See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing. That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
/amen
I mean, so what if you can level up to maximum or whatever totally solo?
If you rely on pugs and random players for your grouping needs, you probably need to just join a guild.
Besides, group activities always have better loot then solo activities in these games.
Ihmotepp probably considers WoW a "solo game" and couldn't be more wrong.
Originally posted by Torik I really do not see why the soloer should be penalized for the grouper's personal failure in finding teammates who are not leeches. While the soloer is putting in all that effort doing content the groupers are just standing around doing nothing because they are too lazy to find the right people to group with. Heck, an easy solution to this is that the group gets a UBER TOKEN per 10 hours and they can trae 10 UBER TOKENS for 1 UBER HAT. So now they can have to put in the same effort of 100 hours as the soloer to get the hat.
IMO, your post makes no sense.
This is the reality of grouping and solo play.
Solo player. Logs on, immediately wacks mobs, immediatly makes XP.
Grouper: Would you like to join my group?
Party: Maybe, what level are you what quest are you doing, where are you going, etc?
Grouper: Ok, we're going to group, I'll wait for you, can you instantly teleport to me in 1 second? No? Ok, I'll wait here.
Party: Ok, we have wacked many mobs, I have to take a bio break.
Grouper: Ok, we have wacked many mobs, I have to get a soda.
This takes time.
The solo'er does not take this time.
How is that time to group personal failure? It's personal failure because I'm in Zone A, and you're in Zone B, and we ahve to travel to meet one another? It's a great accomplishment for teh solo'er that he didn't have to walk anywhere and meet anyone, so he could make XP immediately?
Really?
So if the soloer started his play session by standing around for half an hour spamming chat channels or sending tells to people, then took bio breaks ten times as often as he needs to then he would be 'worthy' of getting the same rewards as the grouper for the same effort?
So if you log on and there just happen to be 9 other players of the right class and level in your area so you can start your group immediately, you should not get good rewards because the effort of your group was negligible in comparison to a group that took an hour to form up?
So if the soloer started his play session by standing around for half an hour spamming chat channels or sending tells to people, then took bio breaks ten times as often as he needs to then he would be 'worthy' of getting the same rewards as the grouper for the same effort? So if you log on and there just happen to be 9 other players of the right class and level in your area so you can start your group immediately, you should not get good rewards because the effort of your group was negligible in comparison to a group that took an hour to form up?
There's a chance of it happening- we must look at the average time it takes to build a group. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes long time.. In the end it's still longer than if you soloed, on average.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
So if the soloer started his play session by standing around for half an hour spamming chat channels or sending tells to people, then took bio breaks ten times as often as he needs to then he would be 'worthy' of getting the same rewards as the grouper for the same effort? So if you log on and there just happen to be 9 other players of the right class and level in your area so you can start your group immediately, you should not get good rewards because the effort of your group was negligible in comparison to a group that took an hour to form up?
There's a chance of it happening- we must look at the average time it takes to build a group. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes long time.. In the end it's still longer than if you soloed, on average.
The problem is that a soloer can recreate this process as well. So if that is your standard for determining who desrves better rewards then any soloer can easily fullfill the requirements and thus is eligible for the same reward.
I mean, so what if you can level up to maximum or whatever totally solo?
If you rely on pugs and random players for your grouping needs, you probably need to just join a guild.
Besides, group activities always have better loot then solo activities in these games.
Ihmotepp probably considers WoW a "solo game" and couldn't be more wrong.
The problem is, these people seem to feel bad that someone else can do it solo when they can't, or don't want to, so they group. Therefore, because they feel bad, they want to stop everyone from soloing so they don't have to feel inferior.
It's a reality that groups *ALWAYS* get more loot, better loot and can take on harder mobs than soloers of the same level. So why are they so terrified that someone, somewhere, is actually playing the game alone. Do they really need that much hand-holding?
So if the soloer started his play session by standing around for half an hour spamming chat channels or sending tells to people, then took bio breaks ten times as often as he needs to then he would be 'worthy' of getting the same rewards as the grouper for the same effort? So if you log on and there just happen to be 9 other players of the right class and level in your area so you can start your group immediately, you should not get good rewards because the effort of your group was negligible in comparison to a group that took an hour to form up?
There's a chance of it happening- we must look at the average time it takes to build a group. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes long time.. In the end it's still longer than if you soloed, on average.
So you're spending far more time sitting around trying to find people to play with than actually playing the game and you think this is a good thing?
So you're spending far more time sitting around trying to find people to play with than actually playing the game and you think this is a good thing?
In a 'good' group based system it wouldn't take that long to get a group together, but still enough to give the soloer a head start .
It depends on what you're doing. If you want to do something extremely common, then sure, you can get a group together easily. If you want to run an unpopular dungeon, if you want to kill a boss that doesn't have a mega-powerful drop, if you're looking for a narrowly level-restricted group to team with, you're probably out of luck. You won't spend a few minutes getting a group, you'll spend a few hours, if you can ever get one at all.
And I'm trying to figure out how that makes groups at all superior to soloing.
After reading through all these posts its hilarious to know that those that enjoy grouping/raiding are so opposed to solo players, because they feel like they shouldnt get the same rewards soloing as someone does grouping. And they keep bringing up the point that MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer.
