The problem with grouping is fundamentally one of player density. Guild Wars 2 often suffered from events not working because of this. If you need several players in order to complete an event and no one else is around, you can't do the event. If you have three times as many players as you need, the event becomes trivial.
The problem of communication within a group is a very different one. When you have a little bit of group content that players loop a zillion times, nearly everyone has seen it many times before and knows what to do. There's no need for player communication there. In order to make communication an essential part of the game, you need for players to not know ahead of time exactly what is going to happen and need to figure out how to adjust together as they go.
Dynamic content. People have been calling for it (with the exception of the owners of spoiler site, probably). No one has delivered that. No one even appears to be working on that. It fixes the problem of trivializing content and reducing it to a pre-determined pattern.
Communication. As gamers, we are very attached to our keyboards. Can't give them up. In-game audio is the future, but there's improvements needed in how the audio is used -- channels, background filters, mute, etc. And the biggest hurdle, our own reluctance to actually use audio.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I meant "incentivizing" as in "grouping needs to be incentivized." Or "some activity" needs more than just the usual rewards.
If the group content is more challenging - i.e. cannot be soloed and group gameplay is demanding in terms of coordination/effort - in the name of fairness why not reward it more? That's how it usually goes, hard content or high risk, high rewards.
MMOs are social games, many players play them for bragging rights and vanity as well as having fun (I did this hard group content with my friends and I got this shiny Ubersword).
There certainly does need to be a reason to do hard content.
In Lineage 2 the developers created an area where the mobs, if in trouble, would run and get help. They were also made so that sometimes they would be hard than the others in the area to "keep it interesting."
And of course, their excuse for all this was to mix up game play and keep it fresh for players.
But, other than being in that area, there wasn't a real reason to actually grind in that area. So hardly anyone was ever there.
I have to say, In my short time there I don't remember seeing one player.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
If it takes getting the best xp/hour or best loot from active participation in community goals, I'm OK with that. Yeah it would be better if there was participation just because you know, you are that rare gamer who actually does want to play as a community it wouldn't need to be heavily incentivized with rewards but I've come to the conclusion that those are indeed rare gamers.
This hit home for me.
I doubt this is how you meant it, but it's a huge reason why I despise "get everyone and their dog easy access to games."
I always cringe when I see players talk about "rewards" as you mentioned. Isn't having fun the best reward? Why do they feel they need to be incentivized in order to play a game?
I hate GW2 precisely because of that. Standing in circles and all buffing each other is so boring.
The problem is that we have all these anti social people that in fact want to play solo games but for some reason need people near them. Cooperating and overcoming challenges is the point of it while also having times when it doesnt work.
I cannot for the life of me bring myself to care during gw2 combat and i paid for all the expansions and am really trying.
I hate GW2 precisely because of that. Standing in circles and all buffing each other is so boring.
The problem is that we have all these anti social people that in fact want to play solo games but for some reason need people near them. Cooperating and overcoming challenges is the point of it while also having times when it doesnt work.
I cannot for the life of me bring myself to care during gw2 combat and i paid for all the expansions and am really trying.
I have to ask, when playing the "game" of real life, do you interact regularly with strangers?
When eating out do you go to quiet, mostly empty restaurants or find yourself gravitating towards those which are more crowded and noisy.
I think humans evolved needing to band together in packs in order to survive, even if they didn't care all that much for others.
Been proven MMORPGs need to have a healthy population of players or other gamers won't join or stay.
I figure one big reason most devs don't share detailed information about player numbers, or keep figures somewhat vaguely is announcing that a large number of people are leaving only creates a snowball effect which can steepen the decline even more.
In FO76 there are very few activities where I "need" other players help, Scorch Queen, Earl fights and Daily OPs being the only exceptions.
Otherwise most of my time is spent pursuing solo activities, all the while chatting with 8 to 10 friends who are doing the same.
Sure, we team up for the above mentioned activities, or go to visit other peoples camps, even helping them build their camp, but otherwise it's solo only.
I could do almost all of the same activities in FO4 but it wouldn't be nearly as fun without all of these other players around me.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
not joining in grouped play is not the same as a single player game..
I rarely group but I liked what Rift did.
Its as much for the living world as anything else... i have been playing MMO's for 20+ years and almost exclusively solo. I do struggle now with single player games as they lack the "living" environment.
People can play solo in mmos and enjoy it. No problem with that. The problem imo is when you lose the group players then the solo players have nobody to play alongside.
And no i dont solo life i work and build with my friends most of the time, but i do know thats rare.
For me mmorpgs have always been about adventuring with others and overcoming challenges. There is nothing better than when everybody plays their role and we win to tell the tale.
For the record i play healers or support, but am not playing anything now because there is nothing that offers the experiences older mmos offered.
I remember Anarchy Online, Temple of Three Winds or something like that, there were groups running 24/7 and you could fight that dungeon constantly with others and that was around level 30 so quiet early. No need to get to end game before you group up like in the new games.
As you leave the newvbie island you had the subway where you had groups so within 3-4 hours. Then the you could make a team and run randomly generated missions or you would go to certain locations and kill mobs to level up as a group, or more dungeons. So yeah you were in a group almost all the way.
I think the argument is really doesn't matter because gaming has changed and so has the modern gamer.
Everything will be catered to solo and cash shops.Then with so many gamers being so impatient and wanting big rewards quickly we wouldn't have the longevity to form a good grouping game that evolves into friendships. It would be like a maximum of 1-2 months then the forums are all lit up with "what is best END GAME class,what to do at END GAME....end game edn game i am actually sick of even hearing that term.
Without getting into the depth of design how about a SIMPLE start,a GROUPING game that is very slow in leveling and NOT focused on end game for at least 2 years.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I meant "incentivizing" as in "grouping needs to be incentivized." Or "some activity" needs more than just the usual rewards.
