Originally posted by bcbully You guys really don't pvp huh?
I'm running around with thousands everyday in ESO. Small groups, duos, 60 man zergs. Healers, AoE dd, single target gankers, siege tanks. All types of multiplayer activities.
Expand your horizons. You're missing a lot.
As the OP was being specific about two specific, but broadly defined play styles, it's not unheard of for people to comment upon the topic at hand. Not that I disagree with your premise. However, pvp is only one subset of multiplayer not the whole. Some like, some dislike. It has very little to do with broad/narrow horizons. Some don't like shrimp or broccoli either. Tastes differ
EDIT PVP itself has sub groups some of whom often don't play well together with other pvp variants. Open World , RVR, Battleground, Balanced, zergs, open looting, no looting, scoring, no scoring, ranked, non ranked, ladders, flagged(consensual(, non-flagged(non consensual), gear based, player based, skill based, twitch, tactical, strategy, duelists, gankers, team based, ffa, lone wolves ect ect I've even seen role-play pvp groups
"If you happened to play a class that had more utility, but was outperformed by other classes, then you were effectively shunned from groups."
I can relate to this as I played a retripaladin during WoW TBC. My dps could never beat a decent mage in heroics, but I had loads of stuff that a mage didn't have. I've saved more than a few tanks and healers with lay on hands and blessings of protection. Surprisingly though, many people don't notice those kinds of things.
Another myth some just love to share with others is that multiplayer is missing from modern MMO. You CAN solo while content and love this. Some of us have jobs, study, ... or anything that prevent us to plan in advance weeks for next raid and spend half day for this planning. But if you CAN something does not mean you also MUST. And ALL games have both options. Only problem is very vocal never happy people (many times not players at all or ex players).
The entire article seems to be based on dikuMUD as the definition of MUD. Once you include things like Tiny and LPMUD, the whole argument falls apart.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Yes of course it is the lack of player roles but the old school way is also not realistic and not a better option.
First we must realize that nobody can be really good at everything but SHOULD be capable of learning more than just one role.That is why i fell in love with FFXI,it did it just right,it maintained that ROLE while still allowing you to have a smaller sub role and abler to learn ALL roles over time.FFXI also had a skill based system,meaning you could not simply hop on any class and be good at it,you had to build up your skills in various roles to be a good player.
What else is important was again done right by FFXI,you had to maintain good use of your mana,meaning you could not simply spam and quickly regen.There were bonuses to killing in a certain time frame as well,so a good multiplayer group was important.
The big problem with quest hubs is that they are NEVER going to cater to anyone other than yourself,so of course they do not cater to multiplayer.Your not going to ask a friend who is already 200 quests ahead of you to go back and do them all with you again and even worse if you had to assemble a group.However with a sub class system "MUCH better than any ALT system"you always had a class you could hop on to join a friend.Then of course the mentoring system aids that as well but does not aid quest hub designs.
This whole new era that Blizzard pretty much started the same time as EQ2 of quest hubbing caters to soloists who don't really want a role playing game but more so hand held content to run point to point with by themselves.Simply adding in rpg elements does not make it a MMORPG.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Encouraged cooperation is what I think we need more of. it is sort of a risk vs reward thing, where you risk running into unpleasent players if you choose to play cooperative, but the rewards are higher on several levels, not only better gear or more xp but the chance to see and explore parts of the world where you could not survive alone, and the reward from a shared experience which is greatly underappreciated in modern mmo.
At the same time cooperative play should not be so forced that it comes to a point where it is the only way to play. The class system can lead to this kind of forced grouping and I think that is why there is much opposition to class based games. Even a die hard eq fanboi like me prefer grouping in lesser bites, but still the most rewarding and memorable moments have all been shared with others in some way.
So we do need new systems or twists to class based mechanics to avoid the pitfalls of forced grouping - and there are some attempts at this although not matured yet. GW2 has an interesting concept of some encounters rising in difficulty to match the players participating and also give better rewards the more players (afaik?) This is a pretty good idea that can ecourage cooperative combat, but not exactly force it. Unfortunately GW2 messed this nice concept up by making a completely non cooperative combat system that is basically just soloing among other soloers.. The obvious flaw is there is no roles and little cooperation, and therefore hardly any shared feeling of acomplisment.
