I see it a lot these days - "make group content", "forced grouping is good", "solo progression destroys communities". It's as if we have to pick a side and stay there forever. I just don't buy it. Here are my thoughts on what made EQ challenging and why grouping just made sense without being "forced".
Player to mob power ratio:
In general on any one even con mob, if tackled solo, you had a pretty big chance of dying. Player to mob power ratios were skewed in favor of the mob and we knew it. To make things worse (i.e. more challenging), just what were you going to do at Orc 1 without help? There's 5 orcs there and if you pull one, you pull them all. You needed help and rather than waste time trying and dying, you grabbed the next guy to come along and grouped. The next guy hardly needed to be asked if he wanted to join because he was in the same situation.
Dangerous environment:
In the beginning, when it rained in EQ, I would sit down and stop moving. Hopefully I was somewhere safe to begin with. Why? You couldn't see a damn thing. EQ had tons of roaming mobs that were almost all aggressive. When it wasn't raining, you still had to master situational awareness when fighting something because adds meant you had to flee or die (and fleeing usually meant dying too). To complicate things, zones like Warslik's Woods had so many trees there was no way you could consider fighting something in the middle of the forest. You had to work from safe spots and "pull" mobs there to fight. People congregated at these pull spots and groups formed naturally. Environmental obfuscation, whether rain or trees, was a design element used a lot in EQ and it worked very well to make things much more dangerous.
Mob AI and faction:
While the AI was pretty rudimentary, it mattered in almost every situation. Did a mob have social aggro? Would the bear walking by care if I am fighting a lion? Is that iksar KOS to me or just dubious? We didn't just hop on a horse and tear through west commonlands without a care in the world. You had to target and con everything in your path and make decisions actively. Mobs didn't leash so if you got aggro you couldn't handle, it was fight here and now, or click your "train to zone" macro.
Dying:
If you played EQ you died, and usually a lot. And it hurt. You lost levels. You respawned across the entire world naked. You had huge incentive to try very hard to not die but had to prepare for the worst with almost every encounter. Soloing, even just simple travel, was extremely risky and to mitigate the risk of death you sought out groups everywhere you went. Even if you were just running from Qeynos to Highpass you wanted people with you for the journey. This wasn't forced grouping, it was grouping for obvious mutual benefit at every turn in the world.
Grouping vs. solo:
For most classes, soloing was just a tedious waste of time. It wasn't that you couldn't solo easy stuff, we all did. But getting a group was where the sweet spot was. When you were in that special group which happened from time to time, when everything just meshed perfectly and the exp flowed in, it was the highlight of the day or even week. The other really amazing thing that now is vanishing in modern MMOs is that while you were waiting for the next pull, or when we were medding, everyone in the group talked. We were able to talk because the game pace wasn't a frenetic button mashing face roll with people yelling "pull faster!" (except for bards who couldn't talk anyway until the melody command was added). The pace of the game wasn't determined by the number of nearby mobs, but by the rates of health and mana regen. Original EQ may have been a little heavy handed here but this is something that has to be carefully tuned. And the correct tuning is right where people feel free to chat while sitting through some downtime.
Everyone has times when they will choose to solo. Times when you have 15 minutes and just want to kill something. Times when you will be frequently interrupted, maybe by a young child. The great thing was EQ let you solo by greatly increasing your downtime and risk. But EQ was tuned to let a group accomplish things at a nice pace with far less risk and more reward.
I hope that that's the sweet spot that Pantheon is also aiming for as well.
Grouping is good. Forced grouping as the only means of progression is horrible game design. Not everyone has the patience, mindset, time or social ability to group. Many gamers are Introverts and to force those to play a particular style is a travesty.
You can create rewarding group play easily just look to games like Asheron's Call or Path of Exile for proper group dynamics.
Forced grouping is bad ok. Nice shaming. How about calling soloing anti-social losers? Why does it have to be framed as such an negative way?
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Just so people get the balance, this was said regarding soloing:
Q: Will you be able to solo in dungeons?
A: "Theres not going to be a game mechanic that prohibits [soloing], but man... its gonna be difficult because the dungeon is designed for group play. I'm not going to throw out words like impossible, but it will be difficult."
Also:
"If you have the right gear, and the right tactics, in the right area, theres nothing to say you can't kill a mob" .
Just so people know, there are a lot of qualifiers when it comes to the ability to solo.
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Might i ask which country you live in? You wanna switch place with me? Because everything you mentioned in your post and all the mention about thrills, you can find that on day to day life in our country. In our country when you get out of home, there is literally less than 10% chance to return home safe at the moment, so you wanna switch your place with me? you know for the "thrill"?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Just so people get the balance, this was said regarding soloing:
Q: Will you be able to solo in dungeons?
A: "Theres not going to be a game mechanic that prohibits [soloing], but man... its gonna be difficult because the dungeon is designed for group play. I'm not going to throw out words like impossible, but it will be difficult."
Also:
"If you have the right gear, and the right tactics, in the right area, theres nothing to say you can't kill a mob" .
Just so people know, there are a lot of qualifiers when it comes to the ability to solo.
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
Having played most of the last 10 years of games, I can't recall any where I had to carefully choose the right place, armor and tactics to successfully solo. That was a general reference to soloing by the way, inside or outside of dungeons.
Just so people get the balance, this was said regarding soloing:
Q: Will you be able to solo in dungeons?
A: "Theres not going to be a game mechanic that prohibits [soloing], but man... its gonna be difficult because the dungeon is designed for group play. I'm not going to throw out words like impossible, but it will be difficult."