If the group content is more challenging - i.e. cannot be soloed and group gameplay is demanding in terms of coordination/effort - in the name of fairness why not reward it more? That's how it usually goes, hard content or high risk, high rewards.
MMOs are social games, many players play them for bragging rights and vanity as well as having fun (I did this hard group content with my friends and I got this shiny Ubersword).
One reward is, "The hard content is do-able." Grouping also had the intrinsic reward of gaining XP faster than soloing.
I admit that when I first heard players clamoring for "more rewards for grouping up", I was playing EQ 1 and wondered if this was the product of "participation trophies", or getting a gold star for simply showing up. I also admit that not every player is like me, or vice versa
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
If it takes getting the best xp/hour or best loot from active participation in community goals, I'm OK with that. Yeah it would be better if there was participation just because you know, you are that rare gamer who actually does want to play as a community it wouldn't need to be heavily incentivized with rewards but I've come to the conclusion that those are indeed rare gamers.
This hit home for me.
I doubt this is how you meant it, but it's a huge reason why I despise "get everyone and their dog easy access to games."
I always cringe when I see players talk about "rewards" as you mentioned. Isn't having fun the best reward? Why do they feel they need to be incentivized in order to play a game?
Having "fun" is the best reward
But how do you have "fun" in first place ?
That's a great question that each player needs to answer
I'm also not trying to say that either "with" or "alongside" is wrong. I do play alongside more often than not. The difference here from single player games is the chaos brought to the game by having other players present, not some programmed AI.
I often play support (healer) types in MMORPGs. Not much is more fun than to "run by healing" other players
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Without getting into the depth of design how about a SIMPLE start,a GROUPING game that is very slow in leveling and NOT focused on end game for at least 2 years.
Based on who's playstyle. Keep in mind that 2 years for a hardcore player becomes 10 years for a casual.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Without getting into the depth of design how about a SIMPLE start,a GROUPING game that is very slow in leveling and NOT focused on end game for at least 2 years.
Based on who's playstyle. Keep in mind that 2 years for a hardcore player becomes 10 years for a casual.
So what its not a race.
My experience with Lotro, Eso, Gw2, Ff14 has been that around my 10th hour of soloing I am starting to fade out. I might login 1 or 2 more times but it was over at that point
Personally, I have always hated the idea of forced grouping, it reeked of being gamey and unrealistic, and on top of that, it always ended up putting me in a situation where all too often I would end up having to deal with people I didn't care for just to get the loot that was locked behind this Forced Grouping content.
However, when I first played GW2, it showed me something grand, that players could alongside each other, that we could all be working towards an objective, and even work together and help each other get it, without needing to hitched at the hip in a group.
For the most part I agree but as I've said before, I don't believe in "forced" anything when it comes to games. It's a ridiculous notion.
They make their game, it has features and the player can either buy the game to play those features or "not."
I wanted to address this point, but I wanted to think about it first before I just said something.
While you are correct in the very solid point that no one is actually forced to play any specific MMO, and that we are all free to not buy it, not play it, Quit playing it, etc, etc.
However, that is purely a distraction from the actual situation being put out, and that is when the Devs set in mechanics that IF you want to play THAT Specific MMO, for whatever reasons you might want to play it, but regardless of motive, it still stands that IF you want to play THAT specific MMO, you will be forced to group to make progress.
This is what is referred to as Forced Grouping.
Now, it could very well be argued that we should call it Required Grouping, I suppose, as that would be a more technically correct Term, since you are not forced to play the MMO at all, but you would be required to group if you wanted to play that MMO, and while that would be little more than splitting hairs over terms and the like, the end result still remains the same.
IF You want to progress in that MMO, you will be Required to Group.
If you want to call that Picked Grouping or Ass Grabbing, it matters not to me, as Shakespeare said "A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"
So whatever term or phrase you feel would be best, let me know, I'll do my best to use that term for you in future discussions.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
When I wrote the OP, I will say the two games that were in my mind the most were GW2 and DDO.
And while, EQ, which like many older gamers was my first love, EQ was a game of playing both With and Alongside other people, but the Alongside was competitive not cooperative.
Case in point, in EQ, when my group hit mobs, it was for my group, and my group alone. We were there for our own EXP, Loot, Rewards, and while as we played, there many others around us, some solo, some playing with groups of their own, there was always a sense of others playing around us, ergo, playing alongside us, they were our competitor for the limited resources that were available So while they did give a sense of population, they were also a source of strife and irritation.
From there, came the rise of Instance Content. DDO being a prime example of this, as ALL their playable content is Instance, so you are always doing required group content, even if you are soloing it, you were sill in a group, it just happened to be a group of 1. In DDO, there is no playing alongside other players, I cannot help anyone outside my group complete tasks or objectives, I cannot be helped by anyone outside my group complete stuff. Sure there are Auction Houses, Guilds, Social Channels, and other Networks, so we can buy, sell, trade, and chat, but when it came to actually doing content, it was all group based. You were going to group with other people, or not play with them at all.. end of discussion.
The along comes GW2, this game for me changed the rules of what it meant to play With and Alongside other people. Unlike the old school games, in GW2, I could play alongside other players in a co-op manner, I could help them, they could help me, and we didn't need to make a huge formal deal about it, to form groups, have a group leader, or anything like that. It was fluid, and like real life, I see someone downed, or getting a beat down, I can jump in and help them for that fight, get them up, win, and just casually move on, maybe even just wave bye, and we both move on with our game.
In some cases you can tell they are on the same path as you, doing the same side quests or achievements, like doing the Skyscale quest, there were points of power that we need to tap, so, while I was trying to get to them, I would see others doing the same. Anyway, one event that stands out for me, is I was going for one of these points, and a Champion spawns one me, beats me stupid, as I am downed, this other person shows up, starts to try and get me back up, and then someone else jumps in and attacks the champion, draws it attention away us. I get back up, and the 3 of us beat the Champion down, then we all get our access to the point of power, where one of them says "Good luck on your skyscale"
And I thought for a long time about that, how that truly made the game fluid in a way that I have never seen in any other game, where players can, like real life, just help each other, without any need for it to be more than that moment of being with other people, of having other people around you. Which is the idea of an MMO, to have a huge population, a feeling of not being alone.
