I don't want to be superior to YOU, I want to be superior to the MOBs. And I want that character progression by doing group play. If I can gety the same progression solo, then why would I bother to group, since grouping is much harder than soloing? The challenge to group would be gone, so the fun would be gone.
Oh my goodness you are such a fool, and now Im wondering if you are arguing because you are bored.
You just said that you like to group because of the challenge. That is why you would group over soloing. Make up your mind. Do you want quick loot? or do you want a challenge? Do you want easy loot? or do you want to work for it, and have fun in a group? You retarded circle of mind numbing arguing is ridiculous and until you make a stand one way or the other, and stop making ridiculous comparisions to Lance Armstrong, nothing you say is going to have any meaning.
Or maybe I just want to play a good grouping game? You think people that play team sports like Basketball, Football, Soccer do it to belittle people that play solo sports like Golf and Tennis? Why would you think that?
LOL, comparing MMO's to sports. Man you love to stretch your arguments thin.
Because it will make MY path shorter or longer. I'm not worried about YOUR path, I'm worried about mine. I want the marathon race. It's a challenge for me. If you give me the trophy for going one mile, the challenge is gone. Do you know any race where they say, ok, you get the trophy for going one mile. BUT we'll let you go 2 thousand miles like the Tour De France if you want o, and THEN give you the trophy! You think anyone is going to race 2K miles to the same trophy they can get in one mile? Really? Why do you think that? I want the grouping game. If you let me get the xp, loot, levels, skills, solo, the challenge is gone. Just likew if you let me get the trophy in one mile, there's no need to go 2 thousand miles, and the challenge is gone. You're saying, look, we want to change the Tour De France, and if you go one mile, you get the SAME trophy as Lance ARmstrong! You think that would not change the race?> You think Lance would still pedal 2K miles for that trophy?
I still don't see the connection between a competitive race and leveling in an online game unless you are saying that you are racing against others to get to the cap. In an MMO, there is no trophy for being the first or fastest to the cap. You keep referring to the rules being changed but I don't know of many mainstream MMOs where the game was designed with the intent of creating a race to the cap for the players. It seems like most are designed to be quite the opposite - a journey to enjoy and experience, not race past.
Have you considered switching to browser-based MMOs? They usually have leaderboards and player rankings, and they are designed for players who enjoy competing to get to the top of the charts the fastest.
Ok, since you can't see past the "race", let's try this.
I"m going to post on this board, that LynxJSA is the most brilliant poster I"ve ever read, and that all his posts are much better than mine, make more sense than mine, and he's right on every issue IF your next post is the most brilliant post I've read on these forums all day.
Now, let's change it. I"m going post that LynxJSA is the most brilliant poster I"ve ever read on these forums, no matter what you post, even if you just post "doo doo".
What you seem to be saying, is you'll be happy with your reward, that Im' going to post you are a brilliant poster, no matter what hte challenge is.
Would you feel you deserved that post of mine if you just write doo doo? What that sort of take away the challenge of making a brilliant post? Or you think it's exactly the same?
Effort = reward.
Take away effort, reward loses meaning.
I don't want to race you to the cap. I want a game where my reward equals my effort, and that means the reward must equal the effort in a way that satisfies ME, not you.
If you're satisfied with a reward that can be earned solo, that's fine, but what abotu a game I like to play? What if Im' not satisfied with a reward I can earn solo, because I feel it takes away the effort, and therefore the reward loses meaning?
It's only self-evident if you define "hard" as "can only be accomplished as a group"; that is only a self-serving definition. There are other ways to make advancing aspects of the game "hard" without resorting to "larger and larger groups". Sequences of finely tuned solo-instances or lock-out common area fights can be made to be very difficult. The only reason to equate "groups" with "difficulty" is to rationalize the desire for grouping to deliver exclusively superior rewards. In any event, there is no law that says that just because you did something "harder" than the next guy, you should be able to get the reward and he shouldn't; it could equally mean that you just get the reward a lot faster than he does.
YOu act as if soloer's do not attempt encounters because of a loot type reward system. That would be a lie and you know it.
The Tome in WaR, accomplishments, feats, acheivements, mounts in WoW, titles, etc. these are all single player reward systems and the same rule applies to soloers that applies to groupers : People will want some carrot or reward for their efforts, very rarely will people put the time and effort in without some sort of reward at the end.
At the same time, there may not be a law for it, but it's human nature. Why do you think team sports dominate the market in the world? NFL, NBA, MLB, World Cup, Hockey... etc these are the top sports in the world because the majority of the world wants to be part of something. Even single player sports adopt groups at some level,, double's tennis, relay races, team martial arts, etc.
When it takes a team to win, the rewards are that much sweeter because it is harder to win it all with a team, because everyone has to do their job. The argument usually following a reply likethis is all someone does is go to wowhead, or players spam one spell,style, skill etc. My response is for developers to make encounters more exciting and more random, rather than JUST upping the level,hp, attack points of a creature. The developers need to think oustide the box to make encounters more dynamic without ruining group play.
I don't want to be superior to YOU, I want to be superior to the MOBs. And I want that character progression by doing group play. If I can gety the same progression solo, then why would I bother to group, since grouping is much harder than soloing? The challenge to group would be gone, so the fun would be gone.
Oh my goodness you are such a fool, and now Im wondering if you are arguing because you are bored.
You just said that you like to group because of the challenge. That is why you would group over soloing. Make up your mind. Do you want quick loot? or do you want a challenge? Do you want easy loot? or do you want to work for it, and have fun in a group? You retarded circle of mind numbing arguing is ridiculous and until you make a stand one way or the other, and stop making ridiculous comparisions to Lance Armstrong, nothing you say is going to have any meaning.
What's the challenge in doing something hard, if you can get the same thing by doing something easy?