One obvious solution is a looser role defintion than classes, which has had various attempts from WoWs talent build switching to more advanced skill based systems. These are hard to control and balance but it is the way forward. So a way to hold on to roles because that is what builds shared experiences and cooperative/interdependent combat, but not as hardwired roles as classes. I beleive it is important to be able to take on a role that matches a situation to avoid the old "we can't continue without a healer", But ALSO and more importantly more ways to combine roles than the narrow minded tank and spank... Kiting, charming, pet tanking, rooting to mention a few tried examples.. Dear devs, more visions, more thinking outside the box, more balls needed, thank you.
Class or Talents or Skills is not the true question, it is how these systems allow for variety and allow roles to cooperate.
edit. I think I need to elaborate what a role means. A role is not a simple defintion of a healer for example, it is more like a set of abilities, skills, spells, whatever that make up your contribution to the cooperative play. You may be a tank and need to work on keeping somethings attention on you, but your choice of actions has effects on other players, put a temp buff on resistances, or attack abilities dependingon the situation, while the so called healer also can choose to attack, focus heals, run auras or something else.. Tank is caged ? Now your role is suddenly to stun, pusback, snare, cc, or something else.. Mob is at 40% but healer is oom, rogue switches from backstabber to channeling mana to the healer or turns into a healer .. Last fight You were a healer, but these baddies could use some stuns to interrupt their nasty ae and You are much better at stun, so that might be your role this fight.. Loads of possibilities, just have get out of the traditional thinking.
A role is how you play your character and what you choose to do in a cooperative situation, and the game should give you some freedom in these choices.
Unfortuntately, people aren't going to quit being d-bags (as mentioned by a few posters here), until publishers put forth the effort to effectively police servers like they usually are on smaller scale platforms. Banning such idiots en masse is the only to really be rid of them.
For me, personally, I find my issue stems not such much from the lack of Multiplayer as is from the presence of the Massive. I've realized I simply don't enjoy wading through seas of players. I think what I'm really looking for is just a MORPG - people to play with without having to deal with masses of people. If you wanted to be really pessimistic about it, you could think of it as being the more people there are about, the less each individual person is worth.
I'm sorry but I really can't take Mark's opinion serious. I know he has a quadrillion more percent more experience making games, but I really, really feel like he didn't play them enough.
Truly, if you've been busy developing games, you haven't had the chance to play one 24/7, pulling an allnighter every 2 days.
Classes are very different from eachother in an MMO even if they have 50% cross-over skills.
Don't think about ONE skill... think about ONE skill synergizing with 20 other abilities and you have a better idea of how a class works.
There are more players that want to be self-sufficient than there are players who want to depend on other players and developers can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of creating systems that are social, without relying on that dependence.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I don't even have to read the article to know why multiplayer is missing. Too many people had bad experiences that went like this:
I played with this player and they were a D-bag. I tried playing with other people and I found more D-bags. D-bags D-bags D-bags. They're everywhere! So I started playing solo and I demanded the ability to solo 95% of everything in every game I play.
A few developers started catering to this type of person and the industry became flooded with more of the same B.S. over the past couple of years. If developers would just stop trying to please everyone with every game then gaming would start getting back to the way it should be.
There was also the, im tired of waiting for 2-4 hours for a group, and then tired of waiting for a group only for it to break up real fast for whatever reason and then having to wait again. Or this one guy leaves especially if its a tank or healer and then waiting for a long time to find a replacement.
Some of you (incl the OP, of course) have very good points.
It *does* have to do with player behaviour. I would wager that most people just want to play their chosen game, perhaps with friends or guildmates. Then come the loud-mouthed, rude brats who squawk and fuss or who party up and show what gems of humanity they are (said with sarcasm).
Class shunning - in the good old days of Guild Wars (orig), I played a blood necro. She could actually out-heal a monk healer at level and often performed that function for any party smart enough to give her a chance (which was quite a few). But when the devs listened to the griefing monks, those skills were tweaked and adjusted and nerfed until she was far less effective (still viable, though). Do any of you remember the now infamous monk strikes in GW? Yeah, a bunch of the dipwads determined they should be *paid* to heal parties, and held healing ransom. At any rate, my necro is now a very effective curse mistress (minions are too boring). And hench/hero healers took the place of real ones.
