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I hate how mmorpgs deny you content if you don't have the right size group.
Varny
Member Posts: 765
All the time I play through an mmorpg and I'm doing this long solo chain quest and then get a quest which says "group only". I just feel cheated and denied content, especially seeing as you then have to spend a year getting a group. Often you never do and you end up deleting that quest and missing out on content you really wanted to play. I mean a player crafted economy wouldn't ever have this problem and I remember in SWG you could have giant groups which were more than enough to take down a boss. I mean I just want to play the content for fun and hate feeling punished because it's a loot based economy and they need to come up with a way to make items rare.
Why not just scale the dungeons to how many players you have? Quite often I'll only play with 2 other friends and we don't wanna be joined with someone who will ruin our experience. However we wont be allowed to do the dungeon because it's for a raid or 5 players only. Why can't the mobs just be made easier for 3 people or even soloable? There are Single Player games out there which are way harder than Raiding and besides it takes way more effort with fewer people because you all really have to pitch in. I mean I love to heal and I've carried two of my mates across content where we're nearly dying every second and it took hours and was much harder than any Raid I've done where I'm told targets and spam buttons mindlessly.
I just hate this constant "You Can't do this content because you don't have enough people". No let me play how I want to play with two of my friends and stop making play how I don't want to with giant groups of people I don't care for. If there are people that like raids or group instances with random people then fine but let me play with the amount of people I want to.
In SWG Pre NGE I did Avatar for the first time and I wasn't even needed in the group, there were more group slots than needed. So I just tagged along and had fun with my noob character, couldn't do much but I was having fun and so was everyone else. In mmorpgs today theres never that freedom to have fun and it's always stress of needing everyone in the group. If you try to join a PUG then arguments break out because people aren't doing their job. Just give us freedom to enjoy the game.
Comments
Skirmish instances in LotrO scale for solo, 3-man, 6-man or 12-man.
DDO dungeons also scale to the group size.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
I sort of like how most mmorpgs don't simply give away their content to anyone who has the tenacity to log in.
Yeah let's make every mmorpg solo with no need to group apart of dungeons and might as well being able to solo bosses too why not?...
Play a single player if you want to do everything alone and not lose any quest/boss.
It seems damned if you do and damned if you don't from the developer's standpoint. Your very argument has been stated in just the opposite by other players in that they complain there is not enough "Party/Group" content as some ppl do enjoy epic battles with full parties, and sometimes raid parties.
Both sides of the argument are valid, just not sure what can be done. I ran into as similar problem with Ice Claw village in AION, as I was the main tank, and would advertise for 40 minutes till I would finally have a full party. Sometimes it would take longer, but most of the time I just quit, and logged out disappointed.
The thing is though, while I do agree with you that it's frustrating to be locked out of content either due to party number requirements... or in my case, the difficulty of the "group" quest line and lack of players, I would feel cheated if all the content were solo'able... or even if you could do it w/ 2 other buddies as you put it.
Basically I understand why you feel cheated by being punished for not having a full party for certain quests, but I would also feel cheated if I payed monthly in any MMO just to find out that I could solo most of it. I joined MMO's for that epic party experience... just wish it were easier to form parties.
About the easiest party system I found in any game was in Hellgate. You could get in a party instantly if you put a list up or check the party list. Maybe it was the community, or the ease of the party listing/menus? Too bad FSS failed as a company, because sadly, and ironically, Hellgate got a lot of things right.
Anarchy Online
Temple of three winds dungeon,its designed for team but you can solo it if you are good enough,no,easy,medium,harcore choices ,allways hardcore,atleast was.bonus++ its instance but every player is still in the same dungeon,opposite faction ,whatever,doesnt matter.and theres lvl range 1-60 so you cant even use your wild imagination that you bring your maxlvlfullepox friend to clean the place.
good stuff
Generation P
start a damn group then if you can't find any. you would be surprised how fast you will form a group for something if you take the initiative and start one.
im sorry you're not denied any content or if you are you are denying it from yourself.
as the person stated above play a single player game if you want to do everything by yourself.
I actually agree with the OP about the quest chains.
