I think that has more to do with the guild than the game.
Games build community by design, and Rift isnt designed to do that. It is designed to promote solo play for the vast bulk of the levelling experience and thats what the vast majority of players will experience.
What's stopping players from grouping during leveling?
Efficiency
Where are you getting this from?
I think he is referring to the quests themselves and that it's more efficient to knock them out as a solo player where one can get all the xp and rewards. To be honest I dont know how Rift handles this.
still, if one is grouped one can take advantage of a group and still take part in rifts and invasions which give a decent amount of xp and decent rewards in the form of those planar items.
Pretty much, Sovrath. I was just expanding on Vesavius' post regarding gameplay set up for soloing. We've seen it in dozens of games that when players don't have to depend on each other a lot of times they do not. When this becomes the trend in a game those players that do like to group are oftentimes left to the wind. I'm eager to see how Rift handles rewards from grouping vs. soloing.
I'll definitely give you that.
One of the things that seems so artificial is when a game calls for a group for "1" link in a quest chain. Everyone gets together, bangs it out and suddenly everybody drops.
Even I can recognize that this helps to disenfranchise players who prefer grouping play. A nice thing in Aion is that there were areas that required groups for you to navigate. More games need this.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
why don't you play the beta on tuesday and find out. I don't believe that the game is anti-social. Its more of the opposite. but play the next beta and find out. Nobody here will be able to describe the experience more than you. so play beta.
This is good advice and i am doing exactly that on Tuesday the 25th.I was kind of turned off by the way TRION is turning Beta into some kind of joke ...event rather than a testing or fixing of the game but i will not give up,i have to know for sure if the game is worth it.So i decided after turning away at a couple Beta i will give it a fair chance.
If i find RIFT is decently encouraging socializing,it has a good chance of succeeding,but if not,this is why people become bored,they soon realize that leveling a number and loot chasing is so old and over done,been there done that,that it comes down to the "MMO" in gaming being a part of the community and being social.
I am just curious,it is imo not illegal to talk about the people or socializing in a closed beta/NDA because you are not talking about the game ,but is this game not under NDA ?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think that has more to do with the guild than the game.
Games build community by design, and Rift isnt designed to do that. It is designed to promote solo play for the vast bulk of the levelling experience and thats what the vast majority of players will experience.
What's stopping players from grouping during leveling?
Efficiency
I believe this excatly is the case in DCUO. And there HAS to be incentive too. Withought incentive to group. everyone will go their merry way.
.I was kind of turned off by the way TRION is turning Beta into some kind of joke ...event rather than a testing or fixing of the game but i will not give up,i have to know for sure if the game is worth it.So i decided after turning away at a couple Beta i will give it a fair chance.
Really?
You dont' find the changes in the very start of the game a 'start' on streamlining the player getting into the game? Or that the 3 souls are now part of the Start of the game as opposed to waiting for quite a few levels?
and the changes in the Rifts themselves including invasions that spawn from rifts that now set up their own footholds?
All of this has happened over the 4 beta tests. Including turning up mobs respawns.
I realize that there is a marketing component but there have been quite a few changes from beta to beta.
Mark my words, the very start will change again and I wonder if the character creator will undergo a small change here and there as it was mentioned several times in the poll that was sent out.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
NDA on Beta is lifted, just not Alpha. I am not sure why TRION are making this essentially an open beta now, I worry about burning through too much content. I understand that word of mouth from beta players has been a massive boon for Rift, and I guess TRION simply want to magnify that. I hope they continue to make good changes between beta events, they certainly have plenty of time.
I was in a clan in Lineage 2 where most of us soloed but we always were chatting in "chat". When we needed to group up or deal with enemy players we would. But otherwise we soloed to our heart's content.
I think the nature of L2 also encouraged a sort of "safety in numbers" approach by many players. I rarely ever did anything solo while I was in anything but a smaller, "non-factor" clan. For the time I was in Divine... forget soloing lol. We were always fighting someone, somewhere (for a while while I was a member, Forbidden Gateway seemed to be a hotspot for us).
