Questions

grandpagamer

Ive played this game in the past and the game breaker for me was the forced grouping at a  very low level. Ive heard this has changed. Has it? If so what server is the most populated and has the friendly folks? I love the magic users if that makes a difference as to solo play until i make some friends.   Any constructive input would be helpful. Thank you.

Dr.Rock

The new starter areas is fully soloable with solo setting, a lot of content has this setting in harbour, market and a bit beyond so you will get a fair amount of content before you need to group. To make this even easier you can now hire hirelings to assist you and from the next module the mobs will scale a bit to match the number of people in a group.

Mixie

Originally posted by grandpagamer


Ive played this game in the past and the game breaker for me was the forced grouping at a  very low level. Ive heard this has changed. Has it? If so what server is the most populated and has the friendly folks? I love the magic users if that makes a difference as to solo play until i make some friends.   Any constructive input would be helpful. Thank you.

If you dont want to group most of the time, this game isent for you sorry. 

 

I personly love it, but i love grouping.

grandpagamer

Thank you both for the replies. I dont mind grouping but like to have some time to get to know people before having to group. I may give it another try. The high point of having to group is one should be able to find groups. Finding a group is sometimes a chore in some of the other games ive played.

Nebless

Granted I haven't left the tutorial island yet, but so far the game seems very solo friendly.  As with all games certain builds are more soloable than others and I think they did well to put right in the character creation section a one liner: SOLO: Very Good / Good / Challenging etc..... so you'd know what you were getting into.

As to groups; granted you may not know them from Adam, but they do have a hot key to open the Socal section that lists all the groups that are looking for people; listing the levels, where/what they're doing etc....  As I understand it, if you go with one all you do is click on it and you'll pop over to that group's location.  No travel time etc.....  Seems like a nice feature to me.

Rokurgepta

Originally posted by grandpagamer


Thank you both for the replies. I dont mind grouping but like to have some time to get to know people before having to group. I may give it another try. The high point of having to group is one should be able to find groups. Finding a group is sometimes a chore in some of the other games ive played.

 

Honestly I do not see how you are going to get to know people in DDO before grouping with them. Unlike a lot of games general chat in DDO is rarely used, most people stick to guild or party chat for the most part. Generally in DDO you get to know people as you group but not beforehand.

Rokurgepta

Originally posted by Nebless


Granted I haven't left the tutorial island yet, but so far the game seems very solo friendly.  As with all games certain builds are more soloable than others and I think they did well to put right in the character creation section a one liner: SOLO: Very Good / Good / Challenging etc..... so you'd know what you were getting into.
As to groups; granted you may not know them from Adam, but they do have a hot key to open the Socal section that lists all the groups that are looking for people; listing the levels, where/what they're doing etc....  As I understand it, if you go with one all you do is click on it and you'll pop over to that group's location.  No travel time etc.....  Seems like a nice feature to me.

 

Sorry but there is no function to click and travel like that yet. When you join a group you need to run to their location. Of course DDO has made travel quite easy for the most part so running never takes more than a few minutes.

Nebless

Ahhh thank you Rokurgepta, must have been thinking about one of the other games I was reading about (EQ/Vanguard/AoC etc....) somebodies site mentioned it.  One of them even mentioned how players could group with you without asking first or getting an invite.  I looked at so many prior to coming here they all started blurring together

Unknown

Changed?  No.  It has, however, been mitigated through the implementation of hirelings.

You can now bring one hireling per person into an instance.

 

Now DDO was always technically soloable, but that would incredily slow and expensive to accomlish especially on a first character with no money and no favor.

 

Hirelings make that less of a serious pain in the ass.  But the game is still not solo friendly.  If you want to solo you will most likely be wasting your time unless you are dong for pure fun.

 

I soloed  The Pit a little while ago jsut for pure fun, that was not a waste of time.  But I was under no illusion about actually getting rewarded in any reasonable or even close to commensurate way.  I took a hireling but only used her for on steam valve in the very last generator room.  I know people can do that last jump solo but I needed a hireling to do it, so they do offer a few thing that would otherwise be impossible solo (mainly tricky lever pulling).

Unknown

Originally posted by Nebless


Ahhh thank you Rokurgepta, must have been thinking about one of the other games I was reading about (EQ/Vanguard/AoC etc....) somebodies site mentioned it.  One of them even mentioned how players could group with you without asking first or getting an invite.  I looked at so many prior to coming here they all started blurring together

 

Well you can do this in both Turbine games, but its basically a reverse invite.  You hit the "Join" button then the leader hits "accept" or "decline" rather than him sending you invite and you accept.

 

This is through the looking for group screen, which is one of the the few features that LOTRO did not take from DDO and make better. rather the other way around.

Sarr

Originally posted by Rokurgepta

Originally posted by grandpagamer


Thank you both for the replies. I dont mind grouping but like to have some time to get to know people before having to group. I may give it another try. The high point of having to group is one should be able to find groups. Finding a group is sometimes a chore in some of the other games ive played.

 

Honestly I do not see how you are going to get to know people in DDO before grouping with them. Unlike a lot of games general chat in DDO is rarely used, most people stick to guild or party chat for the most part. Generally in DDO you get to know people as you group but not beforehand.

 

That's how it is right now. But Mod 9 brings global, or more precisely, "major-hub-based" general, advice and trade channels, which will be default for new players, and accesible from inside quests - or literally from everywhere. So use of these chat channels will change drastically in my opinion. General and other "useful" chats weren't used that much because, I'm afraid, it was poorly implemented. Now it will be better.

If it becomes annoying, no problem with switching tabs or disabling some windows, like general. Heck, most people use guild chats while in guild, so those veterans who don't like this incoming "new way" won't notice much of a change anyway .

 

Originally posted by gestalt11 Well you can do this in both Turbine games, but its basically a reverse invite. You hit the "Join" button then the leader hits "accept" or "decline" rather than him sending you invite and you accept.   This is through the looking for group screen, which is one of the the few features that LOTRO did not take from DDO and make better. rather the other way around.

 

 

Hey, why do you say so? I often get invites from people looking for players, and I can Accept or Decline. So in DDO it works both ways. You can even invite anybody from the players list, as long as they're not in group at the time, or send them tells, add to friends etc. So it's generally quite handy UI and very easy, intuitive.

Of course there's also Looking for Members / Group panel, which is what people most often use to find random parties. If you have guild or friends in game, it's even easier.