This makes me laugh because why do you care how easy or fast it is for someone else to get loot? It doesnt affect you at all(save maybe in pvp situations but those are rare). They make comments that there would be no reason to group if you can get the loot easily by soloing, but this just ruins any points they try to make because they are trying to support the grouping aspect, yet they say they and their fellow raiders would just solo the stuff as well. So in reality they do not care about raiding at all, they just care about loot.
If you are not raiding because you enjoy raiding, and enjoy group content specifically made to be challenging for groups, then I say good riddance to you. All you are is a loot whore, whose only enjoyment seems to be showing off your "uber" gear to those that don't have the time/friends/want to raid.
Massively multiplayer does not mean group. That is not the definition. All it means is that many people can play at the same time, and interact how they choose, and it should be their choice.
It's now wonder MMOGs are in such a sad state; look at the kind of players they attract. They can't even imagine playing a game where their playstyle doesn't get exclusively superior rewards, and they call other players, with different playstyles, who pay the same subscription rate "entitlement whores" because they want eventual access to **equal** rewards.
By definition, in order for one person to be "superior," someone else must be "inferior." And, to the people who insist on treating an MMORPG as a virtual career, it becomes a zero-sum game - literally.
There are plenty of real-life friends happily playing MMORPG's in groups of every size. And I'm sure the vast majority of them enjoy the gameplay for its own sake. But the people who demand that content in the game only be available to large communes aren't interested in the process of the game, but in the virtual product of the game - to wit, the sense of personal self-esteem they have tied up in it.
This leads to a certain cult-like mentality that serves the function of locking some people into a game out of a weird kind of peer pressure. From the developer's point of view, this seems like the Holy Grail of game design: a class of customers who will infinitely perform repetitive tasks in sort of a virtual assembly-line fashion in return for essentially costless "items."
But in the long run, it's more of a white elephant. Designers can't really stop producing content; they just start making content geared toward only the most zealous players, and eventually no normal person will want to want to touch it. The "cults" are able to cull members from inside the game, once they get to the end of the accessible content and are desperate for something else to do. But the (with all due respect) psychos leading the cults have at best a tenuous contact with the real world at all, let alone enough influence to convince people who aren't already in the game to start playing.
So what you get is the situation EQ was in six years ago, and WoW is in today: A large residual playerbase, but with a high percentage of disaffected players hanging by a thread waiting for the next big thing to come along that they can jump into and play the way they originally wanted.
Massively multiplayer does not mean group. That is not the definition. All it means is that many people can play at the same time, and interact how they choose, and it should be their choice.
As I like to put it, there is a very big difference between a COMMUNITY, and a COMMUNE.
The people who feel the burning urge to make everyone drive toward the same goal solely for the sake of unanimity are less destructive in a virtual world than they are in the real one. But they are every bit as irritating.
Games designed around being soloable means each individual encounter has to be easily beatable by the least soloable class. This is why you get all theses games where the zones / dungeons have static single spawn mobs in a grid every 30 feet that are (fairly) easily beatable by the Priest of Hippyness with their fluffy pink flower of smiting.
It's sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring. Run a bit. Easy boring fight. Run a bit. Easy boring fight. Run a bit etc. Urgh.
I'm a 90% soloer / 10% grouper by inclination. Soloing was FUN in a place like Unrest in EQ1 because it was designed to be dangerous for GROUPS so trying to solo in it was a total blast
That's the problem imo. If a game is designed to be easily soloable it becomes too easy. I can barely stay awake in WoW whereas after a few hours in Unrest I'd be too wired to sleep.
That's why I want games to be designed 60-70% around grouping - because it makes soloing in those games more dangerous and more fun.
The problem I have found with groups in general is that there are few players that really know how to play their class.
This is where SOLO playing comes in. You learn QUICKLY what the strengths and limitations of the class are or you DIE.
For the most part the groups I have played with can do a PART of what their class can do fairly well IF they are backed up by a bunch of heavyweight players (Overwhelm by sheer weight of numbers) rather than out think and out play the opposition. On their own they would die quickly. Mediocre players do well here.
A good SOLO player has the sense to heed the old saying "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" - Fewer long walks back from the graveyard as in WoW.
Why not have SOLO ONLY servers on WoW with ALL towns as sanctuaries and PVP on a PLAYER optional basis - if the player is stupid enough to START a fight. All quests for all factions available to all players and NO RAIDS etc. There are PLENTY of MONSTERS in the game (especially if all factions quests are included) without fighting each other.
Why should the SOLO player NOT be able to get some of the goodies that are now reserved for the MOB MENTALITY only servers?
The problem I have found with groups in general is that there are few players that really know how to play their class. This is where SOLO playing comes in. You learn QUICKLY what the strengths and limitations of the class are or you DIE. For the most part the groups I have played with can do a PART of what their class can do fairly well IF they are backed up by a bunch of heavyweight players (Overwhelm by sheer weight of numbers) rather than out think and out play the opposition. On their own they would die quickly. Mediocre players do well here. A good SOLO player has the sense to heed the old saying "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" - Fewer long walks back from the graveyard as in WoW. Why not have SOLO ONLY servers on WoW with ALL towns as sanctuaries and PVP on a PLAYER optional basis - if the player is stupid enough to START a fight. All quests for all factions available to all players and NO RAIDS etc. There are PLENTY of MONSTERS in the game (especially if all factions quests are included) without fighting each other. Why should the SOLO player NOT be able to get some of the goodies that are now reserved for the MOB MENTALITY only servers?