Also:
"If you have the right gear, and the right tactics, in the right area, theres nothing to say you can't kill a mob" .
Just so people know, there are a lot of qualifiers when it comes to the ability to solo.
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
Having played most of the last 10 years of games, I can't recall any where I had to carefully choose the right place, armor and tactics to successfully solo. That was a general reference to soloing by the way, inside or outside of dungeons.
In just about any game if you're under armored/armed mobs can take you out. IN most cases that's what they're balanced around, not just character level, but also armor value, weapon dps, etc.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Personally, I’d broaden the question of solo play beyond the experience and level gain. I’ve been talking about it with a friend lately, and what Everquest did, in our opinion, right, is provide lore as opposed to a storyline. In classic tabletop RPG style, you were given by the game instruction, character creation and then the lore inside the game, a background; I would call it a canvas, on which you would then draw the story of your character and the people he encounters. You explored the world offered to you because you wanted the adventure, not because some NPC sent you there by following zone X storyline. Sure, you had some incentives to hunt down orcs for their belt or gnolls for their fangs that would take you to Crushbone or Blackburrow, but it was very limited and you probably discovered those nice quests by talking to other players, as you had no stupid exclamation point over their head. You went to the dungeons because you wanted more lore, discover the world and get better equipment. Most players’ primary goal was the adventure, and the one they were designing into this world, not a story they were following. The fact that you were doing your own story encouraged roleplay, not necessarily heavy roleplay, but just you living your character, and it’s through sharing with other players, encounters, that your character story was growing, giving sense to the grouping experience (and all the OP said about communication is SO true and we need to have downtimes in MMOs).
Now, what you had access to in terms of adventure as a solo player and as a grouped player was hugely different. The world was designed so that you would not be able to explore most of it by playing solo. It was dangerous to venture into Befallen, borderline impossible, as a solo player unless you over-leveled it. I hope they bring this back in Pantheon. I’m fine with solo being a viable option for gaining experience (without being on par with what a 6 person group could do) but I hope that to be able to venture in most part of zones, dungeons, you will mostly need to be grouped. Granted some classes will have solo spot that could be exception to the rule based on their class design, which once again adds to the background and story of your character (ex: a paladin could do fine in Befallen due to its class design).
The last thing I would point out in addition to the OP is also that the encounters were designed with specific roles needed. Almost every class had a specific role and was desirable, with each class having a sub-role to ease the group forming. I think this also really helped people group up. Today people always refer to the trinity, but there was no trinity before. A group with a DPS, healer and tank only may have worked, but you mostly needed a tank, a dps, a healer, a puller and a CCer to have a good group, add a buffer/debuffer and you were great. The fact that there were so many tasks to be successful made you more unique, people remembered you more easily because you were not DPS 1,2 or 3 of the group, you had a specific role. On top of that, your skill would show A LOT building you a reputation, for you as a player but also as your character, and people would say “oh I know this half-elf bard, group him he is great”. Being good or bad showed, not because of some dps meter, but because the game was designed to require skill to survive. Today you’ll mostly die if the tank or heal messed up, or fail at a DPS check, in EQ a bad puller would make you die as quick, a bard or enchanter not paying attention and mezzing too late, just the same, everyone was unique in a group.
I think these are all elements of design that create the group mechanic, as opposed to just forcing it because you died solo or the exp sucks. In Everquest you would mostly group because it made sense in the world offered to you, and you needed to in order to develop YOUR story in it.
Well I hope at least some classes can solo decent as I prefer to do that from time to time as I could with the druid in EQ while I wait for my friends to login or just wants to play for myself for a few hours. Some classes can be more focused around grouping like the cleric and some classes can solo better. However I think the game will bring in much more money if players are allowed to have some freedom to choose how they wants to play and don't indirectly force you to group 100% of the time as more or less EQ did for some classes. Variation never hurts.
I played a Shaman in EQ and as I remember it in 2001 - 2003 after our guild raids, the Druids, Necros and Wizards took of soloing the rest of us tried to build some groups. The extra people had to go LFG.
It was not fun at all to get a group somewhere far away and then try to get there, especially if you had limited playtime that evening. There was a lot of fun in EQ but the players left EQ for a reason too. If you were a non or crappy soloer you usually parked yourself in the classic grouping zones as Dreadlands hoping to get a group. I played EQ from autumn 1999 to spring 2003 and remember a game where I never saw some of the Classic dungeons as Droga and Nurga as they where considered to hard and rarely traveled to, Old Seb on Maelin Starpyre was mostly deserted 2002 -2003, we where there several times with groups and was mostly alone in the zone. EQ was great but even during its heyday the will to "lets group and go to a dungeon" went down. The graveyards in the planes was a good improvement but to little to late.
I do not at all believe that the target audience for a game as hard as EQ in the glory days is very big.
Just so people get the balance, this was said regarding soloing:
Q: Will you be able to solo in dungeons?
A: "Theres not going to be a game mechanic that prohibits [soloing], but man... its gonna be difficult because the dungeon is designed for group play. I'm not going to throw out words like impossible, but it will be difficult."
Also:
"If you have the right gear, and the right tactics, in the right area, theres nothing to say you can't kill a mob" .
Just so people know, there are a lot of qualifiers when it comes to the ability to solo.
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
Having played most of the last 10 years of games, I can't recall any where I had to carefully choose the right place, armor and tactics to successfully solo. That was a general reference to soloing by the way, inside or outside of dungeons.