I hate flowing along, 6 or 7 steps into the chain only to be stopped in my tracks because one part takes a group. I don't dislike grouping at all and do it whenever I can, but if a quest chain starts off solo, leave it solo. If you want a group chain, make the whole chain a group chain. Just a preference more than a complaint on my part.
I actually agree with the scaling idea as well with one exception. Don't make them scaleable until you release your next expansion. At that point many people are past that content and groups may be hard to find for those coming up in the lower level areas. New content, if group oriented, should remain so until the majority of the playerbase has moved past it.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Yeah definitely not a big fan of this mechanic. It's bad in two ways: both the OP's gripe and the fact that a group needs to worry about doing all these solo quest prereqs to be able to run the group part of the chain (and solo quests tend to be dull in a group.)
I definitely prefer COH's style of content, where it completely scales based on group size. If only they'd created a bigger variety of higher quality content, it would've been perfect. I suppose the act of implementing such a scalable system is a little part of the reason their content lacked variety, but I still think they could've done better.
Was really sad to see Cryptic give up on the majority of their good game mechanics in Champions Online. No sidekicking, no scaling instancing, no group focus, fewer strong ability designs, and advancement was made too freeform. I think I heard they're bringing sidekicking into the game, but that still leaves a lot of good COH mechanics missing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Play CoX?
Fact is some MMOs already do this. In fact have been doing it for years. Another fact is these games tend to have more grouping because getting together a croup is less hassle and more fun.
Unfortunately the the forced grouping advocates and unimaginative people who have never bothered to look at these games won't listen to any of this or even believe its possible. These games exist. Play them. Support them. End of story.
DDO has (or last time I tried it, had) terrible solo support but they did scale dungeons and you could have a blast 2 or 3 manning some instances. I 3-manned The Pit with two people who had no idea what they were doing (and me with little idea) It took us over 3 hours but we persevered and recovered from set back after set back solved all the puzzles ourselves (some of which are in 3D with mario style jumping). We stayed up way too late, all three of us no longer college kids. And this was a PUG. I think its my favorite, ,and to me personally, most impressive, accomplishemnt in all of MMOs. One of the things that impressed me the most was the fighter with us was purely mediocre, ther cleric was quite good, and I was able to save their bacon multiple times with my bard/rogue/barb warchanter. But even that mediocre fighter helped out alot, from running interference against slimes to finding a few key puzzle bits. The cleric was solid and was the only one of us able to do the mario jumps.
Later on I soloed The Pit with a level 10 rogue/wiz warforged. I did it faster too. But I still am impressed by that other run more. And the fact that the three of us slogged through it. One of us having gone through a bottle of wine (the fighter) and in the end only winning because I got both soul stones and kited the crap and wanded to death a nasty trog warlord who had been blurred (25% miss rate) for the final recovery with no shrines left. Feather fall + evasion for the win bitch. Running on twisty catwalks dodging 100s of trap triggers for like 3 minutes while their ghosts followed me around and me with like 10 hp left and like 3 charges on my magic missle wand. I actually dropped their stones at the shrine so they could rez and then finished kiting the warlord away from them just in case I got capped.
In the end that was not really rewarding or worth while risk/reward, but it makes a great story and I always look back on it fondly and currently have no idea what equipment that character even has anymore as i parked him soon after and have not played DDO in a long while. And The Pit is an often neglected instance viewed as too long and too big a pain by many.
In CoX (and to a lesser extent LOTRO) you can go into any instance and play how you like its kind of liberating and adds some variation but in the end that dynamic instances also can get repetitive. The best thing about it is you know that you can do whatever you want with whomever you want whenever you want. So easy to get a group because you make the groups not the content, not the designers. Two man, solo, three man, 8 man however you want. And the difference between 3 man and 8 man can be very different due to things like stacking buffs/debuffs.
But on the other hand the whole go to dungeon X with Y people in group and A/B/C role filled is pretty soul crushing too after a while. At least with CoX you never quite know what is around the corner or how some groups might play out.
The are both repetitive but in the end the go in with 5 ppl no more no less into a dungeons whose twists and turns you have memorized is well just so staid.