It's not so much learning your character as having a well-rounded character that matters. I've seen tons of team twinks that are so narrowly set up within a particular team dynamic that if they're ever removed from it, they're useless. Sure, your tank can deal a lot of damage, but without a doc to back them up, they have no stamina. Or the docs that are set up for massive heals, but have zero combat skills otherwise. These are characters that are about as completely gimped as you can get outside of the specific circumstances they're built for.
And this is what the group-only people want us all to do?
The problem I have found with groups in general is that there are few players that really know how to play their class. This is where SOLO playing comes in. You learn QUICKLY what the strengths and limitations of the class are or you DIE. For the most part the groups I have played with can do a PART of what their class can do fairly well IF they are backed up by a bunch of heavyweight players (Overwhelm by sheer weight of numbers) rather than out think and out play the opposition. On their own they would die quickly. Mediocre players do well here. A good SOLO player has the sense to heed the old saying "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" - Fewer long walks back from the graveyard as in WoW. Why not have SOLO ONLY servers on WoW with ALL towns as sanctuaries and PVP on a PLAYER optional basis - if the player is stupid enough to START a fight. All quests for all factions available to all players and NO RAIDS etc. There are PLENTY of MONSTERS in the game (especially if all factions quests are included) without fighting each other. Why should the SOLO player NOT be able to get some of the goodies that are now reserved for the MOB MENTALITY only servers?
It's not so much learning your character as having a well-rounded character that matters. I've seen tons of team twinks that are so narrowly set up within a particular team dynamic that if they're ever removed from it, they're useless. Sure, your tank can deal a lot of damage, but without a doc to back them up, they have no stamina. Or the docs that are set up for massive heals, but have zero combat skills otherwise. These are characters that are about as completely gimped as you can get outside of the specific circumstances they're built for.
And this is what the group-only people want us all to do?
No thanks.
That's why I like classes that can do both solo and group. A healer that can fight, a fighter that can heal... independence is a strong class trait. It is one thing to be able to mesh in a group but if you have to spend all your time waiting for a group because you cannot play the game outside one - what real use is that? To me that kind of game dynamic is boring. I like being able to solo and yet, when I find the need , to fit inside a group. I fear that most players are becoming sheep who have to play inside groups or they do not feel safe. In solo play you do die from time to time, but if your group has members who do not play as a team you do that anyways. A good, balanced game allows for both.
My biggest gripe with grouping - and what made me go SOLO to begin with - is that my past experience was with people who advertise for group members for a quest and then when we get to the quest they take all of the goodies and when they achieve their goals they just bail out and leave me in the midst of deep S**T.
In other words many - (I wont paint ALL of them with the same brush because I haven't met them all yet) - groupies are a bunch of A**H***S who are only out to exploit others for their own benefit. It had gotten so bad that I will now only group with my son and my triplet granddaughters.
I Got into WOW (3 years ago) because I thought it was a massive world to explore and to have fun in for a long time - and I could do that SOLO if I wanted to - at my liesure NOT at the whim of other players. I DID NOT know that I HAD to group for many things.
One of the things I like about Soloing is that if I spot a mining node - or herbs to pick - or something to skin - or just to drop a line in the water (especially if I see floating whatever) - I can do so without having a party have a caniption fit about it.
My biggest gripe with grouping - and what made me go SOLO to begin with - is that my past experience was with people who advertise for group members for a quest and then when we get to the quest they take all of the goodies and when they achieve their goals they just bail out and leave me in the midst of deep S**T. In other words many - (I wont paint ALL of them with the same brush because I haven't met them all yet) - groupies are a bunch of A**H***S who are only out to exploit others for their own benefit. It had gotten so bad that I will now only group with my son and my triplet granddaughters. I Got into WOW (3 years ago) because I thought it was a massive world to explore and to have fun in for a long time - and I could do that SOLO if I wanted to - at my liesure NOT at the whim of other players. I DID NOT know that I HAD to group for many things. One of the things I like about Soloing is that if I spot a mining node - or herbs to pick - or something to skin - or just to drop a line in the water (especially if I see floating whatever) - I can do so without having a party have a caniption fit about it.
I agree there's a ton of things wrong with the way grouping works in most games but my experience of games designed to be soloable is they're too easy to be any fun (for me).
So I'm thinking how would a game be designed so that enough people liked grouping (in dungeons mainly) such that the dungeons were designed to be dangerous in a way that made them fun to try and solo in (for me).
1. Loot: In my experience a lot of gripes with groups revolve around loot. I think players in a group should all get to loot a mob they killed. So if some goblin has a 50% chance of dropping a rusty toothpick then a solo player would have a 50% chance to get that phat lewt and if it was killed by a group then all the players in that group can click the corpse (if they want) and get the same chance.
Bosses would be similar except all players get a loot bag where they get to choose one from a list e.g a Minotaur boss loot bag might contain a cool axe, some rune that all classes needed for some class armour quest, a rare crafting item or some cash. That way everyone in the group could pick something they need without having random loot (which annoys me).