In just about any game if you're under armored/armed mobs can take you out. IN most cases that's what they're balanced around, not just character level, but also armor value, weapon dps, etc.
In most todays games you could stand around naked and you will still win agaist an equal level mob...
In EQ 2 I played a barbarian that had no shoes and shoulderpads in their itemslots from lvl 1-70 or so, I played a halfling barbarian so It was only apropriate to have no shoes and the shoulderpads was to reflect on her barbarian nature, I even tanked with this characther in major Group dungeons.
A White con should Always be able to take you out regardless of armor/arms or other gear, It should be a dangerous fight where there is a 50/50 chance the mob is winning IF you are making mistakes, that is certainly NOT the case with most games today..
Just so people get the balance, this was said regarding soloing:
Q: Will you be able to solo in dungeons?
A: "Theres not going to be a game mechanic that prohibits [soloing], but man... its gonna be difficult because the dungeon is designed for group play. I'm not going to throw out words like impossible, but it will be difficult."
Also:
"If you have the right gear, and the right tactics, in the right area, theres nothing to say you can't kill a mob" .
Just so people know, there are a lot of qualifiers when it comes to the ability to solo.
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
Having played most of the last 10 years of games, I can't recall any where I had to carefully choose the right place, armor and tactics to successfully solo. That was a general reference to soloing by the way, inside or outside of dungeons.
In just about any game if you're under armored/armed mobs can take you out. IN most cases that's what they're balanced around, not just character level, but also armor value, weapon dps, etc.
In most todays games you could stand around naked and you will still win agaist an equal level mob...
In EQ 2 I played a barbarian that had no shoes and shoulderpads in their itemslots from lvl 1-70 or so, I played a halfling barbarian so It was only apropriate to have no shoes and the shoulderpads was to reflect on her barbarian nature, I even tanked with this characther in major Group dungeons.
A White con should Always be able to take you out regardless of armor/arms or other gear, It should be a dangerous fight where there is a 50/50 chance the mob is winning IF you are making mistakes, that is certainly NOT the case with most games today..
This was my experience in pretty much every game since WoW. You could pretty much kill the average mob not only missing armor, but just about buck ass naked permitted you had whatever spell or weapon was required to do damage.
SMH. They have already said all classes will be able to solo but some better than others. Get over it.
Dullahan's not wrong here, but you're correct in that there was discussion that all classes could solo could solo overland mobs, which hasn't gone to any further details yet on what overland mobs are - but I'm guessing a Dreadlands type zone with no real risk/reward.
I did, as I posted earlier, ask about soloing in the last Developer Roundtable, as I felt that all classes shouldn't be designed to be able to solo, which is much different than saying their should be no soloing that results out of emergent gameplay like EQ.
It plays at around 50ish minutes, it's worth a listen if you haven't heard. Basically, the jist is that Brad said the classes will be developed around grouping, and what they can bring to the group creating class interdependence, rather than designed around soloing. As a result, not all classes will be able to solo as well (or I'm assuming very much at all like a warrior/rogue in original EQ).
If you have questions for the development team, they're worth posting on the Roundtable Discussion Thread on the Pantheonrotf.com site - I have several pending there for the next Roundtables. You may have to first sign up on the Pantheonrotf.com site as a $5/sub member to post in the news/annoucement section and you may also need to be logged into the Pantheonrotf site to use the provided link.
A link to the Roundtable discussion thread is below:
I see it a lot these days - "make group content", "forced grouping is good", "solo progression destroys communities". It's as if we have to pick a side and stay there forever. I just don't buy it. Here are my thoughts on what made EQ challenging and why grouping just made sense without being "forced".
Player to mob power ratio:
In general on any one even con mob, if tackled solo, you had a pretty big chance of dying. Player to mob power ratios were skewed in favor of the mob and we knew it. To make things worse (i.e. more challenging), just what were you going to do at Orc 1 without help? There's 5 orcs there and if you pull one, you pull them all. You needed help and rather than waste time trying and dying, you grabbed the next guy to come along and grouped. The next guy hardly needed to be asked if he wanted to join because he was in the same situation.
Dangerous environment:
In the beginning, when it rained in EQ, I would sit down and stop moving. Hopefully I was somewhere safe to begin with. Why? You couldn't see a damn thing. EQ had tons of roaming mobs that were almost all aggressive. When it wasn't raining, you still had to master situational awareness when fighting something because adds meant you had to flee or die (and fleeing usually meant dying too). To complicate things, zones like Warslik's Woods had so many trees there was no way you could consider fighting something in the middle of the forest. You had to work from safe spots and "pull" mobs there to fight. People congregated at these pull spots and groups formed naturally. Environmental obfuscation, whether rain or trees, was a design element used a lot in EQ and it worked very well to make things much more dangerous.
Mob AI and faction:
While the AI was pretty rudimentary, it mattered in almost every situation. Did a mob have social aggro? Would the bear walking by care if I am fighting a lion? Is that iksar KOS to me or just dubious? We didn't just hop on a horse and tear through west commonlands without a care in the world. You had to target and con everything in your path and make decisions actively. Mobs didn't leash so if you got aggro you couldn't handle, it was fight here and now, or click your "train to zone" macro.
Dying:
If you played EQ you died, and usually a lot. And it hurt. You lost levels. You respawned across the entire world naked. You had huge incentive to try very hard to not die but had to prepare for the worst with almost every encounter. Soloing, even just simple travel, was extremely risky and to mitigate the risk of death you sought out groups everywhere you went. Even if you were just running from Qeynos to Highpass you wanted people with you for the journey. This wasn't forced grouping, it was grouping for obvious mutual benefit at every turn in the world.
