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"Why should I group?" or Why Raid Bosses Should be Soloable
BioNut
Member Posts: 414
The question in the thread title is no doubt posted multiple times on many forums across the MMO landscape ( the statement following it likely has most of your blood boiling). I will start by saying, to us MMO vets the answer to that question is simple, but what a lot of us forget is "Modern Day" MMORPGs are pandering to solo play in order to bring in the casuals, and thus money. The games we remeber playing and the social communities we dream of recreating are falling farther and farther away every year as the gap between soloers and groupers grows. But as we scream "MORE GROUP PLAY", "RAID GEAR BETTER THAN CRAFTED" or "SOLO PLAY RUINS GAMES" there is a larger population asking simply "Why should I group?". So what can be done, how can we make these new players, who are mostly casual console type gamers realize the benifits of group play?
Borderlands is Smarter Than the Average RPG
The answer that I postulate has to do with a game that is not even remotely close to an MMORPG. That game being the quirky shooter RPG hybrid Borderlands. Now I am not saying all RPGs should be shooter hybrids, far from it, but there is a mechanic in Borderlands that could solve some of our MMORPG woes. That mechanic is dynamic enemy/loot scaling.
You see, in Borderlands as your friends join you on your Lootageddon across Pandora the enemies get harder and the lucsious loots get better. The entire game is soloable of coarse but who wants to solo when adding 3 players multiplies the loot exponentially?!?
We are seeing a few MMOs take this idea, Rift and its well...Rifts, WoW and heroic instances, etc; but the problem is they are not doing it enough.
What I say next is going to be extremely controversial but I hope you can hold off your nerd aneurysm long enough to let me explain.
Raid Bosses Should Be Soloable
Yeah, I know, pretty out there huh? But there is a reason I believe this that ties dierectly into Borderlands. That reason is, MMORPGs are not going to magically revert back to the good ol' days. For better or worse this is what we have to deal with. The genre has left the hardcore behind and no matter how much crying we do almost every game is going to pander to the soloer. Unless of coarse their devs hate money. So why not completely embrace this new paradigm but then spin it in our favor?
Yeah, lets let the soloers play EVERYTHING in the game. Every quest, boss, raid, wigit, whatever but then lets make each of these experiences scale depeneding on the number of people in the party.
And I don't mean scale once from normal to epic/heroic. I mean dynamic scaling of both loot and difficulty. There is absolutely no reason why the game engines are not recognizing the number of people loading into an instance/raid and adjusting to that party. Nothing but lazy developers that is. Hell we could take it one step further and have each encounter tailored to your EXACT party make up. That way even groups with the ideal OP builds/group make up would still be challeneged.
You see this way even the antisocial soloer gets to see the content and get a feel for it and he can work his way up to maybe being in a raid. I mean, a lot of people are afraid of getting into a raid and screwing up. With this method they can solo it, then go in with a small group and then contiuneally work their way up to a full raid. They will see the cool gear that the raiders get and have an opportunity to work their way to it instead of just all out going into a raid, which may scare them.
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
Comments
I have Borderlands, played it all the way through, both single and multi player.
I thought Borderlands did a great job of ruining the group experience.
The ONLY reason to play in a group was to have someone to chat with while you played.
You don't NEED the extra loot at all.
The most disappointing part, is the game scales! So WHY group? Just to play with other people instead of playing alone, that's it.
Team work, since the game scales, simpy is NOT required. AT ALL.
You're doing a quest, or mission. You are a group of 5. Lots of Mobs are around, and you shoot them all. Ok, cool. Then everyone quits.
Now it's almost IMPOSSIBLE for you do to this quest right? You have to go back and do something easier now that you don't have a well oiled team to work with right?
Uh, no. Now there are less Mobs, and you just go therough the exact same quest like nothing happened, and you had a bunch of team mates.
Which means, I needed those team mates, really needed them, they were really important, and we HAD to work together because...it's nice to have someone to chat with. That's it.
Really worthless group experience, IMO. I mean sure, it's nice to have other players in the game to chat with, but if that's their only purpose, that doesn't really make for challenging group content, does it?