2. LFG: Second big problem with groups is forming them in the first place and there's two aspects to that, one is having players in the same place and secondly there's the problem of needing certain classes. My thoughts on this are:
A) Most exp would come from dungeons - I like quests but solo quest grinding is too easy imo while group quest grinding involves *far* too much LFG in my opinion especially if there's multiple stages. I'd make it so dungeons were for XP and quests were for things like faction, epic storyline and gear e.g if you had 12 gear slots then maybe 1/3 of the best gear for your class for a tier could come from solo quests but not much xp (and 1/3 crafted and 1/3 from mob drops in dungeons for example).
Dungeons need to be soloable and groupable. Players need to know that if they go to the nearby dungeon they won't be stuck LFG for ages so there needs to be *bits* of the dungeon that you can solo safely. However most of the dungeon will be dangerous to solo (possible but dangerous) so once you have a lot of soloing players in one spot in a very dangerous dungeon they automatically start grouping. Personally i think the game should be designed so that basic survival is the main reason players group - not xp bonuses or anything like that, just easier to avoid dying. On top of that there'd be a few sections - throne rooms etc - where you'd either need a group or need to outlevel the mobs - you could do that room in a group at level 8 or solo at level 12 (i hate "elite" type mobs that you can't beat solo even when they're grey).
C) Need to move completely away from the tank&spank paradigm as it leads inevitably to holy trinity type needs when grouping which just makes getting the right people harder plus endless balancing headaches trying to make each class popular for groups. Big waste of time imo.
I think the paradigm should shift towards a man-to-man marking type paradigm where the aim is to avoid a situation where a player is being hit by more than one mob e.g
if a player is being hit by two mobs then both mobs get +2 to hit and +25% damage
if a player is being hit by three mobs then all three get +4 to hit and +50% damage
The aim then becomes to avoid that situation but using more off-tanking type methods rather than crowd control e.g a group enters a room with three mobs, the warrior goes first and gets all three mobs on him initially but the ranger pulls one off and the chanter mezzes the third. The warrior can handle his mob solo so the chanter helps the ranger kill his target, then they both help the warrior then all three kill the mezzed one. The aim should be most classes can keep one mob busy for a while, using whatever method suits their class, and then "spare" players use their class skills to tip the balance in various ways.
Another situation might be a warrior, two rogues and a healer. The warrior can solo his one and will kill it after a while so the tactics would be for the two rogues to lock the other two mobs while the healer keeps them alive. Then once the warrior has killed his one he can help the rogues and they can go behind the mob for a much quicker kill. The healer wouldn't be able to keep the tank alive if he was being hit by all three because of the damage increase but he could keep both rogues alive who are being hit by one mob each.
The aim would be to try and make it so almost any combination of classes can work - they'd just need to use different tactics.
D) Once the combat paradigm was set to revolve around numbers of mobs it's easy to make dungeons dangerous and interesting. The easy solo bits would have solo mobs with not many wanderers or solo wanderers. The more dangerous bits would have solo mobs and patrollers and the very dangerous bits would have rooms of linked groups of mobs. Fun to group and solo.
E) A group fighting paradigm that was based on a multiple off-tanking rather than a tank&spank paradigm would make it easier for a player not to mess up in a group by not knowing their "role" as for a lot of classes the group role would be similar to fighting a mob solo while there'd be a few "smarter" classes whose role was to tip the balance once all the mobs were being held.
What's the point? City of Heroes was a solo game, where lots of people grouped. It's still not a satisfying group game, because the grouping is largely unnecessary. Just because you CAN group and sometimes do, doesn't mean it's a good grouping game.
See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing.
That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
This is precisely what bothers me about some pro-groupers' attitude: if you can get the loot they got, through any method that did not require a group, regardless of the process, you have ruined thier game.
It is exactly as you say, they don't wish to share, they want exclusivity. Most pro-soloers don't care or mind that there are group dungeons or raids. They just want an alternate way of achieving the same loot. Most pro-groupers do not want to share. The attitude is: "Do it the way I had to do it or you've ruined my fun". How? Why do you care?
And Ihmotepp, just because you find City of Heroes an unsatisfying group game, doesn't mean the rest of us do. I group in that game all the time, cause it's fun. I could, if I wanted, get the exact same chance at drops without soloing in that game, but like many I enjoy grouping there.
See? It's not my way or the highway, which is what you want.
It is simple. I will play a single player game offline if I want all solo. I play online to play with others and a game where you can solo to kill and get everything in the game ruins that for me. Why group when the game is designed to be soloed? All of a sudden that dragon you are killing doesn't seem as dangerous when you walk up with your party and see one person killing it.
If they have some solo options in game, I am okay with that. I am not okay with them turning an online game I pay monthly for into a singleplayer game. Why bother playing?
What's the point? City of Heroes was a solo game, where lots of people grouped. It's still not a satisfying group game, because the grouping is largely unnecessary. Just because you CAN group and sometimes do, doesn't mean it's a good grouping game.
See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing.
That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
This is precisely what bothers me about some pro-groupers' attitude: if you can get the loot they got, through any method that did not require a group, regardless of the process, you have ruined thier game.