Grouping vs. solo:
For most classes, soloing was just a tedious waste of time. It wasn't that you couldn't solo easy stuff, we all did. But getting a group was where the sweet spot was. When you were in that special group which happened from time to time, when everything just meshed perfectly and the exp flowed in, it was the highlight of the day or even week. The other really amazing thing that now is vanishing in modern MMOs is that while you were waiting for the next pull, or when we were medding, everyone in the group talked. We were able to talk because the game pace wasn't a frenetic button mashing face roll with people yelling "pull faster!" (except for bards who couldn't talk anyway until the melody command was added). The pace of the game wasn't determined by the number of nearby mobs, but by the rates of health and mana regen. Original EQ may have been a little heavy handed here but this is something that has to be carefully tuned. And the correct tuning is right where people feel free to chat while sitting through some downtime.
Everyone has times when they will choose to solo. Times when you have 15 minutes and just want to kill something. Times when you will be frequently interrupted, maybe by a young child. The great thing was EQ let you solo by greatly increasing your downtime and risk. But EQ was tuned to let a group accomplish things at a nice pace with far less risk and more reward.
I hope that that's the sweet spot that Pantheon is also aiming for as well.
Grouping is good. Forced grouping as the only means of progression is horrible game design. Not everyone has the patience, mindset, time or social ability to group. Many gamers are Introverts and to force those to play a particular style is a travesty.
You can create rewarding group play easily just look to games like Asheron's Call or Path of Exile for proper group dynamics.
I agree with this. I'm sorry (not really) that you're the only middle aged man in your area that plays video games and consequently has no real life friends, but I'm a busy person. Let me progress at my own pace without having to befriend some loser middle aged man, okay thanks.
I agree with this. I'm sorry (not really) that you're the only middle aged man in your area that plays video games and consequently has no real life friends, but I'm a busy person. Let me progress at my own pace without having to befriend some loser middle aged man, okay thanks.
Well, you are on the wrong forum for the wrong game.
This one is not going to please your solo gameplay. You can solo, sure. You could solo in EQ as well. Even as a warrior. It was possible. Worth your time? Only you can decide. But it was a MUCH more rewarding game due to overcoming that solo gameplay with reasons to group. Reasons no other game ever offered.
I mainly solo in todays MMOs as well. Because there is no reason to group. Grouping slows down progression is annoying, unneeded ect. No plus sides. But god did i love to group when people actually cared for their reputation among players....
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Originally posted by Elmberry I think it's important that they let people be able to solo better than in EQ and not have so harsh penalties as EQ had. At least if they wants to keep a healthy population on their servers.
I disagree. Soloing is the antithesis of what this genre was about in the beginning, and those are the roots which Pantheon intends to return to.
As far as death penalty, they've said it won't be as steep. I'm hoping that only means losing your corpse won't be a thing. I'm expecting the need to bind and corpse runs to be there. If players want the thrill and tension of a dangerous world and high risk, high reward combat, there must be a death penalty that stings.
Exactly this.
A focus on solo gameplay spells fail and nothing else. If you want solo content, freaking play a SOLO-RPG not a MMO-RPG. Sure some solo content is always needed and EQ had that plenty, but don't make solo content as viable as grouping. Grouping is the cornerstone of MMO.
A MMO with focus on soloing is just a bad RPG. Every singleplayer RPG will be FAR better then a MMO that tries to make soloing a priority.
Offering solo content is far from focusing on it. If they were to offer it, I highly doubt Brad would focus on it. I'm a firm believer that grouping should be greatly encouraged, but never forced. It's all about class interdependence, reward systems and progression rates. You can use these to create content for many styles of play while still focusing on grouping and socializing.
I see it a lot these days - "make group content", "forced grouping is good", "solo progression destroys communities". It's as if we have to pick a side and stay there forever. I just don't buy it. Here are my thoughts on what made EQ challenging and why grouping just made sense without being "forced".
Player to mob power ratio:
In general on any one even con mob, if tackled solo, you had a pretty big chance of dying. Player to mob power ratios were skewed in favor of the mob and we knew it. To make things worse (i.e. more challenging), just what were you going to do at Orc 1 without help? There's 5 orcs there and if you pull one, you pull them all. You needed help and rather than waste time trying and dying, you grabbed the next guy to come along and grouped. The next guy hardly needed to be asked if he wanted to join because he was in the same situation.
Dangerous environment:
In the beginning, when it rained in EQ, I would sit down and stop moving. Hopefully I was somewhere safe to begin with. Why? You couldn't see a damn thing. EQ had tons of roaming mobs that were almost all aggressive. When it wasn't raining, you still had to master situational awareness when fighting something because adds meant you had to flee or die (and fleeing usually meant dying too). To complicate things, zones like Warslik's Woods had so many trees there was no way you could consider fighting something in the middle of the forest. You had to work from safe spots and "pull" mobs there to fight. People congregated at these pull spots and groups formed naturally. Environmental obfuscation, whether rain or trees, was a design element used a lot in EQ and it worked very well to make things much more dangerous.
Mob AI and faction:
While the AI was pretty rudimentary, it mattered in almost every situation. Did a mob have social aggro? Would the bear walking by care if I am fighting a lion? Is that iksar KOS to me or just dubious? We didn't just hop on a horse and tear through west commonlands without a care in the world. You had to target and con everything in your path and make decisions actively. Mobs didn't leash so if you got aggro you couldn't handle, it was fight here and now, or click your "train to zone" macro.