Now I don't think people are antisocial simply because they don't want to group, they might simply not enjoy the formalities of what grouping entails, the idea of being stuck with a direct limited team of people to get a task done, for some is simply not appealing. Like going to a music concert, not every feels that they need to have a fixed dance partner to just dance to the music, this does not mean they are anti-social, as most people are in guilds, on discord, and all the like, so they are not lacking in social, and being cohered to group in pursuit of better loot does not make them want to socialize, it makes them want to get the job done, and get their loot, I mean reality check, they are most often not there for the starling personality of whoever is leading the raid, they are there for the loot.
To be fair in DDO, I knew some amazing raid leaders, who just had a great magnetic personality and I enjoyed running raids with them, but even with those few exceptional raid leaders, I (Along with everyone else) was still there for the loot, that was the whole reason to do the raid to start with.
Which brings us to the idea of Grouping. I don't agree that simply making content that requires people to make formal groups should reward better, if there is an Open World mob that requires several people to kill, they should offer the same reward as a instance based group content, and there is no legitimate reason why they shouldn't, because you put in a situation where people had to work together to achieve a goal, so outside some archaic idea that being in a fixed group should reward more, there is no reason why they both should not be equally rewarding.
This is what I was talking about where I said that modern MMO's are moving in the direction where players can play alongside each other, they just need to refine this mechanic, make it better, make rewarding and enabling so that players can simply enjoy having others around them, working together, without needing to all be in some formal group.
GW2, for the Wintersday, had a Strike Mission, where it was a Public Event, and it would the first 10 to click would get teamed up, they run though some basic mobs and fights, and before they get to the boss they have the choice to lock the group. This is an ideal system, as it gives everyone an idea of how good the other team members are, can they do this boss fight. If it feels like they can't, anyone could bail, leave the group, or vote No.
So I think there is a lot of good progress being made to make playing alongside other players meaningful, in GW2 at least, I can heal, buff, revive, and generally aid other people around me, just as they can aid me, and in turn we all share in the loot, exp, and rewards. So this is a great system to allow for players to feel a large co-op environment.
Equally so, when I play a game like DDO, it makes sense for that to be instanced based, as D&D campaigns were in fact Instanced, set to the private groups that were running that module, not like the neighbors were going to walk into your basement game, and lay down their character sheets, help you kill the dragon, eat your Cheetos, and then stomp off to hit someone else's game. So for DDO is just vibed perfectly with the IP.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Playing alongside like in gw2 is still playing solo its just that other people are sometimes part of the content. Essentially, you spam your abilities into a circle and anyone that happens to stand there gets the buffs.
Its a little more involved than that but it doesnt feel like playing with others in a group.
Imo this is precisely why modern mmos are dead for a lot of people. The solo players who want to solo in a multiplayer world have convinced devs to create this type of compromise, which, is I gather more profitable but it no longer offers what early mmos were about.
The thing is that people that usually say "forced grouping" almost always follow up with complaints: "which leaves out solo players, is not inclusive for shy/introverted people, messes up with my schedule/convenience, so it is bad".
I believe that's a path leading towards a similar re-label as how cheap online games suddenly became MMOs.
I say option is king, so I don't like any forced elements, but in my interpretation forced means nothing more than just that. Not includes "don't like it/prefer solo/inconvenient/messes up my schedule/etc."
Forced grouping example, the early version of LotRO's Book questline. No bypass, no simply skipping it, no "I come back when I'm level 50 and solo it", nada. You had to find a group for it, and if you couldn't for any reason (like the reason why they've changed it later, since nobody cared to join lowbie quests just to help out newbies), you were stucked there.
I'm a group play advocate, still I was loud against that, it was bad design.
Another example, on how it ain't only affecting groups:
Forced pvp, RaiderZ. That infamous section of the game which has decimated the playerbase more than any duping and exploit issues, before it was lifted - if the game will finally relaunch they already stated and reassured everyone that zone won't have it
It was too forced in the word's original meaning, unavoidable, mandatory, without any way to skip it.
And if you didn't want to kill other players for days, until you advance 5-6 levels, the game ended for you.* Not even just the storyline like in LotRO's case, the whole game.
You were stucked at that mid-level range, without any other way to continue. Really stupid design, just like anything forced is.
Option really is king...
*ed: why it's an issue, might a pvp-addict ask. Well, other than that one zone, RaiderZ was a PvE game...
I can totally get what your experience in GW2 was like @Ungood , I have had similar encounters with other players too. Players who just came to my aid or me to their side to help. That type of spontaneous assistance has an organic feel to it and it is great when there are enough people around. These types of things only work when the game is doing well and has a threshold population that you can encounter but I often found myself alone in GW2 and unable to get help killing those big mobs (cannot recall what they were called). The cannot be soloed except I soloed that worm because it was stationary and I hid behind some huge rock and pelted it for a time until it died. I think my pet was instrumental in keeping him in combat.
Overall I too can vouch for the effective manner in which GW2 made you part of an encounter that many games leave you high and dry in unless you were in some guild raid group or you were s.o.l if you happened to come upon a world boss alone. Everyone belonged to something and you cannot participate unless you were in the cool guild and had dibs.
This is what happens in Everquest on the Project 99 servers. Guilds fight over the end game content and the little folk cannot even hope to get a whiff of the dragon they're fighting over and it was one of the reasons I left. When I first played Everquest I was in the top guild on my server and I have watched good friends being left out because they were unfortunately not in the right guild. This never sat well with me and to this day I think that is the wrong way to create end game content. I embraced the way WoW created multiple instances and allowed everyone who could try the end game. This was a better way to handle it because it is fundamentally wrong to deprive players of end game content by making them fight over it (unless it is a PvP game) and it simply breeds resentment and massive fights on forums.