It is exactly as you say, they don't wish to share, they want exclusivity. Most pro-soloers don't care or mind that there are group dungeons or raids. They just want an alternate way of achieving the same loot. Most pro-groupers do not want to share. The attitude is: "Do it the way I had to do it or you've ruined my fun". How? Why do you care?
And Ihmotepp, just because you find City of Heroes an unsatisfying group game, doesn't mean the rest of us do. I group in that game all the time, cause it's fun. I could, if I wanted, get the exact same chance at drops without soloing in that game, but like many I enjoy grouping there.
See? It's not my way or the highway, which is what you want.
Swamprob, just curious why you are plaing online? You state that you think solo should provide the same rewards as grouping and in other threads you state the game should play as a movie. Why not just watch a movie instead of wasting 15/month?
Yes, there are some pro-groupers whose attitude is simply idiotic.
Yes, there are some pro-soloers that share the same attitude, only reversed.
Like was said, there's only some pro-groupers that share this attitude. It's not the only view that pro-groupers have however, so not every pro-grouper should be put into the same category with these 'not-so-smart' pro-groupers.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
It is simple. I will play a single player game offline if I want all solo. I play online to play with others and a game where you can solo to kill and get everything in the game ruins that for me. Why group when the game is designed to be soloed? All of a sudden that dragon you are killing doesn't seem as dangerous when you walk up with your party and see one person killing it. If they have some solo options in game, I am okay with that. I am not okay with them turning an online game I pay monthly for into a singleplayer game. Why bother playing?
So it is YOUR way or the highway. Go make your own game, and invite only groupers. I do not see how having soloable content ruins the game. Seems to me you are just being selfish.
What's the point? City of Heroes was a solo game, where lots of people grouped. It's still not a satisfying group game, because the grouping is largely unnecessary. Just because you CAN group and sometimes do, doesn't mean it's a good grouping game.
See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing.
That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
This is precisely what bothers me about some pro-groupers' attitude: if you can get the loot they got, through any method that did not require a group, regardless of the process, you have ruined thier game.
It is exactly as you say, they don't wish to share, they want exclusivity. Most pro-soloers don't care or mind that there are group dungeons or raids. They just want an alternate way of achieving the same loot. Most pro-groupers do not want to share. The attitude is: "Do it the way I had to do it or you've ruined my fun". How? Why do you care?
And Ihmotepp, just because you find City of Heroes an unsatisfying group game, doesn't mean the rest of us do. I group in that game all the time, cause it's fun. I could, if I wanted, get the exact same chance at drops without soloing in that game, but like many I enjoy grouping there.
See? It's not my way or the highway, which is what you want.
Swamprob, just curious why you are plaing online? You state that you think solo should provide the same rewards as grouping and in other threads you state the game should play as a movie. Why not just watch a movie instead of wasting 15/month?
First off, the movie bit was in reference to a few select single player games. It has nothing to do with solo vs grouping.
As to why play online: this has been answered so many times in the these very forums.
I'll summarize: - online games are alive and persistant in a way that single player games can never be
- I like seeing other players in the game, it makes it feel alive
- I like grouping sometimes
- I don't see why it is a necessity or a given that in MMOs, you can only get the best end-game loot if you group.
Comments
/amen
I mean, so what if you can level up to maximum or whatever totally solo?
If you rely on pugs and random players for your grouping needs, you probably need to just join a guild.
Besides, group activities always have better loot then solo activities in these games.
Ihmotepp probably considers WoW a "solo game" and couldn't be more wrong.
IMO, your post makes no sense.
This is the reality of grouping and solo play.
Solo player. Logs on, immediately wacks mobs, immediatly makes XP.
Grouper: Would you like to join my group?
Party: Maybe, what level are you what quest are you doing, where are you going, etc?
Grouper: Ok, we're going to group, I'll wait for you, can you instantly teleport to me in 1 second? No? Ok, I'll wait here.
Party: Ok, we have wacked many mobs, I have to take a bio break.
Grouper: Ok, we have wacked many mobs, I have to get a soda.
This takes time.
The solo'er does not take this time.
How is that time to group personal failure? It's personal failure because I'm in Zone A, and you're in Zone B, and we ahve to travel to meet one another? It's a great accomplishment for teh solo'er that he didn't have to walk anywhere and meet anyone, so he could make XP immediately?
Really?
So if the soloer started his play session by standing around for half an hour spamming chat channels or sending tells to people, then took bio breaks ten times as often as he needs to then he would be 'worthy' of getting the same rewards as the grouper for the same effort?
So if you log on and there just happen to be 9 other players of the right class and level in your area so you can start your group immediately, you should not get good rewards because the effort of your group was negligible in comparison to a group that took an hour to form up?
There's a chance of it happening- we must look at the average time it takes to build a group. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes long time.. In the end it's still longer than if you soloed, on average.
There's a chance of it happening- we must look at the average time it takes to build a group. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes long time.. In the end it's still longer than if you soloed, on average.
The problem is that a soloer can recreate this process as well. So if that is your standard for determining who desrves better rewards then any soloer can easily fullfill the requirements and thus is eligible for the same reward.
The problem is, these people seem to feel bad that someone else can do it solo when they can't, or don't want to, so they group. Therefore, because they feel bad, they want to stop everyone from soloing so they don't have to feel inferior.
