PRACTICE. You can argue all you want that people can still do stuff. That doesn't mean anything at all because that is not how people will judge productivity. An hour of solo will be compared to an hour of grouping consciously or unconsciously and people will view that hour of solo as a waste. And they should, even a complete moron understand that 10% efficiency sucks.
You can't have it both ways. If groups don't make more XP, then you're punishing the group because it takes time to group. You could be spending that time completing missions, so now you've put the group behind.
IMO, City of Heroes/Villians is a fun game, but plays more like a First Person Shooter. In other words, it lacks depth, and while it's fun to run around bashing bad guys, that's pretty much all there is to it.. That's why people don't care that the groups are punished by not receiving substantially more rewards than solo players.
Again, I liked CoH, but it's not quite as satisfying as a good grouping game. I don't really care if you CAN group if you want to. It's more fun for me if you HAVE to group to accomplish some objectives, which makes those objectives much more challenging, and therefore the reward for being successful in those objectives more satisfying.
If I can progress just as fast solo as grouping, then it doesn't matter if I group, except that I have some company, and that's just not enough for me.
Originally posted by gillvane1 You can't have it both ways. If groups don't make more XP, then you're punishing the group because it takes time to group. You could be spending that time completing missions, so now you've put the group behind. IMO, City of Heroes/Villians is a fun game, but plays more like a First Person Shooter. In other words, it lacks depth, and while it's fun to run around bashing bad guys, that's pretty much all there is to it.. That's why people don't care that the groups are punished by not receiving substantially more rewards than solo players.
They're not, though. The groups are rewarded over the soloists. Here's what you've got:
1) XP Bonuses for more people in your group (I don't have the exact calculations anymore, but more people = XP bonus).
2) Instanced missions that are reactive to the group size. I know "instancing" equates to "kicking puppies" to several people around here, but instances spawned more/harder critters depending on how many people were in your team. Because larger groups are more effective than smaller ones (generally) you'd get more XP per spawn group.
3) Instanced missions that have adjustable difficulty. While this doesn't tie directly into teaming, you generally could make your missions tougher if you had a larger group, particularly in the 30+ level range. Tougher foes = better XP.
So if you wanted to solo, or only had time to solo for a bit, you could do that and still feel like you're accomplishing something. If you wanted to team, though, it was pretty easy to find a team because of the benefits to teaming.
I also think there's a bit of half-empty/half-full here, especially when people toss around numbers without context like "5-10 times faster." Basically: If I feel like soloing or if soloing's the only viable option at the time, can I do that and still have fun? If yes -- but it's still decidedly better to team up because of in-game rewards -- then I think you've got a win/win. Lots of people who'd otherwise solo because grouping is a pain will stop soloing and start grouping.
Originally posted by gillvane1 You can't have it both ways. If groups don't make more XP, then you're punishing the group because it takes time to group. You could be spending that time completing missions, so now you've put the group behind. IMO, City of Heroes/Villians is a fun game, but plays more like a First Person Shooter. In other words, it lacks depth, and while it's fun to run around bashing bad guys, that's pretty much all there is to it.. That's why people don't care that the groups are punished by not receiving substantially more rewards than solo players.
They're not, though. The groups are rewarded over the soloists. Here's what you've got:
1) XP Bonuses for more people in your group (I don't have the exact calculations anymore, but more people = XP bonus).
2) Instanced missions that are reactive to the group size. I know "instancing" equates to "kicking puppies" to several people around here, but instances spawned more/harder critters depending on how many people were in your team. Because larger groups are more effective than smaller ones (generally) you'd get more XP per spawn group.
3) Instanced missions that have adjustable difficulty. While this doesn't tie directly into teaming, you generally could make your missions tougher if you had a larger group, particularly in the 30+ level range. Tougher foes = better XP.
So if you wanted to solo, or only had time to solo for a bit, you could do that and still feel like you're accomplishing something. If you wanted to team, though, it was pretty easy to find a team because of the benefits to teaming.