True, when folks come home from a rough day at work or school, they don't want to look for a party. If a party is mandatory for content, they will likely find a new game. Personally, I solo most content in most games BUT I also have an awesome guild full of good folks whom I also party and game with as our schedules allow. I dislike games that require you to solo or require you to party - I prefer a good, healthy mix of the two.
But yes, someone mentioned there is a difference between multi-player and being social. If more people were actually social, multi-playing would be so much better. As it is now, the arses tend to ruin the experience for everyone.
You might want to take into account that many people want to roleplay a lone wolf or similar character archetype who travels alone through the virtual world. US culture has always praise do-it-yourselfers, praised accomplishing difficult things without help, and put negative value on needing help and begging. We often hear about how bad it is to be co-dependent - IMO that's exactly what required group play in MMOs is, forced co-dependance.
Guess you never heard of EverQuest and played as a Necromancer or Druid.
Nowadays games Solo way easier and bring more profit to player than group since you don't need to share you loots and quests reward are enough to cover the cost (potions , items repair , ect ...) need to hunt down monster.
The price of solo wasn't right , it too cheap .
I know it because it once cost me large among of gold , items and hours of prepare and fighting just to solo a boss
IMO , everything must be solo able but you need to pay right price for it.
There are many factors lead players to group with other , sadly they all get they ass kicked off by instance story drive quest progression.
IMO , instance story drive quest hubs progress even worst problem than "hero" class (who able to do anything) .
Of course we need story in our MMORPGs , we need tasks, quests and progression too , and instance at right place .
But mix all of them together in one bowl is ... i don't know how to portray it by words.
Sometime the foods need to put in difference plates and not mix together , or it will become something else .
To me the most reason lead me to multiplayer mode (group) because i can share things with other and do long term things
mostly mobs grind.
But instance dungeon gears grind wasn't good IMO , it too rush , lack of downtime and don't have the openness where you can encounter another players by random .
I think i prefer the game with more casual , less rush and no story drive.
Game where i log in do some tasks from NPC for little gold or pack up and do some monster hunting for gold and materials .
Sometime join epic GM events like dragon attack , manage to get last hit and get dragon slayer tittle .
The lack of "casual" are main cause of "missing" , i believe .
There are more players that want to be self-sufficient than there are players who want to depend on other players and developers can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of creating systems that are social, without relying on that dependence.
I think dependence is the wrong word for what devs should be trying to implement. I think synergy is a better word. I don't want to be "dependent" upon another player. But being able to group with other individuals and becoming more than the sum of our individual parts is something that I think MMOs really should be looking into.
Soloing is here to stay. It always was. But the tendency to restrict group activities to instanced content needs to go. Even then, the content seems to be so canned and predictable that it requires no communication between players to even complete. That is a travesty.
There are more players that want to be self-sufficient than there are players who want to depend on other players and developers can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of creating systems that are social, without relying on that dependence.
I think dependence is the wrong word for what devs should be trying to implement. I think synergy is a better word. I don't want to be "dependent" upon another player. But being able to group with other individuals and becoming more than the sum of our individual parts is something that I think MMOs really should be looking into.
Soloing is here to stay. It always was. But the tendency to restrict group activities to instanced content needs to go. Even then, the content seems to be so canned and predictable that it requires no communication between players to even complete. That is a travesty.
I think Rift was a step in the right direction, with their dynamic groups and world bosses. It's content that cannot be soloed, but at the same time, players can participate as individuals. Players can also bypass a lot of that content if they don't want to participate too. It's not nearly enough, but I thought it was a decent start.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
the opportunity to have meaningful group interaction has always been there if you want it, people that are soloing are not the minority,mmos for those who solo are about a digital life that has the same feel as the real world, a game that forces you to group through artificial means I.E. the antiquated holy trinity, and creatures that are just too tough to solo, also, soloers have never said that there should be NO group content, it seems to only be the people that want to group saying that there should be no solo content, there is pleanty of room in mmos for both grouping and soloing.