But even outside of that, I think most of my time in L2 was in a group of some variety. Even if it was just 3 or 4 of us grinding away in a Cata or somewhere. What was cool about L2 to me, though, was that those group grinds were always quite social and a great time. It was really the group of us hanging out, talking, joking around, etc... grinding mobs just happened to be the backdrop we were doing it against. I guess that's why I never considered xp'ing in L2 the horrible grind so many consider it. I just enjoyed hanging out with the cool folks I knew.
Something I always enjoyed about L2 was that you could sometimes be off doing your own thing and, spur of the moment, people in clan would start discussing doing raid bosses. Someone would check to see which spawns were up, and the next thing you knew, you had an alliance of people gathering in ToI for a RB climb. Something I always appreciated in L2 was how efficiently you could assemble something like that. Getting a group together in FFXI could take an hour+ just for people to get to where they needed to be, nevermind buffing up and such.
The point I was getting at, though, is that while soloing was certainly very doable (especially later after certain mob spawns started dropping herbs, etc)... grouping was also very beneficial, even necessary at times, in L2.
Anyway... Will be interesting to see if Rift has a strong social element or not. Haven't really seen anything much about that yet, beyond the Rift events themselves which are more like public access, free-for-all events... not really organized ones.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Yea, I think what I'm really looking for is: Organization. Only the need for Organization will promote social gaming. If organization is not required, everyone meets the current objective and goes off.
The last 2 Betas in RIFT for me had more socializing than any mmo I have ever played, both casually due to rifts, invasions and most of all footholds, but also quests where I would often party to share slow spawners. The game encourages grouping a lot more than say WoW, and some coming from that game had trouble excepting that they couldn’t just solo quest all the time, that the point was to co-operate to deal with dynamic elite spawns.
When Zone Events occurred then you could not quest at all, it was chaos, many players the first time panicked, but the next time people “got it” and became more organized. In beta4 when I was in a guild, we instantly joined up when an event suddenly happened, and did essentially an open world raid, with 20 in the group and another 20 outside the guild following us (we were all early lvl20s). Many players are from vanguard, EQ, war, and are more used to social play, for me who hates solo, this is the best mmo for years.
I agree with this. To the OP, sure. Rift will appeal to the social player. It is a mmorpg that does NOT force you to group all the time, but as someone else eluded to, there are rumblings of an OPTIONAL system where if your solo, you can be seamlessly invited into a pug within the vicinity of an invasion.
Is that Socially appealing. . .sure it is.
At the same time, the game-play feels more like Vanilla WoW, but with more risk, I think, of an opposing factional force popping up while you might be fending off an invasion. To me, that's encouragement to be social.
Absolutely there are story-archs and status-quo game-play conventional questing elements, but at the same time, there are game-play mechanics that encourages social behavior, not to mention that invasions scale in size along with the number of people in an area.
Yes, A rift event is designed to be scaled to the number of players taking part in the event: rifts will scale from being soloable to being balanced for a raid force.
So there is designed solo and social game-play in Rift. It will not be uncommon for a solo adventure to be interrupted and interlaced with server-focused, on-going dynamic and public events that take a community or team of players to participate in, during real-time, to prevent; kind of ushering in a broader-scope of massively-multiplayer public content and open-world dynamic game-play.
I mean, it's pretty apparent to me, but then again, there migh be many that havent played and experienced it yet.
Yea, I think what I'm really looking for is: Organization. Only the need for Organization will promote social gaming. If organization is not required, everyone meets the current objective and goes off.
I think that's true for some players, but for me personally, even if it takes me two weeks longer to reach the level cap, I'd much rather do it with a group of friends. That applies to doing solo quests or simply exploring. Yes, playing solo may speed up my leveling by 37.98% according to theorycraft, but I really don't care about that; I just want to go have adventures and lulz with my fellow nerds. I don't need the game to organize things in a way to promote grouping... it's just something I'll seek out as a player. I think it's all a matter of playstyle and perspective.
Yea, I think what I'm really looking for is: Organization. Only the need for Organization will promote social gaming. If organization is not required, everyone meets the current objective and goes off.
I think that's true for some players, but for me personally, even if it takes me two weeks longer to reach the level cap, I'd much rather do it with a group of friends. That applies to doing solo quests or simply exploring. Yes, playing solo may speed up my leveling by 37.98% according to theorycraft, but I really don't care about that; I just want to go have adventures and lulz with my fellow nerds. I don't need the game to organize things in a way to promote grouping... it's just something I'll seek out as a player. I think it's all a matter of playstyle and perspective.
