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How do you deal with your friends and class cominations?
Boge
Member Posts: 182
Here me out before responding! My situation is different than most, so I expect limited responses, but hope for many. I only play MMORPGs with real family and friends, no pickups, no guilds with strangers. I refuse because of the way we've been treated in the past no matter what anyone has said.
My problem is that many of our group members are 15-17 year old nephews of mine. They're super flakey about sticking with the same class or role for our groups. Us elders prefer to play as a group, to level together, to do the content together and not do pickups and get ahead of each other. We want to keep the progression level the same. The younger ones like to do PvP and gear up that way causing themselves to become much stronger than the content we're currently working on which throws off the challenge. Worse than that though is that they often want to switch classes on us or roles and then we're left playing musical chairs trying to keep our needs filled. This also throws everyone off and we don't play as well together since we're not used to "Bob" playing as a healer or "Hank" kiting things around.
It doesn't seem to matter what any of us say though, they still want to do what they want to do. Of course I'm not blaming them, but as a small group, it's not working for us to be successful in the games.
What do we do about that!?
Comments
There really isn't anything you can do. I suggest playing a healer. It doesn't matter which scenario you are in, healers always needed. Period.
Just a thought.
I'd suggest making everybody pick one toon that is going to be the toon used for group play and then set up a schedule for those nights. If they want to PVP or powerlevel or whatever they can do it on any other toon they have, but on family nights it's the consistent group leveling together.
As far as roles go, I think there's three choices. One, you can have the elders play the healers and tanks so the youngsters always have the fun job of DPSing. On the other hand maybe you make the youngsters be the healers and tanks because the rest of the time they'll be DPSing in PVP and this would satisfy their craving for variety. Or you could make the youngsters and one elder all pick hybrids that can play multiple roles (WoW paladin or druid for instance). Then whatever they pick for the night, the elder can compensate for their choices. They stay engaged in family play and the elder takes one for the team. You still have the problem where everyone is thrown off but at least people stay mostly happy.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Guild Wars 2 will be your saviour. The classes are designed such that it doesn't matter what class you play, only how you play it. So if they want to flake on their warrior and play a caster class instead, so be it. They can still do whatever it was they were doing in your group before.
And if they don't want to take that role at all anymore, you can. Or any other family member can...*without rolling a new char*.
Heck, you could all be the same class, and you would still be able to get through the game just fine. You would still just need to define who will fill what role to keep the team working cohesively. Every class is capable of filling any role, as long as they spec for it. And total re-speccing can happen any time outside of combat.
There's a new dev interview out today that includes an example scenario of 5 Warriors working as an effective group with the entire Support-Damage-Control trinity covered (No more heal-damage-tank in GW2!) http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/06/10/exclusive-interview-arenanets-jon-peters-and-jonathan-sharp/
As for the kids becoming too powerful, that won't be a problem either. PvE scales everyone appropriately. Players who are higher in level than the content they're playing are automatically kicked down to a more appropriate level. So they experience it mostly normally, but are still sort of powerful because they get to keep the skills, traits and attributes gained in higher areas. conversely, they would also be able to sidekick you *up* if you wanted to join them in an area higher level than you (you don't get scaled up automatically when going from lower to higher--you have to be sidekicked by another player.)
The only downside now is waiting for the game
Likely another year. But this summer's convention season will bring with it a new playable demo at Gamescom and PAX, so be on the lookout for new gameplay footage. You can keep up with GW2 on the forums at http://www.guildwars2guru.com/
That's one of the many complications of online gaming.
Which game are you playing?
Tell them they are preventing the rest of the group from having fun, and if they want to group with you, they need to be the correct level or the correct class. That's just how it is.
Thanks for the replies.
I've tried suggesting our group characters and to not play without the rest of us, but for some reason it just doesn't stick with some of them. They still go do instances and level up their gear. They don't play multiple characters at the same time. They swap from one to another to another, so one minute they play their Warrior in our group and by themselves/with pickups, the next month they want to switch characters, probably because they're bored with their Warrior and want to play something else. I can't figure them out, and I can't understand why they can't figure it out either.
We were playing World of Warcraft together, but since we need X tanks and X healers, and those tanks and healers keep changing their minds and wanting to play a different class or role, suddenly the whole thing is thrown off and then this player who is our top damage guy has to go play a healer, and this player that is our best crowd control guy has to go play a tank, and the players that aren't good at dealing damage end up dealing damage and then we don't have enough, etc., etc. It's a nightmare. I just can't figure out what to tell them to keep them happy, keep us elders happy, and keep our group strong and successful.
Back in Vanilla WoW, we had a stable group, and we did amazing things. We didn't have trouble. Now we can't seem to beat anything together.
Guild Wars sounds good, and it's one that I'm looking forward to, but yeah, another year? And who's to say it will even be good enough to spend time with? If not, how many more years will we have to wait for something else to take the place of World of Warcraft?
Play an MMO that has no classes, meaning that you can focus on melee today, and a magic tomorrow without affecting you or your group's progression.