There are more players that want to be self-sufficient than there are players who want to depend on other players and developers can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of creating systems that are social, without relying on that dependence.
I think dependence is the wrong word for what devs should be trying to implement. I think synergy is a better word. I don't want to be "dependent" upon another player. But being able to group with other individuals and becoming more than the sum of our individual parts is something that I think MMOs really should be looking into.
Soloing is here to stay. It always was. But the tendency to restrict group activities to instanced content needs to go. Even then, the content seems to be so canned and predictable that it requires no communication between players to even complete. That is a travesty.
I think Rift was a step in the right direction, with their dynamic groups and world bosses. It's content that cannot be soloed, but at the same time, players can participate as individuals. Players can also bypass a lot of that content if they don't want to participate too. It's not nearly enough, but I thought it was a decent start.
Agreed. Dynamic content is key. The bane of instanced grouping is that the dungeon remains the same every time. If you've ran it once, you know exactly where to go, what to do, how to fight certain rooms, etc. In this day and age, I believe that dungeons, even instanced ones, can be created to spawn mobs, and even bosses, dynamically. Bosses that have different abilities, different weaknesses, and different tactics. Of course, there would need to be a method by which players can recognize the abilities being used and the weaknesses to exploit. Because throwing a group of players with Fire Mage DPS into a boss fight with a boss who was immune to fire without any way to tell before he wipes the group would be frustrating. Though the shock value, at least initially, would be enough for me to enjoy the encounter, even if we weren't victorious.
I'd personally prefer less of a guided storyline that forces camps and dungeons to contain specific mobs and bosses (I have no interest in being the "one true hero" in an MMO), and more of an overarching lore that simply explains why the area is filled with hostile monsters. That way, each visit can be fresh due to dynamically spawning variations of the mobs/bosses the area is filled with.
I'll answer your question with a counter question. Why should I be forced to play with, more often than not, an inexperienced and weak players? I know this sounds a bit harsh and elitist and I hate elitist and I don't consider myself an elitist but see my point of view...
I play Gw2 on a daily basis for hours on end. I run many dungeons and mostly with PuGs. Now ... I've had runs going for 30 minutes (arah p2 with good players) and I've had the same dungeon with inexperienced players for 2-3 hours if not more. I don't like kicking people out of group, I think its a dick move to do. I teach people, but no matter how many I teach, tomorrow a new newbie will come and he will slow me down. Why should I keep up with them when I can solo the said path for a little over an hour? Sure I won't get better rewards, yes it is not easier, infact its quite challenging, the bosses are tuned for 5-man play after all, but when you draw the line, you either go with friends and have fun or you solo, because you don't want to deal with inexperienced players.
Although it's worth nothing to say that higher level fractals are a blast. Everybody knows their stuff and it just goes, we even joke around and generally have fun.
So yeah, as an old-time MMO player (if my 12 year experience in MMOs alone can grant me that title) I think MMOs are better than ever. Especially Gw2. If you are good enough, you don't have to deal with people, period. Sometimes dealing with people is pain, especially when there is a language barrier, and that is more often the case. Gw2 gives you plenty of time to socialize so evidently putting all new MMOs under the same roof is quite idiotic thing to do, pardon my language.
P.S: I found my girlfriend in an MMO (we were in the same clan). We're together for a little bit over 3 years now. I do not think "social" is gone. Its just not enforced
P.S 2: Also as developers maybe stop flooding the market, let people give MMOs a chance longer than 20 days (before the next AAAAAAA MMO comes out) and maybe just maybe they will find a home?
Multiplayer is missing from these games because most the content that requires grouping is instanced and with people from different servers. People called SWToR a singleplayer experience, but it has parts of the zone that require groups to do some quests. Zenimax added a zone created for four players, not sure how that is going but it sounds like a good concept to get players to group.
Levels hinder from playing together cause I might have more time to play than my friend, but I don't want to wait so I go ahead and level. Usually the only way I could level with a friend is make an alt to level with him while I play my main when he's not on.
