Originally posted by Hyanmen Anyone doesn't have to play the same game as me- they can play a game which caters to their interests, which in this case is solo content. There are no MMO's purely for soloers, yet there are no MMO's purely for groupers either- this should change. Those who want to solo can go do that for all I care, in a game designed for them. Soloers can only benefit from groupers- soloers can only harm groupers. You don't have as good community as you would have in a group based game. Soloers rather solo than group up, which leads to less players lfg in general..
There are plenty MMOs for groupers.
Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
There are plenty MMOs for groupers. Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
There is a reason why those who have played FFXI say that one of the best aspects of the game was the community, and the reason for that is not the emphasis on solo play, I can tell you that much. The whole game is as group heavy as it can get. Do these two things (grouping and good community) go hand in hand? I have all the reasons to believe so, based on my example. Do you have any examples, or are you just claiming these things out of thin air?
You are not exactly telling me how groupers can benefit from soloers, either. Only that yeah, it works, everyone playing just has to work together and be nice and sunshine will shine in a field filled with flowers forever~ It's not really convincing anyone, y'know..
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
MMOs shine when they get people grouping up and working together, that has been a major foundation for the genre.
What is the point of soloing to max level?
Look at the "game doesn't start until max level" type. Why does it not start until max level? Because reaching max level has been reduced from an accomplishment to a nuisance. Why is leveling grindy and repetitive? Because it is trivial. Games that are too solo friendly become end game only, and every level below max becomes a waste of time.
If todays MMO were any more solo friendly, you'd be able to solo end game raid content. At that point leveling and end game are both trivial, so what's the point of playing?
I don't think grouping should be forced, but it should definately not be easy. The only people who should be soloing are those who really want to challenge themselves, or have too much time on their hands.
People who complain that they can't log on for more then 30 minutes might actually have fun if there were a shred of challenge involved. Just because you're getting 5 levels in 30 minutes doesn't make the game fun. Completing a single quest objective by the skin of your teeth might be though, or working together with a small group to take down a miniboss.
Any MMO where you can pretty much mostly solo will eventually just turn into a boring race to max level. The only time those games are ever fun is when they first come out and everyone is progressing.
It's not just levels either, take skill based MMOs where raising the skill is boring and trivial, what do you get? bots and macros.
If you like end game only MMOs then why not just play a game where you start out max level / skill? That wouldn't be the type of game I'd be willing to pay a sub for.
There are plenty MMOs for groupers. Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
There is a reason why those who have played FFXI say that one of the best aspects of the game was the community, and the reason for that is not the emphasis on solo play, I can tell you that much. The whole game is as group heavy as it can get. Do these two things (grouping and good community) go hand in hand? I have all the reasons to believe so, based on my example. Do you have any examples, or are you just claiming these things out of thin air?
You are not exactly telling me how groupers can benefit from soloers, either. Only that yeah, it works, everyone playing just has to work together and be nice and sunshine will shine in a field filled with flowers forever~ It's not really convincing anyone, y'know..
From 2002 to 2007 I was part of a great community of MMO players. We started out with Earth and Beyond and moved to various games befroe settling in in WoW. We based ourself on the idea that everyone gets to play how they want to and we do not force interaction on our members. Despite this very solo-friendly attitude the community flourished. People would help out whenever they could and people liked sharing their ideas and personal experiences. We got to the point where we really cared about the people who played and not just their in-game characters. When some of our members were called to serve in Iraq, we were really worried for them.
When we finally ended up in WoW we had a solid core of people who cared about keeping the community alive. In the new game we quickly attracted new members who liked our philosophy about the game and the guild.
In the end it was the Raid or Quit mentality of the vannilla WoW endgame that destroyed our community. As people run out of things to do we decided that we could try our hand at raiding. After a few stumbles we started doing pretty well and found out that we enjoyed the challenge. However, as things progressed, people started to burn out. The flexibility and freedom that attracted so many of us to the guild was being pushed aside since you either progressed with the raid or you fell behind. We were attracting a more group-focused types of players now and the soloers were slowly being marginalized. Those of us who tried to maintain both gameplay styles were burning out even quicker. With so much emphasis on grouping and raiding the groupers were taking over the guild and changing its policies to fit their playstyle better. As the gap widened the groupers felt that those who could not raid were 'dead weight' and started to ignore them when it came to guild decisions. When the inevitable reaction came, the guild started imploding until both the groupers and soloers scattered all over and the community was dead.
When our emphasis was on cooperative solo play, we were able to keep together a variety of players who were able to play the way they wanted because doing so did not negatively impact those around them. If peopel were on at the same time, they would do stuff together because they wanted to. Once we switched to group-focused gameplay we had to get more picky since If the other player was not as dedicated or did not have the time to fully participate our own gameplay would suffer. So we started seperating into cliques based on our ability to group-play and a once cohesive guild fragmented.
So I have some very good examples on how too much emphasis on group gameplay kills communities.
The only people who should be soloing are those who really want to challenge themselves, or have too much time on their hands.
You see, you had it at the first part of that sentence and lost it at the last part.
People really need to start realzing that players who solo don't necessarily want to always solo. Players solo for the challenge, for immersion and to play according to when they can play.
Yelling for groups, getting in groups with horrible people, putting up with bad players... these are the things that drive many people to solo.
When I get into game I want to be doing something within 5 minutes. I am not paying 15 per month to yell for groups. I am not paying 15 per month to get half way through a quest only to have someone afk.
I am not paying 15 per month to have everyone in the group but someone feels that they have time to craft, sell stuff, buy stuff and then 20 minutes later joins you.
And this happens all the time. It is not the poster child for wanting to group. Mabve it's how I was brought up, but if I'm in a group then my time is their time and I don't waste other's time. It's a team effort. Not a me effort with other people around.
The best game play experiences I've had were in groups. Sieging, pvp parties, tomb of elendil in LOTRO where it took us 4 hours because a dedicated group of us were determined to make it through even though the rest dropped off or just joined to give advice and not do anything, etc.
I also don't want to group to hear people work through their fascination with toilet humor, discovering "boobies" or wanting to hot chat and show everyone that they are a sexual person.
I - just - don't - care.
So this is why people are driven to soloing. Get a group of people who can be ready in 5 minutes and who are dedicated to the task at hand and I'm there. Always.