I do agree that it would be wonderful if a game can create the spontaneous grouping and sense of achievement one obtains on helping a group kill a legendary foe but it has to be a system that can also thrive during the lean times a game goes through. That would be awesome.
@Ungod, I was smiling with your examples as GW1 was as instanced as DDO is. My time in GW1 was spent in Ascalon(?), the nice, beautiful land before the catastrophe. I took my first character though the "mandatory grouping" (not really as you just said "I'm going through!" and were thrown in with whomever also said "Yes.") mission at the end of Ascalon, saw what the land was like, tried a few fights, and re-rolled characters that I kept in Ascalon, never journeying onward.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
@Ungod, I was smiling with your examples as GW1 was as instanced as DDO is. My time in GW1 was spent in Ascalon(?), the nice, beautiful land before the catastrophe. I took my first character though the "mandatory grouping" (not really as you just said "I'm going through!" and were thrown in with whomever also said "Yes.") mission at the end of Ascalon, saw what the land was like, tried a few fights, and re-rolled characters that I kept in Ascalon, never journeying onward.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
Not true when I played I soloed that worm and others had soloed that fellow in the town ... I remember it clearly then that many soloed him. It was talked about and people boasted having done it. Someone with knowledge of the game when in released may be able to remember this.
I can totally get what your experience in GW2 was like, I have had similar encounters with other players too. Players who just came to my aid or me to their side to help. That type of spontaneous assistance has an organic feel to it and it is great when there are enough people around. These types of things only work when the game is doing well and has a threshold population that you can encounter but I often found myself alone in GW2 and unable to get help killing those big mobs (cannot recall what they were called). The cannot be soloed except I soloed that worm because it was stationary and I hid behind some huge rock and pelted it for a time until it died. I think my pet was instrumental in keeping him in combat.
Overall I too can vouch for the effective manner in which GW2 made you part of an encounter that many games leave you high and dry in unless you were in some guild raid group or you were s.o.l if you happened to come upon a world boss alone. Everyone belonged to something and you cannot participate unless you were in the cool guild and had dibs.
This is what happens in Everquest on the Project 99 servers. Guilds fight over the end game content and the little folk cannot even hope to get a whiff of the dragon they're fighting over and it was one of the reasons I left. When I first played Everquest I was in the top guild on my server and I have watched good friends being left out because they were unfortunately not in the right guild. This never sat well with me and to this day I think that is the wrong way to create end game content. I embraced the way WoW created multiple instances and allowed everyone who could try the end game. This was a better way to handle it because it is fundamentally wrong to deprive players of end game content by making them fight over it (unless it is a PvP game) and it simply breeds resentment and massive fights on forums.
I do agree that it would be wonderful if a game can create the spontaneous grouping and sense of achievement one obtains on helping a group kill a legendary foe but it has to be a system that can also thrive during the lean times a game goes through. That would be awesome.
You make a really awesome point about the Population Threshold of a game, especially in a game like GW2, where you have Champions, World Bosses, and these larger direct group style events that were started with HoT, that make it so that it takes far more than one person to succeeded.
This can be brutally troublesome for people that play in off hours, and there is simply not enough population doing these tasks to make them viable.
Now, in the early days of GW2, before Mega Servers, this was a huge issue for low population servers, where things like Orr Temples never got opened on servers like ET and FC, and this had a huge impact on if you wanted to play WvW.
However, Team Work Events (Lets call them that, as it requires more than one person to do these events and they need to work together, but not be in a formal group) One such event that stands out in my mind is Vinetooth in Auric Basin, this is a huge event, Three Teams need to face this boss, and each needs to kill their side at the same time as everyone, and each side requires several people to complete. I believe this is similar mechanic to Triple Trouble.
This type of event should on every level reward the same as any raid ever made, yet, it is treated as some lowkey event, which I think is really where GW2 dropped the ball on their system and rewards. They had such an amazing building block to make their game more Teamwork Focused, as opposed to Group Focused like other games, and stumbled, but, I think in that vein GW2 has set a stage for better things, for Devs to look at this idea of playing alongside others and realizing that there is a lot more that could be done with this.
And I hope that happens.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I was smiling with your examples as GW1 was as instanced as DDO is. My time in GW1 was spent in Ascalon(?), the nice, beautiful land before the catastrophe. I took my first character though the "mandatory grouping" (not really as you just said "I'm going through!" and were thrown in with whomever also said "Yes.") mission at the end of Ascalon, saw what the land was like, tried a few fights, and re-rolled characters that I kept in Ascalon, never journeying onward.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
COOL! I never really played GW1 that much, it was a short lived stint, and then I moved on other games at the time, till I settled into DDO, where I still am.. go figure.
Anyway, Just a point. All Zones in GW2 level scale down, some even level scale up (Like WvW Maps and Southsun) this means that a level 80 (Max) character can still fight mobs and do quests in a level 1 zone and get EXP, Loot, and not one shot kill everything in sight, and can't solo champions. Champions however also scale by the population around them, so if 10 people show up, it will be a Champion fight scaled for 10 people, if 100 People show up, it will be a champion fight scaled for 100 people.
A lot of events in GW2 work like this, even the collection or kill x mobs events are set like this in GW2, which can really suck if you are doing an event and a huge pack of people run through it and don't contribute to it, and now you are left with the increased scale and no one to help you. This is also why the people that cry that events are too easy are just dead weight, and increasing the scaling, leaving others to pick up their slack.
GW2 also has levels of reward, like when an event unfolds you can get Bronze, Silver, or Gold level participation in the Event.
