Can a strongly group-focused MMO survive in today's market?

4507

Is there any room left for an MMO where the vast majority of content requires a group to complete, where what little solo content exists is just filler for while you're waiting for your guildmate to finish making a sandwich, where communication and socialization is just as important, if not more so, than gear, stats, etc? We've seen a strong trend away from group-heavy games over the past decade or so, and although there are a few crowdfunded games on the horizon that are supposed to put the MM back into MMO and have generated a fair amount of interest, I'm unsure if modern MMO players will be able to handle such a game anymore. If the opening reviews get tipped negatively for this reason, the future will look bleak for the game in question, no matter how well-polished it is.

What are your thoughts? Can a strongly group-focused MMO survive in today's market?

Siug

There is none at the moment so yes.

Kyleran

There's a couple of indies who plan to try, doubtful I'll be playing them but I think there's still a market for therm.

Shaigh

A well designed group-focused MMO has its place, a clone of an old game is bound to fail.

Po_gg

DMKano said:

Highly depends on how good it is.

More depends on the greed factor of the devs
Forced grouping / no real way of solo is not something they can use as a key selling factor, since the current era is all about handholding and easy solo focus...

So, "Can a strongly group-focused MMO survive in today's market? "  sure it can, if the devs accept the fact that they will only have a niche audience, and keep the focus on that audience instead of changing the core concept just to lure in the new kiddiez for more mullah (*cough*TSW*cough*)

Survive, totally possible. Getting rich, setting up a new trend, be a big name on the market... nope.

Octagon7711

Waiting sometimes hours for a group to come together or a PUG that had a crazy person in it who wiped the group on purpose, or a new player still learning his class that has to be carried, or group drama. 

Games have more freedom now, you can still get together with a group of friends or try a hundred guilds until you find the one that's right for you and enjoy grouping, or solo, or public groups.  

But if you're talking about a game with forced grouping because it's the only way it's designed to be played, no thanks, that would feel like a step backwards to me.  

Thebeasttt

One thing these group focused MMO's have in common is the extreme lack of polish. Vanguard was the biggest offender but it hasn't gotten much better since. The sheer amount of cringy EQ fans supporting half assed MMO's is mind boggling. I wouldn't recommend games like Shroud of the Avatar or Project Gorgon to my worst enemies.

Albatroes

Wasn't GW2's first expansion heavily group dependent? And I think people ended up hating it. Today's age prefers things you can get in and out of easily while also not lasting forever (I'm guilty of liking this set up too so I can jump in and out of stuff when I know I dont have a lot of time but still want to do something). Systems like GW2 where you can group on the fly or just in passing while getting credit does seem to be the way to go these days

shetlandslarsen

I have no doubt that a well polished group oriented mmo Will make it in this jungle of solo friendly games currently out.

blamo2000

From my point of view almost all of them are group focused.  There is that Player Battleground game, Dauntless, tons of MOBAS and the pvp crafting games mistakenly labeled as survival games.

It seems that is the strong present state of the genre.  Hopefully it goes back to mmorpgs where this question will be relevant because the games have a broad array of content and not just bits and pieces broken down in to bite sized chunks for kids and adults with kid's brains that dislike thinking or paying attention for more than a couple minutes.

Lithuanian

As a niche game - yes.  Look at Istaria: generous free model, player base is not huge - yet players are social and loyal, many paying ones...and Istaria lives. It's up to developers to find enough paying members to support game.

Shaigh

DMKano said:

Shaigh said:

A well designed group-focused MMO has its place, a clone of an old game is bound to fail.

Also - another factor to note is 

Cost of running a niche game

vs

Profits

A small team with low overhead can be successful even with a small playerbase.

Crowfall is a niche game with a small team,currently running on a $20M budget and is still in alpha meaning that numbers might get higher. Its also the kind of numbers that AA budget games are starting to cost today.

delete5230

DMKano said:

Highly depends on how good it is.

If you have a shit quality game that's poorly designed and badly put together - it won't survive no matter what.