Dealing with the rest? I think not. And will always choose to solo until such time as I get the good people. Taht doesn't even mean being the best. I dont' care if we fail. I do care that I have a good time doing it though.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The only people who should be soloing are those who really want to challenge themselves, or have too much time on their hands.
You see, you had it at the first part of that sentence and lost it at the last part.
People really need to start realzing that players who solo don't necessarily want to always solo. Players solo for the challenge, for immersion and to play according to when they can play.
Yelling for groups, getting in groups with horrible people, putting up with bad players... these are the things that drive many people to solo.
When I get into game I want to be doing something within 5 minutes. I am not paying 15 per month to yell for groups. I am not paying 15 per month to get half way through a quest only to have someone afk.
I am not paying 15 per month to have everyone in the group but someone feels that they have time to craft, sell stuff, buy stuff and then 20 minutes later joins you.
And this happens all the time. It is not the poster child for wanting to group. Myabve it's how I was brought up, but if I'm in a group then my time is there time and I don't waste other's time. It's a team effort. Not a me effort with other people around.
The best game play experiences I've had were in groups. Sieging, pvp parties, tomb of elendil in LOTRO where it took us 4 hours because a dedicated group of us were determined to make it through even though the rest dropped off or just joined to give advice and not do anything, etc.
I also don't want to group to hear people work through their fascination with toilet humor, discovering "boobies" or wanting to hot chat and show everyone that they are a sexual person.
I - just - don't - care.
So this is why people are driven to soloing. Get a group of people who can be ready in 5 minutes and who are dedicated to the task at hand and I'm there. Always.
Dealing with the rest? I think not. And will always choose to solo until such time as I get the good people. Taht doesn't even mean being the best. I dont' care if we fail. I do care that I have a good time doing it though.
You and me, both. This is exactly why I solo. I want so bad to find that group of people who actually want to group and tackle a dungeon, but all too often you get people who do the things you described. Or worse, when you do finally get together, you find out the tank doesn't know what the hell he's doing, the main healer is trying to tank, and the pet classes have their pets set to auto attack. So you ask yourself, "Is my money best spent on these nimrods, or will I get my money's worth going it alone?" And then, of course there are those times where you just don't want to be bothered to group. Maybe you've got 1 hour to play and want to farm crafting mats. Maybe you've got quests on the brink of going grey and you want to knock them out real quick.
MMOs should be all about the community playing cooperatively (PvP notwithstanding), but since people on the whole are a bunch of drooling retards, a positive community experience is a rare thing nowadays.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
any mmo with no grouping require will get everyone chose a class easy to solo dungeon and they will make money outta this.
..and what's wrong with today's mmo? take wow- you don't like grouping, do the normal quest or some caves nearby with a low lvl elite that will drop some greens for you. Want to group? go to rfc and get more greens and even a few blue out of it!! it rewards you for grouping.
you guys want to get all epic'ed in t8.5 by soloing.. *sigh* these are for people who are willing to sacrifice time and part of their life(nolife) into the game.
what if i want football in tiger wood's next game?
CoH/CoV DOES BALANCE BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything said about how allowing soloing kills grouping is wrong as far as CoX goes, it does do both.
And it's very simple. Allow for solo but give an exp bonus for groups. That's all any game needs to do. believe me, most people will group when faster leveling is an issue.
You guys are not listening. CoH/CoV DOES BALANCE BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything said about how allowing soloing kills grouping is wrong as far as CoX goes, it does do both. And it's very simple. Allow for solo but give an exp bonus for groups. That's all any game needs to do. believe me, most people will group when faster leveling is an issue.
Then I think the soloers got their game. Topic closed.
Some excellent points made in this thread, I cannot obviously discuss them all but I'd thought I'd weigh in with my view. The MMO has a key word within it that is crucial to this argument and that is multiplayer. Many people seem to have brought up Final Fantasy XI and I think I will too. However first I'd like to state that any mechanic of grouping seems to be argued as forced grouping. The problem with people who want to solo play is that they want access to EVERYTHING the game has to offer. When that happens you ultimately destroy group play since locking anything exclusively to groups is considered forced.
Let me just make this clear, no one forces you to do anything, that you want to see a certain part of the game which is locked off to you, does not make for forced grouping. You may be encouraged through better loot or content, but that is not being forced.
Now that we have that clear I think a game like Final Fantasy XI had an excellent example of what solo play content could look like and that was the Maat encounter which you had to complete every 5 levels in order to progress past 50, culminating with the classic one versus one instanced face off at 70 (Genkai V was it). The creation of exclusively single player content that embraces what the industry has done with the genre could be done. Quests that scale based on number of participants, solo instances (dare I say instance on these forums) or other forms of progress that a single person can do and mean something in the world would be great.
The problem is a group can negate the value of single player content and herein lies the problem. I do think a great untapped potential could be used in quests/instances that tie into group quests/instances (for example you do a single player instance were you sneak in to sabotage something which is then sabotaged when you do it in a group quest, if that makes sense). Another solution is making a core class solo friendly and then building specific content around that (again the Beastmaster from Final Fantasy XI) and finally being able to easy swap between roles (again Final Fantasy XI job system) I think this could be further expanded and made more flexible, but its a start.
Ultimately from what I have read The Old Republic has these tiers of content for different players, but ultimately I think the balance cannot be achieved because of the variables of a MMO. To use a single player game as a final example in Halo 3, Legendary difficult is quite hard when you play by yourself, but on 4 player co-op it becomes a joke and no challenge. Ultimately you CANNOT make the SAME content available to both solo players and group players and therefore the notion of forced grouping will always exist and the balance impossible to achieve.
I didn't think I'd say this a couple of years ago, but forced grouping is the way to go.
I think the game that had it right was FFXI. Sure at times it was hard to find or keep a group, but I found plenty of things to do while I was LFG. That is, once I discovered and embraced the crafting aspect of the game. While waiting, I would go solo to kill orcs and farm the required crystals to craft in the various different professions the game offered.
I think where games have gone wrong, is the emphasis on combat and levels. Sure I want to get stronger and grow to become the great hero that vanquishes evil from the earth, but I also want to do other things. Even single player RPGs have figured this out. The great thing about SWG was that you could enjoy the game for hours and never kill a single thing. I understand that crafting isn't for everyone, but games could add optional short solo missions for killing time, mini-games, (i.e. FF with the card games or blitzball), whatever.