HoT also set up what it calls map meta event contribution, and it rates your map reward based on how many events you did for the day/night cycle. While a good idea, and it truly has it's place, it also means that if you want to get into that with HoT, you need to set aside the time it's going to take to run the cycle till the end if you want the max rewards. So it works against people that might not have the time to stay to the end, but works great for the people that can.
Again, nothing will work for everyone.
GW2, when I first started playing it, was such a break from the traditional mold of MMO's that I could not help but fall in love with it. It's morphed over the years, less the ground breaker that it once was, no doubt driven by the wow-refuges that came to GW2 because it was not WoW, and then Proceeded to demand changes that made GW2 more like WoW... this is why the Stupidity of people will never have an end.
Now, also, I want to say something about DDO, it makes it easy to group with less people. They have Hirelings (NPC's you can get that will help you with the quest, like NPC clerics that will heal you, or NPC thieves that can pick locks for you, or maybe a Wizard just to blow things up, etc) I believe EQ1 calls these Merc's and other games have other names for them, I think GW1 called them Henchmen, etc.
DDO also allows you to pick a difficulty scale for Dungeons, you can run Easy, Normal, Hard, Elite... as a base difficulties, and the dungeon scales by Party Size, so if you wanted to Solo, and just went into a Dungeon Alone on say Hard, you would find it personally easier (IE: There would overall be Less Mobs, and the mobs would be individually weaker, as well as things like the Traps don't hit as hard) overall it would be easier than if you went into that same Dungeon on the Same Difficulty with 6 people. The idea being of course that more people bring more resources and power and thus overall make the dungeon easier.. and for the most part.. that's true, not to mention, there is more loot at the end chest, and depending on the dungeon this means a greater chance of getting some specific item you might be questing for.
Which as @cheyane talked about above, with a Population Threshold, and with Games like GW2 that makes these really great massive open world events that are designed to bring players together, they run a risk of having a backlash of not enough people being active at the time or not enough interest in that event, which makes it a dead event, which is really a tragedy, because they fell into the trap that somehow requiring people to have to group was that deserved the best rewards, as opposed to focusing on rewarding people for sharing a game and playing together, alongside each other.
On the flip side of this, a game like DDO does not really suffer from a Population Threshold, nearly as much, as their largest events, Raids are 12 people max, and can often be short manned with a good team, most raids that I have been in recently, were average around 6 to 8 people before we got tired of waiting, and just got it done, and some raids there were challenges to solo them, like Shroud, there was a whole thing where people would seek to Solo Shroud, which was no small feat mind you. This of course depended on the raid, as some raids and dungeons were simply impossible to solo due to split group mechanics and the like regardless of how much you might over level them. For Example, Twilight Forge, level 12 Raid, you could be be 30th (max) and you still could not solo this raid because you have one person on the cannon, and another person tanking the Titan... you could duo it however (Which is no easy task due to many other mechanics), but the mechanics are such that it cannot be soloed.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
@Ungod, I was smiling with your examples as GW1 was as instanced as DDO is. My time in GW1 was spent in Ascalon(?), the nice, beautiful land before the catastrophe. I took my first character though the "mandatory grouping" (not really as you just said "I'm going through!" and were thrown in with whomever also said "Yes.") mission at the end of Ascalon, saw what the land was like, tried a few fights, and re-rolled characters that I kept in Ascalon, never journeying onward.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
Not true when I played I soloed that worm and others had soloed that fellow in the town ... I remember it clearly then that many soloed him. It was talked about and people boasted having done it. Someone with knowledge of the game when in released may be able to remember this.
There are some champions that can be soloed, some that can't. The Great Jungle Wurm World Boss used to be able to be soloed, they upped them a bit, along with a lot of others, like Shatter as well, so they can't be soloed anymore.
I do notice that a lot of builds that solo are Pet/Minion/Clone builds, which makes sense, you're pretty much running NPC trash on the Campion, and playing an endurance game. My Mesmer which I use just for JP can destroy stuff with her clones, even while using Nomads.
Also, some of that looked like E-peen waving bravado tho, so I would take what they said with a grain of salt on how easy it is to solo champs, but I will say, not all Champs are created equal, some are a LOT easier than others.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
@Ungod, I was smiling with your examples as GW1 was as instanced as DDO is. My time in GW1 was spent in Ascalon(?), the nice, beautiful land before the catastrophe. I took my first character though the "mandatory grouping" (not really as you just said "I'm going through!" and were thrown in with whomever also said "Yes.") mission at the end of Ascalon, saw what the land was like, tried a few fights, and re-rolled characters that I kept in Ascalon, never journeying onward.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
Not true when I played I soloed that worm and others had soloed that fellow in the town ... I remember it clearly then that many soloed him. It was talked about and people boasted having done it. Someone with knowledge of the game when in released may be able to remember this.
There are some champions that can be soloed, some that can't. The Great Jungle Wurm World Boss used to be able to be soloed, they upped them a bit, along with a lot of others, like Shatter as well, so they can't be soloed anymore.
I do notice that a lot of builds that solo are Pet/Minion/Clone builds, which makes sense, you're pretty much running NPC trash on the Campion, and playing an endurance game. My Mesmer which I use just for JP can destroy stuff with her clones, even while using Nomads.
Also, some of that looked like E-peen waving bravado tho, so I would take what they said with a grain of salt on how easy it is to solo champs, but I will say, not all Champs are created equal, some are a LOT easier than others.
Thanks for clarifying. I did have that memory although it has been years since I played GW2. Damn making me want to give up lagging in POE maps for this game.
@Ungod, I was smiling with your examples as GW1 was as instanced as DDO is. My time in GW1 was spent in Ascalon(?), the nice, beautiful land before the catastrophe. I took my first character though the "mandatory grouping" (not really as you just said "I'm going through!" and were thrown in with whomever also said "Yes.") mission at the end of Ascalon, saw what the land was like, tried a few fights, and re-rolled characters that I kept in Ascalon, never journeying onward.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
Not true when I played I soloed that worm and others had soloed that fellow in the town ... I remember it clearly then that many soloed him. It was talked about and people boasted having done it. Someone with knowledge of the game when in released may be able to remember this.
