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How to encourage grouping!
Aercus
Member UncommonPosts: 775
The Solo vs Group debate is way too polarizing and usually ends up going down in flames and I would assume most people lies in between the two extremes. In my own example I love to group up, but sometimes I just don't have the time and prefer to solo. I think we can all agree that MMO's are social games, so the topic of this thread is how to encourage grouping without discouraging soloing. I will focus mostly on content usually created specifically for grouping - the dungeons - how to make people go into them and how to make them better. Here goes...
1. Make grouping easy...
-Most games have LFG tools, most people don't use them. Games must have a robust and easy to use LFG tool that works. To make people use them, make it part of a tutorial. Most games start off solo for people to get a hang of the game, but usually include some group content in the early levels. This is where all players should be forced to use the LFG tool at least once, then they know how it works and are more likely to use it in the future.
2. Feed people into groups and encourage dungeon running...
a. Have chain quests end in dungeons.
-Many want to finish quest chains, and are more likely to enter a dungeon if their quest ends there.
b. Finishing dungeon quests should open up more quests.
-Want to skip content? Then you might have to grind more..
3. Better dungeon design...
a. Scale dungeons to the level of the first character to enter.
-This takes the pressure off people having to stand outside a dungeon because they don't want to outlevel it, skipping dungeons because they have, or being shunned from a group because their level is too high or low. It also creates a lot of reusable content if the loot table stays current. Loved that low level dungeon? Guess what, you can now run it at a high level too and it will be worthwhile.
b. Allow different party sizes.
-Dungeons should be designed to scale to different party sizes, solo (1), small group (3), regular group (5-6), miniraid (10-12). Not only does it encourage grouping, it makes the content avaliable for everyone.
c. Incentivize grouping without hurting soloers.
-Several possibilities here, could be opening up more areas of a dungeon as group size increases, extra bosses, bonus loot, fluff etc.
4. New thoughts on loot...
-Don't make that uber gear only avaliable for groups. A soloer should have the same possibility of getting gear as groupers. The incentive should be that a soloer might not get gear for his class, but the probability increases as group size increases.
-Groupers should be given access to loot which doesn't affect gameplay and is attainable in different ways, i.e. fluff items (social clothing, pets, housing items), consumables (raid food, pots), or crafting items (a stack of leather, a rare gem).
So what do you think, and what are your ideas of how to best accomplish increased grouping?
Comments
Not sure if you are also looking for an MMO that currently has what you are writing about, but.... DDO does a lot of what you mention.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The only reason for people not using LFG tools in a game is that the tools suck. In many MMORPGs, they suck. In many other genres, they don't (and in WOW they don't.) When players can click "join a group" and immediately be in a group (like WOW, MW2, or League of Legends) then that's a good LFG tool.
MMO_Doubter I strongly disagree with the "exploitation" of having dungeon difficulty dynamically altered by player level and party size. If a game's rewards are based on the true challenge of a dungeon (as they were in City of Heroes, which used a very similar system) then nobody's going to want to play the easy version of a dungeon -- exactly the opposite, actually. Skilled players would intentionally invited higher level characters and fill their party with more members in order to get a harder dungeon, which would result in better rewards.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I totally agree with you except for that:
"[1]-Don't make that uber gear only avaliable for groups. A soloer should have the same possibility of getting gear as groupers. The incentive should be that a soloer might not get gear for his class, but the probability increases as group size increases.
[2]-Groupers should be given access to loot which doesn't affect gameplay and is attainable in different ways, i.e. fluff items (social clothing, pets, housing items), consumables (raid food, pots), or crafting items (a stack of leather, a rare gem)."
1. I think that the best loot (in terms of effectivity) should only be dropped by epic, huge monsters that can be defeated by large armies (woahhh.. DAoC Dragon/Epic Dungeon Raids with 50-100 people felt so great). But that does not mean that the best items have to be much better than the second-best(=there is no uber, just better gear, fu the WoW mechanics :-P ). Just give it a few percent more damage or whatever so that soloers still can compete. Instead those epic items should be given a really great look. So that you can present your Epic Sword to others and tell them that you have defeated the giant dragon/troll/spider/whatever with 60 comrades. Whenever someone with that rare item would come across you, you would be staring at them and just think woaah I want that weapon too and then you try to organize a massive raid.