There doesn't have to be solo dungeons or bosses in a game, Just give us other stuff to do that is fun and worthwhile
Originally posted by Hyanmen Anyone doesn't have to play the same game as me- they can play a game which caters to their interests, which in this case is solo content. There are no MMO's purely for soloers, yet there are no MMO's purely for groupers either- this should change. Those who want to solo can go do that for all I care, in a game designed for them. Soloers can only benefit from groupers- soloers can only harm groupers. You don't have as good community as you would have in a group based game. Soloers rather solo than group up, which leads to less players lfg in general..
There are plenty MMOs for groupers.
Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
How can you work on developing a community when nobody will group or talk to you? If you don't need other players to get what you want, the only reason to have them around is to show off your bling. Not enough grouping will destroy any in-game community.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
There are plenty MMOs for groupers. Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
There is a reason why those who have played FFXI say that one of the best aspects of the game was the community, and the reason for that is not the emphasis on solo play, I can tell you that much. The whole game is as group heavy as it can get. Do these two things (grouping and good community) go hand in hand? I have all the reasons to believe so, based on my example. Do you have any examples, or are you just claiming these things out of thin air?
You are not exactly telling me how groupers can benefit from soloers, either. Only that yeah, it works, everyone playing just has to work together and be nice and sunshine will shine in a field filled with flowers forever~ It's not really convincing anyone, y'know..
From 2002 to 2007 I was part of a great community of MMO players. We started out with Earth and Beyond and moved to various games befroe settling in in WoW. We based ourself on the idea that everyone gets to play how they want to and we do not force interaction on our members. Despite this very solo-friendly attitude the community flourished. People would help out whenever they could and people liked sharing their ideas and personal experiences. We got to the point where we really cared about the people who played and not just their in-game characters. When some of our members were called to serve in Iraq, we were really worried for them.
When we finally ended up in WoW we had a solid core of people who cared about keeping the community alive. In the new game we quickly attracted new members who liked our philosophy about the game and the guild.
In the end it was the Raid or Quit mentality of the vannilla WoW endgame that destroyed our community. As people run out of things to do we decided that we could try our hand at raiding. After a few stumbles we started doing pretty well and found out that we enjoyed the challenge. However, as things progressed, people started to burn out. The flexibility and freedom that attracted so many of us to the guild was being pushed aside since you either progressed with the raid or you fell behind. We were attracting a more group-focused types of players now and the soloers were slowly being marginalized. Those of us who tried to maintain both gameplay styles were burning out even quicker. With so much emphasis on grouping and raiding the groupers were taking over the guild and changing its policies to fit their playstyle better. As the gap widened the groupers felt that those who could not raid were 'dead weight' and started to ignore them when it came to guild decisions. When the inevitable reaction came, the guild started imploding until both the groupers and soloers scattered all over and the community was dead.
When our emphasis was on cooperative solo play, we were able to keep together a variety of players who were able to play the way they wanted because doing so did not negatively impact those around them. If peopel were on at the same time, they would do stuff together because they wanted to. Once we switched to group-focused gameplay we had to get more picky since If the other player was not as dedicated or did not have the time to fully participate our own gameplay would suffer. So we started seperating into cliques based on our ability to group-play and a once cohesive guild fragmented.
So I have some very good examples on how too much emphasis on group gameplay kills communities.
When the focus of the game becomes gear upgrades, and grouping is the only way to get them, players will end up doing whatever it takes to get new items, because they believe that is the whole point to the game. Its not the group-oriented players that ruined your guild, its the greedy loot whores who will do whatever it takes to get thier next fix. If solo play allowed them to do it faster, that's what they would all be doing. At least in games where gear is not the main focus, when you party with other players, your reputation actually means something. The way you act determines whether or not you get (invited) into groups rather than your gear tier and stats. When loot is king, communiteis suffer because the treadmill explicitly divides the community between the players who acquire the next best thing, and those who could care less about item upgrades.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The overwhelming majority of MMO players want to be able to play solo, at least part of the time.
How do you know? Usually people take the easiest route, which happens to be soloing in most casual MMO's. But that doesn't prove anything.
Isn't it the grouper's mantra that World of Warcraft sucks because too many people prefer to solo in the game? Soloers outnumber groupers, I have absolutely no doubt about that. It's the underlying reason why you people are so dead set against allowing soloers equal access to content, for fear of your play style being dumped like sack of rotten potatoes.
The whole path of least resistance tripe is nothing but crap. If given the choice to group or solo, people will choose to do so because they enjoy it more, not because of some arbitrary belief that is would be easier. You should group because you enjoy it, not because it's the easiest or only way to get rewards. How can soloing be the path of least resistance anyway, you invest just as much time and effort as groupers. You may not have to wait for people to sign up, but how does that equate to exclusive content or perks? The point being, it isn't justifiable. Developers arbitrarily decide to make grouping and raiding more rewarding. I'm still waiting for them to get smart and realize that catering to soloers on an equal footing will only increase their income. I guarantee you that a game that allowed soloers and duos to access all the content would be a huge success.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
I think it's always fun to play with a group, but one of the problems (like you said) is when the game's community gets smaller, it's way more difficult to find people. I think Guild Wars fixed this by being able to hire a team of bots to play along side you. I'd like to see more games implement bots so that you always have a group whether they're real players or not.
So, we soloers are never suppose to have a single MMO that treats us like top dogs, it's always going to be groupers and raiders? Bullshit. You're so worried about your play style being ruined, but never give a damn about other play styles getting the crappy end of the stick. Every frigging MMO out there gives groupers and raiders the best content and rewards, bar none. It's about frakking time we soloers get one that truly caters to us. If Bioware plays their cards right and don't cave in to the whining groupies and raiders, they might actually tap a huge market that has been waitiing for a truly casual game that doesn't pull the ever present bait and switch that is casual to start, hardcore from middle to end game. The only game that will ever top World of Warcraft will be the one with the balls and the sense to create a casual game from beginning to end with absolutely no preferential treatment towards groupers and raiders. Oh yeah, we all know just how anti-social soloers are. We just pretend it's a single player game and try our hardest not to interact with other players. OMG are you people so frakking clueless? Stop using that tripe as some kind of proof positive that soloing is evil. It's not even remotely true and I challenge you to proove it otherwise.