Doesn't that mean there is no challenge, and you're just doing something hard for the heck of it?
That makes no sense to me.
Here, you can spend an hour putting together a group, and organizing everyone to fight effectively as a team, and get 100 xp points.
Here, you can skip that hour, and get 100 xp points.
Why would I spend the hour organizing when I can get the same 100 points without doing that? Where's the challenge there? Taht doesn't seem like a challenge, it jsut seems stupid.
Effort = reward. Take away effort, reward loses meaning. I don't want to race you to the cap. I want a game where my reward equals my effort, and that means the reward must equal the effort in a way that satisfies ME, not you. If you're satisfied with a reward that can be earned solo, that's fine, but what abotu a game I like to play? What if Im' not satisfied with a reward I can earn solo, because I feel it takes away the effort, and therefore the reward loses meaning?
You act like all solo content is effortless. Some solo content is very challenging, and is only trivialized when you do it in a group. And once again, you are stating that you want to be challenged for your loot, so go ahead and do the harder content, if you choose to not do it, and instead do the easy path, thats because once gain loot > challenge for you.
Because whether people group or not doesnt affect soloers -in any way-, unlike soloers affect grouping in a negative way.
But it doesn't. You are still welcome to go out and find anyone you want to group with and go find content hard enough to go through as a group. Nobody is stopping you. What you're really complaining about is that most players don't WANT to play your way. Changing the game so they're forced to won't change that, most people will just leave, the game will die and that will be the end of that.
Effort = reward. Take away effort, reward loses meaning. I don't want to race you to the cap. I want a game where my reward equals my effort, and that means the reward must equal the effort in a way that satisfies ME, not you. If you're satisfied with a reward that can be earned solo, that's fine, but what abotu a game I like to play? What if Im' not satisfied with a reward I can earn solo, because I feel it takes away the effort, and therefore the reward loses meaning?
You act like all solo content is effortless. Some solo content is very challenging, and is only trivialized when you do it in a group. And once again, you are stating that you want to be challenged for your loot, so go ahead and do the harder content, if you choose to not do it, and instead do the easy path, thats because once gain loot > challenge for you.
IMO, there is no such thing as challenging solo content in an MMORPG.
YOu can just level up, skill up, get better gear, and beat it.
There is no challenge in that, for me.
If that's challenging for you, that's fine, but it seriously is never a challenge for me, unless you mean the challenge is putting up with the boredom ot level or gaoin skills.
What's the challenge in doing something hard, if you can get the same thing by doing something easy? Doesn't that mean there is no challenge, and you're just doing something hard for the heck of it? That makes no sense to me. Here, you can spend an hour putting together a group, and organizing everyone to fight effectively as a team, and get 100 xp points. Here, you can skip that hour, and get 100 xp points. Why would I spend the hour organizing when I can get the same 100 points without doing that? Where's the challenge there? Taht doesn't seem like a challenge, it jsut seems stupid.
YES! You would do it for the heck of it, because you keep saying that you want a challenge. But yet once again you are saying that you would prefer the easy xp over the challenge. Please make up your mind. Are you in it only to get to the highest level as fast as possible? or do you want a challenge, regardless of what it takes?
And secondly, no one has stated for it to be like you have above. People have been advocating that solo'ers should get the same rewards as groupers, but it should take longer to make up for the fact that they are going solo, and also, no one has said that the solo content should be easy, it can be difficult, very difficult even.
And if anyone is wondering, I am not a solo'er. I actually hate soloing because I find its just like playing a single player game and thats not what I do in mmo's, but I have no problem at all with people that hate grouping, dont want to group, or cant find a group, earning the same rewards as me, in a different way. It does not affect my gameplay experience at all if someone gets an awesome weapon before me, because they took the easy route. I would rather have the enjoyment of knowing that my fellow guildmates and I have accomplished something together. IE in WoW Achievements > Loot for me.
People would embrace it if they could. The thing is, it's up to the devs to make it more like RL is, and not some half-assed copy that's only a half of what it is.
Obviously not. People can embrace it today. You do, right? But people don't *WANT* to embrace it, even when given the opportunity to make a choice. So instead of letting them choose and having them choose solo, you would rather just take away their choice altogether.
It's up to the devs to make a game that makes money. All the games that make money permit both solo and group play.
However what i am saying is that it is self-evidently true that if a game has almost no people grouping (except max level raiding) then it means the game is easy because if a game is designed to be hard then lots of people will automatically start to group for safety in numbers because that is how people behave - they form groups when they feel threatened. They do it n real-life and they do it in games. In a well-populated RvR game people automatically group up because the threat level is high. In a combat orientated MMORPG if there are no groups it means the level of threat is too low to make people want to be in a group. It's self-evident and obviously true.
Except that it's not. The fact is, lots of people are lazy, they think that sticking their name on a LFT list will get them a group and they never bother to make an effort beyond that. I can't tell you how many times I've been looking for a group, I'll look at the list and find dozens of people who all want to do the same thing, they just never took any initiative themselves to put a group together. People want to join an already-existing group, hopefully one looking for one last player, if they can't find that immediately, they'll go off and do something else and forget they're even on the LFT list.
In any MMO where there's progression (ie. all of them), anyone can choose the level of threat they want to face, be it solo or group. Groups can face a bigger threat and thus get a bigger reward for their level, we all acknowledge that. The only thing that being in a team does for you is let you get things earlier. That's it. There is absolutely no other reason to do it. If you're patient and don't insist on a childish obsession with uber-loot and swinging your e-peen around, there's really no reason to ever team.
The problem is that a lot of the pro-team advocates seem to be the childishly-obsessed variety, who aren't there to play the game, they're there to show off and find some way to be validated by having the biggest and best gear. For a lot of us that don't need that validation, who are only there to have fun, we all see that as utterly ludicrous and laughable.