Soloers should be able to afford nearly-as-good weapons who look good, but not as good as the very epic, rare ones. This system surely does not work if you are a stats-whore but since I am an immersion-whore that system really works for me. And consider that soloers still can buy those weapons if they gain enough money by either playing long enough and selling junkloot or if they are hard-working craftsmen/farmers/etc.. At least in DAoC Dragon Items were traded on boards and later via Auction Houses.
2. I just think that social items should be available to anyone. No idea why. Groupers should just be able to get better looking social items just like the best gear. As to crafting items it should be required to group with people to get the material for the best crafted items, but not in general. Imagine: "Woah, your armor looks great! Where did you get that one from?" - "It is made out giantsnake skin and I bought it from CrafterX for trizillion gold" - "Can he craft one for me too?" - "No, you have to defeat the giant snake and get his skin before. Then just go to him and have him make your new armor".
But I assume that creating a large variety of good looking items is way more work than typing figures into a chart and change the modelcolour from grey to gold and give it shiny fireeffect.
What do you think about that?
Power-leveling is not what most people would call an exploit. While it is a type of playstyle I personally do not like, it is not a breaking of game design or discovery of an error in code that gives some players an undue advantage. MMOs are social games. While I might think that being power-leveled makes you skip content and possibly not know your character's abilities well, those people may well be playing the social aspects of the game well.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
That didn't really happen much in City of Heroes. Occasionally yes but there wasn't any reward for it. When the 50 joined and killed everything the party didn't get any xp. If the 50 was not in the party and still killing everything but just letting them tag they hardly got any xp, not enough to make it worth it.
Of course when Architect came in this is exactly what happened and was exploited to peices but they got it ironed out and it doesn't happen anymore.
Venge Sunsoar
edit: Actually if I recall I think they changed it recently so that the whole group is mentored to the leader. I remember the leaders changing several times in a group to all the groups level when we consistently wiped on a run.
Worked out well in DAoC Epic dungeons and I do not get how that can be exploited? As soon as people enter a a dungeon the mobs get harder and as soon as people leave mobs get weaker. This surely only works for dungeons where it is absolutely clear that everyone in that dungeon has to work together.
Think I got your point now: The problem is that it depends on group size rather than people in that dungeon. Really awkward if you are in some easy accesible area of that dungeon with 3 of your friend and that 24ppl group enters and the mobs become insanely hard.
So lets just discuss how to improve his concept and make it unexploitable. Maybe some dev reads it and thinks: Woahhh that is fucking great. This way we can get soloers and groupers into one boat and disburden them all of their money... Very unlikely, but possible
Of course some of the op's suggestions assume a more wow/coh/lotro style for instanced dungeons.
However, that aside, I think having a LFG tool that was global and that allowed one to sign up for a particular quest automatically with others would be a help. I imagine the wow tool is very good at that. I would add that portin your character to the very spot or inside the very dungeon might just trivialize the game world so perhaps there could be a hub area that your party can port too and then you can head off from there.
as far as MMO'D's concerns over the exploit thing, just make the higher lvl players automatically mentored down to the average level that goes into the instanced dungeon. That's an easy one.
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
However, that aside, I think having a LFG tool that was global and that allowed one to sign up for a particular quest automatically with others would be a help. I imagine the wow tool is very good at that. I would add that portin your character to the very spot or inside the very dungeon might just trivialize the game world so perhaps there could be a hub area that your party can port too and then you can head off from there.
as far as MMO'D's concerns over the exploit thing, just make the higher lvl players automatically mentored down to the average level that goes into the instanced dungeon. That's an easy one.
CoX has a lot of different ways they take care of this. There are a few things that require groups, but most you can adjust the difficulty slider for level of foes, number of foes, and number of bosses. Some missions will lower your level cap.
As far as instancing, the more I think about it I wonder why you could not have 'private' and 'public' zones. AoC has this for noob island, but it is fixed for the main and side quests, I wonder why you couldn't do this for all zones? GW has it basically for all 'explorable' areas. But obviously, I'm not a dev. Also, I love the limited zoning in FE for exmple, just a pop-up window letting you know there is an instance.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
XP is of course set by the highest level who enters. >10 levels between monsters and players = 1 xp per kill.
I think City of Heroes is a great example of a game where you can easily group, but the grouping game is not very good, not very satisfying.