You are BIGTIME confusing loot drops with solo/group play.I agree with you dude ,the loot should not be raiding only for the elite loot.I also agree most if not all games do it that way,but that can be EASILY changed without changing group play into solo play.
All a developer needs to do is make loot fair across the board,but i will let you in on a hint as to why all games do it this way.
"ELITE" gear NEEDs to be rare,if it was all accessible by every solo player i nthe game,it would no longer be elite gear ,because everyone in the game woudl have it.The whole purpose of elite gear is to get players to try over and over for long periods of time to access it,they do not want everyone to have it ,nor should they.
Now we are back to the solo/group part again.If the mobs that drop the elite drops are catered to a solo player,how on earth would a group find ANY enjoyment or satisfaction or challenge in the game play?The answer is they would not,it would be like handing everything over on a kiddie platter.
I hope you can at least understand the NEED for rarity in elite drops,without rare it is not rare,pretty easy concept to understand really.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Originally posted by Hyanmen Anyone doesn't have to play the same game as me- they can play a game which caters to their interests, which in this case is solo content. There are no MMO's purely for soloers, yet there are no MMO's purely for groupers either- this should change. Those who want to solo can go do that for all I care, in a game designed for them. Soloers can only benefit from groupers- soloers can only harm groupers. You don't have as good community as you would have in a group based game. Soloers rather solo than group up, which leads to less players lfg in general..
Why should that change? Why do you think you're so special that you deserve a game all of your own? Every game out there, you can choose what you do. You want to take away that choice and that's fundamentally wrong. It's not only wrong, but it's financial suicide for any game that might try it because only a tiny percentage of the total market wants to group-only.
Soloing doesn't change the community whatsoever, there are lots of really fantastic people who care about the community who have never been in a team in their lives.
How can you work on developing a community when nobody will group or talk to you? If you don't need other players to get what you want, the only reason to have them around is to show off your bling. Not enough grouping will destroy any in-game community.
You're confusing grouping with interaction. Forcing people to join a fixed group in order to experience content is one way to get them to interact, giving them incentive to work together is another. The former is FFXI and the latter is EVE.
"How can you work on developing a community when nobody will group or talk to you?"
Be someone that people want to talk to? Do things to encourage people to interact with you?
Your expectation that game mechanics should be designed to force people to talk to you is unrealistic. Just like in real life, you get out of community what you put into it.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The real problem here isn't one between soloers and groupers, it's that a very small minority of people can't accept the fact that in the battle between solo and group, soloing won by a landslide. The overwhelming majority of people out there play solo, at least a portion of the time. They enjoy doing so, they have the option of grouping, they choose not to.
However, the groupers want everyone to play their way all the time. Instead of accepting the fact that their way of play lost, they want to force everyone else to adopt their way of play, or get special treats to play their way. In other words, their way or the highway. If they can either force or bribe people to group most of the time, I'm sure they'll be trumpeting how their way won and wow, aren't they special?
We all know why grouping, at least grouping the majority of the time, fails. There aren't enough people around who want to group, there are even less people who have any concept of teamwork and even less who aren't just out to screw others for their own personal gain. It's just not feasible to have mostly-grouping in any game, no matter how hard you make it or how much bribery you employ.
But now you have people who want a whole game set up for the groupers, when you can't win an honest contest, remove all other choices and impose your favored way of playing by fiat. Of course, we all know such a game wouldn't be able to attract a meaningful percentage of the gaming market and would quickly go out of business, if anyone could convince any developers to make it in the first place.
And you know something? I'll be that after the game failed, the groupers would come up with some bizarre, tortured reason to blame the soloers for their own failures. Would anyone be surprised?
Wow! Seems I opened a can of worms with this post, and when I say wow! I mean wow and not world of warcraft!
Another disadvantage I always seem to have when playing? As you all may have figured, I prefer solo play versus grouping. Taking on a boss, for me, is sometimes a long study of weaknesses and strengths, and properly preparing my character for the encounter. That might take a couple extra days (or longer) to make the engagement. And then, success! (sometimes failure)
Once I have finished this quest, I am usually asked to complete it again with a group. As I do play in a community I am always as helpful as possible, and it feels like I will spend 60% of my time re-doing quests because that other guy hasn't prepared or doesn't play his character correctly, and I have to carry them through that quest. Instead of working on my quests and furthering my adventures in this alter-ego world, I seem to spend my time farming the same area.
Oh, sure, I could say no, but I am scared because tomorrow I might run into that boss that is just impossible for my class to solo, and then I might have to call in favors. Funny, though, the same people I spend hours with killing trolls seem to disappear as soon as I need something...
So, we soloers are never suppose to have a single MMO that treats us like top dogs, it's always going to be groupers and raiders? Bullshit. You're so worried about your play style being ruined, but never give a damn about other play styles getting the crappy end of the stick. Every frigging MMO out there gives groupers and raiders the best content and rewards, bar none. It's about frakking time we soloers get one that truly caters to us.
Respectfully, I prefer to solo...but in an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), I recognize that it would be very foolish of me to demand that solo play have anything that "caters" to me.
There are many games that cater to solo players, but not one of them is a Massively Multiplayer Online game - those are designed purposely and specifically to cater to those who enjoy grouping. It is right in the name of the genre. Those of us who like to solo either accept that, in a Massively Multiplayer Online game, the rules of the game encourage and reward grouping (and we adjust accordingly and ask for help from our guilds or join a PUG when necessary)...or we go find a game that is designed to accomodate our needs, wants, and desires as solo players.
"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
you guys want to get all epic'ed in t8.5 by soloing.. *sigh* these are for people who are willing to sacrifice time and part of their life(nolife) into the game. what if i want football in tiger wood's next game?
Actually, I don't.
I do believe that for there should be regular gear for pvp and pve content. I have no problem with raid gear but only if it is for raids.
so LOTRO almost has it but doesn't.
They have the radiance gear for certain types of raids. However, it just so happens that it also, in some cases is better than other gear. Well, right off the bat everyone wants it and then you get all the "why can't I get this gear" topics.
I have no problems with there being special gear for raids. However, its properties make it essential for raids but otherwise it is the same as other gear. This way players don't have to kill themselves raiding if they never intend to raid.