One thing that is not often realized is that things that seem as smiple as whether or not buffs/debuffs stack makes a HUGE impact on how grouping pans out. In most EQ-influenced games the fact that buffs and debuffs rarely stack much if at all, means that you only ever get one of each class. In CoX 5 defenders is often quite welcome even if 3 have the same buff (except in certain circumstances, there are caps on some things). In most other games the game mechanics themselves cut your possible group makeup combination to 1/3 of what they could be.
Sadly the games with extremely tightly controlled roles really have a major problem with it comes to scaling by group size. It is more than just lack imagination. There are real design issues. There is a reason only CoX makes heavy use of this in a decent manner. They made their Archetype/Character Advancement and Game mechanics also scale at least somewhat.
The fact is the only thing that scales in tightly controlled role games, is whether you take 1 or 2 DPS and which ones. Everything else is a very simple formula. Whereas is CoX taking many defenders can buff up just about anyone to tank level survivability then the only real issue is aggro. But that is a real issue as using a tank for aggro helps for killing by AoE, or you can go for alot of defenders/controllers and use some kind of root or KB to position the AOE. Multiple ways to do a similar thing. These other EQ-like games (WoW, Aion etc) don't really have that. WoW might have multiple tank classes that hold aggro somewhat different, but in the end tank is tank and that is all there is to it.
In games like WoW the best you could really hope for is quest lines that offer interchangable solo and group storylines. Ie. one has you sneak in through the back and the other is a frontal assault but to get similar things. Letting people do it all solo, all group or switch back and forth. Because in the end they can't really scale stuff well because they are locked into the roles. They can to some extent but its bumpy and awkward.
I agree with OP. There are both demand AND need for more solo friendly MMO's.
To all you group fanatics here;
Go play Mafia Wars on Facebook if you are after socializing. Go play DDO if you need GFX. If you want me or anyone else for that sake, to play the game as you like, then you better pay me.
We soloers pay for the game, just as much as you do. The developers listens to us, thankfully; They both need AND want our money. If you group-fanatics were to decide we would still be stuck in crap games like EQ & UO. MMO's are getting more solo friendly, no matter how much you whine. Go group if you like, noone hinders you, quite the opposite of being a soloer who are forced to group up with one moron & idiot after the other. So yes; please make an MMO with content which you don't have to group in at all. Would be more successful than any MMO with forced-grouping, thats for sure.
To OP; despair not. Better times will come for us. If rumors are correct, even Blizzard seem to be in work with an even more casual MMO than WoW atm.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
I mean I'm not against grouping in mmorpgs and I actually like to group with the right people. The problem is the right people come along once in a blue moon so you have to solo or play with a friend or two the rest of the time. Games like SWG Pre CU did grouping so naturally to the point where you could tag along with others and have no arguments or stress. I just played SWG how I liked and had fun but then they started putting group size restrictions and all of a sudden you had to worry about finding people to play with. Before all those restrictions I used to just go to the place and tag along with a group.
Public quests are a great way of having a natural grouping mechanic (if the area is populated) because I could just walk into the area and tag along with aload of other people and have fun taking down a big boss. I just wish Warhammer Online had more depth like Public Quest to the depth of The Dead Mines in WoW or something.
If you have grouping then do it in a way that is fun and stop making it hard work to find the perfect group.
What these group-fanatics don't get into their small brains is that in an MMO that has forced-grouping there will be none interested in the game when majority of the gamers are end level. DDO is a perfect example of this, still these fogheads whine about that MMO's need be more solo hostile. Even it's quite obvious that solo-friendly MMO's made the genre so popular as it is today. Making forced-grouping MMO's is like going backwards in time. Well, I guess, som just dont get it even if it's shoved down their throats.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
Give players the choice, yeah... forced grouping seems to limit things. If they only allow for scaling with party members would hopefully make solo'ers and groupers happy. Exclusivity of any sort only tends to disenfrancise certain types of players, and that can't be good in the long term.
I guess scaling difficulty seems to be the best way a developer can create a game environment that is more inclusive to all types of players... whether the solo-artist, to the most hardcore pve party addicts.
Why don't developers strive to make all players happy?
I think content should be designed for a certain size, but if you want to attempt it with less than the designed number, you should be able to. I've never run into an issue where 'group not large enough' was a disqualifying criterium.
Edit: typos like crazy today..