I also think there's a bit of half-empty/half-full here, especially when people toss around numbers without context like "5-10 times faster." Basically: If I feel like soloing or if soloing's the only viable option at the time, can I do that and still have fun? If yes -- but it's still decidedly better to team up because of in-game rewards -- then I think you've got a win/win. Lots of people who'd otherwise solo because grouping is a pain will stop soloing and start grouping.
I'm not saying instances are like kicking puppies, and the judicial use of instances can make a game better. however, the scaling instances in CoH/CoV take away a LOT of the immersive feel of the world for me.
As someone who has played FFXI for 5 years, i think it is easy to say i would play a forced-grouping game (and am looking for another one). but, instead of posting the same arguements over and over like people are in this thread, how about some fresh ideas:
Create a game without forced grouping, but implement an excelent grouping system. Next, give people different abilities or stats etc. for if they level with a group. This could go towards either rewarding the people who group, or just simply making them more adept at groups (which inherently should be more powerful than an equal number of people working separately).
for those of you who like PvP (which i'm not so much into myself) would be creating your style of PvP while leveling. If you soloed the entire time, you would have abilties for solo PvP, whereas those who leveled with group (of the same class) would have similar abilities, but more adjusted to a group. in pvp, the soloers would be pretty consistant with their damage and abilities. the group people would be able to strategize and work together better and be much stronger (or if the teamwork sucks, it would completely bomb).
that is what i origionally thought WoW would be with sides named "alliance" and "hoarde." i thought alliance would be teams and hoarde would just be a crapton of soloers. Personally was never to fond of the game.
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I like to group. I hate being forced to group.
I won't play a game where I have to spend 1-3 hours lfg before I can do any grinding or questing. Sometimes I wonder if the dictators of the world are conspiring to divert people from playing online gaming by boredom techniques.
I think some people think that if a game doesn't require grouping then people won't group. That isn't true. People will group if they want to. There is strength in numbers. However, if my regular grouping associates aren't available I don't want to sit around staring at the lfg board.
WoW is a good example because it is possible to level purely solo. However, there are quests which require a group. I think that it is a good model.
When my guild bailed out of AoC, about 15 of us went back to FFXI. You really start to remember what it was about MMOs that got you interested in the first place as an old timer. A real sense of accomplishment, a challenge, and bosses that are tough without gimmicks.
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Actually I think you are the one missing something. If you make solo play essentially unproductive you are seriously neutering.
This is what happened in EQ and many people hated it.
What you are missing is that people want to log on and make progress. Real progress. Solo or in a group 5-10 times is so punitive that in comparison people will not feel like what they are doing is productive and that will be the kiss of death to any RPG based game.
Rob Pardo understood this about EQ1 back when he used to play it and he purposely designed WoW with this in mind.
I understood this about EQ1 from taking a look at its design and my previous experience in MUDs. That is why I avoided EQ1 like the plague.
What you are proposing is forcing a group players and a style of play that is unproductive. This is possibly the worst thing you can do to an RPG. As soon as an RPG feels unproductive it is dead.
Keep in mind this about what is true in PRACTICE. You can argue all you want that people can still do stuff. That doesn't mean anything at all because that is not how people will judge productivity. An hour of solo will be compared to an hour of grouping consciously or unconsciously and people will view that hour of solo as a waste. And they should, even a complete moron understand that 10% efficiency sucks.
You can't have it both ways. If groups don't make more XP, then you're punishing the group because it takes time to group. You could be spending that time completing missions, so now you've put the group behind.
IMO, City of Heroes/Villians is a fun game, but plays more like a First Person Shooter. In other words, it lacks depth, and while it's fun to run around bashing bad guys, that's pretty much all there is to it.. That's why people don't care that the groups are punished by not receiving substantially more rewards than solo players.