As far as "forced grouping" being the way to go. Sure, you can do that but you will find that there will be players who won't play because of it. No biggie, I'm all for different types of games focusing on different types of gameplay. However, then the companies will see that they need more money and will of course try to entice other types of players to their games.
In short, it has to be planned out beforehand by the game company so that you don't gate segments of the community but you have appropriate awards for those who do want to experience a more hardcore type of gameplay.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
So, we soloers are never suppose to have a single MMO that treats us like top dogs, it's always going to be groupers and raiders? Bullshit. You're so worried about your play style being ruined, but never give a damn about other play styles getting the crappy end of the stick. Every frigging MMO out there gives groupers and raiders the best content and rewards, bar none. It's about frakking time we soloers get one that truly caters to us.
Respectfully, I prefer to solo...but in an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), I recognize that it would be very foolish of me to demand that solo play have anything that "caters" to me.
There are many games that cater to solo players, but not one of them is a Massively Multiplayer Online game - those are designed purposely and specifically to cater to those who enjoy grouping. It is right in the name of the genre. Those of us who like to solo either accept that, in a Massively Multiplayer Online game, the rules of the game encourage and reward grouping (and we adjust accordingly and ask for help from our guilds or join a PUG when necessary)...or we go find a game that is designed to accomodate our needs, wants, and desires as solo players.
Well said! Just don't expect a lot of agreement. From reading these forums as a whole, I've found that a great many people here want a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game they can solo all the time and... well, not actually play. If it's not "I want a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER that I can play by myself!", it's "I want a game that plays for me when I'm not around!"
All the while, the sane amongst us are left scratching their heads and (as I mentioned in another thread) muttering a dumbfounded "Unbelievable!"
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
Comments
There are plenty MMOs for groupers.
Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
There is a reason why those who have played FFXI say that one of the best aspects of the game was the community, and the reason for that is not the emphasis on solo play, I can tell you that much. The whole game is as group heavy as it can get. Do these two things (grouping and good community) go hand in hand? I have all the reasons to believe so, based on my example. Do you have any examples, or are you just claiming these things out of thin air?
You are not exactly telling me how groupers can benefit from soloers, either. Only that yeah, it works, everyone playing just has to work together and be nice and sunshine will shine in a field filled with flowers forever~ It's not really convincing anyone, y'know..
MMOs shine when they get people grouping up and working together, that has been a major foundation for the genre.
What is the point of soloing to max level?
Look at the "game doesn't start until max level" type. Why does it not start until max level? Because reaching max level has been reduced from an accomplishment to a nuisance. Why is leveling grindy and repetitive? Because it is trivial. Games that are too solo friendly become end game only, and every level below max becomes a waste of time.
If todays MMO were any more solo friendly, you'd be able to solo end game raid content. At that point leveling and end game are both trivial, so what's the point of playing?
I don't think grouping should be forced, but it should definately not be easy. The only people who should be soloing are those who really want to challenge themselves, or have too much time on their hands.
People who complain that they can't log on for more then 30 minutes might actually have fun if there were a shred of challenge involved. Just because you're getting 5 levels in 30 minutes doesn't make the game fun. Completing a single quest objective by the skin of your teeth might be though, or working together with a small group to take down a miniboss.
Any MMO where you can pretty much mostly solo will eventually just turn into a boring race to max level. The only time those games are ever fun is when they first come out and everyone is progressing.
It's not just levels either, take skill based MMOs where raising the skill is boring and trivial, what do you get? bots and macros.
If you like end game only MMOs then why not just play a game where you start out max level / skill? That wouldn't be the type of game I'd be willing to pay a sub for.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
There is a reason why those who have played FFXI say that one of the best aspects of the game was the community, and the reason for that is not the emphasis on solo play, I can tell you that much. The whole game is as group heavy as it can get. Do these two things (grouping and good community) go hand in hand? I have all the reasons to believe so, based on my example. Do you have any examples, or are you just claiming these things out of thin air?
You are not exactly telling me how groupers can benefit from soloers, either. Only that yeah, it works, everyone playing just has to work together and be nice and sunshine will shine in a field filled with flowers forever~ It's not really convincing anyone, y'know..
From 2002 to 2007 I was part of a great community of MMO players. We started out with Earth and Beyond and moved to various games befroe settling in in WoW. We based ourself on the idea that everyone gets to play how they want to and we do not force interaction on our members. Despite this very solo-friendly attitude the community flourished. People would help out whenever they could and people liked sharing their ideas and personal experiences. We got to the point where we really cared about the people who played and not just their in-game characters. When some of our members were called to serve in Iraq, we were really worried for them.
When we finally ended up in WoW we had a solid core of people who cared about keeping the community alive. In the new game we quickly attracted new members who liked our philosophy about the game and the guild.
In the end it was the Raid or Quit mentality of the vannilla WoW endgame that destroyed our community. As people run out of things to do we decided that we could try our hand at raiding. After a few stumbles we started doing pretty well and found out that we enjoyed the challenge. However, as things progressed, people started to burn out. The flexibility and freedom that attracted so many of us to the guild was being pushed aside since you either progressed with the raid or you fell behind. We were attracting a more group-focused types of players now and the soloers were slowly being marginalized. Those of us who tried to maintain both gameplay styles were burning out even quicker. With so much emphasis on grouping and raiding the groupers were taking over the guild and changing its policies to fit their playstyle better. As the gap widened the groupers felt that those who could not raid were 'dead weight' and started to ignore them when it came to guild decisions. When the inevitable reaction came, the guild started imploding until both the groupers and soloers scattered all over and the community was dead.
When our emphasis was on cooperative solo play, we were able to keep together a variety of players who were able to play the way they wanted because doing so did not negatively impact those around them. If peopel were on at the same time, they would do stuff together because they wanted to. Once we switched to group-focused gameplay we had to get more picky since If the other player was not as dedicated or did not have the time to fully participate our own gameplay would suffer. So we started seperating into cliques based on our ability to group-play and a once cohesive guild fragmented.
So I have some very good examples on how too much emphasis on group gameplay kills communities.
You see, you had it at the first part of that sentence and lost it at the last part.
People really need to start realzing that players who solo don't necessarily want to always solo. Players solo for the challenge, for immersion and to play according to when they can play.
Yelling for groups, getting in groups with horrible people, putting up with bad players... these are the things that drive many people to solo.