Grouping games only work where the population is very high and the selection of targets is very low. If there are 500 places people want to go, finding 6-10 people of the right level who can all agree on a single place within a short period of time is difficult.
I said different than when someone doesn't play at all. If community suffers (which i am not convinced of), it would suffer even more with someone who never played. A soloer can and probably would take part of the community, but not grouping. The demands are different.
It depends on how you define community. I find much better, richer communities in games where soloing is common because they're not interested in helping just the people in their own little in-group. Good communities help EVERYONE. Not just the people in their team. Not just the people in their org. Not just the people on their side. EVERYONE. When people pick little in-groups, rudeness ensues because there's no commitment to having a good game that everyone enjoys, it turns into "us" and "them". Now sure, there may be in-game divisions, but seeing people being rude to people on the other side who are innocently asking for help or asking a question is really idiotic.
In my experience, the people who don't play the little "us vs. them" games tend to be much better community members because they recognize that it's not just a small number of people that make the game fun, but everyone involved.
Use any analogy you like, in a game there is a reward. Name a game where there is no reward, and you would have a point. IN a game wiht no xp, and no loot, no levels, no increase in skillz, I would agree wiht you 100%. However, your argument is defeated, because an MMORPG is a game with rewards. They are called Xp, loot, levels, and skillz.
The problem is, you're mistaking the reward. In a game, in *ANY* game, the reward is fun. XP and loot and levels and all of that are just mechanisms to facilitate that fun.
If you're playing the game for any other reason than to have a good time, you're doing it for the wrong reason. No wonder your idea of MMOs is so screwed up.
The problem is, you're mistaking the reward. In a game, in *ANY* game, the reward is fun. XP and loot and levels and all of that are just mechanisms to facilitate that fun. If you're playing the game for any other reason than to have a good time, you're doing it for the wrong reason. No wonder your idea of MMOs is so screwed up.
And RPG's are games about story and characters, and the reward comes from experiencing the story and (at least with favorite RPGs) seeing how my decisions change that story and how it effects the characters.
Do you play single player RPG's to get loot and level up your party?
I agree 100% Cephus404.
Ihmotepp is a reward driven loot whore just like so many of the "casual" and "solo" gamers he so tries to argue against.
I said different than when someone doesn't play at all. If community suffers (which i am not convinced of), it would suffer even more with someone who never played. A soloer can and probably would take part of the community, but not grouping. The demands are different.
It depends on how you define community. I find much better, richer communities in games where soloing is common because they're not interested in helping just the people in their own little in-group. Good communities help EVERYONE. Not just the people in their team. Not just the people in their org. Not just the people on their side. EVERYONE. When people pick little in-groups, rudeness ensues because there's no commitment to having a good game that everyone enjoys, it turns into "us" and "them". Now sure, there may be in-game divisions, but seeing people being rude to people on the other side who are innocently asking for help or asking a question is really idiotic.
In my experience, the people who don't play the little "us vs. them" games tend to be much better community members because they recognize that it's not just a small number of people that make the game fun, but everyone involved.
But what I'm thinking is that most of your grouping experience is based on modern day MMO's, which do have the characteristics you exhibited.
But back in the early days of DAOC and EQ, pepole were not so cliqish even if they belonged to a guild becuase the group mechanics meant you pretty much always needed to include outsiders to succeed, (forced if you will) and in doiing so people got to know each other and form bonds, even if they weren't on the same guild.
I had tons of friends outside my guild back in those days, but in today's more modern MMO's I rarely meet anyone unless its from a rare duo or something.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
However what i am saying is that it is self-evidently true that if a game has almost no people grouping (except max level raiding) then it means the game is easy because if a game is designed to be hard then lots of people will automatically start to group for safety in numbers because that is how people behave - they form groups when they feel threatened. They do it n real-life and they do it in games. In a well-populated RvR game people automatically group up because the threat level is high. In a combat orientated MMORPG if there are no groups it means the level of threat is too low to make people want to be in a group. It's self-evident and obviously true.
Except that it's not. The fact is, lots of people are lazy, they think that sticking their name on a LFT list will get them a group and they never bother to make an effort beyond that. I can't tell you how many times I've been looking for a group, I'll look at the list and find dozens of people who all want to do the same thing, they just never took any initiative themselves to put a group together. People want to join an already-existing group, hopefully one looking for one last player, if they can't find that immediately, they'll go off and do something else and forget they're even on the LFT list.
In any MMO where there's progression (ie. all of them), anyone can choose the level of threat they want to face, be it solo or group. Groups can face a bigger threat and thus get a bigger reward for their level, we all acknowledge that. The only thing that being in a team does for you is let you get things earlier. That's it. There is absolutely no other reason to do it. If you're patient and don't insist on a childish obsession with uber-loot and swinging your e-peen around, there's really no reason to ever team.
The problem is that a lot of the pro-team advocates seem to be the childishly-obsessed variety, who aren't there to play the game, they're there to show off and find some way to be validated by having the biggest and best gear. For a lot of us that don't need that validation, who are only there to have fun, we all see that as utterly ludicrous and laughable.
Grouping games only work where the population is very high and the selection of targets is very low. If there are 500 places people want to go, finding 6-10 people of the right level who can all agree on a single place within a short period of time is difficult.
Whoa - almost agree with some of that, shocking
"The fact is, lots of people are lazy, they think that sticking their name on a LFT list will get them a group and they never bother to make an effort beyond that."
I know what you're talking about and agree it's a problem for pro-groupers but I don't think it's laziness I think it's people not wanting to be the leader. One thing I'd do if I was designing some kind of LFG tool is have a check box saying "are you prepared to be the leader?". Some method to try and get round that bit of human psychology.