Dying:
If you played EQ you died, and usually a lot. And it hurt. You lost levels. You respawned across the entire world naked. You had huge incentive to try very hard to not die but had to prepare for the worst with almost every encounter. Soloing, even just simple travel, was extremely risky and to mitigate the risk of death you sought out groups everywhere you went. Even if you were just running from Qeynos to Highpass you wanted people with you for the journey. This wasn't forced grouping, it was grouping for obvious mutual benefit at every turn in the world.
Grouping vs. solo:
For most classes, soloing was just a tedious waste of time. It wasn't that you couldn't solo easy stuff, we all did. But getting a group was where the sweet spot was. When you were in that special group which happened from time to time, when everything just meshed perfectly and the exp flowed in, it was the highlight of the day or even week. The other really amazing thing that now is vanishing in modern MMOs is that while you were waiting for the next pull, or when we were medding, everyone in the group talked. We were able to talk because the game pace wasn't a frenetic button mashing face roll with people yelling "pull faster!" (except for bards who couldn't talk anyway until the melody command was added). The pace of the game wasn't determined by the number of nearby mobs, but by the rates of health and mana regen. Original EQ may have been a little heavy handed here but this is something that has to be carefully tuned. And the correct tuning is right where people feel free to chat while sitting through some downtime.
Everyone has times when they will choose to solo. Times when you have 15 minutes and just want to kill something. Times when you will be frequently interrupted, maybe by a young child. The great thing was EQ let you solo by greatly increasing your downtime and risk. But EQ was tuned to let a group accomplish things at a nice pace with far less risk and more reward.
I hope that that's the sweet spot that Pantheon is also aiming for as well.
Grouping is good. Forced grouping as the only means of progression is horrible game design. Not everyone has the patience, mindset, time or social ability to group. Many gamers are Introverts and to force those to play a particular style is a travesty.
You can create rewarding group play easily just look to games like Asheron's Call or Path of Exile for proper group dynamics.
I agree with this. I'm sorry (not really) that you're the only middle aged man in your area that plays video games and consequently has no real life friends, but I'm a busy person. Let me progress at my own pace without having to befriend some loser middle aged man, okay thanks.
sounds like someone is bitter they can't play games all day. Insulting people personally over video games is what people do when they have no reasonable responses.
Originally posted by jesteralways Might i ask which country you live in? You wanna switch place with me? Because everything you mentioned in your post and all the mention about thrills, you can find that on day to day life in our country. In our country when you get out of home, there is literally less than 10% chance to return home safe at the moment, so you wanna switch your place with me? you know for the "thrill"?
Wow man, sounds like you need to move :P Obviously the thrill is a bit different in a video game rather than real-life. I hope you are able to tell the difference and are just joking a bit.
I think what is being missed in this Solo vs. group discussion is risk vs. reward. In most games there was alot of reward for not alot of risk. Most solo content gave you back what you needed. Weapons, armor, spells, recipes, components and the like. In EQ, beyond basic weapons, armor and crafting components, you got nuttin while soloing. (Unless you played a soloing toon) You got some xp, some coin, an iron ration etc. but not much more then that. For the good stuff, you HAD to group or play one fo the popular soloing classes as an alt if you wanted to just be alone for a while. I played a rogue at launch. I could NOT solo much at all so I grouped.
I do not want a game that gives me what I need by just playing it. Or a dynamic where a group of bad players can survive. Risk vs. reward should mean something and in EQ it certainly did. I played an Enchanter also and those frogs in Old Seb could get mighty deadly if someone did not assist properly or the puller did not dump his aggro. Mob pathing, trains, the whole thing added to the risk vs. reward ratio. Only certain types of characters could pull off soloing in some of the more profitable areas. And only players that could properly use their characters at that.
High reward Soloing and getting rewarded for just playing is what is killing the genre. Well that, cash shops and PVP.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
One thing not being discussed was the level layering in open world dungeons. Remember in unrest that you could start at level 13 or so and there was mobs in the 30's in the same zone. This was great because not only did you have a zone that required groups, but it also gave you interaction with higher level players who were waiting for spawns. This gave them time to help lower level players which I saw happen a lot back in the day.
Originally posted by djcincy One thing not being discussed was the level layering in open world dungeons. Remember in unrest that you could start at level 13 or so and there was mobs in the 30's in the same zone. This was great because not only did you have a zone that required groups, but it also gave you interaction with higher level players who were waiting for spawns. This gave them time to help lower level players which I saw happen a lot back in the day.
Good point here, and it created a lot of memorable "oh crap" moments and nice huge trains when pulling higher level mobs on accident (or not on accident) which added to immersion, server reputation/infamy and comunity building. You also gained a huge sense of achievement once you could finally kill that hag.
Originally posted by djcincy One thing not being discussed was the level layering in open world dungeons. Remember in unrest that you could start at level 13 or so and there was mobs in the 30's in the same zone. This was great because not only did you have a zone that required groups, but it also gave you interaction with higher level players who were waiting for spawns. This gave them time to help lower level players which I saw happen a lot back in the day.