When I get into game I want to be doing something within 5 minutes. I am not paying 15 per month to yell for groups. I am not paying 15 per month to get half way through a quest only to have someone afk.
I am not paying 15 per month to have everyone in the group but someone feels that they have time to craft, sell stuff, buy stuff and then 20 minutes later joins you.
And this happens all the time. It is not the poster child for wanting to group. Mabve it's how I was brought up, but if I'm in a group then my time is their time and I don't waste other's time. It's a team effort. Not a me effort with other people around.
The best game play experiences I've had were in groups. Sieging, pvp parties, tomb of elendil in LOTRO where it took us 4 hours because a dedicated group of us were determined to make it through even though the rest dropped off or just joined to give advice and not do anything, etc.
I also don't want to group to hear people work through their fascination with toilet humor, discovering "boobies" or wanting to hot chat and show everyone that they are a sexual person.
I - just - don't - care.
So this is why people are driven to soloing. Get a group of people who can be ready in 5 minutes and who are dedicated to the task at hand and I'm there. Always.
Dealing with the rest? I think not. And will always choose to solo until such time as I get the good people. Taht doesn't even mean being the best. I dont' care if we fail. I do care that I have a good time doing it though.
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Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You see, you had it at the first part of that sentence and lost it at the last part.
People really need to start realzing that players who solo don't necessarily want to always solo. Players solo for the challenge, for immersion and to play according to when they can play.
Yelling for groups, getting in groups with horrible people, putting up with bad players... these are the things that drive many people to solo.
When I get into game I want to be doing something within 5 minutes. I am not paying 15 per month to yell for groups. I am not paying 15 per month to get half way through a quest only to have someone afk.
I am not paying 15 per month to have everyone in the group but someone feels that they have time to craft, sell stuff, buy stuff and then 20 minutes later joins you.
And this happens all the time. It is not the poster child for wanting to group. Myabve it's how I was brought up, but if I'm in a group then my time is there time and I don't waste other's time. It's a team effort. Not a me effort with other people around.
The best game play experiences I've had were in groups. Sieging, pvp parties, tomb of elendil in LOTRO where it took us 4 hours because a dedicated group of us were determined to make it through even though the rest dropped off or just joined to give advice and not do anything, etc.
I also don't want to group to hear people work through their fascination with toilet humor, discovering "boobies" or wanting to hot chat and show everyone that they are a sexual person.
I - just - don't - care.
So this is why people are driven to soloing. Get a group of people who can be ready in 5 minutes and who are dedicated to the task at hand and I'm there. Always.
Dealing with the rest? I think not. And will always choose to solo until such time as I get the good people. Taht doesn't even mean being the best. I dont' care if we fail. I do care that I have a good time doing it though.
You and me, both. This is exactly why I solo. I want so bad to find that group of people who actually want to group and tackle a dungeon, but all too often you get people who do the things you described. Or worse, when you do finally get together, you find out the tank doesn't know what the hell he's doing, the main healer is trying to tank, and the pet classes have their pets set to auto attack. So you ask yourself, "Is my money best spent on these nimrods, or will I get my money's worth going it alone?" And then, of course there are those times where you just don't want to be bothered to group. Maybe you've got 1 hour to play and want to farm crafting mats. Maybe you've got quests on the brink of going grey and you want to knock them out real quick.
MMOs should be all about the community playing cooperatively (PvP notwithstanding), but since people on the whole are a bunch of drooling retards, a positive community experience is a rare thing nowadays.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
any mmo with no grouping require will get everyone chose a class easy to solo dungeon and they will make money outta this.
..and what's wrong with today's mmo? take wow- you don't like grouping, do the normal quest or some caves nearby with a low lvl elite that will drop some greens for you. Want to group? go to rfc and get more greens and even a few blue out of it!! it rewards you for grouping.
you guys want to get all epic'ed in t8.5 by soloing.. *sigh* these are for people who are willing to sacrifice time and part of their life(nolife) into the game.
what if i want football in tiger wood's next game?
You guys are not listening.
CoH/CoV DOES BALANCE BOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything said about how allowing soloing kills grouping is wrong as far as CoX goes, it does do both.
And it's very simple. Allow for solo but give an exp bonus for groups. That's all any game needs to do. believe me, most people will group when faster leveling is an issue.
Then I think the soloers got their game. Topic closed.
Some excellent points made in this thread, I cannot obviously discuss them all but I'd thought I'd weigh in with my view. The MMO has a key word within it that is crucial to this argument and that is multiplayer. Many people seem to have brought up Final Fantasy XI and I think I will too. However first I'd like to state that any mechanic of grouping seems to be argued as forced grouping. The problem with people who want to solo play is that they want access to EVERYTHING the game has to offer. When that happens you ultimately destroy group play since locking anything exclusively to groups is considered forced.
Let me just make this clear, no one forces you to do anything, that you want to see a certain part of the game which is locked off to you, does not make for forced grouping. You may be encouraged through better loot or content, but that is not being forced.
Now that we have that clear I think a game like Final Fantasy XI had an excellent example of what solo play content could look like and that was the Maat encounter which you had to complete every 5 levels in order to progress past 50, culminating with the classic one versus one instanced face off at 70 (Genkai V was it). The creation of exclusively single player content that embraces what the industry has done with the genre could be done. Quests that scale based on number of participants, solo instances (dare I say instance on these forums) or other forms of progress that a single person can do and mean something in the world would be great.
The problem is a group can negate the value of single player content and herein lies the problem. I do think a great untapped potential could be used in quests/instances that tie into group quests/instances (for example you do a single player instance were you sneak in to sabotage something which is then sabotaged when you do it in a group quest, if that makes sense). Another solution is making a core class solo friendly and then building specific content around that (again the Beastmaster from Final Fantasy XI) and finally being able to easy swap between roles (again Final Fantasy XI job system) I think this could be further expanded and made more flexible, but its a start.
Ultimately from what I have read The Old Republic has these tiers of content for different players, but ultimately I think the balance cannot be achieved because of the variables of a MMO. To use a single player game as a final example in Halo 3, Legendary difficult is quite hard when you play by yourself, but on 4 player co-op it becomes a joke and no challenge. Ultimately you CANNOT make the SAME content available to both solo players and group players and therefore the notion of forced grouping will always exist and the balance impossible to achieve.