The example of WAR where 90% of people are soloing the PvE and instantly turning into groupers for the RvR is partly down to the open warband system imo as it gets round that shyness factor.
"In any MMO where there's progression (ie. all of them), anyone can choose the level of threat they want to face"
That's true in terms of individual mob difficulty - if dungeons are designed around solo questing with single spawn mobs in a neat grid i can choose to go fight higher level single spawn mobs in a neat grid in the next zone. But that's still mind-numbing compared to dungeons like Unrest, Crushbone etc where there were plenty of individual mobs that were easy to solo as individual mobs but the challenge was in how the mobs were laid out plus their social radius, aggro radius and the number of wanderers.
Basically if you've got an MMORPG where pulling isn't an art form then it's too easy (imo).
"The problem is that a lot of the pro-team advocates seem to be the childishly-obsessed variety, who aren't there to play the game, they're there to show off and find some way to be validated by having the biggest and best gear."
There's definitely two seperate arguments going on. The pre-endgame pro-grouper argument is that if solo quest grinding is the easiest path then the 80% of people who group or solo based on cost-benefit will solo and then the groupers won't have a big enough pool of people to group with.
There's also an endgame gear-related argument... which i'm ignoring because of the associated nerd-rage.
"Grouping games only work where the population is very high and the selection of targets is very low. If there are 500 places people want to go, finding 6-10 people of the right level who can all agree on a single place within a short period of time is difficult."
Yes, defo true. A game that encourages grouping but doesn't force it would take a lot more design effort to get right than either a forced group game or a solo quester game. I think it would need to work (like EQ1 did early on) through steering players towards certain zones (using cost-benefit) so the zone was well populated and then making those zones challenging enough so that 60-70% of players grouped up naturally. I think if you have that sort of percentage grouped (without forcing them) then it's a sign you've got the difficulty level about right.
But what I'm thinking is that most of your grouping experience is based on modern day MMO's, which do have the characteristics you exhibited. But back in the early days of DAOC and EQ, pepole were not so cliqish even if they belonged to a guild becuase the group mechanics meant you pretty much always needed to include outsiders to succeed, (forced if you will) and in doiing so people got to know each other and form bonds, even if they weren't on the same guild. I had tons of friends outside my guild back in those days, but in today's more modern MMO's I rarely meet anyone unless its from a rare duo or something.
No, it's not. However, all of the examples you can come up with are how it "used to be". We can't live in the past, we have to deal with how things are today. MMOs "used to be" designed for a niche market. That's no longer the case. They are now mainstream entertainment. I can think of all kinds of things that I used to love in pre-mainstream MMOs, but that's history, this is reality. Time to deal with how things actually are, not how we wish they still were.
What I said applies to the MMOs of today. The MMOs of yesterday aren't coming back.
But what I'm thinking is that most of your grouping experience is based on modern day MMO's, which do have the characteristics you exhibited. But back in the early days of DAOC and EQ, pepole were not so cliqish even if they belonged to a guild becuase the group mechanics meant you pretty much always needed to include outsiders to succeed, (forced if you will) and in doiing so people got to know each other and form bonds, even if they weren't on the same guild. I had tons of friends outside my guild back in those days, but in today's more modern MMO's I rarely meet anyone unless its from a rare duo or something.
No, it's not. However, all of the examples you can come up with are how it "used to be". We can't live in the past, we have to deal with how things are today. MMOs "used to be" designed for a niche market. That's no longer the case. They are now mainstream entertainment. I can think of all kinds of things that I used to love in pre-mainstream MMOs, but that's history, this is reality. Time to deal with how things actually are, not how we wish they still were.
What I said applies to the MMOs of today. The MMOs of yesterday aren't coming back.
True but anyone who does not want to repeat mistakes of the past should look back and learn from it. Games in the past might have been created for a niche market ,
"which I don't think they were because the niche's hadn't been defined yet"
So, looking at today, are players subbing to a game for 1-3 years at a time, or are they picking up a game trying it for 1-3 months maybe 6 if you're lucky and then jumping ship? If companies, want to recoup their investments and keep their playerbase solid in order to make money for as long as they can, they not only need to look at what gamers are doing today, but what is missing from yesterday. Why aren't players subbing to games for longer periods of time. Is it just the amount of competition, game design, classes, loot, social ties, end game, pvp, pve ..........
To ignore history is ignorant whether it's games, dating, politics, sports, etc. HIstory is a tool that should be used to learn from. If you ignore the history of gamer attitudes, you will not be able to put your finger on where they changed and why they changed.
But what I'm thinking is that most of your grouping experience is based on modern day MMO's, which do have the characteristics you exhibited. But back in the early days of DAOC and EQ, pepole were not so cliqish even if they belonged to a guild becuase the group mechanics meant you pretty much always needed to include outsiders to succeed, (forced if you will) and in doiing so people got to know each other and form bonds, even if they weren't on the same guild. I had tons of friends outside my guild back in those days, but in today's more modern MMO's I rarely meet anyone unless its from a rare duo or something.
No, it's not. However, all of the examples you can come up with are how it "used to be". We can't live in the past, we have to deal with how things are today. MMOs "used to be" designed for a niche market. That's no longer the case. They are now mainstream entertainment. I can think of all kinds of things that I used to love in pre-mainstream MMOs, but that's history, this is reality. Time to deal with how things actually are, not how we wish they still were.
What I said applies to the MMOs of today. The MMOs of yesterday aren't coming back.
I disagree.
There will at some point, just because of natural economic forces, be a return of the niche MMORPG game.
MMORPGs won't function differently than any other market. You can make a product with mass appeal, and ignore the niche market, until the mass appeal market is completely saturated.
At that point, the competition is very hight for the mass market, and there can be more profits to be made servicing the unfulfilled niche market.
