Sadly I am forced to group when I want to take down one of the strongest beings in the game world's lore and get phat loot to show off my awesomeness with.
Why devs, why!?! *sniffle*
damn you, it's people like you that actually kill the content and get your own stuff that make it hard for my character to make a living selling phat lewt to soloers.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
not true. depends on how fast you want to hit level cap. beastmaster red mage ninja dancer are all very soloable. Takes more time but, it build skills. I will say much of FFXI endgame content requires grouping but, only certain things. nin/rdm nin/dnc rdm/ini bast/whm can solo many NM's quite easily.....
Originally posted by arieste Originally posted by Dreathor Sadly I am forced to group when I want to take down one of the strongest beings in the game world's lore and get phat loot to show off my awesomeness with. Why devs, why!?! *sniffle*
damn you, it's people like you that actually kill the content and get your own stuff that make it hard for my character to make a living selling phat lewt to soloers.
I know what you mean, it used to be so easy to sell stuff being only one of three groups of people doing the content! Damn these people like me!
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
not true. depends on how fast you want to hit level cap. beastmaster red mage ninja dancer are all very soloable. Takes more time but, it build skills. I will say much of FFXI endgame content requires grouping but, only certain things. nin/rdm nin/dnc rdm/ini bast/whm can solo many NM's quite easily.....
That's the point. Do you wanna spend an hour getting 1 level in a group or spend a week trying to do it solo and bore yourself to death? Personally i found trying to solo exp in XI to be worse than anything ever. The game was not built to solo and is more fun to group.
Ironically the game also rewards you for low manning as you have less people to split profits and gear with. So while it's 95% "forced grouping", most older vets try to complete content with as little people as possible.
As far as I remember it was always one Knight who slew the dragon, not a legion of them. I have to agree with what Ihmotepp is going for here though, there is no game out where grouping is the only viable option.
Since I haven't read the thread this has probably already been said, but anyway...
Forced grouping is when you are cut off from content and rewards by being forced to group to participate in that content and get those rewards. The most obvious example is vanilla wow raids where you could solo to 60 and get mediocre gear, but the only way you could get top gear is to join a raid (and we all know it's much more complex than "joining a raid"). It's an artificial barrier that forces people to play a specific playstyle. That is not the choice of game design I advocate or support.
I *like* raiding, but not as the sole means of progression in a mmo. I'm much more of the Diablo school of thought where drops are so random and rare that joining a group doesn't really help you find top gear any faster. In that scenario, you join groups because it's fun to group, not because you have to.
As far as I remember it was always one Knight who slew the dragon, not a legion of them. I have to agree with what Ihmotepp is going for here though, there is no game out where grouping is the only viable option.
It's convenient to stop there. That it was ONE knight who killed the DRAGON.
But this is lore. What makes this scenario so epic... is that it's a feat usually reserved for a legion of men, and even then they get bested.
When ONE knight (player) can kill a dragon, then EVERY knight (all players) can kill the dragon. Now it's not so epic.
It's important, for lore, to keep things in perspective for all players. Thus, no single player should be able to. In a single-player RPG it works fine, because you don't run across other players: it's a game world where you *can* be that ONE super-awesome-epic knight. But in an MMORPG, if you allow one person, you allow everyone. Now it's not impressive. It's all about the perspective.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
I feel forced to group when i play a healer/support character and the UI of the game is setup in such a bad way that i can't see, in an easy manner, the health condition of a guy right in front of me (but outside my group), but i know in great detail the health condition of a group member which is miles away.
Also when my character is full of group based spells which usually affect multiple people in random spots, directions and distances, while i am totally missing any abilities that affect other characters around mine.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
What is forced grouping in an MMORPG? My definition is Everquest, and Dark Age of Camelot.
You can solo to the cap in both of those games, and many players did, so obviously "forced grouping" does not mean you cannot solo.
At what point do you feel "forced" to group?
If you have never played EQ or DAoC, then what are you measuring against, when you say you'd never play a forced grouping game?
Would you feel "forced" to group if you didn't make xp as fast solo as in WoW?
Or would you possibly play a game if you made xp slower solo than in WoW? How much slower, if any?
I'm not trying to start a group versus solo thread. If you think "forced grouping" is a horrible evil thing, and all games with "forced grouping" are destined to fail, that's fine.
But what do you mean by that?
Some Developers are designing a game. And they tell you, we dont' want to make a "forced grouping game" because we know that would be terrible and it would fail. So they ask you, what do we have to do so you won't think this game is "forced grouping"? Or, when would you feel we ARE forcing you to group?
What do you tell them?
Do you say, I have to make xp just as fast solo as in a group, or I'll feel like I'm forced to group!
Do you say, I have to make the level cap solo just as fast as I do in WoW, or I'm forced to group!
Do you say, if it takes as long to the level cap solo as in EQ, then I"m forced to group! (and if you say that, have you played EQ to the level cap?)
In FF11, you were unable to advance in most classes past around lvl 10 solo. There were SOME classes that could solo to the top, but they had to skip most of the quest content as well.
In EQ it was possible to solo, but not for every class. Those most capable of soloing were those who could KIT the bad guys.
To me, the question of whether or not you are "forced" to group depends on the practicality of soloing. Grouping should definitely be more efficient. But if it takes me more than 10-20x the amount of time to solo vs group (with best possible efficiency) then its just not worth it for me. Especially if the ONLY way I can do it is to fight things that are absoutely no challenge to me.