I didn't think I'd say this a couple of years ago, but forced grouping is the way to go.
I think the game that had it right was FFXI. Sure at times it was hard to find or keep a group, but I found plenty of things to do while I was LFG. That is, once I discovered and embraced the crafting aspect of the game. While waiting, I would go solo to kill orcs and farm the required crystals to craft in the various different professions the game offered.
I think where games have gone wrong, is the emphasis on combat and levels. Sure I want to get stronger and grow to become the great hero that vanquishes evil from the earth, but I also want to do other things. Even single player RPGs have figured this out. The great thing about SWG was that you could enjoy the game for hours and never kill a single thing. I understand that crafting isn't for everyone, but games could add optional short solo missions for killing time, mini-games, (i.e. FF with the card games or blitzball), whatever.
There doesn't have to be solo dungeons or bosses in a game, Just give us other stuff to do that is fun and worthwhile
But combat is the main attraction of MMORPGs for the vast majority of players, and always has been.
There are plenty MMOs for groupers.
Groupers can benefit plenty from soloers. It just depends on the groupers keeping an open mind and the devs balancing the content properly. Too many groupers want to marginalize the soloers for made-up reasons. The groupers want a 'community' forced upon them rather than actually working on developing one. The best communities form when you have an open mind and you actually take the time to learn what the other person can contribute. Too much emphasis on grouping will destroy a healthy in-game community.
How can you work on developing a community when nobody will group or talk to you? If you don't need other players to get what you want, the only reason to have them around is to show off your bling. Not enough grouping will destroy any in-game community.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
But combat is the main attraction of MMORPGs for the vast majority of players, and always has been.
I agree. but as you said combat is the "main" attraction. Meaning it doesn't have to be the only one.
There is a reason why those who have played FFXI say that one of the best aspects of the game was the community, and the reason for that is not the emphasis on solo play, I can tell you that much. The whole game is as group heavy as it can get. Do these two things (grouping and good community) go hand in hand? I have all the reasons to believe so, based on my example. Do you have any examples, or are you just claiming these things out of thin air?
You are not exactly telling me how groupers can benefit from soloers, either. Only that yeah, it works, everyone playing just has to work together and be nice and sunshine will shine in a field filled with flowers forever~ It's not really convincing anyone, y'know..
From 2002 to 2007 I was part of a great community of MMO players. We started out with Earth and Beyond and moved to various games befroe settling in in WoW. We based ourself on the idea that everyone gets to play how they want to and we do not force interaction on our members. Despite this very solo-friendly attitude the community flourished. People would help out whenever they could and people liked sharing their ideas and personal experiences. We got to the point where we really cared about the people who played and not just their in-game characters. When some of our members were called to serve in Iraq, we were really worried for them.
When we finally ended up in WoW we had a solid core of people who cared about keeping the community alive. In the new game we quickly attracted new members who liked our philosophy about the game and the guild.
In the end it was the Raid or Quit mentality of the vannilla WoW endgame that destroyed our community. As people run out of things to do we decided that we could try our hand at raiding. After a few stumbles we started doing pretty well and found out that we enjoyed the challenge. However, as things progressed, people started to burn out. The flexibility and freedom that attracted so many of us to the guild was being pushed aside since you either progressed with the raid or you fell behind. We were attracting a more group-focused types of players now and the soloers were slowly being marginalized. Those of us who tried to maintain both gameplay styles were burning out even quicker. With so much emphasis on grouping and raiding the groupers were taking over the guild and changing its policies to fit their playstyle better. As the gap widened the groupers felt that those who could not raid were 'dead weight' and started to ignore them when it came to guild decisions. When the inevitable reaction came, the guild started imploding until both the groupers and soloers scattered all over and the community was dead.
When our emphasis was on cooperative solo play, we were able to keep together a variety of players who were able to play the way they wanted because doing so did not negatively impact those around them. If peopel were on at the same time, they would do stuff together because they wanted to. Once we switched to group-focused gameplay we had to get more picky since If the other player was not as dedicated or did not have the time to fully participate our own gameplay would suffer. So we started seperating into cliques based on our ability to group-play and a once cohesive guild fragmented.
So I have some very good examples on how too much emphasis on group gameplay kills communities.
When the focus of the game becomes gear upgrades, and grouping is the only way to get them, players will end up doing whatever it takes to get new items, because they believe that is the whole point to the game. Its not the group-oriented players that ruined your guild, its the greedy loot whores who will do whatever it takes to get thier next fix. If solo play allowed them to do it faster, that's what they would all be doing. At least in games where gear is not the main focus, when you party with other players, your reputation actually means something. The way you act determines whether or not you get (invited) into groups rather than your gear tier and stats. When loot is king, communiteis suffer because the treadmill explicitly divides the community between the players who acquire the next best thing, and those who could care less about item upgrades.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
How do you know? Usually people take the easiest route, which happens to be soloing in most casual MMO's. But that doesn't prove anything.
Isn't it the grouper's mantra that World of Warcraft sucks because too many people prefer to solo in the game? Soloers outnumber groupers, I have absolutely no doubt about that. It's the underlying reason why you people are so dead set against allowing soloers equal access to content, for fear of your play style being dumped like sack of rotten potatoes.
The whole path of least resistance tripe is nothing but crap. If given the choice to group or solo, people will choose to do so because they enjoy it more, not because of some arbitrary belief that is would be easier. You should group because you enjoy it, not because it's the easiest or only way to get rewards. How can soloing be the path of least resistance anyway, you invest just as much time and effort as groupers. You may not have to wait for people to sign up, but how does that equate to exclusive content or perks? The point being, it isn't justifiable. Developers arbitrarily decide to make grouping and raiding more rewarding. I'm still waiting for them to get smart and realize that catering to soloers on an equal footing will only increase their income. I guarantee you that a game that allowed soloers and duos to access all the content would be a huge success.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
I think it's always fun to play with a group, but one of the problems (like you said) is when the game's community gets smaller, it's way more difficult to find people. I think Guild Wars fixed this by being able to hire a team of bots to play along side you. I'd like to see more games implement bots so that you always have a group whether they're real players or not.
You are BIGTIME confusing loot drops with solo/group play.I agree with you dude ,the loot should not be raiding only for the elite loot.I also agree most if not all games do it that way,but that can be EASILY changed without changing group play into solo play.
