MMORPG grouping is in decline because developers never figured out how to make groups

Quizzical · February 2020

I'm sure you know the theory of how MMORPG grouping is supposed to go. A group of five or six or so adventurers has a tank, a healer, and some damage dealers. Maybe they have a buffer or crowd control or some other role; I'm not here to argue what roles there ought to be. But different people play different roles in the group. They set out into a dungeon and work together to clear it, then share the loot. They have to communicate to figure out how they ought to use the tools that they have, and enjoy the camaraderie of working together. And then they move on to their next adventure.

That's not how MMORPGs work today. For the most part, it's not really how they ever have. And the primary reason is that it's too hard to assemble a group. There were never very many people willing to put in the work to assemble a group. And even among those willing to do so, very few wanted half of their time online "playing" a game to be spent looking for a group. Yet needing to spend a lot of time searching for a group is what so many games delivered. No wonder they weren't more popular.

Some games tried to handle this by giving you a group finder. Pick the content you want to do, get in the queue, and after a while, the game hands you a group. Elsword is the only game I've ever seen where this works well.

There are plenty of reasons why automated group finders can work badly. One is that there just aren't enough people looking to group for the content you want. If one person joins the queue every ten minutes, then expect to wait quite a while for a full group. Some games artificially restrict this a lot more than necessary by disallowing cross-server queueing or things like that.

Even with plenty of people wanting to group for your chosen content, it can still take a while. One of the problems is the dedicated roles. It's common for there to be one role that is scarce, and everyone of other roles has to wait quite a while. If grouping requires 20% healers, but only 10% of the people trying to do group content are healers, then only half of the people can have a group at a time and the rest have to wait. Spending half of your grouping time waiting in a queue is perhaps better than spending half of your time spamming chats and whispers in hopes of assembling a group, but it's still far from great.

Elsword had to make some real sacrifices to get a group finder to work--and plenty of other games have made some of the same sacrifices, with more limited success. For starters, there aren't fixed roles, but any set of four players can be a group. Additionally, nearly all content is group content, so you pretty much have to group to do anything. Meanwhile, there is only a fixed number of dungeons in the game, and everyone ends up running the same dungeon repeatedly before moving on to the next. The game is extremely on rails, to force you to do all of the dungeons rather than just farming a few that give the best rewards. Dungeons are very short, so after a five-minute run, you might never see those players again. That's not what a lot of MMORPG players hoped for in group content.

Repeating a handful of dungeons causes problems of its own. It's not just that it gets repetitive. If everyone has seen the dungeon multiple times before, then everyone knows what to do and just rushes through it. As has become common with group finders in a lot of other games, the group forms, it runs the dungeon, and it breaks up, and no one says a single word that entire time. There are single-player games that are more social than that. If the group finder were to mix in a lot of bots, how would you ever know? Other than that the bots wouldn't find as many creative ways to be idiots as real people do.

Given a choice between:
1) spend a large fraction of your game time searching for a group,
2) spend your time grouping in PUGs with zero communication and lots of frustration at idiots in your group, or
3) just don't group at all,
a large fraction of MMORPG players choose (3). Developers saw that and stopped putting much emphasis on group content that people weren't going to do, anyway.

Ideally, the way that you'd get groups is that you go group with your friends. Rather than constantly grouping with random strangers that you'll never see again, you group with the same people repeatedly. That works if you have a fixed party of real-life friends who will play the game exactly when you do. That's not how most people play games, though.

Other than that, game design largely works to thwart any efforts at making a long-term group. One person plays the game more than another, and so ends up much higher level. Try to group for high-level content and the lower level player is dead weight. Group for low-level content and the high level player makes everything trivial. Level-scaling here is only a partial fix.

Another problem is that people just want to do different content. Unless you prioritize grouping with particular people over doing the content that you want to do, you're rarely going to group with the same people repeatedly. And if you do prioritize grouping with particular people, you're not going to progress very well in the game because you're doing the wrong content.

That's largely fixable by getting rid of vertical progression. Make it so that there are twenty dungeons that you have to do, but they can be done in any order, and you're not nearly so limited on not being able to group with someone who needs a different dungeon from you. Guild Wars 1 is the best model here. But the problem with getting rid of vertical progression is that you've gotten rid of vertical progression, and then people don't feel like they're getting stronger. That's not what a lot of people have in mind for an MMORPG, or any other sort of RPG.