Caption Obvious, to the rescue  

Thanks for your input

sanshi44

Thebeasttt said:

One thing these group focused MMO's have in common is the extreme lack of polish. Vanguard was the biggest offender but it hasn't gotten much better since. The sheer amount of cringy EQ fans supporting half assed MMO's is mind boggling. I wouldn't recommend games like Shroud of the Avatar or Project Gorgon to my worst enemies.

Project 1999 the EQ classic + first 2 expansion is still going strong to this day tbh

tasburath

I've played many MMOs throughout the years, starting with EQ1 back in 2000.

In EQ1 you actually had a reputation to worry about on the server.  If you were a jerk, it didn't take long before everyone knew it and you had a hard time finding groups.  If you were a really good player, that was also known and people (even strangers) would seek you out to hunt with them.

Because you couldn't level in EQ1 through questing and actually leveled through combat, you had much more interaction with other players than in today's MMOs.  Some of the best times I've ever had in an MMO was having conversations with other players while killing mobs.  I made a lot of friends in that game.

Now it wasn't all roses and there were frustrating aspects.  If you weren't a tank, healer or enchanter it could be hard to find groups and if you were a support class, soloing could be extremely difficult.

Now we have the other extreme in most of today's MMOs.  They are ridiculously easy and can be solo quested to level cap in a very short period of time.  Today's mentality is to get to level cap so you can "experience" the game.

I really hope that Pantheon is successful.  I hope they take the best parts of EQ1 while eliminating some of the frustrating parts of it.  I hope that you can't reach level cap in a month.  I hope that group xp is far superior to solo/quest XP.  I hope that the devs stick to their guns and don't cave to the "I must have everything now" generation.  That will probably be my last attempt at getting invested in an MMO.

Thupli

We will find out when pantheon releases!

cameltosis

Short answer - yes. 

As DMKano and others say, it all depends on the implementation. The problem with the MMORPG genre is it's still fixated on vertical progression - bigger levels, high tiers of gear, better skills. This is directly opposed to grouping and community, because vertical progression creates insurmountable barriers between players. 

So, if you create a group-focused game with vertical progression, it will probably be amazing if you are leveling up with "the pack" - the main surge of gamers over the first 3-6 months. There will be lots of you all leveling up so groups will be easy to find and you'll love the content. 

But eventually, the majority of players end up at endgame. This is when the problems start. Everyone leveling up outside the pack will continually struggle to find groups. It becomes an extremely frustrating experience, so dropout rates are high. This mean the game won't be able to retain any newblood, so it slowly withers and dies. We've seen this happen time and time again which is why most MMOs have "revamped" old zones to make them solo friendly and why almost all new content is solo. 


But, go horizontal.....make all content and all players compatible most/all of the time..... then your game stands a chance. If a newbie and a vet can group up for virtually all content and the outcome be decided by skill, not levels/gear, then you might succeed. 

It's still a risky proposition. Vertical progression is ingrained in most RPG gamers minds, even though they've probably never seen or played a horizontal game. It is a leftover from single-player and coop games where the segregation it creates isn't an issue and we're all so used to it that we're naturally wary of something different. You also have all the other issues to deal with - class balance, interesting content, suitable rewards and motivations, differing skill levels etc. 

Loke666

With the standard modern group dynamics? Then probably no.

MMOs have a very limited group dynamics nowadays, trinity games have dumbed down the trinity too much while actions games havn't really gotten the group dynamics just right yet.

With good group dynamics then certainly. The important thing a group focused game is that people need to work together to win the day. Working together can be really fun as long as you get a good group and a well made game could capitilize on the fact that there really isn't any good competitors out there anymore.

Most of the fun I had in my 21 1/2 years of MMO playing have been in group content, but it have been less and less the last 10 years since the group content have become worse. There are certainly still around enough players enjoying grouping up and if the group content actually become good again that number would rise.

Thupli said:

We will find out when pantheon releases!

If it is good, yes.  VR can still screw the pooch on it though, we just have to wait and see.

Viper482

It can as long as the devs realize it will be a niche game.

AAAMEOW

Beside the few hours reaching max level...

What is there to do beside dungeon, raids, or pvp in all the wow clones?  All that is group content.