And it doesn't hurt that bandwidth has come down, system specs have gone up, and Engines like the Hero Engine, and Big World which just release 2.0 are becoming more affordable.
I don't think that MMORPGs will only cater to the mass market from now into infinity.
THe same economic forces are why Hollywood doesn't just make Harry Potter movies, but also makes Blood The Last Vampire, which is in limited release.
Because it will make MY path shorter or longer. I'm not worried about YOUR path, I'm worried about mine. I want the marathon race. It's a challenge for me. If you give me the trophy for going one mile, the challenge is gone. Do you know any race where they say, ok, you get the trophy for going one mile. BUT we'll let you go 2 thousand miles like the Tour De France if you want o, and THEN give you the trophy! You think anyone is going to race 2K miles to the same trophy they can get in one mile? Really? Why do you think that? I want the grouping game. If you let me get the xp, loot, levels, skills, solo, the challenge is gone. Just likew if you let me get the trophy in one mile, there's no need to go 2 thousand miles, and the challenge is gone. You're saying, look, we want to change the Tour De France, and if you go one mile, you get the SAME trophy as Lance ARmstrong! You think that would not change the race?> You think Lance would still pedal 2K miles for that trophy?
1 - How does the way player Snuffy plays the game for loot, xp, and skills ("skillz" is, unfortunately for you, not a word) affect the way you choose to play the game? Short answer - the way I prefer to play has nothing to do with you - good, bad, or indifferent - at all! (Assuming I am staying within the guidelines of the TOS, the EULA, and common courtesy and good taste)
2 - If you wanted the "marathon race," your argument would be quite the opposite: the solo players in this thread are the ones asking for the marathon (by virtue of saying that they'd prefer it if solo players could earn the same rewards as groupers with more work). It seems to me that you specifically are asking for the "one mile" Tour de France while the soloers are asking for the "two thousand mile" version. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that it is far easier to run a dungeon with a group than it is to run it solo. WoW example: if I run Scarlet Monastery (deliberately using a low-level example here) with a group, it takes a couple hours. Running Scarlet Monastery solo - which is possible because I have done it on a level 43 toon - takes considerably longer...as in, it took me more than 3 hours to do just one segment of the instance solo. In a group, the same segment of the instance took me about ten minutes.
3 - No one is asking to change the Tour de France (using your analogy here). What players are asking for is the opportunity to complete the Tour de France. Whether it takes less time or more time than it takes Lance Armstrong, in the Tour, every rider receives the opportunity to cross the finish line. With the way most games are currently set up, many players are not even given the opportunity to cross the finish line, whether they are capable of doing so or not, because half of the road to the finish line is deliberately blocked off to them in the form of instances/dungeons that require a group to complete. This means that the solo player (whether that be by choice, due to work schedules, whatever) is automatically unable to compete.
It seems to me that what you are saying is, "I play the game this way and if you play it any other way, then you are negatively affecting my gaming experience." If that is in fact what you are saying, you have, quite possibly, the most arrogant attitude I have ever heard of. Players with that attitude have the capacity to ruin everyone's gaming experience with their incessant whining that their way is right and everyone else's is wrong...people who have that attitude are the reason many games go through Community Managers with such alarming frequency - people with that attitude can't be pleased, but they will whine until they get their way or get added to everyone's ignore list.
"You are obviously confusing a mature rating with actual maturity." -Asherman
Maybe MMO is not your genre, go play Modern Warfare...or something you can be all twitchy...and rank up all night. This is seriously getting tired. -Ranyr
hmm personally i think solo and group play are balanced! well whenever i need a group to defeat a boss, people are really nice to come and help me.. even if they had defeated the boss before!
Comments
Oh my goodness you are such a fool, and now Im wondering if you are arguing because you are bored.
You just said that you like to group because of the challenge. That is why you would group over soloing. Make up your mind. Do you want quick loot? or do you want a challenge? Do you want easy loot? or do you want to work for it, and have fun in a group? You retarded circle of mind numbing arguing is ridiculous and until you make a stand one way or the other, and stop making ridiculous comparisions to Lance Armstrong, nothing you say is going to have any meaning.
LOL, comparing MMO's to sports. Man you love to stretch your arguments thin.
if u want to solo why not just play a game wich is not online? like diablo 2? or final fantasy the early ones
I still don't see the connection between a competitive race and leveling in an online game unless you are saying that you are racing against others to get to the cap. In an MMO, there is no trophy for being the first or fastest to the cap. You keep referring to the rules being changed but I don't know of many mainstream MMOs where the game was designed with the intent of creating a race to the cap for the players. It seems like most are designed to be quite the opposite - a journey to enjoy and experience, not race past.
Have you considered switching to browser-based MMOs? They usually have leaderboards and player rankings, and they are designed for players who enjoy competing to get to the top of the charts the fastest.
Ok, since you can't see past the "race", let's try this.
I"m going to post on this board, that LynxJSA is the most brilliant poster I"ve ever read, and that all his posts are much better than mine, make more sense than mine, and he's right on every issue IF your next post is the most brilliant post I've read on these forums all day.
Now, let's change it. I"m going post that LynxJSA is the most brilliant poster I"ve ever read on these forums, no matter what you post, even if you just post "doo doo".
What you seem to be saying, is you'll be happy with your reward, that Im' going to post you are a brilliant poster, no matter what hte challenge is.
Would you feel you deserved that post of mine if you just write doo doo? What that sort of take away the challenge of making a brilliant post? Or you think it's exactly the same?
Effort = reward.
Take away effort, reward loses meaning.
I don't want to race you to the cap. I want a game where my reward equals my effort, and that means the reward must equal the effort in a way that satisfies ME, not you.
If you're satisfied with a reward that can be earned solo, that's fine, but what abotu a game I like to play? What if Im' not satisfied with a reward I can earn solo, because I feel it takes away the effort, and therefore the reward loses meaning?