Diminishing returns on XP and loot due to grouping is also a negative reinforcement for playing with people. Getting less XP and losing out on loot is also a reason people avoid groups whenever they can. Reward grouping, let players have their own loot, and make trash mobs dangerous enough that they require a buddy system or better to defeat them. Or remove trash mobs and have elites be the norm. The danger needs to definitely ramp up in PVE. This is why OWPVP folks have so much fun. THAT'S the type of danger players face when roaming in OWPVP.
Games need to stop assuming just because someone plays casually that they are some inept being that needs special access. Casual players go where the fun & action is regardless of the presumed difficulty. When you leave a hub town or village it should feel dangerous so when an NPC says "hey it's dangerous out there" it actually is. Dark Souls was popular for a reason.
That is what will motivate grouping, not taking outdated and regressive measures like locking people into class and reverting to hard trinity. We must also remember grouping is the agreement between 2 or more people to stick together, an agreement that can be terminated at any time. You do not need LFG or party forming tools to do this. It's much more organic and should be treated as such. Provide the challenges and let people create their own solutions.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
I started playing everquest early 2001 and I often soloed; as a wizard class I could. But I was very social. I remember playing in zones with other players, we would share camps, if we couldn't split mobs we'd agree to each take one; we'd chat while medding (for those of you unare of medding - healing or getting mana back took a few minutes). Many zones had multiple level mobs and folks would shout warnings when high level ones would wander about. Some zones even had raid level mobs and raids in EQ were often well over 70. Getting caught by a raid level mob was a laugh, sort of... Yet it's the things people remember and mostly with pleasure.
The author is dead on. I've said this like a 100 times in my rants about modern MMOs.
Bring back class dependencies!
I agree.
Folks used to say to me they want to solo in EQ. Well they could, just create a toon that can solo.
I wanted to be able to do what the SK class did, so I created one; I didn't whine to SOE that my wizard needed to be able to tank like a warrior, sneak like a thief, heal like a cleric and dps like a wizard (that would have made him a bard at that time ); the trouble is whiners are very vocal, those that like the system tend to keep quiet until it is too late.
My advice, if you like how the game is now, make sure you let the devs know. Whine about the whiners.
Comments
EDIT PVP itself has sub groups some of whom often don't play well together with other pvp variants. Open World , RVR, Battleground, Balanced, zergs, open looting, no looting, scoring, no scoring, ranked, non ranked, ladders, flagged(consensual(, non-flagged(non consensual), gear based, player based, skill based, twitch, tactical, strategy, duelists, gankers, team based, ffa, lone wolves ect ect I've even seen role-play pvp groups
"If you happened to play a class that had more utility, but was outperformed by other classes, then you were effectively shunned from groups."
I can relate to this as I played a retripaladin during WoW TBC. My dps could never beat a decent mage in heroics, but I had loads of stuff that a mage didn't have. I've saved more than a few tanks and healers with lay on hands and blessings of protection. Surprisingly though, many people don't notice those kinds of things.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Yes of course it is the lack of player roles but the old school way is also not realistic and not a better option.
First we must realize that nobody can be really good at everything but SHOULD be capable of learning more than just one role.That is why i fell in love with FFXI,it did it just right,it maintained that ROLE while still allowing you to have a smaller sub role and abler to learn ALL roles over time.FFXI also had a skill based system,meaning you could not simply hop on any class and be good at it,you had to build up your skills in various roles to be a good player.
What else is important was again done right by FFXI,you had to maintain good use of your mana,meaning you could not simply spam and quickly regen.There were bonuses to killing in a certain time frame as well,so a good multiplayer group was important.
The big problem with quest hubs is that they are NEVER going to cater to anyone other than yourself,so of course they do not cater to multiplayer.Your not going to ask a friend who is already 200 quests ahead of you to go back and do them all with you again and even worse if you had to assemble a group.However with a sub class system "MUCH better than any ALT system"you always had a class you could hop on to join a friend.Then of course the mentoring system aids that as well but does not aid quest hub designs.