It's a reality that groups *ALWAYS* get more loot, better loot and can take on harder mobs than soloers of the same level. So why are they so terrified that someone, somewhere, is actually playing the game alone. Do they really need that much hand-holding?
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There's a chance of it happening- we must look at the average time it takes to build a group. Sometimes it takes no time, sometimes it takes long time.. In the end it's still longer than if you soloed, on average.
So you're spending far more time sitting around trying to find people to play with than actually playing the game and you think this is a good thing?
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In a 'good' group based system it wouldn't take that long to get a group together, but still enough to give the soloer a head start
.
In a 'good' group based system it wouldn't take that long to get a group together, but still enough to give the soloer a head start
.
It depends on what you're doing. If you want to do something extremely common, then sure, you can get a group together easily. If you want to run an unpopular dungeon, if you want to kill a boss that doesn't have a mega-powerful drop, if you're looking for a narrowly level-restricted group to team with, you're probably out of luck. You won't spend a few minutes getting a group, you'll spend a few hours, if you can ever get one at all.
And I'm trying to figure out how that makes groups at all superior to soloing.
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After reading through all these posts its hilarious to know that those that enjoy grouping/raiding are so opposed to solo players, because they feel like they shouldnt get the same rewards soloing as someone does grouping. And they keep bringing up the point that MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer.
This makes me laugh because why do you care how easy or fast it is for someone else to get loot? It doesnt affect you at all(save maybe in pvp situations but those are rare). They make comments that there would be no reason to group if you can get the loot easily by soloing, but this just ruins any points they try to make because they are trying to support the grouping aspect, yet they say they and their fellow raiders would just solo the stuff as well. So in reality they do not care about raiding at all, they just care about loot.
If you are not raiding because you enjoy raiding, and enjoy group content specifically made to be challenging for groups, then I say good riddance to you. All you are is a loot whore, whose only enjoyment seems to be showing off your "uber" gear to those that don't have the time/friends/want to raid.
Massively multiplayer does not mean group. That is not the definition. All it means is that many people can play at the same time, and interact how they choose, and it should be their choice.
By definition, in order for one person to be "superior," someone else must be "inferior." And, to the people who insist on treating an MMORPG as a virtual career, it becomes a zero-sum game - literally.
There are plenty of real-life friends happily playing MMORPG's in groups of every size. And I'm sure the vast majority of them enjoy the gameplay for its own sake. But the people who demand that content in the game only be available to large communes aren't interested in the process of the game, but in the virtual product of the game - to wit, the sense of personal self-esteem they have tied up in it.
This leads to a certain cult-like mentality that serves the function of locking some people into a game out of a weird kind of peer pressure. From the developer's point of view, this seems like the Holy Grail of game design: a class of customers who will infinitely perform repetitive tasks in sort of a virtual assembly-line fashion in return for essentially costless "items."
But in the long run, it's more of a white elephant. Designers can't really stop producing content; they just start making content geared toward only the most zealous players, and eventually no normal person will want to want to touch it. The "cults" are able to cull members from inside the game, once they get to the end of the accessible content and are desperate for something else to do. But the (with all due respect) psychos leading the cults have at best a tenuous contact with the real world at all, let alone enough influence to convince people who aren't already in the game to start playing.
So what you get is the situation EQ was in six years ago, and WoW is in today: A large residual playerbase, but with a high percentage of disaffected players hanging by a thread waiting for the next big thing to come along that they can jump into and play the way they originally wanted.
As I like to put it, there is a very big difference between a COMMUNITY, and a COMMUNE.
The people who feel the burning urge to make everyone drive toward the same goal solely for the sake of unanimity are less destructive in a virtual world than they are in the real one. But they are every bit as irritating.
Games designed around being soloable means each individual encounter has to be easily beatable by the least soloable class. This is why you get all theses games where the zones / dungeons have static single spawn mobs in a grid every 30 feet that are (fairly) easily beatable by the Priest of Hippyness with their fluffy pink flower of smiting.
It's sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring. Run a bit. Easy boring fight. Run a bit. Easy boring fight. Run a bit etc. Urgh.
I'm a 90% soloer / 10% grouper by inclination. Soloing was FUN in a place like Unrest in EQ1 because it was designed to be dangerous for GROUPS so trying to solo in it was a total blast
That's the problem imo. If a game is designed to be easily soloable it becomes too easy. I can barely stay awake in WoW whereas after a few hours in Unrest I'd be too wired to sleep.
That's why I want games to be designed 60-70% around grouping - because it makes soloing in those games more dangerous and more fun.
The problem I have found with groups in general is that there are few players that really know how to play their class.
This is where SOLO playing comes in. You learn QUICKLY what the strengths and limitations of the class are or you DIE.
For the most part the groups I have played with can do a PART of what their class can do fairly well IF they are backed up by a bunch of heavyweight players (Overwhelm by sheer weight of numbers) rather than out think and out play the opposition. On their own they would die quickly. Mediocre players do well here.
A good SOLO player has the sense to heed the old saying "he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" - Fewer long walks back from the graveyard as in WoW.
Why not have SOLO ONLY servers on WoW with ALL towns as sanctuaries and PVP on a PLAYER optional basis - if the player is stupid enough to START a fight. All quests for all factions available to all players and NO RAIDS etc. There are PLENTY of MONSTERS in the game (especially if all factions quests are included) without fighting each other.