YOu act as if soloer's do not attempt encounters because of a loot type reward system. That would be a lie and you know it.
The Tome in WaR, accomplishments, feats, acheivements, mounts in WoW, titles, etc. these are all single player reward systems and the same rule applies to soloers that applies to groupers : People will want some carrot or reward for their efforts, very rarely will people put the time and effort in without some sort of reward at the end.
At the same time, there may not be a law for it, but it's human nature. Why do you think team sports dominate the market in the world? NFL, NBA, MLB, World Cup, Hockey... etc these are the top sports in the world because the majority of the world wants to be part of something. Even single player sports adopt groups at some level,, double's tennis, relay races, team martial arts, etc.
When it takes a team to win, the rewards are that much sweeter because it is harder to win it all with a team, because everyone has to do their job. The argument usually following a reply likethis is all someone does is go to wowhead, or players spam one spell,style, skill etc. My response is for developers to make encounters more exciting and more random, rather than JUST upping the level,hp, attack points of a creature. The developers need to think oustide the box to make encounters more dynamic without ruining group play.
Oh my goodness you are such a fool, and now Im wondering if you are arguing because you are bored.
You just said that you like to group because of the challenge. That is why you would group over soloing. Make up your mind. Do you want quick loot? or do you want a challenge? Do you want easy loot? or do you want to work for it, and have fun in a group? You retarded circle of mind numbing arguing is ridiculous and until you make a stand one way or the other, and stop making ridiculous comparisions to Lance Armstrong, nothing you say is going to have any meaning.
What's the challenge in doing something hard, if you can get the same thing by doing something easy?
Doesn't that mean there is no challenge, and you're just doing something hard for the heck of it?
That makes no sense to me.
Here, you can spend an hour putting together a group, and organizing everyone to fight effectively as a team, and get 100 xp points.
Here, you can skip that hour, and get 100 xp points.
Why would I spend the hour organizing when I can get the same 100 points without doing that? Where's the challenge there? Taht doesn't seem like a challenge, it jsut seems stupid.
You act like all solo content is effortless. Some solo content is very challenging, and is only trivialized when you do it in a group. And once again, you are stating that you want to be challenged for your loot, so go ahead and do the harder content, if you choose to not do it, and instead do the easy path, thats because once gain loot > challenge for you.
You're just a loot whore and powergamer Ihmotepp.
I've finally figured it out.
You just want the best stuff in the game and don't want solo players to be able to get the same because they didn't work as hard as you did for it.
Boo hoo.
I hope you never design a game.
It's be called "Beating your head against a wall for phat epics"
But it doesn't. You are still welcome to go out and find anyone you want to group with and go find content hard enough to go through as a group. Nobody is stopping you. What you're really complaining about is that most players don't WANT to play your way. Changing the game so they're forced to won't change that, most people will just leave, the game will die and that will be the end of that.
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You act like all solo content is effortless. Some solo content is very challenging, and is only trivialized when you do it in a group. And once again, you are stating that you want to be challenged for your loot, so go ahead and do the harder content, if you choose to not do it, and instead do the easy path, thats because once gain loot > challenge for you.
IMO, there is no such thing as challenging solo content in an MMORPG.
YOu can just level up, skill up, get better gear, and beat it.
There is no challenge in that, for me.
If that's challenging for you, that's fine, but it seriously is never a challenge for me, unless you mean the challenge is putting up with the boredom ot level or gaoin skills.
YES! You would do it for the heck of it, because you keep saying that you want a challenge. But yet once again you are saying that you would prefer the easy xp over the challenge. Please make up your mind. Are you in it only to get to the highest level as fast as possible? or do you want a challenge, regardless of what it takes?
And secondly, no one has stated for it to be like you have above. People have been advocating that solo'ers should get the same rewards as groupers, but it should take longer to make up for the fact that they are going solo, and also, no one has said that the solo content should be easy, it can be difficult, very difficult even.
And if anyone is wondering, I am not a solo'er. I actually hate soloing because I find its just like playing a single player game and thats not what I do in mmo's, but I have no problem at all with people that hate grouping, dont want to group, or cant find a group, earning the same rewards as me, in a different way. It does not affect my gameplay experience at all if someone gets an awesome weapon before me, because they took the easy route. I would rather have the enjoyment of knowing that my fellow guildmates and I have accomplished something together. IE in WoW Achievements > Loot for me.
Obviously not. People can embrace it today. You do, right? But people don't *WANT* to embrace it, even when given the opportunity to make a choice. So instead of letting them choose and having them choose solo, you would rather just take away their choice altogether.
It's up to the devs to make a game that makes money. All the games that make money permit both solo and group play.
Join reality on this one.
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Hey folks if u want a solo game wich not require group play to get to lvl cap try Runescape or Maplestory
Except that it's not. The fact is, lots of people are lazy, they think that sticking their name on a LFT list will get them a group and they never bother to make an effort beyond that. I can't tell you how many times I've been looking for a group, I'll look at the list and find dozens of people who all want to do the same thing, they just never took any initiative themselves to put a group together. People want to join an already-existing group, hopefully one looking for one last player, if they can't find that immediately, they'll go off and do something else and forget they're even on the LFT list.
In any MMO where there's progression (ie. all of them), anyone can choose the level of threat they want to face, be it solo or group. Groups can face a bigger threat and thus get a bigger reward for their level, we all acknowledge that. The only thing that being in a team does for you is let you get things earlier. That's it. There is absolutely no other reason to do it. If you're patient and don't insist on a childish obsession with uber-loot and swinging your e-peen around, there's really no reason to ever team.