Yes, this is absolutely true and what real community is about. With pauses, spawn timers, medding and the like, there was time enough for socializing and helping one another out. As a max level chanter I would stop in places like Befallen and buff people up. I'd spawn in and ask for tells and locations for buffs. Then when I arrived, I'd ask for an invite and group buff everyone. I really enjoyed doing that. As a rogue I always really appreciated people who did that and so, as an enchanter, I gave back whenever it was possible. Alot of games now people run up to a questfinder or join into a windowed que and never say a word to anyone. They join and are instantly transported into the quest or raid or whatever.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
I want you to look at this chart and tell me of a single game that has had so many options to level at various ranges. Everquest was absolutely enormous in scale compared to modern mmo's and it was done on basically ancient technology. Leveling was very difficult and each level gave a sense of achievement. If you were level 17 there was basically like 40 different areas where you could group/solo to get xp. compare that to a game like guild wars 2 where there is like 4?
Everquest was also a game that really valued time invested per level and leveling was extremely challenging. Games like Everquest, Lineage 2, and FFXI put a real emphasis on level length and getting the most out of their worlds. I will be the first to admit that games like these were not great for casual players, but they always had something to do. We need another hardcore pve mmo to be made for players who want a true mmorpg experience.
Just so people get the balance, this was said regarding soloing:
Q: Will you be able to solo in dungeons?
A: "Theres not going to be a game mechanic that prohibits [soloing], but man... its gonna be difficult because the dungeon is designed for group play. I'm not going to throw out words like impossible, but it will be difficult."
Also:
"If you have the right gear, and the right tactics, in the right area, theres nothing to say you can't kill a mob" .
Just so people know, there are a lot of qualifiers when it comes to the ability to solo.
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
I agree. This quote is only addressing soloing in dungeons. I think it's pretty standard practice for dungeons to be group content. Tera I think was the first MMO I played that even had solo dungeons, and they only gave you access to a fraction of the dungeon that would have been available in group mode. I can't remember playing an MMO that did not have group dungeons.
I'm not disputing what kind of solo/group experience Pantheon will have, just that this quote doesn't really sell any features that aren't already standard in the industry.
Originally posted by Elmberry I think it's important that they let people be able to solo better than in EQ and not have so harsh penalties as EQ had. At least if they wants to keep a healthy population on their servers.
I disagree. Soloing is the antithesis of what this genre was about in the beginning, and those are the roots which Pantheon intends to return to.
As far as death penalty, they've said it won't be as steep. I'm hoping that only means losing your corpse won't be a thing. I'm expecting the need to bind and corpse runs to be there. If players want the thrill and tension of a dangerous world and high risk, high reward combat, there must be a death penalty that stings.
Exactly this.
A focus on solo gameplay spells fail and nothing else. If you want solo content, freaking play a SOLO-RPG not a MMO-RPG. Sure some solo content is always needed and EQ had that plenty, but don't make solo content as viable as grouping. Grouping is the cornerstone of MMO.
A MMO with focus on soloing is just a bad RPG. Every singleplayer RPG will be FAR better then a MMO that tries to make soloing a priority.
Offering solo content is far from focusing on it. If they were to offer it, I highly doubt Brad would focus on it. I'm a firm believer that grouping should be greatly encouraged, but never forced. It's all about class interdependence, reward systems and progression rates. You can use these to create content for many styles of play while still focusing on grouping and socializing.
Even in EQ grouping was never forced, simply greatly encouraged, more than 99% of the games to this day. I am ok with offering solo content the same way EQ did; an exeption to the rule.
sounds like someone is bitter they can't play games all day. Insulting people personally over video games is what people do when they have no reasonable responses.
lmao why would I be bitter over not being able to play video games all day? Playing video games all day to the point where you're at 1000+ posts on a related website posting about the same crap over and over again about how you can't get your perfect gaming fix is the very definition of LOW LIFE. I'm not bitter at all, the target demographic for most game development is hovering on the casual masses, I'm not at risk of losing anything.
FFXI one upped EQ1 though with even more challenge in the grouped content.You fought ONE creature but if you got an add/link that was real trouble.The reason it was so much a challenge is because you were already fighting a mob that was 4/5/6/+ levels above your group.You might think oh well no biggie ,you have a group,however remember that mob is well beyond your tank and is easily capable of killing your tank.
That meant your resources and decisions were pushed to the very limit,your tank had to time his Provoke at the right time and dps had to burst at the right time or else hate would shift all over causing havoc.The healer had to make sure to divvy up just the right amount of hate or become the new tank and almost certainly die.
I would say EQ did a better job adding in background sounds and stuff like that but FFXI just had nicer graphics by that point which made the creatures and the world look a lot better.
I do however acknowledge EQ1 as the first big step in MMO gaming,they moved the Industry forward and imo again with EQ2 but those days are long past now.
@neaton14: I don't think I could tell you exactly what the group exp bonus was either then or now in EQ1. But it was something along the lines of:
group members : total exp gained by group : exp gain per person
1 100% 100%
2 102% 51%
3 more less
4 more less
5 120% 24%
6 120% 24%
Note the assumption that the larger the group, the faster they kill - not always the case and a reason people would try to solo in the first place.
Ok. let us look at the genius of your claim here. What you are saying is that given 10 mobs, a larger group might not kill faster than a smaller one. Funny.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Comments
Forced grouping is bad ok. Nice shaming. How about calling soloing anti-social losers? Why does it have to be framed as such an negative way?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Sounds like just about any other MMO by that description, he/she seemed to be talking about normal every day mechanics, dungeons being designed around groups, mobs being designed by level based mechanics.
It's not just EQ they're designing this game in the spirit of. Vanguard was pretty solo friendly in and of itself. It certainly was more forgiving than EQ like worlds. So keep that in mind and don't get your own wrong impressions.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Having played most of the last 10 years of games, I can't recall any where I had to carefully choose the right place, armor and tactics to successfully solo. That was a general reference to soloing by the way, inside or outside of dungeons.
