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What happened to 6-player Groups ?
Archlyte
Member RarePosts: 1,405
I used to enjoy getting together with 4 friends and one of the wives for harder content in MMORPGs. Nowadays that many players has to be grouped in a raid party, and you won't find any dungeons that will let you in ... only raids which will likely be a quick and nasty death.
I guess developers found it too hard to create challenges for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 players in the original group format, so they started hacking body parts off of the original group body. In some games 3 is now the group size, making it so that if it's a trinity game you almost have to have a Tank/Healer/DPS combo or it's game over.
I remember when playing in groups was a big enough thing that I would get into groups with (Amazingly) people I didn't know. Some challenges could not be toppled by a duo or solo. When I could not do something solo I didn't quit the game, didn't rant on general chat, I looked for others who were doing the same thing and asked if they wanted to team up. Some would say no, some would join but be stupid. But even in those occasions I rarely had to go and just do something else. If had to do something else guess what, there was actually other things to do.
The people who complained about groups must have had sympathetic ears among developers, ever looking to put out more and more anemic games. The group size fell, which made the in-game culture change to a more exclusive club of people able to fill small groups with one or two friends and therefore not needing anyone else. The solo player was really rewarded by this because in most games you can exceed the power threshold, and solo with the power of 2 other characters. A 6-man challenge prevented that, but a 3 man group can be soloed with a little time in grind.
The first wrong move in my opinion was the ban on 6-man groups. Do you miss the 6-man group?
I guess developers found it too hard to create challenges for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 players in the original group format, so they started hacking body parts off of the original group body. In some games 3 is now the group size, making it so that if it's a trinity game you almost have to have a Tank/Healer/DPS combo or it's game over.
I remember when playing in groups was a big enough thing that I would get into groups with (Amazingly) people I didn't know. Some challenges could not be toppled by a duo or solo. When I could not do something solo I didn't quit the game, didn't rant on general chat, I looked for others who were doing the same thing and asked if they wanted to team up. Some would say no, some would join but be stupid. But even in those occasions I rarely had to go and just do something else. If had to do something else guess what, there was actually other things to do.
The people who complained about groups must have had sympathetic ears among developers, ever looking to put out more and more anemic games. The group size fell, which made the in-game culture change to a more exclusive club of people able to fill small groups with one or two friends and therefore not needing anyone else. The solo player was really rewarded by this because in most games you can exceed the power threshold, and solo with the power of 2 other characters. A 6-man challenge prevented that, but a 3 man group can be soloed with a little time in grind.
The first wrong move in my opinion was the ban on 6-man groups. Do you miss the 6-man group?
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Post edited by Archlyte on
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I agree though devs have swayed against grouping and turned to soloing.Not a problem IF yoru game is a single player game,but these same devs are proclaiming themselves a MMO with a login screen.
The real truth behind these login screens has been to allow devs to create ongoing cash flow via cash shops and FORCING players to have had bought all the content,all the expansions before allowed to play any NEW content.Furthermore it means devs just move forward towards sales and no longer give a crap about that MMO world gimmick we all bought into.
Speaking of which...WHERE?Where is the living world we reside in these MMO's?We see players and a bunch of static structures and npc's.Even when NPC's are given a script or two they still do nothing else in the world.
Point being that before we needed to look at any player base structure,these developers needed to FIX their games and complete them as MMO worlds instead of just looking for ways to make more money from less effort.
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Quite surprised to see games move to smaller sizes rather than larger. But then class diversity went way down so perhaps no so surprising after all.
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It is enough people to ensure that conversation flows, so it is a nice social experience. It is easy enough to lead a 6man group - larger and you start getting issues with bio breaks, people making mistakes etc. A big thing is also that the group composition is less reliant on rare classes. In LotRO, you needed 1 tank, 1 healer, then 4 others, so 33% of the group were "rare".
When I dropped down to 4man groups in SW:TOR, it sucked. Main difficulty was finding tank and healer - 50% of the group had to be "rare". It also meant less variety in classes - it was always tank, healer, 2dps, so tactics in group content were always dull. It was also less social, especially in pugs. If you got 1 or 2 quiet / silent people it really killed the group and you'd be in for a boring run.