There are some champions that can be soloed, some that can't. The Great Jungle Wurm World Boss used to be able to be soloed, they upped them a bit, along with a lot of others, like Shatter as well, so they can't be soloed anymore.
I do notice that a lot of builds that solo are Pet/Minion/Clone builds, which makes sense, you're pretty much running NPC trash on the Campion, and playing an endurance game. My Mesmer which I use just for JP can destroy stuff with her clones, even while using Nomads.
Also, some of that looked like E-peen waving bravado tho, so I would take what they said with a grain of salt on how easy it is to solo champs, but I will say, not all Champs are created equal, some are a LOT easier than others.
Thanks for clarifying. I did have that memory although it has been years since I played GW2. Damn making me want to give up lagging in POE maps for this game.
I would say, give it a go. You lose nothing playing GW2 again if it strikes you.
It's your game time, have fun! Game On!
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Comments
Dynamic content. People have been calling for it (with the exception of the owners of spoiler site, probably). No one has delivered that. No one even appears to be working on that. It fixes the problem of trivializing content and reducing it to a pre-determined pattern.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
In Lineage 2 the developers created an area where the mobs, if in trouble, would run and get help. They were also made so that sometimes they would be hard than the others in the area to "keep it interesting."
And of course, their excuse for all this was to mix up game play and keep it fresh for players.
But, other than being in that area, there wasn't a real reason to actually grind in that area. So hardly anyone was ever there.
I have to say, In my short time there I don't remember seeing one player.
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
The problem is that we have all these anti social people that in fact want to play solo games but for some reason need people near them. Cooperating and overcoming challenges is the point of it while also having times when it doesnt work.
I cannot for the life of me bring myself to care during gw2 combat and i paid for all the expansions and am really trying.
When eating out do you go to quiet, mostly empty restaurants or find yourself gravitating towards those which are more crowded and noisy.
I think humans evolved needing to band together in packs in order to survive, even if they didn't care all that much for others.
Been proven MMORPGs need to have a healthy population of players or other gamers won't join or stay.
I figure one big reason most devs don't share detailed information about player numbers, or keep figures somewhat vaguely is announcing that a large number of people are leaving only creates a snowball effect which can steepen the decline even more.
In FO76 there are very few activities where I "need" other players help, Scorch Queen, Earl fights and Daily OPs being the only exceptions.
Otherwise most of my time is spent pursuing solo activities, all the while chatting with 8 to 10 friends who are doing the same.
Sure, we team up for the above mentioned activities, or go to visit other peoples camps, even helping them build their camp, but otherwise it's solo only.
I could do almost all of the same activities in FO4 but it wouldn't be nearly as fun without all of these other players around me.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I rarely group but I liked what Rift did.
Its as much for the living world as anything else... i have been playing MMO's for 20+ years and almost exclusively solo. I do struggle now with single player games as they lack the "living" environment.
I play alongside... and always have.
And no i dont solo life i work and build with my friends most of the time, but i do know thats rare.
For me mmorpgs have always been about adventuring with others and overcoming challenges. There is nothing better than when everybody plays their role and we win to tell the tale.
For the record i play healers or support, but am not playing anything now because there is nothing that offers the experiences older mmos offered.
I remember Anarchy Online, Temple of Three Winds or something like that, there were groups running 24/7 and you could fight that dungeon constantly with others and that was around level 30 so quiet early. No need to get to end game before you group up like in the new games.
As you leave the newvbie island you had the subway where you had groups so within 3-4 hours. Then the you could make a team and run randomly generated missions or you would go to certain locations and kill mobs to level up as a group, or more dungeons. So yeah you were in a group almost all the way.
Everything will be catered to solo and cash shops.Then with so many gamers being so impatient and wanting big rewards quickly we wouldn't have the longevity to form a good grouping game that evolves into friendships.
It would be like a maximum of 1-2 months then the forums are all lit up with "what is best END GAME class,what to do at END GAME....end game edn game i am actually sick of even hearing that term.
Without getting into the depth of design how about a SIMPLE start,a GROUPING game that is very slow in leveling and NOT focused on end game for at least 2 years.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I admit that when I first heard players clamoring for "more rewards for grouping up", I was playing EQ 1 and wondered if this was the product of "participation trophies", or getting a gold star for simply showing up. I also admit that not every player is like me, or vice versa
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I'm also not trying to say that either "with" or "alongside" is wrong. I do play alongside more often than not. The difference here from single player games is the chaos brought to the game by having other players present, not some programmed AI.
I often play support (healer) types in MMORPGs. Not much is more fun than to "run by healing" other players
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
My experience with Lotro, Eso, Gw2, Ff14 has been that around my 10th hour of soloing I am starting to fade out. I might login 1 or 2 more times but it was over at that point
While you are correct in the very solid point that no one is actually forced to play any specific MMO, and that we are all free to not buy it, not play it, Quit playing it, etc, etc.
However, that is purely a distraction from the actual situation being put out, and that is when the Devs set in mechanics that IF you want to play THAT Specific MMO, for whatever reasons you might want to play it, but regardless of motive, it still stands that IF you want to play THAT specific MMO, you will be forced to group to make progress.
This is what is referred to as Forced Grouping.
Now, it could very well be argued that we should call it Required Grouping, I suppose, as that would be a more technically correct Term, since you are not forced to play the MMO at all, but you would be required to group if you wanted to play that MMO, and while that would be little more than splitting hairs over terms and the like, the end result still remains the same.
IF You want to progress in that MMO, you will be Required to Group.