In just about any game if you're under armored/armed mobs can take you out. IN most cases that's what they're balanced around, not just character level, but also armor value, weapon dps, etc.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Personally, I’d broaden the question of solo play beyond the experience and level gain. I’ve been talking about it with a friend lately, and what Everquest did, in our opinion, right, is provide lore as opposed to a storyline.
In classic tabletop RPG style, you were given by the game instruction, character creation and then the lore inside the game, a background; I would call it a canvas, on which you would then draw the story of your character and the people he encounters. You explored the world offered to you because you wanted the adventure, not because some NPC sent you there by following zone X storyline. Sure, you had some incentives to hunt down orcs for their belt or gnolls for their fangs that would take you to Crushbone or Blackburrow, but it was very limited and you probably discovered those nice quests by talking to other players, as you had no stupid exclamation point over their head. You went to the dungeons because you wanted more lore, discover the world and get better equipment. Most players’ primary goal was the adventure, and the one they were designing into this world, not a story they were following. The fact that you were doing your own story encouraged roleplay, not necessarily heavy roleplay, but just you living your character, and it’s through sharing with other players, encounters, that your character story was growing, giving sense to the grouping experience (and all the OP said about communication is SO true and we need to have downtimes in MMOs).
Now, what you had access to in terms of adventure as a solo player and as a grouped player was hugely different. The world was designed so that you would not be able to explore most of it by playing solo. It was dangerous to venture into Befallen, borderline impossible, as a solo player unless you over-leveled it. I hope they bring this back in Pantheon. I’m fine with solo being a viable option for gaining experience (without being on par with what a 6 person group could do) but I hope that to be able to venture in most part of zones, dungeons, you will mostly need to be grouped.
Granted some classes will have solo spot that could be exception to the rule based on their class design, which once again adds to the background and story of your character (ex: a paladin could do fine in Befallen due to its class design).
The last thing I would point out in addition to the OP is also that the encounters were designed with specific roles needed. Almost every class had a specific role and was desirable, with each class having a sub-role to ease the group forming. I think this also really helped people group up. Today people always refer to the trinity, but there was no trinity before. A group with a DPS, healer and tank only may have worked, but you mostly needed a tank, a dps, a healer, a puller and a CCer to have a good group, add a buffer/debuffer and you were great. The fact that there were so many tasks to be successful made you more unique, people remembered you more easily because you were not DPS 1,2 or 3 of the group, you had a specific role. On top of that, your skill would show A LOT building you a reputation, for you as a player but also as your character, and people would say “oh I know this half-elf bard, group him he is great”. Being good or bad showed, not because of some dps meter, but because the game was designed to require skill to survive. Today you’ll mostly die if the tank or heal messed up, or fail at a DPS check, in EQ a bad puller would make you die as quick, a bard or enchanter not paying attention and mezzing too late, just the same, everyone was unique in a group.
I think these are all elements of design that create the group mechanic, as opposed to just forcing it because you died solo or the exp sucks. In Everquest you would mostly group because it made sense in the world offered to you, and you needed to in order to develop YOUR story in it.
I played a Shaman in EQ and as I remember it in 2001 - 2003 after our guild raids, the Druids, Necros and Wizards took of soloing the rest of us tried to build some groups. The extra people had to go LFG.
It was not fun at all to get a group somewhere far away and then try to get there, especially if you had limited playtime that evening. There was a lot of fun in EQ but the players left EQ for a reason too. If you were a non or crappy soloer you usually parked yourself in the classic grouping zones as Dreadlands hoping to get a group. I played EQ from autumn 1999 to spring 2003 and remember a game where I never saw some of the Classic dungeons as Droga and Nurga as they where considered to hard and rarely traveled to, Old Seb on Maelin Starpyre was mostly deserted 2002 -2003, we where there several times with groups and was mostly alone in the zone. EQ was great but even during its heyday the will to "lets group and go to a dungeon" went down. The graveyards in the planes was a good improvement but to little to late.
I do not at all believe that the target audience for a game as hard as EQ in the glory days is very big.
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
In most todays games you could stand around naked and you will still win agaist an equal level mob...
In EQ 2 I played a barbarian that had no shoes and shoulderpads in their itemslots from lvl 1-70 or so, I played a halfling barbarian so It was only apropriate to have no shoes and the shoulderpads was to reflect on her barbarian nature, I even tanked with this characther in major Group dungeons.
A White con should Always be able to take you out regardless of armor/arms or other gear, It should be a dangerous fight where there is a 50/50 chance the mob is winning IF you are making mistakes, that is certainly NOT the case with most games today..
This was my experience in pretty much every game since WoW. You could pretty much kill the average mob not only missing armor, but just about buck ass naked permitted you had whatever spell or weapon was required to do damage.
Dullahan's not wrong here, but you're correct in that there was discussion that all classes could solo could solo overland mobs, which hasn't gone to any further details yet on what overland mobs are - but I'm guessing a Dreadlands type zone with no real risk/reward.
I did, as I posted earlier, ask about soloing in the last Developer Roundtable, as I felt that all classes shouldn't be designed to be able to solo, which is much different than saying their should be no soloing that results out of emergent gameplay like EQ.
It plays at around 50ish minutes, it's worth a listen if you haven't heard. Basically, the jist is that Brad said the classes will be developed around grouping, and what they can bring to the group creating class interdependence, rather than designed around soloing. As a result, not all classes will be able to solo as well (or I'm assuming very much at all like a warrior/rogue in original EQ).