I've not played any games with 5man groups, so not sure how well they'd work. I'm assuming a balance between 4 and 6 man so doesn't sound too bad, but if you always need a tank and healer then not quite as easy to put together groups.
With just the 3 the last position wont really add anything gameplay wise, just more of something you really had so they cut it out. And Wow became the standard way to do things since.
At least that is my theory.
Still, this left 4 open slots for a variety of hybrid classes to serve as off tanks, secondary healers, buff/debuff and if feeling generous, a primary DPS.
In fact, the only classes I struggled in getting groups for were steathers, which included rogue and archer types because they brought little utility to the group.
Still, while leveling up most groups would take one of these along out of realm courtesy, and the fact they had already or would be leveling one of their own so it behooved them to help others.
As each expansion added new classes to play, even 8 mans seemed too small, players started clamoring for 10 man group size which I'm told Mythic considered but then TOA happened and the diaspora began.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Does this sound like a Healer or a Mage? No, this is a Killer (Bartle Player Type) or DPS type. These are the problem players and classes for all MMOs. These are the players that don't want to group or be encumbered by groups. And this has lead to solo content and the dumbing down of MMOs. We do realize there are still MMOs that support large group content. But their number is falling, and that is the issue being discussed. The Demise of Group Content.
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I personally despise it and really miss group focused games (because its called an MMO) and when we had other roles like CC, buffer/debuffers and mixed jobs that could fill multiple roles. For me going from the depth, heavy grouping and variety of roles FFXI had to the very dumbed down FFXIV i pretty much lost most of my interest in the genre and me and my friends have yet to find a newer solid group focused game that isnt full of linear gear level grinds and 80% solo content. I'm praying to RNGesus that Pantheon or saga of lucimia turn out to well and the fact they are indie games don't hurt them too much.
WoW came along and made 5 man groups and 40 man raids, lowering that to 25 later, and then everyone copied them in an attempt to reproduce WoW's numbers. The only time WoW was truely Massively Multiplayer was world PvP when you'd get a big fight at the Crossroads or Tarren Mill.
In many ways WoW changed the MMO genre for the better but it also did a lot of damage indirectly due to it's success. That and the fact that it's been dumbed down repeatedly with each expac and here we are with a genre that's a shadow of it's former self.
The more players you need, the harder it is to organise so you have all the headaches that arise from that. So, it's easy to understand why raid size reduced over time. As a raid leader myself, I was certainly easier organising 8 man raids in SW:TOR than it was organising 24man raids in LotRO.
At the other end of the scale, the smaller the group, the more important each individual member becomes and thus if a single player is crap, your run is doomed. Much harder to carry someone in a 4man dungeon. If the game is trinity based too, the smaller the group size the higher the percentage of rare classes you need. Assuming you must have 1 tank and 1 healer, a 4 man group means 50% of the population needs to be rare, a 5 man group means 40% of the population needs to be rare and a 6 man group means 33% needs to be rare.
The sweet spot, imo, is 6-8man.
6 man groups in LotRO were absolutely great and were my favourite experience. Enough people to be social, could usually carry 1 person through if needed, but still easy enough to lead from a social point of view. Same with 8man raids in SW:TOR, very social and easy to lead (though, being a raid you needed 2 tanks and 2 healers so pug raids were non-existent).
By the time I reached 12 man raids in LotRO, or 16man in SW:TOR or 24man in LotRO, the social side of it started to become a problem. You can't have 12 people all taking part in the same conversation so it would either become chaotic with multiple simultaneous conversations, or a bit anti-social as some members were forced to be quiet and just listen to whatever was being talked about.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
almost 7-8 was optimal, 6 and 9 after that
7-8 were 280% of exp, 6 and 9 were 270%
best grouping ever
That's not how it worked, you couldn't "tone down" a group content to solo levels, you only could solo something like in other games, by overleveling it. The system was mostly used to increase the difficulty, for more rewards, especially since with the mentoring/exemplar mechanics you could ask any time a higher level buddy to join you, without "breaking" the mechanics of the content.
(for the very reason they even left out the tone down option in their follow-up, CO. CO only has normal difficulty by default, and 5 more steps to increase it. For the other way around, you can scale up/down your level, or ask a friend to scale down to yours and give an extra hand)