This whole new era that Blizzard pretty much started the same time as EQ2 of quest hubbing caters to soloists who don't really want a role playing game but more so hand held content to run point to point with by themselves.Simply adding in rpg elements does not make it a MMORPG.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Encouraged cooperation is what I think we need more of. it is sort of a risk vs reward thing, where you risk running into unpleasent players if you choose to play cooperative, but the rewards are higher on several levels, not only better gear or more xp but the chance to see and explore parts of the world where you could not survive alone, and the reward from a shared experience which is greatly underappreciated in modern mmo.
At the same time cooperative play should not be so forced that it comes to a point where it is the only way to play. The class system can lead to this kind of forced grouping and I think that is why there is much opposition to class based games. Even a die hard eq fanboi like me prefer grouping in lesser bites, but still the most rewarding and memorable moments have all been shared with others in some way.
So we do need new systems or twists to class based mechanics to avoid the pitfalls of forced grouping - and there are some attempts at this although not matured yet. GW2 has an interesting concept of some encounters rising in difficulty to match the players participating and also give better rewards the more players (afaik?) This is a pretty good idea that can ecourage cooperative combat, but not exactly force it. Unfortunately GW2 messed this nice concept up by making a completely non cooperative combat system that is basically just soloing among other soloers.. The obvious flaw is there is no roles and little cooperation, and therefore hardly any shared feeling of acomplisment.
One obvious solution is a looser role defintion than classes, which has had various attempts from WoWs talent build switching to more advanced skill based systems. These are hard to control and balance but it is the way forward. So a way to hold on to roles because that is what builds shared experiences and cooperative/interdependent combat, but not as hardwired roles as classes. I beleive it is important to be able to take on a role that matches a situation to avoid the old "we can't continue without a healer", But ALSO and more importantly more ways to combine roles than the narrow minded tank and spank... Kiting, charming, pet tanking, rooting to mention a few tried examples.. Dear devs, more visions, more thinking outside the box, more balls needed, thank you.
Class or Talents or Skills is not the true question, it is how these systems allow for variety and allow roles to cooperate.
edit. I think I need to elaborate what a role means. A role is not a simple defintion of a healer for example, it is more like a set of abilities, skills, spells, whatever that make up your contribution to the cooperative play. You may be a tank and need to work on keeping somethings attention on you, but your choice of actions has effects on other players, put a temp buff on resistances, or attack abilities dependingon the situation, while the so called healer also can choose to attack, focus heals, run auras or something else.. Tank is caged ? Now your role is suddenly to stun, pusback, snare, cc, or something else.. Mob is at 40% but healer is oom, rogue switches from backstabber to channeling mana to the healer or turns into a healer .. Last fight You were a healer, but these baddies could use some stuns to interrupt their nasty ae and You are much better at stun, so that might be your role this fight.. Loads of possibilities, just have get out of the traditional thinking.
A role is how you play your character and what you choose to do in a cooperative situation, and the game should give you some freedom in these choices.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Unfortuntately, people aren't going to quit being d-bags (as mentioned by a few posters here), until publishers put forth the effort to effectively police servers like they usually are on smaller scale platforms. Banning such idiots en masse is the only to really be rid of them.
For me, personally, I find my issue stems not such much from the lack of Multiplayer as is from the presence of the Massive. I've realized I simply don't enjoy wading through seas of players. I think what I'm really looking for is just a MORPG - people to play with without having to deal with masses of people. If you wanted to be really pessimistic about it, you could think of it as being the more people there are about, the less each individual person is worth.
I'm sorry but I really can't take Mark's opinion serious. I know he has a quadrillion more percent more experience making games, but I really, really feel like he didn't play them enough.
Truly, if you've been busy developing games, you haven't had the chance to play one 24/7, pulling an allnighter every 2 days.
Classes are very different from eachother in an MMO even if they have 50% cross-over skills.
Don't think about ONE skill... think about ONE skill synergizing with 20 other abilities and you have a better idea of how a class works.
There are more players that want to be self-sufficient than there are players who want to depend on other players and developers can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea of creating systems that are social, without relying on that dependence.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There was also the, im tired of waiting for 2-4 hours for a group, and then tired of waiting for a group only for it to break up real fast for whatever reason and then having to wait again. Or this one guy leaves especially if its a tank or healer and then waiting for a long time to find a replacement.