If you want to call that Picked Grouping or Ass Grabbing, it matters not to me, as Shakespeare said "A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"
So whatever term or phrase you feel would be best, let me know, I'll do my best to use that term for you in future discussions.
And while, EQ, which like many older gamers was my first love, EQ was a game of playing both With and Alongside other people, but the Alongside was competitive not cooperative.
Case in point, in EQ, when my group hit mobs, it was for my group, and my group alone. We were there for our own EXP, Loot, Rewards, and while as we played, there many others around us, some solo, some playing with groups of their own, there was always a sense of others playing around us, ergo, playing alongside us, they were our competitor for the limited resources that were available So while they did give a sense of population, they were also a source of strife and irritation.
From there, came the rise of Instance Content. DDO being a prime example of this, as ALL their playable content is Instance, so you are always doing required group content, even if you are soloing it, you were sill in a group, it just happened to be a group of 1. In DDO, there is no playing alongside other players, I cannot help anyone outside my group complete tasks or objectives, I cannot be helped by anyone outside my group complete stuff. Sure there are Auction Houses, Guilds, Social Channels, and other Networks, so we can buy, sell, trade, and chat, but when it came to actually doing content, it was all group based. You were going to group with other people, or not play with them at all.. end of discussion.
The along comes GW2, this game for me changed the rules of what it meant to play With and Alongside other people. Unlike the old school games, in GW2, I could play alongside other players in a co-op manner, I could help them, they could help me, and we didn't need to make a huge formal deal about it, to form groups, have a group leader, or anything like that. It was fluid, and like real life, I see someone downed, or getting a beat down, I can jump in and help them for that fight, get them up, win, and just casually move on, maybe even just wave bye, and we both move on with our game.
In some cases you can tell they are on the same path as you, doing the same side quests or achievements, like doing the Skyscale quest, there were points of power that we need to tap, so, while I was trying to get to them, I would see others doing the same. Anyway, one event that stands out for me, is I was going for one of these points, and a Champion spawns one me, beats me stupid, as I am downed, this other person shows up, starts to try and get me back up, and then someone else jumps in and attacks the champion, draws it attention away us. I get back up, and the 3 of us beat the Champion down, then we all get our access to the point of power, where one of them says "Good luck on your skyscale"
And I thought for a long time about that, how that truly made the game fluid in a way that I have never seen in any other game, where players can, like real life, just help each other, without any need for it to be more than that moment of being with other people, of having other people around you. Which is the idea of an MMO, to have a huge population, a feeling of not being alone.
Now I don't think people are antisocial simply because they don't want to group, they might simply not enjoy the formalities of what grouping entails, the idea of being stuck with a direct limited team of people to get a task done, for some is simply not appealing. Like going to a music concert, not every feels that they need to have a fixed dance partner to just dance to the music, this does not mean they are anti-social, as most people are in guilds, on discord, and all the like, so they are not lacking in social, and being cohered to group in pursuit of better loot does not make them want to socialize, it makes them want to get the job done, and get their loot, I mean reality check, they are most often not there for the starling personality of whoever is leading the raid, they are there for the loot.
To be fair in DDO, I knew some amazing raid leaders, who just had a great magnetic personality and I enjoyed running raids with them, but even with those few exceptional raid leaders, I (Along with everyone else) was still there for the loot, that was the whole reason to do the raid to start with.
Which brings us to the idea of Grouping. I don't agree that simply making content that requires people to make formal groups should reward better, if there is an Open World mob that requires several people to kill, they should offer the same reward as a instance based group content, and there is no legitimate reason why they shouldn't, because you put in a situation where people had to work together to achieve a goal, so outside some archaic idea that being in a fixed group should reward more, there is no reason why they both should not be equally rewarding.
This is what I was talking about where I said that modern MMO's are moving in the direction where players can play alongside each other, they just need to refine this mechanic, make it better, make rewarding and enabling so that players can simply enjoy having others around them, working together, without needing to all be in some formal group.
GW2, for the Wintersday, had a Strike Mission, where it was a Public Event, and it would the first 10 to click would get teamed up, they run though some basic mobs and fights, and before they get to the boss they have the choice to lock the group. This is an ideal system, as it gives everyone an idea of how good the other team members are, can they do this boss fight. If it feels like they can't, anyone could bail, leave the group, or vote No.
So I think there is a lot of good progress being made to make playing alongside other players meaningful, in GW2 at least, I can heal, buff, revive, and generally aid other people around me, just as they can aid me, and in turn we all share in the loot, exp, and rewards. So this is a great system to allow for players to feel a large co-op environment.
Equally so, when I play a game like DDO, it makes sense for that to be instanced based, as D&D campaigns were in fact Instanced, set to the private groups that were running that module, not like the neighbors were going to walk into your basement game, and lay down their character sheets, help you kill the dragon, eat your Cheetos, and then stomp off to hit someone else's game. So for DDO is just vibed perfectly with the IP.
Its a little more involved than that but it doesnt feel like playing with others in a group.
Imo this is precisely why modern mmos are dead for a lot of people. The solo players who want to solo in a multiplayer world have convinced devs to create this type of compromise, which, is I gather more profitable but it no longer offers what early mmos were about.
Overall I too can vouch for the effective manner in which GW2 made you part of an encounter that many games leave you high and dry in unless you were in some guild raid group or you were s.o.l if you happened to come upon a world boss alone. Everyone belonged to something and you cannot participate unless you were in the cool guild and had dibs.
This is what happens in Everquest on the Project 99 servers. Guilds fight over the end game content and the little folk cannot even hope to get a whiff of the dragon they're fighting over and it was one of the reasons I left. When I first played Everquest I was in the top guild on my server and I have watched good friends being left out because they were unfortunately not in the right guild. This never sat well with me and to this day I think that is the wrong way to create end game content. I embraced the way WoW created multiple instances and allowed everyone who could try the end game. This was a better way to handle it because it is fundamentally wrong to deprive players of end game content by making them fight over it (unless it is a PvP game) and it simply breeds resentment and massive fights on forums.