I didn't need "encouragement" to group in city of heroes. I grouped most of the time in that game, and indeed it was fun.
But did it feel like a challenging group game? Not in the least. It felt like grouping through a solo game.
Fun, but no where near the satisfaction in grouping in a good group game like Dark Age of Camelot for example.
I'm not complaining in any of these group versus solo threads that I can't get in a group. I make groups, and play tanks and healers, so it's usually not that hard to get a group going.
I'm complaining about the game play, once you're in a group.
Just getting in a group isn't my agenda, but some people continually argue that this is what a "grouper" wants, just to get in a group. hey, you CAN group in so and so game. Well you CAN group in EVERY game, just like you CAN solo in EVERY game.
There's no point in getting in a group if there's no real challenge for that group in the game. Unless you want to wait for raids, but then you get DKP and all that crap, which I dont' particularly like.
You don't do it for kill xp. You do it for loot and quest xp.
Are you implying that I imagined all those dungeon runthroughs so many people were doing in WoW?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The point is not to "encourage grouping", IMO. The point is to make the game challenging for a group once they are assembled.
And if you are going to 'encourage grouping" then, it's better to encourage groups for the long haul, not just a 15 minute mission.
I don't find it particularly satisfying to jump in a group, do a 15 minute mission, disband kthxbye, rinse repeat.
The big thing about raids for me was feeling like a tiny cog in a big machine. 40-mans (when WoW had them) were a total joke. I could have done nothing but stay with the group, and it would have made no real difference to success.
10-manning Karazhan was decent, because many of the fights were well-designed, but that is as big a group as I want to do a dungeon with.
Five-man heroics in WoW were good - until the AOE tanking took all the skill and strategy out of the process.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I agree.
This is another aspect that needs choice in an MMO - short, casual dungeons, ones that take 3-4 hours, and a few epic 6+ hour monsters.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I completely agree.
And once again, I'll say it, lineage 2 had it right. You could get in a group and basically dungeon crawl/camp to your heart's content and others could find areas were they could solo to their heart's content.
Game devs need to make it so that players can find a group and that group can play for an evening's worth of entertainment.
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
I agree with your first point very much. The choice of words around this subject often imply that folks are more intrersted in having solo players group up than they are intrested in the quality of group play to begin with. Words like 'encourage','forced','required'.
The more reasonable question is how do developers simply makes a few changes to existing MMO's that can make the group experience better.
Additionally, in this area it can be hard for people to really predict what their requests will actually look like if implemented. I. A classic example would be around heavly group dependent quest lines. what do you do if one night you have some free unscheduled time and you want to play your groups? to bad, you cant you would have to wait until group time.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
My point is that in today's games it's usually a bit of a chore to actually get a group together, grouping doesn't give satisfying enough rewards so that people make the extra effort, and that it can be done better.
That's what this thread is about - what are your ideas of how to make it better, NOT complaining over how "bad" it is now or emphasizing how "good" it was before.
The good thing is that you can make it as challenging as you choose. If you like challenging groups and content and they make challenging groups and content available to you and reward you greatly for doing so and yet you still choose not to take advantage of that thing that you like and want and is available, well your just weird then.
Venge Sunsoar
If you are using levels..
All you need is add in a level-sync system in order to "remove" power-leveling and exploitation.
Two level 18's walk into a bar...
No wait.
Two level 18's walk into a dungeon and the dungeon "sets" itself for the difficulty required for two level 18 characters to have a fun and enjoyable experience.
Part way through their level 52 friend comes in and joins them.
The level 52 character is "dropped down" in power to that of a level 18 or 19 character.
As a level 52 toon, they have access to abilities and skills that the level 18's do not have. However these abilities are scaled down to the power level of a level 18.
So it is still advantages for the 18's to bring in their 52 friend, as they get access to the added abilities of the 52 which can make the encounters more dynamic and yet still retain the challenge.
The dungeon adjusts itself to a "set" assuming you have 3 level 18-19 players.
Maybe the dungeon instead sets itself to assume you have 3 level 20 players. The level 18's would be slightly less effective, but their 52 friend slightly more effective, so the 52 player ends up carrying a bit more of the weight, however unlike "classic" power leveling the 18's are still an important and useful part of the group, instead of the 52 just blowing through everything with the 18's struggling to keep up the corpse looting!