Another problem is people running the same dungeon repeatedly. Everyone knows what to do, and then there's no communication, other than perhaps to yell at the one person who is there for the first time and does things all wrong as a result. Going through the motions of clearing something yet again that you've already cleared many times before just doesn't feel like such a great adventure. But I think the only real fix for that is randomly generated content, which is hard to do well.

I'd say that group content in MMORPGs is nearly dead unless a game makes group content into the main focus of the game--and designs the entire game around making group content work. Make it so that there is little to no solo content, but only group content. Make the group content randomly generated, so that there is no notion of people needing different content. Make it so that a group that fills all essential roles have everything scaled appropriately and go, without differing levels or gear being a barrier, so that people can group with their friends without being punished by game mechanics for doing so. Make the content varied enough that people have to communicate to discuss strategies, or how to fix what just went wrong that caused a wipe.

A game that tried that could well flop horribly. But if done well, it could make for a really great game. And at this point, it's likely the only way that we'll ever see another MMORPG with a lot of people doing a lot of good group content and actually communicating with each other rather than just doing speed runs.

Utinni · February 2020

Every game I play aside from card games has grouping as a core mechanic. I don't use a dungeon finder for any of them aside from a few random ones in FF14 while leveling.

You said
"Given a choice between:
1) spend a large fraction of your game time searching for a group,
2) spend your time grouping in PUGs with zero communication and lots of frustration at idiots in your group, or
3) just don't group at all,"

These are seriously not the only choices man. If you are impatient, anti-social, or just miserable to be around perhaps your gaming experience will reflect that. Join a community, a guild, play with friends. If you're not grouping in MMORPG's anymore that is 100% you, not the games.

DafAtRandom · February 2020

I agree in part with what you propose. One thing that I've mentioned before that is part of why grouping/dungeons/raids has never been optimal is because it is too static.

When the Greatsword of Impending Doom drops only from The Black Knight of the Castle, and only from there, you are funneling all your player base that wants a Greatsword of Impending Doom without paying for it to the Castle.

Random loot tables shared among all bosses for a certain tier would help with content diversity. All of a sudden, the Greatsword of Impending Doom doesn't only drop from the Black Knight of the Castle, it drops from 41 more bosses. It's a relief, because I RAN THE CASTLE 17 TIMES AND NEVER GOT IT TO DROP...and the Castle is my LEAST favorite zone !!

Also, make bosses spawn randomly in the world...not only as time intervals, but also don't make the Black Knight pop ONLY at the Castle.

I think those systems would be part of the randomization you are talking about. I'm also all for randomized dungeons and locations, that way the game doesn't feel as repetitive.

Now to find a game that will incorporate those...

Albatroes · February 2020

People have always chosen the path of least resistance regardless of the era. Over the past decade, forming good groups hasn't been NEEDED for any form of character progression. Sure, there's the illusion of NEED simply because games are built around temporary time gates now more so than the past. Almost every mmorpg over the past decade incorporates predictable 'catch-up' mechanics/nerfs etc. You couple that with there being so many choices on the market over that period of time resulting in people either bouncing around or waiting out these "hurdles" because they know they will be able to catch up later or, even worse, the activities are made irrelevant because a new 'season' has started. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing people being rewarded with stuff for doing the EXACT same thing they've been doing, yet aren't skilled enough the clear the hardest content of the time for the exact same level of reward, simply because 'time passed....' Oh but its okay because the people that could do it when it was relevant get a mount or some other cosmetics....

Lets not fool ourselves into thinking people 'loved' to group in the past though, because a majority did not. Most games designed environments to work a certain way and would often times not be altered for years, if at all, resulting in the mindset of "you either do it or you don't progress." Bring back that kind of environment and grouping will follow suit since its originally born from that. Devs shouldn't be the ones dictating if a person should be able to 'catch-up' or not, the communities should. I miss the days of looking around on forums and seeing the big guilds on those servers along with requiring applications, forcing people to sell themselves as to why they should be invited. Now everyone is just a one-man army who just waits out certain patches if they are 'too difficult' or 'too boring.'

AAAMEOW · February 2020

I personally like PUG with random stranger. Premade become predicable, especially if you repeat them in a daily basis.

TwoTubes · February 2020

I was with you OP until you gave the 3 choices. My experience is that after awhile good players end up grouping primarily with their guild mates 99% of the time (not real life friends like you mentioned). That is where your points seem to fall apart.