Some of you (incl the OP, of course) have very good points.
It *does* have to do with player behaviour. I would wager that most people just want to play their chosen game, perhaps with friends or guildmates. Then come the loud-mouthed, rude brats who squawk and fuss or who party up and show what gems of humanity they are (said with sarcasm).
Class shunning - in the good old days of Guild Wars (orig), I played a blood necro. She could actually out-heal a monk healer at level and often performed that function for any party smart enough to give her a chance (which was quite a few). But when the devs listened to the griefing monks, those skills were tweaked and adjusted and nerfed until she was far less effective (still viable, though). Do any of you remember the now infamous monk strikes in GW? Yeah, a bunch of the dipwads determined they should be *paid* to heal parties, and held healing ransom. At any rate, my necro is now a very effective curse mistress (minions are too boring). And hench/hero healers took the place of real ones.
True, when folks come home from a rough day at work or school, they don't want to look for a party. If a party is mandatory for content, they will likely find a new game. Personally, I solo most content in most games BUT I also have an awesome guild full of good folks whom I also party and game with as our schedules allow. I dislike games that require you to solo or require you to party - I prefer a good, healthy mix of the two.
But yes, someone mentioned there is a difference between multi-player and being social. If more people were actually social, multi-playing would be so much better. As it is now, the arses tend to ruin the experience for everyone.
Guess you never heard of EverQuest and played as a Necromancer or Druid.
Classes design wasn't main problem here.
Nowadays games Solo way easier and bring more profit to player than group since you don't need to share you loots and quests reward are enough to cover the cost (potions , items repair , ect ...) need to hunt down monster.
The price of solo wasn't right , it too cheap .
I know it because it once cost me large among of gold , items and hours of prepare and fighting just to solo a boss
IMO , everything must be solo able but you need to pay right price for it.
There are many factors lead players to group with other , sadly they all get they ass kicked off by instance story drive quest progression.
IMO , instance story drive quest hubs progress even worst problem than "hero" class (who able to do anything) .
Of course we need story in our MMORPGs , we need tasks, quests and progression too , and instance at right place .
But mix all of them together in one bowl is ... i don't know how to portray it by words.
Sometime the foods need to put in difference plates and not mix together , or it will become something else .
To me the most reason lead me to multiplayer mode (group) because i can share things with other and do long term things
mostly mobs grind.
But instance dungeon gears grind wasn't good IMO , it too rush , lack of downtime and don't have the openness where you can encounter another players by random .
I think i prefer the game with more casual , less rush and no story drive.
Game where i log in do some tasks from NPC for little gold or pack up and do some monster hunting for gold and materials .
Sometime join epic GM events like dragon attack , manage to get last hit and get dragon slayer tittle .
The lack of "casual" are main cause of "missing" , i believe .
I think dependence is the wrong word for what devs should be trying to implement. I think synergy is a better word. I don't want to be "dependent" upon another player. But being able to group with other individuals and becoming more than the sum of our individual parts is something that I think MMOs really should be looking into.
Soloing is here to stay. It always was. But the tendency to restrict group activities to instanced content needs to go. Even then, the content seems to be so canned and predictable that it requires no communication between players to even complete. That is a travesty.
I think Rift was a step in the right direction, with their dynamic groups and world bosses. It's content that cannot be soloed, but at the same time, players can participate as individuals. Players can also bypass a lot of that content if they don't want to participate too. It's not nearly enough, but I thought it was a decent start.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Agreed. Dynamic content is key. The bane of instanced grouping is that the dungeon remains the same every time. If you've ran it once, you know exactly where to go, what to do, how to fight certain rooms, etc. In this day and age, I believe that dungeons, even instanced ones, can be created to spawn mobs, and even bosses, dynamically. Bosses that have different abilities, different weaknesses, and different tactics. Of course, there would need to be a method by which players can recognize the abilities being used and the weaknesses to exploit. Because throwing a group of players with Fire Mage DPS into a boss fight with a boss who was immune to fire without any way to tell before he wipes the group would be frustrating. Though the shock value, at least initially, would be enough for me to enjoy the encounter, even if we weren't victorious.