I don’t disagree with the OP. There is a big difference between incentivizing grouping (i.e. Borderlands) and punishing soloing/small groups and most MMO’s take the punish approach probably because it’s easier to code. I’m all for creating incentives to socializing such as better loot, guild based achievement perks, etc but it is kind of odd that MMO companies spend so much time coding end game content that only a very small percentage of their player base will ever be able to experience. Dynamic scaling would solve a lot of issues in MMO’s including allowing smaller guilds to still participate in the high end content.
I’m sure someone will at some point bring up risk vs reward when raiding. Honestly I never understood that argument. Soloing challenging content is way more of a risk then raiding at max level most of the time (especially if the mob is farm status) so shouldn’t that give better rewards? What it’s really about is a exclusive club of a small number of end game raiders that have been getting the best gear for ages now. These players are vocal enough to have convinced the industry that the best gear should be reserved for end game raiders. While I might agree that the first few times a player/raid/guild kills a named mob it’s a accomplishment, the 100thtime they do it isn’t and shouldn’t really have the same reward.
The best loot dropped when you had for players, so you NEEDED those 3 other people if you wanted the best stuff. You didn't NEED them to complete the experience but you WANTED them around.
That is the point of creating a community. Its wanting people around becasue they make your experience better. If your goald is to just beat the content then yes, this wont work for you. But if your goal is to get the MOST out of the content then this works like a dream and can add challenge for even the best players.
Sounds more like you didnt like borderlands the game lol. Yeah, you didn't need the loot, the point of those games is WANTING the loot.
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
Well, I usually prefer soling but I have to say that there always needs to be a reason to group.
I do group. And find it very fun. But I usually prefer to group with clan members or do so on some sort of epic adventure, whether it be a difficult area or some area where we have to fight our way to a raid boss/encounter.
If these encounters are made to be soloable then I think it takes a bit of the need for grouping away. I used to think differently but the more I experience these games the more I see that if something is soloable it will be soloed as it just is much easier.
I"m just for group and solo content of differnet types.
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
Well with a dynamic system even seasoned raiders can be challenge every time because a game can recognize group make up.
For instance, right now you might go into an Add heavy boss fight with a few CC characters to handle them. These CC characters trivialize the fight and become "the only way to do it".
With a dynamic system the game would see that you have two CC charactes and adjust the fight to compensate.
Valve's Left 4 Dead series does this magnificently, I believe they call it a AI director.
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
You don't think you would WANT to group if the rewards were better?
I am capsing WANT and NEED for a reason because it really is part of the issue.
You shouldn't NEED to group, you should WANT to group.
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
I can appreciate some catering to single players, but in the case of raids I disagree. Take for example GW1. I could go through the entire first campaign solo. Once you figured out the dynamics it really wasn't that hard. But my favorite part in GW was playing through "The Deep". it was a very complex area that required all the players to work together to complete the goal. It was about knowing your job and doing it well. That is what made it enjoyable for me, the teamwork aspect. I don't care if other places allow for solo play but I don't want to lose the aspect of teamwork, or the crazy dynamics of a raid just so a person can go through it solo. I think raids need to be more diverse and complex, not less.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
I can appreciate that but what say you about the dynamic content?
Using your example, yes the solo version would be less complex but as the instance scales to your party it can become more difficult, complex and rewarding.
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
I thought borderlands was a GREAT game! The weapons are cool, the mobs are cool, great zones to explore, interesting story.
What SUCKED was the group play.
There are two completely different aspects here.
1. Community.
2. Game play.
I am discussing GAME PLAY. Yes, it's very nice to have other people around to group with. But it would also be nice to have some fun group GAME PLAY which was completely lacking in Borderlands.
What is fun about group game play? Chatting with other players? NO! You can do that grouped or not in an MMO.
The fun part about group game play is working together to accomplish objectives that you cannot do on your own.
That creates a sense of satisfaction of working as a team, cooperating with one another to make the team greater than any single member of that team.
If the team can't do anything you can't already do on your own, then where is that sense of satisfaction, of making the team greater than any individual on that team?
It's gone.
This is why the solo players are always wrong when they make the retarded argument, "you just don't have friends and you want to force people to play with you!"