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
At first i was going to jump on the OP since I favor grouping in gaming, however he has a point. A quest chain is entirely solo oriented should not have group content tossed in the middle or end to complete it. WOW did this, Aion does it all the time, and its annoying.
Keeping the two separate would make more sense and take away the feeling of being cheated by folks who don't want to group with 'x' number of players.
While I agree, people should try to overcome the challenge of forming a good group (its part of the gameplay for me) no one should really be forced into it by silly mechanics like this.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
No one said everything must be forced grouping to complete but not the other way round too.
Were playing an online game and paying monthly too why should I only play alone? and why should every mob/camp/base must be easy for em to do it alone? answer me that when we play were not god we are fighters that seek for more then a meree soldier we want to seek out the world and become maybe a legendary hero why not? these tasks should never be done always alone.
Games have some few areas were elites and world bosses, bosses or mini bosses roam around being able to beat them alone takes out all the satisfaction on beating some hard boss, your not god your just a soldier being able to solo king kong alone when your big as a toe of his feet is a bit ridiculous imo.
It's not like there is not enough content to get to the top without doing some stuff devs are responsible on that.
I agree that if you do a long solo quest chain, you should end the chain with a solo quest -- Or if it's a group quest then as mentioned above, do it where the difficulty scales with how many people you have a la DDO.
It would take a bit more time to put it, however if the developers wanted to please both parties (groupers and soloers alike) then why not stop with the difficulty scales? If you do a solo quest chain to end up at a group quest, then as a soloer, you should be able to take it down by yourself with some to little trouble. However, you reap less benefits than you would as with a group.
To simplify, different loot tables for different amounts of people entering an instance or taking on X creature. It's unlikely that this would be implemented into MMOs because it would become time consuming and would most likely require a lot of coding, but I think this would be the best solution for gear/loot based MMOs.
"IRL is a pretty upstanding MMO with thousands of classes, a lot of PvP and even some pretty unique emotes and titles you can acquire. Explore that world first, then we'll talk about this virtual one."
The problem with that for the lower levels mostly is "why should I party when I can finish it alone?" there are plenty of people that would do that but if they had to party some would argue about it and some would just party and move on.
The problem with that for the lower levels mostly is "why should I party when I can finish it alone?" there are plenty of people that would do that but if they had to party some would argue about it and some would just party and move on.
My argument was for loot based games though. So you'll feel more inclined to group with people if you feel that the rewards you reap from 'x' instance are much better than from soloing it on your own. There are many soloers and many people who like to group and what I'm saying is that people should be able to solo instances on their way to end-game to finish quests and such to finish the "bare minimum" requirements of their quest/mission/whatever. Point being that if you work with a group, what you get in the end will be much more rewarding than what you got if you solo'd.
I'm sure even with this suggestion of mine there'd still be arguments of soloers being entitled to the gear of what a group could do... but like I said, I think you could minimize issues between soloers and groupers with this kind of gameplay decision.
So to answer the question "Why should I party when I can finish it alone?" is that you'll be entitled to more beneficial items that will help you on your journey to end-game.
"IRL is a pretty upstanding MMO with thousands of classes, a lot of PvP and even some pretty unique emotes and titles you can acquire. Explore that world first, then we'll talk about this virtual one."
Maybe you want to be a peasant, unlike most of others who plays MMO's.
Me for instance, wants to be a HERO, just like f.ex Conan.
Who has said you have to play "alone"...?? I guess you are one of those who have to be fed by a spoon to get it; if you dont want be alone, get a guild. What else are guilds there for...? If you are too scared to walk alone in an MMO, I presume you are not old enough to play them. MMO's arent for everyone you see.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
Maybe you want to be a peasant, unlike most of others who plays MMO's.
Me for instance, wants to be a HERO, just like f.ex Conan.
Who has said you have to play "alone"...?? I guess you are one of those who have to be fed by a spoon to get it; if you dont want be alone, get a guild. What else are guilds there for...? If you are too scared to walk alone in an MMO, I presume you are not old enough to play them. MMO's arent for everyone you see.
No hero can do everything alone they always need help.
A guild is nothing but a group were you can chat unless your grouped with them and being playing together that doesn't justify my post. What's being spoon fed by wanting certain stuff more challenging? It's because of people like you that wow keeps on getting easier then ever always complaining because you don't want to do everything alone....