If you have questions for the development team, they're worth posting on the Roundtable Discussion Thread on the Pantheonrotf.com site - I have several pending there for the next Roundtables. You may have to first sign up on the Pantheonrotf.com site as a $5/sub member to post in the news/annoucement section and you may also need to be logged into the Pantheonrotf site to use the provided link.
A link to the Roundtable discussion thread is below:
https://www.pantheonrotf.com/forums/topic/1564/round-table-discussion-questions
I agree with this. I'm sorry (not really) that you're the only middle aged man in your area that plays video games and consequently has no real life friends, but I'm a busy person. Let me progress at my own pace without having to befriend some loser middle aged man, okay thanks.
Well, you are on the wrong forum for the wrong game.
This one is not going to please your solo gameplay. You can solo, sure. You could solo in EQ as well. Even as a warrior. It was possible. Worth your time? Only you can decide. But it was a MUCH more rewarding game due to overcoming that solo gameplay with reasons to group. Reasons no other game ever offered.
I mainly solo in todays MMOs as well. Because there is no reason to group. Grouping slows down progression is annoying, unneeded ect. No plus sides. But god did i love to group when people actually cared for their reputation among players....
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Offering solo content is far from focusing on it. If they were to offer it, I highly doubt Brad would focus on it. I'm a firm believer that grouping should be greatly encouraged, but never forced. It's all about class interdependence, reward systems and progression rates. You can use these to create content for many styles of play while still focusing on grouping and socializing.
sounds like someone is bitter they can't play games all day. Insulting people personally over video games is what people do when they have no reasonable responses.
Wow man, sounds like you need to move :P Obviously the thrill is a bit different in a video game rather than real-life. I hope you are able to tell the difference and are just joking a bit.
I think what is being missed in this Solo vs. group discussion is risk vs. reward. In most games there was alot of reward for not alot of risk. Most solo content gave you back what you needed. Weapons, armor, spells, recipes, components and the like. In EQ, beyond basic weapons, armor and crafting components, you got nuttin while soloing. (Unless you played a soloing toon) You got some xp, some coin, an iron ration etc. but not much more then that. For the good stuff, you HAD to group or play one fo the popular soloing classes as an alt if you wanted to just be alone for a while. I played a rogue at launch. I could NOT solo much at all so I grouped.
I do not want a game that gives me what I need by just playing it. Or a dynamic where a group of bad players can survive. Risk vs. reward should mean something and in EQ it certainly did. I played an Enchanter also and those frogs in Old Seb could get mighty deadly if someone did not assist properly or the puller did not dump his aggro. Mob pathing, trains, the whole thing added to the risk vs. reward ratio. Only certain types of characters could pull off soloing in some of the more profitable areas. And only players that could properly use their characters at that.
High reward Soloing and getting rewarded for just playing is what is killing the genre. Well that, cash shops and PVP.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
Good point here, and it created a lot of memorable "oh crap" moments and nice huge trains when pulling higher level mobs on accident (or not on accident) which added to immersion, server reputation/infamy and comunity building. You also gained a huge sense of achievement once you could finally kill that hag.
Yes, this is absolutely true and what real community is about. With pauses, spawn timers, medding and the like, there was time enough for socializing and helping one another out. As a max level chanter I would stop in places like Befallen and buff people up. I'd spawn in and ask for tells and locations for buffs. Then when I arrived, I'd ask for an invite and group buff everyone. I really enjoyed doing that. As a rogue I always really appreciated people who did that and so, as an enchanter, I gave back whenever it was possible. Alot of games now people run up to a questfinder or join into a windowed que and never say a word to anyone. They join and are instantly transported into the quest or raid or whatever.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zlvlchart.html
I want you to look at this chart and tell me of a single game that has had so many options to level at various ranges. Everquest was absolutely enormous in scale compared to modern mmo's and it was done on basically ancient technology. Leveling was very difficult and each level gave a sense of achievement. If you were level 17 there was basically like 40 different areas where you could group/solo to get xp. compare that to a game like guild wars 2 where there is like 4?
Everquest was also a game that really valued time invested per level and leveling was extremely challenging. Games like Everquest, Lineage 2, and FFXI put a real emphasis on level length and getting the most out of their worlds. I will be the first to admit that games like these were not great for casual players, but they always had something to do. We need another hardcore pve mmo to be made for players who want a true mmorpg experience.
I agree. This quote is only addressing soloing in dungeons. I think it's pretty standard practice for dungeons to be group content. Tera I think was the first MMO I played that even had solo dungeons, and they only gave you access to a fraction of the dungeon that would have been available in group mode. I can't remember playing an MMO that did not have group dungeons.
I'm not disputing what kind of solo/group experience Pantheon will have, just that this quote doesn't really sell any features that aren't already standard in the industry.
Even in EQ grouping was never forced, simply greatly encouraged, more than 99% of the games to this day. I am ok with offering solo content the same way EQ did; an exeption to the rule.
lmao why would I be bitter over not being able to play video games all day? Playing video games all day to the point where you're at 1000+ posts on a related website posting about the same crap over and over again about how you can't get your perfect gaming fix is the very definition of LOW LIFE. I'm not bitter at all, the target demographic for most game development is hovering on the casual masses, I'm not at risk of losing anything.
Ok. let us look at the genius of your claim here. What you are saying is that given 10 mobs, a larger group might not kill faster than a smaller one. Funny.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"