I've often wondered why people want game developers to force anti-social people to group up with other anti-social people.
All MMO's have tools for grouping, at least the ones I have played. I hear some even have this magical thing called a guild.
To expect developers to inconvience most gamers just to make a few people happy is ludicrous.
If people where really that anti-social why are they playing an MMO? Many simply have not had many reasons to group in the past and are out of the habit, or see groups as dungeons or end-game raids only. Trion and Arenanet both recognise that many aspects of traditional open-world PVE leveling cause friction between players, and seek to address that, it’s about changing mmo cultural norms. RIFT and GW2 couldn't possibly be better intentioned.
I've often wondered why people want game developers to force anti-social people to group up with other anti-social people.
All MMO's have tools for grouping, at least the ones I have played. I hear some even have this magical thing called a guild.
To expect developers to inconvience most gamers just to make a few people happy is ludicrous.
If people where really that anti-social why are they playing an MMO? Many simply have not had many reasons to group in the past and are out of the habit, or see groups as dungeons or end-game raids only. Trion and Arenanet both recognise that many aspects of traditional open-world PVE leveling cause friction between players, and seek to address that, it’s about changing mmo cultural norms. RIFT and GW2 couldn't possibly be better intentioned.
They want a fun game to play.
All MMO's tend to have reasons to group. All MMO's already have the mechanics to group.
Which is why I wonder why people want to get developers to force people to play a way they don't choose to. If people choose not to group and pay for the game. Its sort of their choice.
In most guilds I've been in we tend to group. So that option is already there. If you aren't social or don't group its not the developers fault or the games.
Alright, it'll obviously appeal to anyone who likes questing a lot. Social gaming to the extent people like being thrown into pugs to graduate to the next hub area after a liner instance run. Then they'll join a guild and complain about pugs. Who'll eventually raid.
why don't you play the beta on tuesday and find out. I don't believe that the game is anti-social. Its more of the opposite. but play the next beta and find out. Nobody here will be able to describe the experience more than you. so play beta.
This is good advice and i am doing exactly that on Tuesday the 25th.I was kind of turned off by the way TRION is turning Beta into some kind of joke ...event rather than a testing or fixing of the game but i will not give up,i have to know for sure if the game is worth it.So i decided after turning away at a couple Beta i will give it a fair chance.
If i find RIFT is decently encouraging socializing,it has a good chance of succeeding,but if not,this is why people become bored,they soon realize that leveling a number and loot chasing is so old and over done,been there done that,that it comes down to the "MMO" in gaming being a part of the community and being social.
I am just curious,it is imo not illegal to talk about the people or socializing in a closed beta/NDA because you are not talking about the game ,but is this game not under NDA ?
Take a look at the beta patch notes between every phase. Trion has addressed every concern voiced on the forum and them some. Hell the beta 1 patch notes have more content than FFXIV.
I also concur with the sentiments that i haven't grouped this much in an MMO since FFXI. Not so much out of necessity, but just because it's more fun to. No one is slowing my progress down or stealing my loot by grouping, which is what i think many believe grouping does nowadays.
I think that has more to do with the guild than the game.
Games build community by design, and Rift isnt designed to do that. It is designed to promote solo play for the vast bulk of the levelling experience and thats what the vast majority of players will experience.
What's stopping players from grouping during leveling?
Efficiency
Where are you getting this from?
I think he is referring to the quests themselves and that it's more efficient to knock them out as a solo player where one can get all the xp and rewards. To be honest I dont know how Rift handles this.
still, if one is grouped one can take advantage of a group and still take part in rifts and invasions which give a decent amount of xp and decent rewards in the form of those planar items.
Pretty much, Sovrath. I was just expanding on Vesavius' post regarding gameplay set up for soloing. We've seen it in dozens of games that when players don't have to depend on each other a lot of times they do not. When this becomes the trend in a game those players that do like to group are oftentimes left to the wind. I'm eager to see how Rift handles rewards from grouping vs. soloing.
I'll definitely give you that.