Not only because players in pugs are generally lower skilled but simply because you have a large group of guildies who are active and are there to group with. No need to deal with many of the issues you present.

Hawkaya399 · February 2020

Grouping in MMORPGs declined because it's inconvenient. As the MMORPG population grew, it became too obvious to ignore anymore. They modern MMORPGs TRIED to make it more convenient, but ultimately it's like trying to make a SUV for the family also a sports car. Ultimately it's counterproductive. So they did the best they could and take the wins with the losses.

Soloing is popular. It's convenient. Grouping will always place extra demands on the player and that's just how it's. It has its place in MMORPGs but the only place you'll see grouping dominating an MMORPG like it did early on (first generation MMORPGs like Everquest, DAOC and others) is in amateur, indie or emulated MMORPGs. That's niche now, ofc it became niche a long time ago. You also see it in multiplayer battle royale games like Fortnite or PUBG--players work together routinely as opposed to merely soloing. However those games are very different from MMORPG's--they're much more like traditional FPS multiplayer games--Tribes is an example. It was very common in Tribes to login to a server and immediately join a group of other players opposing an enemy group. That was the gameplay--unless it had a single player mode. At first you grouped with random people, and there usually being two opposing teams; longterm players would join clans and compete against other clans.

I think there might be some progress made in hybrid solo/group adventures, but I don't think these activities could be classified as either soloing or grouping, neither do I think they'll dominate every MMORPG. Mainly, the idea behind hybrid solo/group adventures is to allow players to group and solo at teh same time, and this requires some new systems.

Community-based quests will probably grow in popularity as developers evolve them. This will help to make it easier for players to integrate better while also doing quests. This is different from older-style quests whereby it was hard to group with somebody else because thee weren't at the same stage of teh quest. This may not be the central reason community-based quests become popular, it's just something on my mind about them.

Narug · February 2020

Perhaps

Besides the problems of developing better public questing/somehow a natural grouping systems....

The problem also is you can't fix human greed

In short, you have one tank (insert whatever class) who has the social network gifted/built up/handed down/I don't care how else/ all the gear handed to them because that's the only one they want/pvp/afraid of being supplanted in group/insert other dumb reasons here...

No gear.

No improvement.

No need for player to stick around.

The competitors think this is fine. Sink or swim.

Well you're sinking or swimming your game too genuises.

Ungood · February 2020

The real reason MMO's made more Single Player aspects of their games.

They could not figure out to make gamers not be assholes.

Hawkaya399 · February 2020

TwoTubes said:

I was with you OP until you gave the 3 choices. My experience is that after awhile good players end up grouping primarily with their guild mates 99% of the time (not real life friends like you mentioned). That is where your points seem to fall apart.

Not only because players in pugs are generally lower skilled but simply because you have a large group of guildies who are active and are there to group with. No need to deal with many of the issues you present.

In my experiences pugging was fun. I don't understand people who only complain about it--like they need a perfect group to be happy. For me, the imperfection is what made it fun. A group where everything is perfectly understood and planned out is also very boring. It's much funner whne things are free wheeling--when it's heaven one moment and SHTF next. Perfect groups are like scientists. They kill the magic. They kill the fun. It becomes so perfect there's never any shakeup. There's never anything unexpected. Ofc that's what htey want because they want optimal experience gains. No interruption. No idling. No SHTF. No "side quest". Only their single minded destination.

I think grouping is at its best early on when nobody knows anything yet. They're still learning. SHTF happens more. Ther'es a lot more interaction and adjustment between group members. It's much more alive, as opposed to later on when groups become more like machines with a single minded focus on optimal experience and authoritarian obedience. It's the uknown that gives life. We should be like Kirk and the enterprise, always exploring.

LackingMMO · February 2020

You know I'm all into grouping and group/guild focus. However with all the changes in games the one aspect that has really never changed was HOW grouping works. What if there was a dungeon in the style of how lets say a public event worked? Like the entire zone was working toward something, the reward was based off your performance in your archtype, If you stick it out the entire time you get a chest at the end. If your apart of a group you get extra exp or gold. Promotes working together, promotes grouping and getting use to people. Then you could have harder dungeons that are more traditional and your raids and whatnot.

TwoTubes · February 2020

Hawkaya399 said:

TwoTubes said:

I was with you OP until you gave the 3 choices. My experience is that after awhile good players end up grouping primarily with their guild mates 99% of the time (not real life friends like you mentioned). That is where your points seem to fall apart.