I want to group when there's a reason to group. If you can solo around the content, then why are you grouping? What's the point?
None.
That is not what I meant. Alot of the main stream games on the market provide a mean to level exclusively on grouping.
The draw back is you have to repeately do the same content.
Take wow for example, to fill the level gap, you'll need to do the same dungeon multiple times before you can move up to higher level dungeon.
If they add too many group content, the population will be too divert, resulting in not enough people.
It's alot easier for 10 people to form a group if there's only 1 dungeon instead of there being multiple dungeon and everyone wants to do different ones.
You asked before, why is it ok for FPS to be group only but not MMORPG. The thing with FPS is everyone is repeately doing the same thing, so it's easy to find people.
Comments
damn you, it's people like you that actually kill the content and get your own stuff that make it hard for my character to make a living selling phat lewt to soloers.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
not true. depends on how fast you want to hit level cap. beastmaster red mage ninja dancer are all very soloable. Takes more time but, it build skills. I will say much of FFXI endgame content requires grouping but, only certain things. nin/rdm nin/dnc rdm/ini bast/whm can solo many NM's quite easily.....
I know what you mean, it used to be so easy to sell stuff being only one of three groups of people doing the content! Damn these people like me!
"If all you can say is... "It's awful, it's not innovative, it's ugly, it's blah.." Then you're an unimaginative and unpolished excuse for human life" -eburn
That's the point. Do you wanna spend an hour getting 1 level in a group or spend a week trying to do it solo and bore yourself to death? Personally i found trying to solo exp in XI to be worse than anything ever. The game was not built to solo and is more fun to group.
Ironically the game also rewards you for low manning as you have less people to split profits and gear with. So while it's 95% "forced grouping", most older vets try to complete content with as little people as possible.
since I had my own post on the subject, Ill give you my take on it.
"forced grouping" really should be called "highly freaking encourged grouping" or something equally close to that.
all games have "roles" that players play, be it healer, tank etc.
some games, make it so that if you don't have a healer in your group then you better be very wealthy and possess tons of health potions.
other games at lower levels (looking at you DDO) have areas that can not be accessed without a rogue etc.
this is what is meant by forced grouping.
can you still level. sure, but it will be a pain in the ass to do alone.
As far as I remember it was always one Knight who slew the dragon, not a legion of them. I have to agree with what Ihmotepp is going for here though, there is no game out where grouping is the only viable option.
Since I haven't read the thread this has probably already been said, but anyway...
Forced grouping is when you are cut off from content and rewards by being forced to group to participate in that content and get those rewards. The most obvious example is vanilla wow raids where you could solo to 60 and get mediocre gear, but the only way you could get top gear is to join a raid (and we all know it's much more complex than "joining a raid"). It's an artificial barrier that forces people to play a specific playstyle. That is not the choice of game design I advocate or support.
I *like* raiding, but not as the sole means of progression in a mmo. I'm much more of the Diablo school of thought where drops are so random and rare that joining a group doesn't really help you find top gear any faster. In that scenario, you join groups because it's fun to group, not because you have to.
It's convenient to stop there. That it was ONE knight who killed the DRAGON.
But this is lore. What makes this scenario so epic... is that it's a feat usually reserved for a legion of men, and even then they get bested.
When ONE knight (player) can kill a dragon, then EVERY knight (all players) can kill the dragon. Now it's not so epic.
It's important, for lore, to keep things in perspective for all players. Thus, no single player should be able to. In a single-player RPG it works fine, because you don't run across other players: it's a game world where you *can* be that ONE super-awesome-epic knight. But in an MMORPG, if you allow one person, you allow everyone. Now it's not impressive. It's all about the perspective.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
I feel forced to group when i play a healer/support character and the UI of the game is setup in such a bad way that i can't see, in an easy manner, the health condition of a guy right in front of me (but outside my group), but i know in great detail the health condition of a group member which is miles away.
Also when my character is full of group based spells which usually affect multiple people in random spots, directions and distances, while i am totally missing any abilities that affect other characters around mine.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
In FF11, you were unable to advance in most classes past around lvl 10 solo. There were SOME classes that could solo to the top, but they had to skip most of the quest content as well.
In EQ it was possible to solo, but not for every class. Those most capable of soloing were those who could KIT the bad guys.
To me, the question of whether or not you are "forced" to group depends on the practicality of soloing. Grouping should definitely be more efficient. But if it takes me more than 10-20x the amount of time to solo vs group (with best possible efficiency) then its just not worth it for me. Especially if the ONLY way I can do it is to fight things that are absoutely no challenge to me.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
That is not what I meant. Alot of the main stream games on the market provide a mean to level exclusively on grouping.
The draw back is you have to repeately do the same content.
Take wow for example, to fill the level gap, you'll need to do the same dungeon multiple times before you can move up to higher level dungeon.
If they add too many group content, the population will be too divert, resulting in not enough people.
It's alot easier for 10 people to form a group if there's only 1 dungeon instead of there being multiple dungeon and everyone wants to do different ones.
You asked before, why is it ok for FPS to be group only but not MMORPG. The thing with FPS is everyone is repeately doing the same thing, so it's easy to find people.