Again, I liked CoH, but it's not quite as satisfying as a good grouping game. I don't really care if you CAN group if you want to. It's more fun for me if you HAVE to group to accomplish some objectives, which makes those objectives much more challenging, and therefore the reward for being successful in those objectives more satisfying.
If I can progress just as fast solo as grouping, then it doesn't matter if I group, except that I have some company, and that's just not enough for me.
They're not, though. The groups are rewarded over the soloists. Here's what you've got:
1) XP Bonuses for more people in your group (I don't have the exact calculations anymore, but more people = XP bonus).
2) Instanced missions that are reactive to the group size. I know "instancing" equates to "kicking puppies" to several people around here, but instances spawned more/harder critters depending on how many people were in your team. Because larger groups are more effective than smaller ones (generally) you'd get more XP per spawn group.
3) Instanced missions that have adjustable difficulty. While this doesn't tie directly into teaming, you generally could make your missions tougher if you had a larger group, particularly in the 30+ level range. Tougher foes = better XP.
So if you wanted to solo, or only had time to solo for a bit, you could do that and still feel like you're accomplishing something. If you wanted to team, though, it was pretty easy to find a team because of the benefits to teaming.
I also think there's a bit of half-empty/half-full here, especially when people toss around numbers without context like "5-10 times faster." Basically: If I feel like soloing or if soloing's the only viable option at the time, can I do that and still have fun? If yes -- but it's still decidedly better to team up because of in-game rewards -- then I think you've got a win/win. Lots of people who'd otherwise solo because grouping is a pain will stop soloing and start grouping.
They're not, though. The groups are rewarded over the soloists. Here's what you've got:
1) XP Bonuses for more people in your group (I don't have the exact calculations anymore, but more people = XP bonus).
2) Instanced missions that are reactive to the group size. I know "instancing" equates to "kicking puppies" to several people around here, but instances spawned more/harder critters depending on how many people were in your team. Because larger groups are more effective than smaller ones (generally) you'd get more XP per spawn group.
3) Instanced missions that have adjustable difficulty. While this doesn't tie directly into teaming, you generally could make your missions tougher if you had a larger group, particularly in the 30+ level range. Tougher foes = better XP.
So if you wanted to solo, or only had time to solo for a bit, you could do that and still feel like you're accomplishing something. If you wanted to team, though, it was pretty easy to find a team because of the benefits to teaming.
I also think there's a bit of half-empty/half-full here, especially when people toss around numbers without context like "5-10 times faster." Basically: If I feel like soloing or if soloing's the only viable option at the time, can I do that and still have fun? If yes -- but it's still decidedly better to team up because of in-game rewards -- then I think you've got a win/win. Lots of people who'd otherwise solo because grouping is a pain will stop soloing and start grouping.
I'm not saying instances are like kicking puppies, and the judicial use of instances can make a game better. however, the scaling instances in CoH/CoV take away a LOT of the immersive feel of the world for me.
As someone who has played FFXI for 5 years, i think it is easy to say i would play a forced-grouping game (and am looking for another one). but, instead of posting the same arguements over and over like people are in this thread, how about some fresh ideas:
Create a game without forced grouping, but implement an excelent grouping system. Next, give people different abilities or stats etc. for if they level with a group. This could go towards either rewarding the people who group, or just simply making them more adept at groups (which inherently should be more powerful than an equal number of people working separately).
for those of you who like PvP (which i'm not so much into myself) would be creating your style of PvP while leveling. If you soloed the entire time, you would have abilties for solo PvP, whereas those who leveled with group (of the same class) would have similar abilities, but more adjusted to a group. in pvp, the soloers would be pretty consistant with their damage and abilities. the group people would be able to strategize and work together better and be much stronger (or if the teamwork sucks, it would completely bomb).
that is what i origionally thought WoW would be with sides named "alliance" and "hoarde." i thought alliance would be teams and hoarde would just be a crapton of soloers. Personally was never to fond of the game.