Not only because players in pugs are generally lower skilled but simply because you have a large group of guildies who are active and are there to group with. No need to deal with many of the issues you present.

In my experiences pugging was fun. I don't understand people who only complain about it--like they need a perfect group to be happy. For me, the imperfection is what made it fun. A group where everything is perfectly understood and planned out is also very boring. It's much funner whne things are free wheeling--when it's heaven one moment and SHTF next. Perfect groups are like scientists. They kill the magic. They kill the fun. It becomes so perfect there's never any shakeup. There's never anything unexpected. Ofc that's what htey want because they want optimal experience gains. No interruption. No idling. No SHTF. No "side quest". Only their single minded destination.

I think grouping is at its best early on when nobody knows anything yet. They're still learning. SHTF happens more. Ther'es a lot more interaction and adjustment between group members. It's much more alive, as opposed to later on when groups become more like machines with a single minded focus on optimal experience and authoritarian obedience. It's the uknown that gives life. We should be like Kirk and the enterprise, always exploring.

It's more fun to group with people you know from your guild than pugs.

Why would you want to group with people you don't know than people you do? "Theimperfection made it fun" seems like there are multiple issues there. Firstly it seems like a straw man argument. I dont believe that you would really rather group with random people you dont know than your friends from your guild.

Secondly, there is an issue with the challenge lvl of the content you are playing if you think playing with people who are bad make it more fun.

centkin · February 2020

The main reason is the lack of the ability to pause the game. If it could be paused for just a small amount of time each day, then a lot more people would be comfortable grouping and a lot of the bad experiences of grouping today wouldn't happen.

Games as they are done today simply demand too much -- you shouldn't be denied being able to answer the door, the phone, or the cries of your kid. Addressing any of the above could easily wipe your group under the way things are done now.

The typical player isn't a person with no responsibilities and tons of time.

cheyane · February 2020

I am one of those lazy people who never form groups. I wait for others to make the group and then I join. I make sure I play a needed class so I don't have to worry about not being picked. This is really what I feel most people are like in that they just shout for groups and they don't even read what the chat is saying. I have seen yells for groups and right below it a person is looking for the same class and yet a minute later the same two people are shouting for a group and looking for a class for the group they are making.

I liked Guildwars 1 a lot and I enjoyed the groups in it. The game had a very strong purpose to group and it was a fun endeavour.

I have been playing games since 1999 when I started with Everquest where playing a wizard that was DPS I literally waited hours and hours to find a group. It was absolutely horrible but I had no idea then that things could have been any other way. Over the years I have grown smarter and in the process also less patient about groups. I now make sure I play healers and I never worry about getting a group. In a way though I also miss how it was in the old days but at the cost of the time I wasted waiting for groups as a wizard I find it hard to justify it.

Yeah people have changed and this is the main reasons why grouping has become so different from how it was in Everquest. Our threshold for tolerance has undergone a diminishing scale and although we might want to do things our resolve is crumbling.

BruceYee · February 2020

It's all about the rewards. If MMO's increased rewards to casino jackpot levels for grouping then players would put up with an infinite amount of nonsense to win those prizes.

Balticthunder · February 2020

Hawkaya399 said:

In my experiences pugging was fun. I don't understand people who only complain about it--like they need a perfect group to be happy. For me, the imperfection is what made it fun. A group where everything is perfectly understood and planned out is also very boring. It's much funner whne things are free wheeling--when it's heaven one moment and SHTF next. Perfect groups are like scientists. They kill the magic. They kill the fun. It becomes so perfect there's never any shakeup. There's never anything unexpected. Ofc that's what htey want because they want optimal experience gains. No interruption. No idling. No SHTF. No "side quest". Only their single minded destination.

I think grouping is at its best early on when nobody knows anything yet. They're still learning. SHTF happens more. Ther'es a lot more interaction and adjustment between group members. It's much more alive, as opposed to later on when groups become more like machines with a single minded focus on optimal experience and authoritarian obedience. It's the uknown that gives life. We should be like Kirk and the enterprise, always exploring.