One of the things that seems so artificial is when a game calls for a group for "1" link in a quest chain. Everyone gets together, bangs it out and suddenly everybody drops.
Even I can recognize that this helps to disenfranchise players who prefer grouping play. A nice thing in Aion is that there were areas that required groups for you to navigate. More games need this.
The 'get paid and leave' dynamic is strong in Rift.
Even to the point where Trion are implementing auto group around rifts because people cba to talk for 3 minutes.
That being said, even Trion openly state that you don't need to group for rifts (hence the auto group not being in before now), though you will need more then just you there to take down the bulk of them, or overland content. The game just wasnt built that way. It was built to solo and solo zerg.
The vast bulk of the game's play to 50 content simply isnt designed to promote social play. Sure you CAN group, and the better guilds obviously will (at least in the beginning before their player levels and aims get too spread out), but the vast majority won't. This leads to an isolated non interdependent player base, which in turn leads to no wider community.
Community is built in MMORPGs by game play design.
I wouldn't mind not grouping (UO style) if there was some easy way to heal people outside groups, other than struggling to random click and check on their health. Sure, I could heal the main tank taking the bulk of damage, but any area effect damage would be hard to handle. Or perhaps use TERA's approach (if I can desipher properly from the videos) and mark an area on the ground for heal over time heals.
I wouldn't mind not grouping (UO style) if there was some easy way to heal people outside groups, other than struggling to random click and check on their health. Sure, I could heal the main tank taking the bulk of damage, but any area effect damage would be hard to handle. Or perhaps use TERA's approach (if I can desipher properly from the videos) and mark an area on the ground for heal over time heals.
You can use AoE heals without being in a group. The only catch 22 is the AoE spells tend to sap your mana fast. At least the one AoE spell I had did.
I think that has more to do with the guild than the game.
Games build community by design, and Rift isnt designed to do that. It is designed to promote solo play for the vast bulk of the levelling experience and thats what the vast majority of players will experience.
What's stopping players from grouping during leveling?
Efficiency
Where are you getting this from?
I think he is referring to the quests themselves and that it's more efficient to knock them out as a solo player where one can get all the xp and rewards. To be honest I dont know how Rift handles this.
still, if one is grouped one can take advantage of a group and still take part in rifts and invasions which give a decent amount of xp and decent rewards in the form of those planar items.
Pretty much, Sovrath. I was just expanding on Vesavius' post regarding gameplay set up for soloing. We've seen it in dozens of games that when players don't have to depend on each other a lot of times they do not. When this becomes the trend in a game those players that do like to group are oftentimes left to the wind. I'm eager to see how Rift handles rewards from grouping vs. soloing.
I'll definitely give you that.
One of the things that seems so artificial is when a game calls for a group for "1" link in a quest chain. Everyone gets together, bangs it out and suddenly everybody drops.
Even I can recognize that this helps to disenfranchise players who prefer grouping play. A nice thing in Aion is that there were areas that required groups for you to navigate. More games need this.
The 'get paid and leave' dynamic is strong in Rift.
Even to the point where Trion are implementing auto group around rifts because people cba to talk for 3 minutes.
That being said, even Trion openly state that you don't need to group for rifts (hence the auto group not being in before now), though you will need more then just you there to take down the bulk of them, or overland content. The game just wasnt built that way. It was built to solo and solo zerg.
The vast bulk of the game's play to 50 content simply isnt designed to promote social play. Sure you CAN group, and the better guilds obviously will (at least in the beginning before their player levels and aims get too spread out), but the vast majority won't. This leads to an isolated non interdependent player base, which in turn leads to no wider community.
Community is built in MMORPGs by game play design.
I agree with encouraging grouping/community by design. That is precisely why I'm interested in Rift and will be playing beta 5 to see for myself.
The point - which you seem deaf to - is that solo zerg more naturally leads to "real" grouping than simply soloing or even forced grouping. People respond to the same common threat. People start cooperating. People are enjoying themselves. They stay grouped and hunt rifts, try a dungeon etc.
I think you are blinding yourself to an INCREMENTAL improvement in design that sets the stage for natural grouping but doesn't absolutely demand it. Try relaxing a bit and being more open to how other people are viewing and playing MMOs?