Why should the SOLO player NOT be able to get some of the goodies that are now reserved for the MOB MENTALITY only servers?
It's not so much learning your character as having a well-rounded character that matters. I've seen tons of team twinks that are so narrowly set up within a particular team dynamic that if they're ever removed from it, they're useless. Sure, your tank can deal a lot of damage, but without a doc to back them up, they have no stamina. Or the docs that are set up for massive heals, but have zero combat skills otherwise. These are characters that are about as completely gimped as you can get outside of the specific circumstances they're built for.
And this is what the group-only people want us all to do?
No thanks.
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It's not so much learning your character as having a well-rounded character that matters. I've seen tons of team twinks that are so narrowly set up within a particular team dynamic that if they're ever removed from it, they're useless. Sure, your tank can deal a lot of damage, but without a doc to back them up, they have no stamina. Or the docs that are set up for massive heals, but have zero combat skills otherwise. These are characters that are about as completely gimped as you can get outside of the specific circumstances they're built for.
And this is what the group-only people want us all to do?
No thanks.
That's why I like classes that can do both solo and group. A healer that can fight, a fighter that can heal... independence is a strong class trait. It is one thing to be able to mesh in a group but if you have to spend all your time waiting for a group because you cannot play the game outside one - what real use is that? To me that kind of game dynamic is boring. I like being able to solo and yet, when I find the need , to fit inside a group. I fear that most players are becoming sheep who have to play inside groups or they do not feel safe. In solo play you do die from time to time, but if your group has members who do not play as a team you do that anyways. A good, balanced game allows for both.
My biggest gripe with grouping - and what made me go SOLO to begin with - is that my past experience was with people who advertise for group members for a quest and then when we get to the quest they take all of the goodies and when they achieve their goals they just bail out and leave me in the midst of deep S**T.
In other words many - (I wont paint ALL of them with the same brush because I haven't met them all yet) - groupies are a bunch of A**H***S who are only out to exploit others for their own benefit. It had gotten so bad that I will now only group with my son and my triplet granddaughters.
I Got into WOW (3 years ago) because I thought it was a massive world to explore and to have fun in for a long time - and I could do that SOLO if I wanted to - at my liesure NOT at the whim of other players. I DID NOT know that I HAD to group for many things.
One of the things I like about Soloing is that if I spot a mining node - or herbs to pick - or something to skin - or just to drop a line in the water (especially if I see floating whatever) - I can do so without having a party have a caniption fit about it.
I agree, and it isn't just WoW.
I agree there's a ton of things wrong with the way grouping works in most games but my experience of games designed to be soloable is they're too easy to be any fun (for me).
So I'm thinking how would a game be designed so that enough people liked grouping (in dungeons mainly) such that the dungeons were designed to be dangerous in a way that made them fun to try and solo in (for me).
1. Loot: In my experience a lot of gripes with groups revolve around loot. I think players in a group should all get to loot a mob they killed. So if some goblin has a 50% chance of dropping a rusty toothpick then a solo player would have a 50% chance to get that phat lewt and if it was killed by a group then all the players in that group can click the corpse (if they want) and get the same chance.
Bosses would be similar except all players get a loot bag where they get to choose one from a list e.g a Minotaur boss loot bag might contain a cool axe, some rune that all classes needed for some class armour quest, a rare crafting item or some cash. That way everyone in the group could pick something they need without having random loot (which annoys me).
2. LFG: Second big problem with groups is forming them in the first place and there's two aspects to that, one is having players in the same place and secondly there's the problem of needing certain classes. My thoughts on this are:
A) Most exp would come from dungeons - I like quests but solo quest grinding is too easy imo while group quest grinding involves *far* too much LFG in my opinion especially if there's multiple stages. I'd make it so dungeons were for XP and quests were for things like faction, epic storyline and gear e.g if you had 12 gear slots then maybe 1/3 of the best gear for your class for a tier could come from solo quests but not much xp (and 1/3 crafted and 1/3 from mob drops in dungeons for example).
C) Need to move completely away from the tank&spank paradigm as it leads inevitably to holy trinity type needs when grouping which just makes getting the right people harder plus endless balancing headaches trying to make each class popular for groups. Big waste of time imo.
I think the paradigm should shift towards a man-to-man marking type paradigm where the aim is to avoid a situation where a player is being hit by more than one mob e.g
if a player is being hit by two mobs then both mobs get +2 to hit and +25% damage
if a player is being hit by three mobs then all three get +4 to hit and +50% damage
The aim then becomes to avoid that situation but using more off-tanking type methods rather than crowd control e.g a group enters a room with three mobs, the warrior goes first and gets all three mobs on him initially but the ranger pulls one off and the chanter mezzes the third. The warrior can handle his mob solo so the chanter helps the ranger kill his target, then they both help the warrior then all three kill the mezzed one. The aim should be most classes can keep one mob busy for a while, using whatever method suits their class, and then "spare" players use their class skills to tip the balance in various ways.
Another situation might be a warrior, two rogues and a healer. The warrior can solo his one and will kill it after a while so the tactics would be for the two rogues to lock the other two mobs while the healer keeps them alive. Then once the warrior has killed his one he can help the rogues and they can go behind the mob for a much quicker kill. The healer wouldn't be able to keep the tank alive if he was being hit by all three because of the damage increase but he could keep both rogues alive who are being hit by one mob each.