Kyleran

sanshi44 said:

Thebeasttt said:

One thing these group focused MMO's have in common is the extreme lack of polish. Vanguard was the biggest offender but it hasn't gotten much better since. The sheer amount of cringy EQ fans supporting half assed MMO's is mind boggling. I wouldn't recommend games like Shroud of the Avatar or Project Gorgon to my worst enemies.

Project 1999 the EQ classic + first 2 expansion is still going strong to this day tbh

Yet don't some (or many) folks multi box there so they can still solo?

Nilden

Well it has to be good or it won't survive. I think it needs to do a little more than survive, it needs to thrive. So it needs to be amazing not just good.

It's pretty obvious to me with the amount of MMORPG content and games I have played people enjoy group content.

Lets face it tho, the people running the show are not going, "Hey lets make an amazing group focused MMORPG." they are saying, "How much money can we make?"

The entire genre deserves better than design by cash shop.

Octagon7711

tasburath said:

Some of the best times I've ever had in an MMO was having conversations with other players while killing mobs.  I made a lot of friends in that game.

Playing SWG, grinding at the Tusken Village.  This was actually a dynamic event.  When the bad guys spawned you worked your way up by tagging the mobs and getting xp all the way up your skill tree to mastery levels.  One end of the village had low level mobs, they slowly increased in level until you fought the boss at the other end of the village. In between spawns there was enough time to get to know people and have some good conversations. You could group if you wanted but most didn't.  

It was a very fun experience with no grouping required that allowed you to socialize and level to max.  The Devs didn't like it as a grinding spot and ended up nerfing it badly and moving it out to the middle of no where.  But they left the Tusken Fort intact so you could do the same thing there.

All that to say I've been able to level, make friends, and just socialize a lot without grouping over the years.

Eronakis

I think it really depends and can be answered with these questions.

1. How cohesive are the roles of the classes that compliment group gameplay? 

2. Does group gameplay provide interesting new mechanics that can allot for interesting strategy and tactics?

3. Is the strategy involved dynamic and not based of one dimensional gameplay of the "tank and spank" stratagem?

4. Do you have to have certain roles to accomplish content? 

5. Can group composition be more open and not necessarily have the essential roles for survival but rather any class/role can group and be effective. (Without omitting the trinity) Essentially, the challenge changes.

I think one of the MAIN reasons why we don't see dedicated core group gameplay from level 1 till max level as much anymore because of the wait time to find players to complete content. I think if question 5 can be answered and have a work around to diminish long periods of wait time for LFG that would help immensely for a group oriented game.

kitarad

Kyleran said:

sanshi44 said:

Thebeasttt said:

One thing these group focused MMO's have in common is the extreme lack of polish. Vanguard was the biggest offender but it hasn't gotten much better since. The sheer amount of cringy EQ fans supporting half assed MMO's is mind boggling. I wouldn't recommend games like Shroud of the Avatar or Project Gorgon to my worst enemies.

Project 1999 the EQ classic + first 2 expansion is still going strong to this day tbh

Yet don't some (or many) folks multi box there so they can still solo?

Multiboxing is a swift ban and it is not 'if' but 'when' they catch you.

TheScavenger

kitarad said:

Kyleran said:

sanshi44 said:

Thebeasttt said:

One thing these group focused MMO's have in common is the extreme lack of polish. Vanguard was the biggest offender but it hasn't gotten much better since. The sheer amount of cringy EQ fans supporting half assed MMO's is mind boggling. I wouldn't recommend games like Shroud of the Avatar or Project Gorgon to my worst enemies.

Project 1999 the EQ classic + first 2 expansion is still going strong to this day tbh

Yet don't some (or many) folks multi box there so they can still solo?

Multiboxing is a swift ban and it is not 'if' but 'when' they catch you.

That is only for some MMOs/games. I actually have yet to see an MMO where they ban people for it. I have seen MUDs and browser games enforce that rule though. People multibox with multiple accounts, sometimes even past 10 accounts in EVE Online. WoW I've seen multiboxers and no one cares. Ultima Online is well known for multiboxers.

(for subscription MMOs or players that are paying for each account) Why ban 10 accounts that are paying 15 dollars each or each account paying in their cash shop? That would be a moronic decision and if any company did that, they'd deserve to fail. That be a ton of money they'd be throwing away.