I'd personally prefer less of a guided storyline that forces camps and dungeons to contain specific mobs and bosses (I have no interest in being the "one true hero" in an MMO), and more of an overarching lore that simply explains why the area is filled with hostile monsters. That way, each visit can be fresh due to dynamically spawning variations of the mobs/bosses the area is filled with.
I'll answer your question with a counter question. Why should I be forced to play with, more often than not, an inexperienced and weak players? I know this sounds a bit harsh and elitist and I hate elitist and I don't consider myself an elitist but see my point of view...
I play Gw2 on a daily basis for hours on end. I run many dungeons and mostly with PuGs. Now ... I've had runs going for 30 minutes (arah p2 with good players) and I've had the same dungeon with inexperienced players for 2-3 hours if not more. I don't like kicking people out of group, I think its a dick move to do. I teach people, but no matter how many I teach, tomorrow a new newbie will come and he will slow me down. Why should I keep up with them when I can solo the said path for a little over an hour? Sure I won't get better rewards, yes it is not easier, infact its quite challenging, the bosses are tuned for 5-man play after all, but when you draw the line, you either go with friends and have fun or you solo, because you don't want to deal with inexperienced players.
Although it's worth nothing to say that higher level fractals are a blast. Everybody knows their stuff and it just goes, we even joke around and generally have fun.
So yeah, as an old-time MMO player (if my 12 year experience in MMOs alone can grant me that title) I think MMOs are better than ever. Especially Gw2. If you are good enough, you don't have to deal with people, period. Sometimes dealing with people is pain, especially when there is a language barrier, and that is more often the case. Gw2 gives you plenty of time to socialize so evidently putting all new MMOs under the same roof is quite idiotic thing to do, pardon my language.
P.S: I found my girlfriend in an MMO (we were in the same clan). We're together for a little bit over 3 years now. I do not think "social" is gone. Its just not enforced
P.S 2: Also as developers maybe stop flooding the market, let people give MMOs a chance longer than 20 days (before the next AAAAAAA MMO comes out) and maybe just maybe they will find a home?
Multiplayer is missing from these games because most the content that requires grouping is instanced and with people from different servers. People called SWToR a singleplayer experience, but it has parts of the zone that require groups to do some quests. Zenimax added a zone created for four players, not sure how that is going but it sounds like a good concept to get players to group.
Levels hinder from playing together cause I might have more time to play than my friend, but I don't want to wait so I go ahead and level. Usually the only way I could level with a friend is make an alt to level with him while I play my main when he's not on.
The author is dead on. I've said this like a 100 times in my rants about modern MMOs.
Bring back class dependencies!
Diminishing returns on XP and loot due to grouping is also a negative reinforcement for playing with people. Getting less XP and losing out on loot is also a reason people avoid groups whenever they can. Reward grouping, let players have their own loot, and make trash mobs dangerous enough that they require a buddy system or better to defeat them. Or remove trash mobs and have elites be the norm. The danger needs to definitely ramp up in PVE. This is why OWPVP folks have so much fun. THAT'S the type of danger players face when roaming in OWPVP.
Games need to stop assuming just because someone plays casually that they are some inept being that needs special access. Casual players go where the fun & action is regardless of the presumed difficulty. When you leave a hub town or village it should feel dangerous so when an NPC says "hey it's dangerous out there" it actually is. Dark Souls was popular for a reason.
That is what will motivate grouping, not taking outdated and regressive measures like locking people into class and reverting to hard trinity. We must also remember grouping is the agreement between 2 or more people to stick together, an agreement that can be terminated at any time. You do not need LFG or party forming tools to do this. It's much more organic and should be treated as such. Provide the challenges and let people create their own solutions.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I agree.
Folks used to say to me they want to solo in EQ. Well they could, just create a toon that can solo.
I wanted to be able to do what the SK class did, so I created one; I didn't whine to SOE that my wizard needed to be able to tank like a warrior, sneak like a thief, heal like a cleric and dps like a wizard (that would have made him a bard at that time
); the trouble is whiners are very vocal, those that like the system tend to keep quiet until it is too late.
My advice, if you like how the game is now, make sure you let the devs know. Whine about the whiners.