Wow.
You guys sound hardcore, I mean that too. Well, what I would do is, just create two different groups. One group make it all same characters and the second group make it mix or again, another group of same characters.
That way you guys can still play together, just make your groups allied.
Sometimes, multi-alliances can be an advantage.
My advice would be to gain some tolerance. The big bad world is not going to eat you or your nephew. If you are on this site, then I'm not sure what you find so bad about the Online RPG community. Yes, there are a lot of jerks. Lead by example.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Yes the best way is probably not to force any restrictions on class jumping or scheduled play. Instead, put yourself out there and get some online friends. I think everyone feels the same as you at some point or another simply because MMORPGs (and WoW in particular, just my opinion) are riddled with idiots. But even so I always somehow manage to get my friendslist full and then some. There are lots of ppl out there who feel the same as you, who got the same problems and who enjoy the game in a similar way to yourself. You need to find these ppl
I think both you and your nephews will find that this is the best solution and they might even come to realize a thing or two when they see that you're enjoying yourself without being 100% dependant on them.
The other thing about GW2 that Crake_1 didn't mention is that because the events are running all the time, your party can just jump into whatever they find running. You don't have to worry about your nephews getting ahead of you on a quest chain.
I imagine part of it just has to do with your nephews' ages. When Vanilla WoW was out, they were younger and were more content to go with whatever the elders were doing. Now at 15-17 they're more interested in doing their own thing. I know you're against PUGs but trying to find a few regular people you can count on might be the best solution and then just let your nephews do their own thing.
Another idea might be to just assume that your nephews will always go off and do something without you, so you should do something without them. They gain a level, you gain a level. If they're PVPing and dungeoning and you are too, they aren't going to get out of sync with quests on you.
How are they able to swap classes around? If you're all say level 40 and they get tired of the warrior, are they powerleveling a new toon up real quick? Is this a recruit a friend xpX3 thing? I've been out of WoW for a while.
I can totally see getting fixated on a toon and playing it until you get sick of it. It might not be able to be helped. Can you persuade their parents to limit their playtime so they don't get a lot of non-family time? Or as silly as this sounds, force them to play other toons?
Good luck.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Quit whatever game you're playing, if you want to play together and it isn't letting you. Find a different game that will make it easier to play together. A lot of games put little consideration into how players will actually assemble groups, and that's an enormous design flaw. So don't play those games. Problem solved.
There are a variety of approaches to making it easy to group with whoever you want, such as sidekicking (e.g., Champions Online), letting everyone hit the level cap very quickly (e.g., Guild Wars), or making levels not matter (e.g., Puzzle Pirates).
Again, pick up groups or just finding other people to play with isn't an option. 90% of them are selfish jerks that don't care about anything but the loot. I'd rather not fish through a bunch of losers just to find one cool person to play with. Secondly, we are really walking a fine line in how we play the content, and perhaps that's our problem. We have 4 elders who all are on the same page about how we approach playing MMOs. We then have 4-5 nephews that really don't care about our group and just want to play their way and get loot. Without them, we just don't have enough people to even play an MMO (stupid forced grouping!) We really like to take our time and do the content, quest, level up, do 5-mans, then heroics, then raids, then maybe heroic raids, but we've never gotten that far. Most players are either so casual that they don't even group with players, or they're such loot freaks that they don't care to wait on their group and prefer just doing pickups and getting the best loot ASAP. There really aren't many like us.
I've tried getting us to play a different MMORPG, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Everquest II, but none of them stick. The young ones keep floating back to World of Warcraft, and the other elders just don't ever bother logging in.
I really don't know what to do. WoW has been our go to game for six years, but now it's just not working out the way it used to. Before we had more elders to play with us. They have since gotten too busy and have stopped playing with us, so we have to find other people to play with. It's not working out, and MMORPGs don't have grouping with less than 5 players. No other games have held our attention as much as WoW, and Diablo II before that. My brothers want to get together every weekend to play something, and for some reason they like to put it on my shoulders to decide what we'll play, so I'm constantly looking for a new game, or new methods to play old games.
IMO your only solution given the constraints you have put forth is that you yourself play the tank and find a reliable adult to play the cleric:D once you have those 2 slots filled, it doesnt really matter what anyone else plays does it?:D a well played tank with reliable cleric support can smooth out practically any encounter reguardless of what the rest of the group is composed of... but then again, given those to slots filled, PUG's arent really much of a problem either:D if someone is being an arse, boot them and find a rep:p
moral of the story, if you have a very well played tank, alot of things will be smooth to the point of boring...
Friends of mine stuck with CoX specifically because it's one of the best MMORPGs for playing with friends/family despite level differences.
Class combinations are still tricky, but less tricky when any member of the group can make a lowbie alt and immediately play with the rest of the group.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not just saying play a different game chosen at random with the same grouping flaws as WoW. I'm saying, intentionally pick a game that tries to make it easy to group with the people you want to group with. Have you tried that? From your list of games, it sounds like the answer is "no".
Though it sounds to me like the real problem might be that you want to group with your nephews, but they don't want to group the people your age. That isn't solvable by game mechanics.
Xenophobic much?
If you want an honest answer; I dont think you have a place in MMO's if youre so against grouping with players outside of your family and friends. One of the most appealing aspect of MMO's for me is meeting new people and making friends online.
Another appealing aspect of MMO's is that you can play the game the way you want to play them (most of the time), but you are upset that your nephews focus more on PvP than you do, and thus seem to 'out-level' the content you are working on.
I suggest approaching the situation with a bit more of a give and receive attitude, If your nephews want to PvP, let them do so, and if you help them out, they may be more inclined to help you out in your endevours, and vice versa...
But if youre dead set about keeping your group friends & family only, then I think you may have a more enjoyable experience playing Single-Player or Co-Op RPG's and Puzzle-Platformers.
It sounds like harsh advice, but MMO's are popular because of the social nature of them, and I doubt that will change in the near future.
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
Obviously you haven't noticed that pretty much every major MMO allows soloing nowadays, and that all the upcoming MMOs strongly support it as well.
Playing multiplayer games by yourself is in now! You need to be more hip and with it, apparently.
Bad advice sadly.....
I play with a group of around 10-12 friends , who have played together for the last 15 years.
Pickup players in general are a waste of time and are in too much of a rush which means no fun or enjoyment.
We all play solo & group sometimes but none of us are in a rush or pressured to beat games.
We have found that just enjoying and competing in our circle is what makes the games.....
And no pressure to play specific class types/ bullying or its a job scenarios that come from the normal set of bully boy guilds.
So reading your advice and basing it on my MMO experiences . I would say is a load of rubbish with the respect to circles I play in.
Any games that Offer;
Cliff Jumping (to see who can take the most damage from a fall) , Arena where we can fight each other for a laugh or just general mess around features then that is a bonus.
Approach Alternatives;
Completing quests with no DPS or no Healing running groups that shopuld just outright fail is our approach to having a fun time. You just don't get that with most of the idiots who seem to be parsing damage stats and kicking the person from a group because they maybe dont have the best armor or can't play for 10 hours straight.
Soloing is all well and good, and I support the option for those people who like to play by themselves, but when solo players begin to whine about how they cant achieve as much or get the same equipment than those who play in groups, then its time for those people to look at playing singleplayer game in their spare time.
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
Which has nothing to do with this person's complaints, really.
I think you have some personal issues with certain parts of the MMO population, and maybe you should start a new topic if you want to vent about it.
It's called an Opinion.
I said my peace, and gave my advice, period.
You may disagree, and that is your perogative, But neither You nor I have the right to tell someone else where their opinions belong, good or bad.
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
I respect your opinion, and thanks for your reply. I do agree with the others more though. This isn't a complaint about soloing and not being able to progress. I'm asking for advice to get these other friends of mine to understand how I think our group needs to go down to have the most fun and be the most successful. I need advice on how to better enjoy the game the way I want to rather than having to go outside my comfort zone. I'm not a friendly person. I do not care to meet people online and make friends in an MMORPG. I have absolutely zero interest in the social aspect of an MMORPG.
I might have mentioned this, but if a game like Diablo II had constant updates and content added over the last many years, I'd probably still be playing it and wouldn't even bother with an MMORPG. A game like Oblivion, Fallout, or Stalker with cooperative play and continual added content would be much more appealing to me than an MMO, but they don't have multiplayer.
I know I don't need to stick to MMORPGs, but there are so few games out there that support any multiplayer coop, especially long term. MMORPGs are the best type, and the ones I listed are the ones I've found the most fun. I've tried a lot or MMORPGs, but I'm not a fan and I know my friends wouldn't be a fan.
I guess given this information, you should consider the genre of games you enjoy. do you NEED the progression aspect of the RPG to keep things interesting and how much progression do you feel adeqate?(some shooters also have progression based scheme) what attracts you to a game? the loot mechanic that is built into an RPG? leveling/skill progression? when identified, these things may help you in determining the proper course of action in your quest in finding the right game/solution to your current issue.
are you into shooters at all? it's easy to keep a tight group of players in a shooter type game. maybe host your own RTS server and do some multiplay starcraft? ARMA2 has all kinds of player created content you can download to add to years of gameplay if you enjoy a military simulation/shooter type game with some VERY large maps so you dont feel like you are shooting fish in a barrel in typical FPS type games.
Yes, progression is very important to me. It doesn't matter what kind of progression, but it has to be long lasting. Progression in a game that just ends is kind of a waste. I need that continual progression.
Real time strategy games and first person shooters are seriously lacking in any kind of progression other than bragging rights, which I don't care about. Most of them also lack in cooperative play. I don't care about player vs player.
My target of games is really in the RPG with cooperative play. Especially one that can be everlasting with multiple playthroughs or continue to play after beating the game.