The vast bulk of the game's play to 50 content simply isnt designed to promote social play. Sure you CAN group, and the better guilds obviously will (at least in the beginning before their player levels and aims get too spread out), but the vast majority won't.
Firstly, how do you know that? Secondly, doesn't it bother you that people's actual experiences differ completely from what you describe? Have you actually played any of the betas?
Of course Trion say its solo friendly, they are aiming at a broad audience, what the game is actually like is the end result of all the variables, player experience is what counts here.
There will doubtless be a minority who will go out of their way to solo as much as they can, though i really don't get that. Who plays a game and missed out of the core of it, and most of the content? They can have their RPGs, I’ll take the community built by good mmos.
Perhaps this is a reference to the atmosphere created by a common threat, sort of the reason why people tend to group in FFA PvP games. The group gives both safety and empowers those in it, while the lone wolves are usually the victims.
I didn't find necessary to team when tackling normal rifts, especially as a dps. As a healer it was also relatively easy to spot who was taking damage and heal accordingly. Invasions though was another matter altogether. Raids were really helpful, not only to tell who was taking damage, but also to see where everybody was headed when we were running all over the map closing rifts. I think I noticed that the raid leader could put waypoints directly on the map (like a big white arrow thing).
Did I mention that the game has raid frames that work already (buffs, debuffs, distance from healer build in, etc.)
The vast bulk of the game's play to 50 content simply isnt designed to promote social play. Sure you CAN group, and the better guilds obviously will (at least in the beginning before their player levels and aims get too spread out), but the vast majority won't.
Firstly, how do you know that?
Because Scott Hartsman said himself that overland play was designed as a solo experience.
Because he also said that it wasnt necessary to group for rifts.
Secondly, doesn't it bother you that people's actual experiences differ completely from what you describe? Have you actually played any of the betas?
yes, all of them, both sides up to 27.
You?
There will doubtless be a minority who will go out of their way to solo as much as they can, though i really don't get that.
No, you might not, but anyone who thinks the vast majority of players group when the game allows them to solo hasnt played many MMORPGs imo.
The vast bulk of the game's play to 50 content simply isnt designed to promote social play. Sure you CAN group, and the better guilds obviously will (at least in the beginning before their player levels and aims get too spread out), but the vast majority won't.
Of course Trion say its solo friendly, they are aiming at a broad audience
There will doubtless be a minority who will go out of their way to solo as much as they can
Btw, you seem to contradict yourself here.
Why would solo play be the focus in an effort to attract a broad audience if only a minority will solo?
Comments
I'll definitely give you that.
One of the things that seems so artificial is when a game calls for a group for "1" link in a quest chain. Everyone gets together, bangs it out and suddenly everybody drops.
Even I can recognize that this helps to disenfranchise players who prefer grouping play. A nice thing in Aion is that there were areas that required groups for you to navigate. More games need this.
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
This is good advice and i am doing exactly that on Tuesday the 25th.I was kind of turned off by the way TRION is turning Beta into some kind of joke ...event rather than a testing or fixing of the game but i will not give up,i have to know for sure if the game is worth it.So i decided after turning away at a couple Beta i will give it a fair chance.
If i find RIFT is decently encouraging socializing,it has a good chance of succeeding,but if not,this is why people become bored,they soon realize that leveling a number and loot chasing is so old and over done,been there done that,that it comes down to the "MMO" in gaming being a part of the community and being social.
I am just curious,it is imo not illegal to talk about the people or socializing in a closed beta/NDA because you are not talking about the game ,but is this game not under NDA ?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I believe this excatly is the case in DCUO. And there HAS to be incentive too. Withought incentive to group. everyone will go their merry way.
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
Really?
You dont' find the changes in the very start of the game a 'start' on streamlining the player getting into the game? Or that the 3 souls are now part of the Start of the game as opposed to waiting for quite a few levels?
and the changes in the Rifts themselves including invasions that spawn from rifts that now set up their own footholds?
All of this has happened over the 4 beta tests. Including turning up mobs respawns.
I realize that there is a marketing component but there have been quite a few changes from beta to beta.
Mark my words, the very start will change again and I wonder if the character creator will undergo a small change here and there as it was mentioned several times in the poll that was sent out.