The aim would be to try and make it so almost any combination of classes can work - they'd just need to use different tactics.
D) Once the combat paradigm was set to revolve around numbers of mobs it's easy to make dungeons dangerous and interesting. The easy solo bits would have solo mobs with not many wanderers or solo wanderers. The more dangerous bits would have solo mobs and patrollers and the very dangerous bits would have rooms of linked groups of mobs. Fun to group and solo.
E) A group fighting paradigm that was based on a multiple off-tanking rather than a tank&spank paradigm would make it easier for a player not to mess up in a group by not knowing their "role" as for a lot of classes the group role would be similar to fighting a mob solo while there'd be a few "smarter" classes whose role was to tip the balance once all the mobs were being held.
Thoughts?
See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing.
That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
This is precisely what bothers me about some pro-groupers' attitude: if you can get the loot they got, through any method that did not require a group, regardless of the process, you have ruined thier game.
It is exactly as you say, they don't wish to share, they want exclusivity. Most pro-soloers don't care or mind that there are group dungeons or raids. They just want an alternate way of achieving the same loot. Most pro-groupers do not want to share. The attitude is: "Do it the way I had to do it or you've ruined my fun". How? Why do you care?
And Ihmotepp, just because you find City of Heroes an unsatisfying group game, doesn't mean the rest of us do. I group in that game all the time, cause it's fun. I could, if I wanted, get the exact same chance at drops without soloing in that game, but like many I enjoy grouping there.
See? It's not my way or the highway, which is what you want.
It is simple. I will play a single player game offline if I want all solo. I play online to play with others and a game where you can solo to kill and get everything in the game ruins that for me. Why group when the game is designed to be soloed? All of a sudden that dragon you are killing doesn't seem as dangerous when you walk up with your party and see one person killing it.
If they have some solo options in game, I am okay with that. I am not okay with them turning an online game I pay monthly for into a singleplayer game. Why bother playing?
See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing.
That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
This is precisely what bothers me about some pro-groupers' attitude: if you can get the loot they got, through any method that did not require a group, regardless of the process, you have ruined thier game.
It is exactly as you say, they don't wish to share, they want exclusivity. Most pro-soloers don't care or mind that there are group dungeons or raids. They just want an alternate way of achieving the same loot. Most pro-groupers do not want to share. The attitude is: "Do it the way I had to do it or you've ruined my fun". How? Why do you care?
And Ihmotepp, just because you find City of Heroes an unsatisfying group game, doesn't mean the rest of us do. I group in that game all the time, cause it's fun. I could, if I wanted, get the exact same chance at drops without soloing in that game, but like many I enjoy grouping there.
See? It's not my way or the highway, which is what you want.
Swamprob, just curious why you are plaing online? You state that you think solo should provide the same rewards as grouping and in other threads you state the game should play as a movie. Why not just watch a movie instead of wasting 15/month?
Yes, there are some pro-groupers whose attitude is simply idiotic.
Yes, there are some pro-soloers that share the same attitude, only reversed.
Like was said, there's only some pro-groupers that share this attitude. It's not the only view that pro-groupers have however, so not every pro-grouper should be put into the same category with these 'not-so-smart' pro-groupers.
So it is YOUR way or the highway. Go make your own game, and invite only groupers. I do not see how having soloable content ruins the game. Seems to me you are just being selfish.
That's what companies should do, you are right.
See, the problem is that you're defining any game where you even have the ability to solo as a solo game and then dismissing it as a bad game, while in any game that you're forced, either by mechanics or design, to be in a group all the time, is a group game.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of games out there are *BOTH* and you don't want to sully your precious "grouping games" by actually sharing.
That's your right, I suppose. I just find it pathetic that you have to control what everyone else does in order to feel good about your style of play.
This is precisely what bothers me about some pro-groupers' attitude: if you can get the loot they got, through any method that did not require a group, regardless of the process, you have ruined thier game.
It is exactly as you say, they don't wish to share, they want exclusivity. Most pro-soloers don't care or mind that there are group dungeons or raids. They just want an alternate way of achieving the same loot. Most pro-groupers do not want to share. The attitude is: "Do it the way I had to do it or you've ruined my fun". How? Why do you care?
And Ihmotepp, just because you find City of Heroes an unsatisfying group game, doesn't mean the rest of us do. I group in that game all the time, cause it's fun. I could, if I wanted, get the exact same chance at drops without soloing in that game, but like many I enjoy grouping there.
See? It's not my way or the highway, which is what you want.
Swamprob, just curious why you are plaing online? You state that you think solo should provide the same rewards as grouping and in other threads you state the game should play as a movie. Why not just watch a movie instead of wasting 15/month?
First off, the movie bit was in reference to a few select single player games. It has nothing to do with solo vs grouping.
As to why play online: this has been answered so many times in the these very forums.
I'll summarize: - online games are alive and persistant in a way that single player games can never be
- I like seeing other players in the game, it makes it feel alive
- I like grouping sometimes
- I don't see why it is a necessity or a given that in MMOs, you can only get the best end-game loot if you group.