The problem is that a lot of the pro-team advocates seem to be the childishly-obsessed variety, who aren't there to play the game, they're there to show off and find some way to be validated by having the biggest and best gear. For a lot of us that don't need that validation, who are only there to have fun, we all see that as utterly ludicrous and laughable.
Grouping games only work where the population is very high and the selection of targets is very low. If there are 500 places people want to go, finding 6-10 people of the right level who can all agree on a single place within a short period of time is difficult.
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It depends on how you define community. I find much better, richer communities in games where soloing is common because they're not interested in helping just the people in their own little in-group. Good communities help EVERYONE. Not just the people in their team. Not just the people in their org. Not just the people on their side. EVERYONE. When people pick little in-groups, rudeness ensues because there's no commitment to having a good game that everyone enjoys, it turns into "us" and "them". Now sure, there may be in-game divisions, but seeing people being rude to people on the other side who are innocently asking for help or asking a question is really idiotic.
In my experience, the people who don't play the little "us vs. them" games tend to be much better community members because they recognize that it's not just a small number of people that make the game fun, but everyone involved.
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The problem is, you're mistaking the reward. In a game, in *ANY* game, the reward is fun. XP and loot and levels and all of that are just mechanisms to facilitate that fun.
If you're playing the game for any other reason than to have a good time, you're doing it for the wrong reason. No wonder your idea of MMOs is so screwed up.
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Or games that are specifically designed by the game developers for it, like MMOs.
Do you just like to post for no reason?
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And RPG's are games about story and characters, and the reward comes from experiencing the story and (at least with favorite RPGs) seeing how my decisions change that story and how it effects the characters.
Do you play single player RPG's to get loot and level up your party?
I agree 100% Cephus404.
Ihmotepp is a reward driven loot whore just like so many of the "casual" and "solo" gamers he so tries to argue against.
It depends on how you define community. I find much better, richer communities in games where soloing is common because they're not interested in helping just the people in their own little in-group. Good communities help EVERYONE. Not just the people in their team. Not just the people in their org. Not just the people on their side. EVERYONE. When people pick little in-groups, rudeness ensues because there's no commitment to having a good game that everyone enjoys, it turns into "us" and "them". Now sure, there may be in-game divisions, but seeing people being rude to people on the other side who are innocently asking for help or asking a question is really idiotic.
In my experience, the people who don't play the little "us vs. them" games tend to be much better community members because they recognize that it's not just a small number of people that make the game fun, but everyone involved.
But what I'm thinking is that most of your grouping experience is based on modern day MMO's, which do have the characteristics you exhibited.
But back in the early days of DAOC and EQ, pepole were not so cliqish even if they belonged to a guild becuase the group mechanics meant you pretty much always needed to include outsiders to succeed, (forced if you will) and in doiing so people got to know each other and form bonds, even if they weren't on the same guild.
I had tons of friends outside my guild back in those days, but in today's more modern MMO's I rarely meet anyone unless its from a rare duo or something.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Except that it's not. The fact is, lots of people are lazy, they think that sticking their name on a LFT list will get them a group and they never bother to make an effort beyond that. I can't tell you how many times I've been looking for a group, I'll look at the list and find dozens of people who all want to do the same thing, they just never took any initiative themselves to put a group together. People want to join an already-existing group, hopefully one looking for one last player, if they can't find that immediately, they'll go off and do something else and forget they're even on the LFT list.
In any MMO where there's progression (ie. all of them), anyone can choose the level of threat they want to face, be it solo or group. Groups can face a bigger threat and thus get a bigger reward for their level, we all acknowledge that. The only thing that being in a team does for you is let you get things earlier. That's it. There is absolutely no other reason to do it. If you're patient and don't insist on a childish obsession with uber-loot and swinging your e-peen around, there's really no reason to ever team.
The problem is that a lot of the pro-team advocates seem to be the childishly-obsessed variety, who aren't there to play the game, they're there to show off and find some way to be validated by having the biggest and best gear. For a lot of us that don't need that validation, who are only there to have fun, we all see that as utterly ludicrous and laughable.
Grouping games only work where the population is very high and the selection of targets is very low. If there are 500 places people want to go, finding 6-10 people of the right level who can all agree on a single place within a short period of time is difficult.
Whoa - almost agree with some of that, shocking
"The fact is, lots of people are lazy, they think that sticking their name on a LFT list will get them a group and they never bother to make an effort beyond that."
I know what you're talking about and agree it's a problem for pro-groupers but I don't think it's laziness I think it's people not wanting to be the leader. One thing I'd do if I was designing some kind of LFG tool is have a check box saying "are you prepared to be the leader?". Some method to try and get round that bit of human psychology.
The example of WAR where 90% of people are soloing the PvE and instantly turning into groupers for the RvR is partly down to the open warband system imo as it gets round that shyness factor.
"In any MMO where there's progression (ie. all of them), anyone can choose the level of threat they want to face"
That's true in terms of individual mob difficulty - if dungeons are designed around solo questing with single spawn mobs in a neat grid i can choose to go fight higher level single spawn mobs in a neat grid in the next zone. But that's still mind-numbing compared to dungeons like Unrest, Crushbone etc where there were plenty of individual mobs that were easy to solo as individual mobs but the challenge was in how the mobs were laid out plus their social radius, aggro radius and the number of wanderers.
Basically if you've got an MMORPG where pulling isn't an art form then it's too easy (imo).
"The problem is that a lot of the pro-team advocates seem to be the childishly-obsessed variety, who aren't there to play the game, they're there to show off and find some way to be validated by having the biggest and best gear."
There's definitely two seperate arguments going on. The pre-endgame pro-grouper argument is that if solo quest grinding is the easiest path then the 80% of people who group or solo based on cost-benefit will solo and then the groupers won't have a big enough pool of people to group with.
There's also an endgame gear-related argument... which i'm ignoring because of the associated nerd-rage.