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
NDA on Beta is lifted, just not Alpha. I am not sure why TRION are making this essentially an open beta now, I worry about burning through too much content. I understand that word of mouth from beta players has been a massive boon for Rift, and I guess TRION simply want to magnify that. I hope they continue to make good changes between beta events, they certainly have plenty of time.
I think the nature of L2 also encouraged a sort of "safety in numbers" approach by many players. I rarely ever did anything solo while I was in anything but a smaller, "non-factor" clan. For the time I was in Divine... forget soloing lol. We were always fighting someone, somewhere (for a while while I was a member, Forbidden Gateway seemed to be a hotspot for us).
But even outside of that, I think most of my time in L2 was in a group of some variety. Even if it was just 3 or 4 of us grinding away in a Cata or somewhere. What was cool about L2 to me, though, was that those group grinds were always quite social and a great time. It was really the group of us hanging out, talking, joking around, etc... grinding mobs just happened to be the backdrop we were doing it against. I guess that's why I never considered xp'ing in L2 the horrible grind so many consider it. I just enjoyed hanging out with the cool folks I knew.
Something I always enjoyed about L2 was that you could sometimes be off doing your own thing and, spur of the moment, people in clan would start discussing doing raid bosses. Someone would check to see which spawns were up, and the next thing you knew, you had an alliance of people gathering in ToI for a RB climb. Something I always appreciated in L2 was how efficiently you could assemble something like that. Getting a group together in FFXI could take an hour+ just for people to get to where they needed to be, nevermind buffing up and such.
The point I was getting at, though, is that while soloing was certainly very doable (especially later after certain mob spawns started dropping herbs, etc)... grouping was also very beneficial, even necessary at times, in L2.
Anyway... Will be interesting to see if Rift has a strong social element or not. Haven't really seen anything much about that yet, beyond the Rift events themselves which are more like public access, free-for-all events... not really organized ones.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Yea, I think what I'm really looking for is: Organization. Only the need for Organization will promote social gaming. If organization is not required, everyone meets the current objective and goes off.
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
I agree with this. To the OP, sure. Rift will appeal to the social player. It is a mmorpg that does NOT force you to group all the time, but as someone else eluded to, there are rumblings of an OPTIONAL system where if your solo, you can be seamlessly invited into a pug within the vicinity of an invasion.
Is that Socially appealing. . .sure it is.
At the same time, the game-play feels more like Vanilla WoW, but with more risk, I think, of an opposing factional force popping up while you might be fending off an invasion. To me, that's encouragement to be social.
Absolutely there are story-archs and status-quo game-play conventional questing elements, but at the same time, there are game-play mechanics that encourages social behavior, not to mention that invasions scale in size along with the number of people in an area.
Yes, A rift event is designed to be scaled to the number of players taking part in the event: rifts will scale from being soloable to being balanced for a raid force.
So there is designed solo and social game-play in Rift. It will not be uncommon for a solo adventure to be interrupted and interlaced with server-focused, on-going dynamic and public events that take a community or team of players to participate in, during real-time, to prevent; kind of ushering in a broader-scope of massively-multiplayer public content and open-world dynamic game-play.
I mean, it's pretty apparent to me, but then again, there migh be many that havent played and experienced it yet.
I think that's true for some players, but for me personally, even if it takes me two weeks longer to reach the level cap, I'd much rather do it with a group of friends. That applies to doing solo quests or simply exploring. Yes, playing solo may speed up my leveling by 37.98% according to theorycraft, but I really don't care about that; I just want to go have adventures and lulz with my fellow nerds. I don't need the game to organize things in a way to promote grouping... it's just something I'll seek out as a player. I think it's all a matter of playstyle and perspective.
I've often wondered why people want game developers to force anti-social people to group up with other anti-social people.
All MMO's have tools for grouping, at least the ones I have played. I hear some even have this magical thing called a guild.
To expect developers to inconvience most gamers just to make a few people happy is ludicrous.
This is a very cool way to put it
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
If people where really that anti-social why are they playing an MMO? Many simply have not had many reasons to group in the past and are out of the habit, or see groups as dungeons or end-game raids only. Trion and Arenanet both recognise that many aspects of traditional open-world PVE leveling cause friction between players, and seek to address that, it’s about changing mmo cultural norms. RIFT and GW2 couldn't possibly be better intentioned.