No! You could always find a group in Borderlands. Taht was very, very, very, very easy to do. You didn't have to FORCE anyone to group with you.
But, the grouping was POINTLESS, not satisfying, and unrewarding, because it accomplished nothing you couldn't do on your own.
I don't want to collect shinies, get some kewl lewt because I'm in a group.
I want to accomplish an objective with team work, that I could not accomplish on my own. That did not exist in Borderlands.
I only WANT a group if it is NEEDED.
That makes for rewarding group game play. If a group is not NEEDED, then it is by definition pointless.
I don't need a group to socialize. I can chat with you just fine whether you're in my group or not.
I don't play games to collect phat lewts.
I want to play a co-op game that rewards players that can work well as a team with the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal they could not do alone, because the team becomes greater than the sum of the parts.
What does collecting phat lewts have to do with that?
Cooller lewt drops don't do anything to give me a rewarding group experience if I can complete the same quests on my own.
How bout this, invite 3 people into your borderlands game and then try to solo.
Yup, you can't because the content is scaled and directed towards group play. You will need to work together now to finish it.
See what I did there?
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
I don't want the best stuff.
I want dynamic game play, where a group that works well together becomes greater than the sum of it's parts.
That means you can accomplish goals that a single player alone cannot.
Getting a cool lewt drop doesn't cut it.
If I can do the quest without a group, because it "scales" that means grouping is pointless, because you cannot do anything a single member of the group cannot.
Yes, I see what you did. You made a statement that is false.
I don't need a group to "finish it".
Because at any point I can drop out of the group, the game will scale and I can complete the quest.
"Finish it" means complete the quest, which I can do solo without gaining any more levels or getting any more powerful.
I'm just as powerful as a full group, becauwse I can complete the exact same quest a group can, since the game scales.
And that' means the group is pointless, and can NEVER be greater than the sum of it's parts, because the group can NEVER accomplish a quest that I cannot do solo.
I "might" want to group if the rewards are better but ultimately that really doesn't do it for me. I'm not much of a "rewards" player. As a matter of fact, case in point, In earlier lord of the rings one could get better armor if one did a certian run/set of runs.
That would be an example of grouping to get a better reward. So you know what I did? I bought my gear from players and disregarded the better rewards.
However, in runs where I needed to group in order to finish a certain part of a quest I would group.
I don't want the incentive to be "get a better prize" as that can only last me so long. But where it's impossible to do something without others and it's something I want to do or "need" to do then I will group.
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
There's no way to let this pass....
OK, I'll take WoW, Scholomance instance as an example. Five players in a group, with the same creatures, triggers etc each time. Let's take the OP's suggestion and scale it so a solo player can conceivably complete the instance. The 'lazy' devs now have to consider the following:
how many creatures should appear in each group - scaling for the number and character types?
how should each group react - what is their agro range?
how much damage should the creatures do?
how many hit points and other defenses should they have from original format?
what loot should they drop?
On top of these factors, we must also factor in the following...
what levels is/are the character/s?
what equipment level have they got?
what mix of tank/dps/heal/hybrid is the reduced or regular group using?
OP - this is entirely possible and within the bounds of the devs at Blizzard to complete. I can confidently say that working fulltime from this point, they could be finished writing the additonal 200 million lines of code sometime in 2026, at a cost of something approaching $80m - all so people who refuse to get into the spirit of the group mechanics are not restricted from seeing the content.
I've waited in queues for an instance I wanted to do, had runs ruined by selfish or unobservant players - heck, just adds to the realism of the experience - if it wasn't challenging to engage in, it wouldn't be worth playing.
This.
The point of grouping to work together and defeat a challenge that you could not do alone, not to get better loot. Do you want the better loot sure but the reason you want the better loot so you can beat future raids. If people can solo a boss get all the loot they need to beat the next one... you know what they are going to do that but raids can be a pain to set up and run and people WONT do that if they can do it alone.
Also the only reason most MMO are targeting casuals is because the makers see them as cash grabs and not long term things, aka wow, EQ.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Also, because you can't do a quest NOW without a group, doesn't mean you can't do it later, when you gain a few levels or get higher in your skills.