The 18's would gain money and experience or skill points whatever as if they were in a dungeon for 3 level 18-19 players, while the 52 would gain money and/or experience and/or skill points at a scale comparable to if they were running a level 52-53 dungeon or whatever.
You could make it so the drops you get from random mobs or bosses are 100% guaranteed to be of a quality and level for the 18's to use, however each mob or boss also has a percentage chance to drop gear appropriate for the level 52 player. It can "scale up" the rewards for their participation, or give the low level players something to put in the bank till they can use it or a nice item to sell for a sum of money.
This would encourage people to play together regardless of level.
You could also have the low level players "scale up" to join their higher level friends in higher level dungeons. They wouldn't gain any new abilities as if they were an actual level 52, but their level 18 abilities and stats would scale up so they could be a valuable part of the group still.
You could put a system in place where in a low level dungeon you cannot bring in more high level players then you have low level players, and do the opposite for the higher level.
Our two level 18's can only bring in one or two high level players to scale down and round out their group. And conversely the group of two level 52 players could only bring in one or two low level players to scale up and round out their group.
The same would go for loot, mobs and bosses would drop money and items for the 52's at their level, while the 18's would get appropriate monetary reward for their level, and a chance at extra gear in their level range dropping too.
Obviously this would only work in instanced content.
As in open world content like quests or PQ's the higher levels would have no gain in helping lower level players other then for the value of being helpful and supporting your friends/guild mates.
And the lower level players would survive the higher level open world content, so they aren't able to get too ahead of themselves, miss out on important story content, or get into situations they don't yet have the high level skills and abilities to handle.
I like "sandbox" and really don't like the level grinds. In this context, I'm all for the subtle ways of encouragement to get players together. Social glue, natural feeling need to overcome the greater beasts and powers of the game world, etc.
Once upon a time....
1) Ask yourself, why aren' t most LFG tools used? Because with thousands of potential quests out there, the odds of finding the right level and class of person who wants to run your specific quest, chain, dungeon at the exact same time as you is slim to none. WOW's new tool solves this somewhat, at least for dungeon content, but has its own set of drawbacks which I feel outweigh its usefulness (debate for another thread)
What really has to happen is find a way to incentive players to run quests they've done before (and might not need) again with others. That's what most games have failed to do, even WOW. Sure, getting a particular piece of gear sometimes is a decent hook, but usually gear progression in expansions makes that mechanic fail pretty quickly.
2) I have to disagree. If we're trying to keep soloers happy, nothing is more frustrating than completing 6 legs of a quest chain solo only to find the last leg or two must be done in a group. I say keep group chains and solo chains completely separate, with separate rewards for completing them. As for 2b, some games already have new quest chains open up at the completion of the current dungeon, so I'm not sure that will be much of an incentive.
3) I dislike dungeon scalling, I'd much rather see character scaling, a la COH where a mentor can raise the level of a lower character to be competitive in the current dungeon. Dungeons should be set to a certain level of difficulty and how many players, or what level or gear they are at should determine whether they can master it or not.
4) Here's an idea, lets do away with loot in general. Have npc's drop gold, or crafting materials, and let crafted gear be what everyone strives for. Sure, dungeon should drop the rare materials to make such good gear, but no longer should a stone golem be dropping you a "golden sword of whoop arse"
My own thoughts. You encourage grouping by rewarding grouping for the effort. Such rewards include bonuses to experience gain, bonus gold drops, bonus loot drops, etc. Sure, soloers don't get the bonuses, but they can still solo content, just not as well as a group.
Other ideas, make sure grouping provides other benefits outside of character progression, put in some forced downtime mechanics so that there's lots of time for socialization while progressing through combat, don't keep people so busy swinging at mobs that there's no time to get to know your groupmates.
Finally, do away with 5-6 man group mechanics and bring back DAOC's 8 mans and the class diversity mechanics that such a group afforded. Make classes more specialized again and dependent on each other.
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... and because the content is designed to scale so well..
You could easily put in "difficulty" settings.
You could theoretically solo or small group the "easy" modes of a dungeon as they would scale to your level and group size, but if you do have more players or are simply better and more skilled players you could set the dungeon to "normal" or "difficult" settings and as such gain better rewards.
Perhaps even if you have a high level character de-rank to join you, the regular and difficult settings scale up a tad bit higher due to the fact you do have a more experienced character with a wider assortment of skills in your group.