They want a fun game to play.
All MMO's tend to have reasons to group. All MMO's already have the mechanics to group.
Which is why I wonder why people want to get developers to force people to play a way they don't choose to. If people choose not to group and pay for the game. Its sort of their choice.
In most guilds I've been in we tend to group. So that option is already there. If you aren't social or don't group its not the developers fault or the games.
My guess is they want it forced so that those anti-social people don't want to play that game.
Hmm, I'd say no one.
[/rimshot]
Okay okay, people who liked WoW.
[/rimshot, ching ching]
Alright, it'll obviously appeal to anyone who likes questing a lot. Social gaming to the extent people like being thrown into pugs to graduate to the next hub area after a liner instance run. Then they'll join a guild and complain about pugs. Who'll eventually raid.
That's social-sort (I avoided ish ahahaha)
Take a look at the beta patch notes between every phase. Trion has addressed every concern voiced on the forum and them some. Hell the beta 1 patch notes have more content than FFXIV.
I also concur with the sentiments that i haven't grouped this much in an MMO since FFXI. Not so much out of necessity, but just because it's more fun to. No one is slowing my progress down or stealing my loot by grouping, which is what i think many believe grouping does nowadays.
The 'get paid and leave' dynamic is strong in Rift.
Even to the point where Trion are implementing auto group around rifts because people cba to talk for 3 minutes.
That being said, even Trion openly state that you don't need to group for rifts (hence the auto group not being in before now), though you will need more then just you there to take down the bulk of them, or overland content. The game just wasnt built that way. It was built to solo and solo zerg.
The vast bulk of the game's play to 50 content simply isnt designed to promote social play. Sure you CAN group, and the better guilds obviously will (at least in the beginning before their player levels and aims get too spread out), but the vast majority won't. This leads to an isolated non interdependent player base, which in turn leads to no wider community.
Community is built in MMORPGs by game play design.
I wouldn't mind not grouping (UO style) if there was some easy way to heal people outside groups, other than struggling to random click and check on their health. Sure, I could heal the main tank taking the bulk of damage, but any area effect damage would be hard to handle. Or perhaps use TERA's approach (if I can desipher properly from the videos) and mark an area on the ground for heal over time heals.
You can use AoE heals without being in a group. The only catch 22 is the AoE spells tend to sap your mana fast. At least the one AoE spell I had did.
I agree with encouraging grouping/community by design. That is precisely why I'm interested in Rift and will be playing beta 5 to see for myself.
The point - which you seem deaf to - is that solo zerg more naturally leads to "real" grouping than simply soloing or even forced grouping. People respond to the same common threat. People start cooperating. People are enjoying themselves. They stay grouped and hunt rifts, try a dungeon etc.
I think you are blinding yourself to an INCREMENTAL improvement in design that sets the stage for natural grouping but doesn't absolutely demand it. Try relaxing a bit and being more open to how other people are viewing and playing MMOs?
Dont worry, there will be raids
Firstly, how do you know that? Secondly, doesn't it bother you that people's actual experiences differ completely from what you describe? Have you actually played any of the betas?
Of course Trion say its solo friendly, they are aiming at a broad audience, what the game is actually like is the end result of all the variables, player experience is what counts here.
There will doubtless be a minority who will go out of their way to solo as much as they can, though i really don't get that. Who plays a game and missed out of the core of it, and most of the content? They can have their RPGs, I’ll take the community built by good mmos.
Perhaps this is a reference to the atmosphere created by a common threat, sort of the reason why people tend to group in FFA PvP games. The group gives both safety and empowers those in it, while the lone wolves are usually the victims.
I didn't find necessary to team when tackling normal rifts, especially as a dps. As a healer it was also relatively easy to spot who was taking damage and heal accordingly. Invasions though was another matter altogether. Raids were really helpful, not only to tell who was taking damage, but also to see where everybody was headed when we were running all over the map closing rifts. I think I noticed that the raid leader could put waypoints directly on the map (like a big white arrow thing).
Did I mention that the game has raid frames that work already (buffs, debuffs, distance from healer build in, etc.)