"Grouping games only work where the population is very high and the selection of targets is very low. If there are 500 places people want to go, finding 6-10 people of the right level who can all agree on a single place within a short period of time is difficult."
Yes, defo true. A game that encourages grouping but doesn't force it would take a lot more design effort to get right than either a forced group game or a solo quester game. I think it would need to work (like EQ1 did early on) through steering players towards certain zones (using cost-benefit) so the zone was well populated and then making those zones challenging enough so that 60-70% of players grouped up naturally. I think if you have that sort of percentage grouped (without forcing them) then it's a sign you've got the difficulty level about right.
No, it's not. However, all of the examples you can come up with are how it "used to be". We can't live in the past, we have to deal with how things are today. MMOs "used to be" designed for a niche market. That's no longer the case. They are now mainstream entertainment. I can think of all kinds of things that I used to love in pre-mainstream MMOs, but that's history, this is reality. Time to deal with how things actually are, not how we wish they still were.
What I said applies to the MMOs of today. The MMOs of yesterday aren't coming back.
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No, it's not. However, all of the examples you can come up with are how it "used to be". We can't live in the past, we have to deal with how things are today. MMOs "used to be" designed for a niche market. That's no longer the case. They are now mainstream entertainment. I can think of all kinds of things that I used to love in pre-mainstream MMOs, but that's history, this is reality. Time to deal with how things actually are, not how we wish they still were.
What I said applies to the MMOs of today. The MMOs of yesterday aren't coming back.
True but anyone who does not want to repeat mistakes of the past should look back and learn from it. Games in the past might have been created for a niche market ,
"which I don't think they were because the niche's hadn't been defined yet"
So, looking at today, are players subbing to a game for 1-3 years at a time, or are they picking up a game trying it for 1-3 months maybe 6 if you're lucky and then jumping ship? If companies, want to recoup their investments and keep their playerbase solid in order to make money for as long as they can, they not only need to look at what gamers are doing today, but what is missing from yesterday. Why aren't players subbing to games for longer periods of time. Is it just the amount of competition, game design, classes, loot, social ties, end game, pvp, pve ..........
To ignore history is ignorant whether it's games, dating, politics, sports, etc. HIstory is a tool that should be used to learn from. If you ignore the history of gamer attitudes, you will not be able to put your finger on where they changed and why they changed.
No, it's not. However, all of the examples you can come up with are how it "used to be". We can't live in the past, we have to deal with how things are today. MMOs "used to be" designed for a niche market. That's no longer the case. They are now mainstream entertainment. I can think of all kinds of things that I used to love in pre-mainstream MMOs, but that's history, this is reality. Time to deal with how things actually are, not how we wish they still were.
What I said applies to the MMOs of today. The MMOs of yesterday aren't coming back.
I disagree.
There will at some point, just because of natural economic forces, be a return of the niche MMORPG game.
MMORPGs won't function differently than any other market. You can make a product with mass appeal, and ignore the niche market, until the mass appeal market is completely saturated.
At that point, the competition is very hight for the mass market, and there can be more profits to be made servicing the unfulfilled niche market.
And it doesn't hurt that bandwidth has come down, system specs have gone up, and Engines like the Hero Engine, and Big World which just release 2.0 are becoming more affordable.
I don't think that MMORPGs will only cater to the mass market from now into infinity.
THe same economic forces are why Hollywood doesn't just make Harry Potter movies, but also makes Blood The Last Vampire, which is in limited release.
1 - How does the way player Snuffy plays the game for loot, xp, and skills ("skillz" is, unfortunately for you, not a word) affect the way you choose to play the game? Short answer - the way I prefer to play has nothing to do with you - good, bad, or indifferent - at all! (Assuming I am staying within the guidelines of the TOS, the EULA, and common courtesy and good taste)
2 - If you wanted the "marathon race," your argument would be quite the opposite: the solo players in this thread are the ones asking for the marathon (by virtue of saying that they'd prefer it if solo players could earn the same rewards as groupers with more work). It seems to me that you specifically are asking for the "one mile" Tour de France while the soloers are asking for the "two thousand mile" version. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that it is far easier to run a dungeon with a group than it is to run it solo. WoW example: if I run Scarlet Monastery (deliberately using a low-level example here) with a group, it takes a couple hours. Running Scarlet Monastery solo - which is possible because I have done it on a level 43 toon - takes considerably longer...as in, it took me more than 3 hours to do just one segment of the instance solo. In a group, the same segment of the instance took me about ten minutes.
3 - No one is asking to change the Tour de France (using your analogy here). What players are asking for is the opportunity to complete the Tour de France. Whether it takes less time or more time than it takes Lance Armstrong, in the Tour, every rider receives the opportunity to cross the finish line. With the way most games are currently set up, many players are not even given the opportunity to cross the finish line, whether they are capable of doing so or not, because half of the road to the finish line is deliberately blocked off to them in the form of instances/dungeons that require a group to complete. This means that the solo player (whether that be by choice, due to work schedules, whatever) is automatically unable to compete.
It seems to me that what you are saying is, "I play the game this way and if you play it any other way, then you are negatively affecting my gaming experience." If that is in fact what you are saying, you have, quite possibly, the most arrogant attitude I have ever heard of. Players with that attitude have the capacity to ruin everyone's gaming experience with their incessant whining that their way is right and everyone else's is wrong...people who have that attitude are the reason many games go through Community Managers with such alarming frequency - people with that attitude can't be pleased, but they will whine until they get their way or get added to everyone's ignore list.
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Maybe MMO is not your genre, go play Modern Warfare...or something you can be all twitchy...and rank up all night. This is seriously getting tired. -Ranyr
hmm personally i think solo and group play are balanced! well whenever i need a group to defeat a boss, people are really nice to come and help me.. even if they had defeated the boss before!