If I wanted to play your style I would play a single player game with xfire and msn on I can play and chat like you do but I wouldn't pay monthly.
The problem with that for the lower levels mostly is "why should I party when I can finish it alone?" there are plenty of people that would do that but if they had to party some would argue about it and some would just party and move on.
My argument was for loot based games though. So you'll feel more inclined to group with people if you feel that the rewards you reap from 'x' instance are much better than from soloing it on your own. There are many soloers and many people who like to group and what I'm saying is that people should be able to solo instances on their way to end-game to finish quests and such to finish the "bare minimum" requirements of their quest/mission/whatever. Point being that if you work with a group, what you get in the end will be much more rewarding than what you got if you solo'd.
I'm sure even with this suggestion of mine there'd still be arguments of soloers being entitled to the gear of what a group could do... but like I said, I think you could minimize issues between soloers and groupers with this kind of gameplay decision.
So to answer the question "Why should I party when I can finish it alone?" is that you'll be entitled to more beneficial items that will help you on your journey to end-game.
I get what you are saying but I disagree with soloers being given "less benefits" gear wise. I think, especially for quest rewards, the gear should reflect how you accomplished the task. Such as if you accept a group quest then you get more group oriented gear (dps/healing/tanking stats) but if you accept a solo quest then you should get more solo oriented gear (stam/hp/avoidance stats). Both are challenging but give rewards on how they are accomplished.
If soloers want to get the group rewards then they need to group. If groupers want the solo rewards then they should have to do it solo. The mechanics are there to do it, I've had quests that would get aborted if someone helped me. Granted this should only be for worthwhile rewards. All other quests with neat little things to see and discover should be open to be done either group or solo.
I am in agreement about quests that start out solo then turn into group quests before the good rewards. That is just horrible quest writing. Quests should say group or solo at the begining of the chain and stay that way.
Is because people like this dude that MMORPG are dyiing.
Here is a example of a soloer that don't want the very existence of group quest. Is not nice enough if a 99% of the game is designed for his fun. He want the people that is playing the group quest to disband, he want these group quest to be remade, so people would not group again. He want to FORCE people to soloer.
Maybe you want to be a peasant, unlike most of others who plays MMO's.
Me for instance, wants to be a HERO, just like f.ex Conan.
Who has said you have to play "alone"...?? I guess you are one of those who have to be fed by a spoon to get it; if you dont want be alone, get a guild. What else are guilds there for...? If you are too scared to walk alone in an MMO, I presume you are not old enough to play them. MMO's arent for everyone you see.
No hero can do everything alone they always need help.
A guild is nothing but a group were you can chat unless your grouped with them and being playing together that doesn't justify my post. What's being spoon fed by wanting certain stuff more challenging? It's because of people like you that wow keeps on getting easier then ever always complaining because you don't want to do everything alone....
If I wanted to play your style I would play a single player game with xfire and msn on I can play and chat like you do but I wouldn't pay monthly.
Maybe your hero is a gimp. That certainly does'nt appeal to me. I pay for the game, and I have my demands for my money, just like you. Fortunately the game developers are on my side.
You get it wrong; it is because of people like ME that WoW becomes better. The more solo friendly it became, the more customers it attracted. Plain & simple, but hard to understand by group-fanatics.
One thing you NEED to understand though, is that you cannot blame soloers for MMO's having bad game mechanics, blame the game developers. Like it is our fault?? Jeez....
You can have your group challenges. On 2 conditions;
1. Let me have access to same gear. Which means that my playstyle should be just as rewarding as your.
2. Let me go through the Lore quest line. Alone. If not, let me have NPC's to manage, f.ext like LOTRO just did with skirmishes.
Why would you force people into a group that is not interested in that in first place? Sounds quite weird to me actually. But then, most of what group-fanatics are belching up sounds weird in my ears...
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
You seems to think that "more player" = "more fun". That is strange for a soloer. If you like soloing, you could play alone in a server all for yourself ('instance).
How is that WoW is better with more people?, I can understand Planetside better with more people, since you will get more active areas, or better for groupers because may be easier to pick a healer, but you are a soloer, how is that?