All a developer needs to do is make loot fair across the board,but i will let you in on a hint as to why all games do it this way.
"ELITE" gear NEEDs to be rare,if it was all accessible by every solo player i nthe game,it would no longer be elite gear ,because everyone in the game woudl have it.The whole purpose of elite gear is to get players to try over and over for long periods of time to access it,they do not want everyone to have it ,nor should they.
Now we are back to the solo/group part again.If the mobs that drop the elite drops are catered to a solo player,how on earth would a group find ANY enjoyment or satisfaction or challenge in the game play?The answer is they would not,it would be like handing everything over on a kiddie platter.
I hope you can at least understand the NEED for rarity in elite drops,without rare it is not rare,pretty easy concept to understand really.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Why should that change? Why do you think you're so special that you deserve a game all of your own? Every game out there, you can choose what you do. You want to take away that choice and that's fundamentally wrong. It's not only wrong, but it's financial suicide for any game that might try it because only a tiny percentage of the total market wants to group-only.
Soloing doesn't change the community whatsoever, there are lots of really fantastic people who care about the community who have never been in a team in their lives.
I think you're seriously projecting here.
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You're confusing grouping with interaction. Forcing people to join a fixed group in order to experience content is one way to get them to interact, giving them incentive to work together is another. The former is FFXI and the latter is EVE.
"How can you work on developing a community when nobody will group or talk to you?"
Be someone that people want to talk to? Do things to encourage people to interact with you?
Your expectation that game mechanics should be designed to force people to talk to you is unrealistic. Just like in real life, you get out of community what you put into it.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
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The real problem here isn't one between soloers and groupers, it's that a very small minority of people can't accept the fact that in the battle between solo and group, soloing won by a landslide. The overwhelming majority of people out there play solo, at least a portion of the time. They enjoy doing so, they have the option of grouping, they choose not to.
However, the groupers want everyone to play their way all the time. Instead of accepting the fact that their way of play lost, they want to force everyone else to adopt their way of play, or get special treats to play their way. In other words, their way or the highway. If they can either force or bribe people to group most of the time, I'm sure they'll be trumpeting how their way won and wow, aren't they special?
We all know why grouping, at least grouping the majority of the time, fails. There aren't enough people around who want to group, there are even less people who have any concept of teamwork and even less who aren't just out to screw others for their own personal gain. It's just not feasible to have mostly-grouping in any game, no matter how hard you make it or how much bribery you employ.
But now you have people who want a whole game set up for the groupers, when you can't win an honest contest, remove all other choices and impose your favored way of playing by fiat. Of course, we all know such a game wouldn't be able to attract a meaningful percentage of the gaming market and would quickly go out of business, if anyone could convince any developers to make it in the first place.
And you know something? I'll be that after the game failed, the groupers would come up with some bizarre, tortured reason to blame the soloers for their own failures. Would anyone be surprised?
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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Wow! Seems I opened a can of worms with this post, and when I say wow! I mean wow and not world of warcraft!
Another disadvantage I always seem to have when playing? As you all may have figured, I prefer solo play versus grouping. Taking on a boss, for me, is sometimes a long study of weaknesses and strengths, and properly preparing my character for the encounter. That might take a couple extra days (or longer) to make the engagement. And then, success! (sometimes failure)
Once I have finished this quest, I am usually asked to complete it again with a group. As I do play in a community I am always as helpful as possible, and it feels like I will spend 60% of my time re-doing quests because that other guy hasn't prepared or doesn't play his character correctly, and I have to carry them through that quest. Instead of working on my quests and furthering my adventures in this alter-ego world, I seem to spend my time farming the same area.
Oh, sure, I could say no, but I am scared because tomorrow I might run into that boss that is just impossible for my class to solo, and then I might have to call in favors. Funny, though, the same people I spend hours with killing trolls seem to disappear as soon as I need something...
Respectfully, I prefer to solo...but in an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), I recognize that it would be very foolish of me to demand that solo play have anything that "caters" to me.
There are many games that cater to solo players, but not one of them is a Massively Multiplayer Online game - those are designed purposely and specifically to cater to those who enjoy grouping. It is right in the name of the genre. Those of us who like to solo either accept that, in a Massively Multiplayer Online game, the rules of the game encourage and reward grouping (and we adjust accordingly and ask for help from our guilds or join a PUG when necessary)...or we go find a game that is designed to accomodate our needs, wants, and desires as solo players.
Firebrand Art
"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
Actually, I don't.
I do believe that for there should be regular gear for pvp and pve content. I have no problem with raid gear but only if it is for raids.
so LOTRO almost has it but doesn't.
They have the radiance gear for certain types of raids. However, it just so happens that it also, in some cases is better than other gear. Well, right off the bat everyone wants it and then you get all the "why can't I get this gear" topics.
I have no problems with there being special gear for raids. However, its properties make it essential for raids but otherwise it is the same as other gear. This way players don't have to kill themselves raiding if they never intend to raid.
As far as "forced grouping" being the way to go. Sure, you can do that but you will find that there will be players who won't play because of it. No biggie, I'm all for different types of games focusing on different types of gameplay. However, then the companies will see that they need more money and will of course try to entice other types of players to their games.
In short, it has to be planned out beforehand by the game company so that you don't gate segments of the community but you have appropriate awards for those who do want to experience a more hardcore type of gameplay.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Respectfully, I prefer to solo...but in an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), I recognize that it would be very foolish of me to demand that solo play have anything that "caters" to me.
There are many games that cater to solo players, but not one of them is a Massively Multiplayer Online game - those are designed purposely and specifically to cater to those who enjoy grouping. It is right in the name of the genre. Those of us who like to solo either accept that, in a Massively Multiplayer Online game, the rules of the game encourage and reward grouping (and we adjust accordingly and ask for help from our guilds or join a PUG when necessary)...or we go find a game that is designed to accomodate our needs, wants, and desires as solo players.
Well said! Just don't expect a lot of agreement. From reading these forums as a whole, I've found that a great many people here want a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game they can solo all the time and... well, not actually play. If it's not "I want a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER that I can play by myself!", it's "I want a game that plays for me when I'm not around!"
All the while, the sane amongst us are left scratching their heads and (as I mentioned in another thread) muttering a dumbfounded "Unbelievable!"
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous