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Group Size
Kryptonite_Hilo
Member Posts: 47
I'm just curious what everyone would prefer to have as an ideal group capacity. 8 was great in DAoC, but it would be hard at times to fill the whole group (late at night in an underpopulated realm situation).
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Ozek - DAOC
Niix - Other games that sucked
Born as a berserker, I was also a hero, a bounty hunter, a paladin ,a troubador and a paladin once again during my Mmo''s experiences .. Now travelling in a galaxy looking for a new adventure
The more the better really..
limiting groups to 4 would kind of suck..
voted 8 as thats the highest on the list.
Voted 8, but it's hard to really know with no mechanics, classes....game, really.
The negatives with having max at 8 seem very small compared to the positives. You can always run with fewer than 8. Unless they're planned on voice chat or somewhere else, rarely do you have perfectly even matchups just occur when you're roaming, especially in a three realm game.
8 also allows more flexibility in gameplay styles and space for redundant classes. This helps PUG's a lot more than pre-set groups. You can carry an extra person or two and still be able to grab that healer you need if someone logs on.
Also, if group abilities make it into this game, like buffs from different classes that stack with each other, or chained combos or abilities, 8 would increase the potential variety a lot.
Group size was one thing I thought DAoC got pretty close to perfect. With speed, mez, heal taking up 3 spots (ideally), there's just not enough space in a group of 5 or 6 to have variety for damage/peeling, or just trying new setups. Anything over 8 starts to feel too big, like you're running a mini-raid or something.
I thought about putting a 9+ option, but like one of the above posters, anything over 8 seemed too big to me. I didn't see it as a real option. With the game targeting a smaller audience I thought it would only make it harder to fill out a group if the maximum increased.
8 seemed like the magic cap number, but that’s coming from someone who has played DAoC since 2001.
And I don't consider 6-8 man groups to be small.
sticking with the old school magic number of 8, would love to see a resurgence of the classic 8 man.
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I voted 6, but would certainly support 8. 8Man groups worked in DAoC and it would work again in UC, but if the group were slightly smaller it might promote even more smaller skirmishes in addition to the obvious zerg that's going to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
It's hard to say without knowing more about the core mechanics and classes/synergy.
To be perfectly honest, I feel the whole 4 man, 5 man, 8 man group was more built around PVE.
I wish you had a poll option for > 8, because here's what I'm thinking, and I hope MJ sees this.
Forget the small limitation on group number. Toss it out the window entirely. I think with CU, especially with the idea of encouraging large battles, there is no group size per say.
There's no "group vs raid" mentality. It's all the same thing.
So basically you can just add as many people as you want, maybe with a max, but maybe not (not sure how group/raid frames would tie in exactly).
I'm just saying, do away with artificial limitations on group sizes. If you were going out into a battle in a war, would you arbitrarily group into little 4 or 5 man units? or just join your entire army?
So in CU, you just start a group, and keep adding people to it without worrying about "perfect group makeup" and other such nonsense. Just keep adding people to your group as the fight gets bigger, or keep your group small and surgical strike size if you want. Give the player the freedom of his group size, not some arbitrary pre determined number.
Of course this kind of ties into the mechanics of the game, which we don't know "exactly" how they're work yet. As in how would buffs work with a setup like this? I'm sure the mechanics could be designed to handle this idea, it's all about implementation after all.
I hope people like this idea. I think it's pretty cool!
MMO history - EVE GW2 SWTOR RIFT WAR COH/V EQ2 WOW DAOC
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Nope people won't.
Unless all you have is big AOE heals or want to have a UI that looks like a WOWx10 raid window to heal, it doesn't work.
Need to keep it small enough so healers can have some control.
Ozek - DAOC
Niix - Other games that sucked
6 or 8. We know you will need classes with healing, speed, and CC in groups. We don't know whether some classes will have more than one of those abilities (like bards in DAOC had speed, CC, and endurance regen) and what other crucial abilities such as endurance regen in DAOC will be required. With a 6 man group, you could have one class for each of these core abilities plus 3 damage or miscellaneous classes. That would seem like the minimum.
If every realm can get its core abilities into a group with just 2 classes, then a group size of 6 should be fine. If one or more realms needs 3 or more classes just to have the necessary skills, then 8 makes more sense.
Not spreading the most important abilities around to too many classes is something they'll need to watch out for in class design. It really was a problem for Albion in DAOC which needed 5 group slots just to cover the basics.
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But that would be up to the player. I'm talking about freedom here, not limitations.
If you want a smaller group to help your healers, then you'd have the freedom to do that. You'd only have to let the group get as big as you want to. Nobody would make you let a group get so big you couldn't figure out who to heal.
Besides I remember 40 man raids from wow, and I don't recall a big problem with single person heals. it's all about strategy.
It could be a combo of both built in game mechanics to gray out names in a raid type frame that are out of range, and also players deciding for example that healers A & B covers players 1-10, healers C & D covers 11-20, etc...
Plus, depending on the size of the battle, I remember healing in WAR that half the time I didn't have to look at raid frames, I could do it just by watching who was getting attacked, and seeing the health above their head. course that gets difficult in more chaotic fights so I'd watch the raid frames more closely.
it's all about how they implement mechanics though. it COULD be done if tried. there's a solution to every issue hehe.
MMO history - EVE GW2 SWTOR RIFT WAR COH/V EQ2 WOW DAOC
Tuktz - http://www.heretic.shivtr.com/
You're going to lose the group dynamic doing this system and I think you under-estimate the feeling of being part of a group thats part of a bigger group.
Why are you even against having group sizes? I don't see a downside to it, wether it be 6 or 8. Why would your system be so enticing, just sounds like a cluster-&%$# to deal with. Simple is better.
Ozek - DAOC
Niix - Other games that sucked
8 please.
I just think a static arbitrary group size is a remnant of old pve mindset. I'd love to see that thrown to the wind, LOL.
I don't think it would destroy the group dynamic at all. I think it would encourage it. You'd have more flexibility.
Of my several groups of friends that play mmo's, there's no magic number of them that fits perfectly with every game.
I don't have exactly 8 friends on at every given moment to fill a whole group in every game I play.
For example, with no arbitrary limit, I could get on and group EXACTLY who I want to run with, like my guildmates and perhaps some friends and allies. Wouldn't have to worry about perfect group makeup, or people getting left out because of arbitrary group size requirements.
if running 8 people is yoru thing, you can still do that, if running 4 people is your thing, by all means. If you want to add more to lead a big attack against a big keep or relic type keep, group up your alliance members, etc...
I guess I'm kind of thinking of warband in WAR, except there's no distinction between that and group. Basically everything is warband, and you can make it as small or as large as you want.
MMO history - EVE GW2 SWTOR RIFT WAR COH/V EQ2 WOW DAOC
Tuktz - http://www.heretic.shivtr.com/
There's no evidence set group sizes are remenant of PVE at all. If you have set 8 groups, you can run with 1-8 if you want with "your" friends, or meet new people to cap to 8.
I just don't see a benefit of over complicating keep raids for an individual healer. Don't try to make wow raids into this game, everything wow is being removed. You still have /bg communication type contact with your friends if you have more than 8, run two groups etc.
Its beneficial to have structure, too much freedom can be a negative, this would be a negative imo. Thankfully though, you're only person that has shown interest in this and with the huge successes of 8mans in DAOC i don't really see them doing anything except 6 or 8 man groups ( might drop to 6 because there are less classes available than daoc had - he's said that )
Ozek - DAOC
Niix - Other games that sucked
This! +1 and even if its just out of nostalgia.
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I think 7 should be considered.
Anything less would be disappointing. WAR had 6, and I always found the intra-group tactics a bit lacking there because of it, though the relatively low number of of classes may have contributed as well.
I feel one of the things that made DAoC so successfull was the cooperative potential in group PvP. Composition mattered, not necessarily because certain classes were better than others, but because strategy was so important. A group with a sound plan and good leadership could overcome the odds, and that was extremely rewarding.
8 wasn't really too much, but it was very difficult finding the 7 other players that you wanted, and I remember waiting for that 1 last person quite a lot of times.
I feel 7 would be the perfect blend of strategic potential and accessibility, especially considering that the game might have fewer classes than DAoC.
I think if you made a group 7 you would have one less person in your guild (else too many people end up getting left out ) and you would still end up waiting around for one person just as often? Maybe i'm wrong but i've seen this happen in multiple games.
Ozek - DAOC
Niix - Other games that sucked
Sure, that might be the case. But often, we would only have maybe 3 or 4 members of our guild online, and use pickup-members for the rest of the slots. In that case, my scenario is more relevant. I don't think running a full guild group was that common (at least not during the game's peak), and the guilds that did would usually have everyone on anyway.
Eight. 8. Ocho.
Nothing less than this. I will never understand only allowing players to be in small groups in a MMO. This is one of the reasons why (in my opinion) SWTOR failed. Let me group with a reasonable amount of friends!!!
SWTOR isn't an RvR game though. The competitive PvP in SWTOR is ranked war zones, which require you to have an 8 person group.