If you can ONLY accomplish it in a group NOW, that means that a group is more powerful than a single player, as it should be.
But you're not locked out of the content for not grouping.
You can go level up, or skill up, and then come back and do taht content without a group.
Of course teh group, fi they have also leveled up, can now do even harder quests, that you cannot do solo.
Otherwise, a single player is just as powerful as a group, which makes no sense.
I guess at the end of the day it really comes down to this: MMO's are supposed to be Massive MULTI player games. These games have always included grouping and the need to group as part of the game dynamic.
The OP is correct that we are certainly moving away from this mechanic and making all games easier for solo players to play. But again MMO. If we are going to continue to move away and make all games single player games with a soical lobby, why even bother?
IMO i feel that there still has to be some kind of Group/raid content in these games. WHile i understand that this is not for everyone. Thats part of life. If you choose to play the game in your own way thats great. But dont complain where there are certain things that you are unable to do becuase of your choices.
As a RPG player(P&P and video games), and avid book reader, I can say,"Most stories do not involve 10 to 140 people beating on one guy for an hour for phat lewts." It's usually 1 to 5 guys and/or gals fighting a dragon, gang, monster, or a horde. Thematically raids just don't happen anywhere other than MMOs.
If raids were done away with, I wouldn't shed a tear. MMO means being able to play with many people, not playing with the exact same people every day for the next year just for loot.
Actualy I do lower level content in LOTRO that is usually meant for a lower lvl group. I do it for the sake of doing it and not the rewwards.
Case in point, retaking weathertop. did that at lvl 60 and solo. And enjoyed it.
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
Thats because MMOs are... MMOs not books not P&P RPGs and not SoloRPGs. Just like they anit movies or tv shows. Also again large percent of the raids I have met play for the ability to beat the mega bad boss, then for loot.
I agree that figting the same boss for the 40th time where your just going threw the motions because you know you can easily beat him isn't that much fun, but the first few times where your not sure if your group can beat it is ALOT of fun for most raiders.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
Right. And one reason you enjoy it is because it's satisfying to be more powerful.
You can solo it at level 60, but you could do it before level 60 with a group right?
Scaling, IMO, takes away the satisfaction of becoming more powerful.
You know you are more powerful, because you can do something by yourself, that it would take several players of lesser power to do.
Now imagine if level 50's could also do weathertop solo, becaues it "scaled". I doubt you would find doing it solo at level 60 as satisfying. You could have soloed it at level 50, and level 51, and level 52, and so on, because it "scales"...
Oh, I don't really believe in scaling except for very limited uses.
Scaling eliminates the need to level. Which is fine but then there is no need to have a game based on leveling.
I personally enjoy leveling, making my character stronger and more powerful. I realize that some people want these games to be a bit more like fps where they just "show up for the fun". I can appreciate why but it doens't mitigage my enjoyment of starting small and making myself better.
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
To solo raid bosses can I only say one thing: no.
Scalable encounters is good, several of the upcoming games have that, like Rift and GW2. In the rifts of Rift and the dynamic events (or most of them at least) you can also jump in and do good without being grouped and still get a reward or XP.
That way of new thinking is interesting and might work, but my feelings is that besides some possible solo endgame we have already gotten most out of the classic soloing.
The entire point of a raid id is lot of people working together, so it is a lot better to scrap the entire raid thing than make it to scale from 1-40 players.
I like the idea that you can jump in and help someone out without stealing XP from them. I like open world events that scale (Wars PQ never worked goos since they don't). I believe that soloplayers should have some kind of endgame as well as anyone else, many game teaches people to solo and then cut them of at max level.
But games need group content. The whole idea of a classic dungeon crawl is that a team go down into a dungeon or ruin, and working together make them strong. As I see it a game should have 1/3 grouping at least or I wont enjoy it.
If I only enjoyed playing by myself I wouldn't pay 15 bucks for a MMO, I would play single player games instead. Other people is the thing that makes MMO so fun.
Lets take 2 very popular movies & Games on these forums. Lord of the rings & Star Wars. Now both of these movies have the stars that the movies are based around. But in these movies are HUGE epic scale battles. Not 10- 140 but thousands upon thousands of people,thingys,robots.