I do agree that it would be wonderful if a game can create the spontaneous grouping and sense of achievement one obtains on helping a group kill a legendary foe but it has to be a system that can also thrive during the lean times a game goes through. That would be awesome.
Interesting how GW2 changed so much
PS: also @cheyane, add into the Champion Monsters GW2's "level scaling" and there is no way to solo them
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3dryro/best_class_to_solo_any_champion/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/9lkq1t/show_me_your_solo_champion_builds/
This can be brutally troublesome for people that play in off hours, and there is simply not enough population doing these tasks to make them viable.
Now, in the early days of GW2, before Mega Servers, this was a huge issue for low population servers, where things like Orr Temples never got opened on servers like ET and FC, and this had a huge impact on if you wanted to play WvW.
However, Team Work Events (Lets call them that, as it requires more than one person to do these events and they need to work together, but not be in a formal group) One such event that stands out in my mind is Vinetooth in Auric Basin, this is a huge event, Three Teams need to face this boss, and each needs to kill their side at the same time as everyone, and each side requires several people to complete. I believe this is similar mechanic to Triple Trouble.
This type of event should on every level reward the same as any raid ever made, yet, it is treated as some lowkey event, which I think is really where GW2 dropped the ball on their system and rewards. They had such an amazing building block to make their game more Teamwork Focused, as opposed to Group Focused like other games, and stumbled, but, I think in that vein GW2 has set a stage for better things, for Devs to look at this idea of playing alongside others and realizing that there is a lot more that could be done with this.
And I hope that happens.
Anyway, Just a point. All Zones in GW2 level scale down, some even level scale up (Like WvW Maps and Southsun) this means that a level 80 (Max) character can still fight mobs and do quests in a level 1 zone and get EXP, Loot, and not one shot kill everything in sight, and can't solo champions. Champions however also scale by the population around them, so if 10 people show up, it will be a Champion fight scaled for 10 people, if 100 People show up, it will be a champion fight scaled for 100 people.
A lot of events in GW2 work like this, even the collection or kill x mobs events are set like this in GW2, which can really suck if you are doing an event and a huge pack of people run through it and don't contribute to it, and now you are left with the increased scale and no one to help you. This is also why the people that cry that events are too easy are just dead weight, and increasing the scaling, leaving others to pick up their slack.
GW2 also has levels of reward, like when an event unfolds you can get Bronze, Silver, or Gold level participation in the Event.
HoT also set up what it calls map meta event contribution, and it rates your map reward based on how many events you did for the day/night cycle. While a good idea, and it truly has it's place, it also means that if you want to get into that with HoT, you need to set aside the time it's going to take to run the cycle till the end if you want the max rewards. So it works against people that might not have the time to stay to the end, but works great for the people that can.
Again, nothing will work for everyone.
GW2, when I first started playing it, was such a break from the traditional mold of MMO's that I could not help but fall in love with it. It's morphed over the years, less the ground breaker that it once was, no doubt driven by the wow-refuges that came to GW2 because it was not WoW, and then Proceeded to demand changes that made GW2 more like WoW... this is why the Stupidity of people will never have an end.
Now, also, I want to say something about DDO, it makes it easy to group with less people. They have Hirelings (NPC's you can get that will help you with the quest, like NPC clerics that will heal you, or NPC thieves that can pick locks for you, or maybe a Wizard just to blow things up, etc) I believe EQ1 calls these Merc's and other games have other names for them, I think GW1 called them Henchmen, etc.
DDO also allows you to pick a difficulty scale for Dungeons, you can run Easy, Normal, Hard, Elite... as a base difficulties, and the dungeon scales by Party Size, so if you wanted to Solo, and just went into a Dungeon Alone on say Hard, you would find it personally easier (IE: There would overall be Less Mobs, and the mobs would be individually weaker, as well as things like the Traps don't hit as hard) overall it would be easier than if you went into that same Dungeon on the Same Difficulty with 6 people. The idea being of course that more people bring more resources and power and thus overall make the dungeon easier.. and for the most part.. that's true, not to mention, there is more loot at the end chest, and depending on the dungeon this means a greater chance of getting some specific item you might be questing for.
Which as @cheyane talked about above, with a Population Threshold, and with Games like GW2 that makes these really great massive open world events that are designed to bring players together, they run a risk of having a backlash of not enough people being active at the time or not enough interest in that event, which makes it a dead event, which is really a tragedy, because they fell into the trap that somehow requiring people to have to group was that deserved the best rewards, as opposed to focusing on rewarding people for sharing a game and playing together, alongside each other.
On the flip side of this, a game like DDO does not really suffer from a Population Threshold, nearly as much, as their largest events, Raids are 12 people max, and can often be short manned with a good team, most raids that I have been in recently, were average around 6 to 8 people before we got tired of waiting, and just got it done, and some raids there were challenges to solo them, like Shroud, there was a whole thing where people would seek to Solo Shroud, which was no small feat mind you. This of course depended on the raid, as some raids and dungeons were simply impossible to solo due to split group mechanics and the like regardless of how much you might over level them. For Example, Twilight Forge, level 12 Raid, you could be be 30th (max) and you still could not solo this raid because you have one person on the cannon, and another person tanking the Titan... you could duo it however (Which is no easy task due to many other mechanics), but the mechanics are such that it cannot be soloed.
I do notice that a lot of builds that solo are Pet/Minion/Clone builds, which makes sense, you're pretty much running NPC trash on the Campion, and playing an endurance game. My Mesmer which I use just for JP can destroy stuff with her clones, even while using Nomads.
Also, some of that looked like E-peen waving bravado tho, so I would take what they said with a grain of salt on how easy it is to solo champs, but I will say, not all Champs are created equal, some are a LOT easier than others.
It's your game time, have fun! Game On!