Yeah, man , that's me! I play MMOs mostly for pugging! I love the feeling you never know whats next, how it will turn out - sometimes it is really bad and sometimes it goes great. And I love that you meet always different people, that's where MMO and fun is for me.
Thus I never experience end game stuff, where real grouping, leading and serious guild is needed - I just cant stand when somebody is expecting me to follow their orders, fulfill expectations and be there right in time. When I hit this wall I leave the game, I like to play my way!

Dibdabs · February 2020

Quizzical said:

I'm sure you know the theory of how MMORPG grouping is supposed to go....

Huh, how YOU think it's supposed to go. That's not how I think it's supposed to go. Didn't bother reading past that.

Kyleran · February 2020

Dibdabs said:

Quizzical said:

I'm sure you know the theory of how MMORPG grouping is supposed to go....
Huh, how YOU think it's supposed to go. That's not how I think it's supposed to go. Didn't bother reading past that.

Then why bother commenting if you chose to remain willfully ignorant on the subject and add nothing to the conversation?

There are better ways to up your post count...like mocking others.

Kyleran · February 2020

Ungood said:

The real reason MMO's made more Single Player aspects of their games.

They could not figure out to make gamers not be assholes.

Pretty much nailed it, sure seems like the asshole factor in MMORPGs went way up beginning with WOWs release, (for "reasons") at least from my experience.

Kyleran · February 2020

Utinni said:

Every game I play aside from card games has grouping as a core mechanic. I don't use a dungeon finder for any of them aside from a few random ones in FF14 while leveling.

You said
"Given a choice between:
1) spend a large fraction of your game time searching for a group,
2) spend your time grouping in PUGs with zero communication and lots of frustration at idiots in your group, or
3) just don't group at all,"

These are seriously not the only choices man. If you are impatient, anti-social, or just miserable to be around perhaps your gaming experience will reflect that. Join a community, a guild, play with friends. If you're not grouping in MMORPG's anymore that is 100% you, not the games.

You and I played very different games then, as most every game I've played were far more focused on soloing and more efficient when doing solo, especially while leveling up.

Besides, considering your response, you seem to be sort of an unpleasant person to be around, surprised to hear you don't have grouping difficulties.

iixviiiix · February 2020

What matter in group is not the roles you play but the goal you want to get .

For example 3 guy of warrior enjoy they fun time hunt down monster in group because they have same goal , grind exp .

For good group , you need long term goal for people to stick with other , and a goal that people can sharing .

Bad example is quests and instances , because they are short term goal and reward can't be sharing .

BTW , "group" have a wide mean . it has not just about 5 to 6 guy in same party , but guild , faction , group of friends that more than 6 ect .

Utinni · February 2020

Kyleran said:

Utinni said:

Every game I play aside from card games has grouping as a core mechanic. I don't use a dungeon finder for any of them aside from a few random ones in FF14 while leveling.

You said
"Given a choice between:
1) spend a large fraction of your game time searching for a group,
2) spend your time grouping in PUGs with zero communication and lots of frustration at idiots in your group, or
3) just don't group at all,"

These are seriously not the only choices man. If you are impatient, anti-social, or just miserable to be around perhaps your gaming experience will reflect that. Join a community, a guild, play with friends. If you're not grouping in MMORPG's anymore that is 100% you, not the games.

You and I played very different games then, as most every game I've played were far more focused on soloing and more efficient when doing solo, especially while leveling up.

Besides, considering your response, you seem to be sort of an unpleasant person to be around, surprised to hear you don't have grouping difficulties.

I just pretend to be a girl and say I don't have a mic. Works every time.

Dibdabs · February 2020

Kyleran said:

Dibdabs said:

Quizzical said:

I'm sure you know the theory of how MMORPG grouping is supposed to go....
Huh, how YOU think it's supposed to go. That's not how I think it's supposed to go. Didn't bother reading past that.

Then why bother commenting if you chose to remain willfully ignorant on the subject and add nothing to the conversation?

There's nothing wilful about it. I disagree with his viewpoint and playstyle, and sweeping generalizations like "that's how it supposed to go" are lamentably silly.

As far as I'm concerned, other players in MMORPGs are simply a variation on NPCs. They make the world seem alive, I buy stuff off them and I sell my stuff to them. I'd rather stick a fork in my leg than PUG in an MMORPG these days. Social skills are pretty much zero and what "chat" occurs (I use the term loosely) is a mixture of acronyms and emotes. Speed runs are flavour of the year. Groups join up for about 5 to 10 minutes to achieve a goal that isn't possible to solo... then the group breaks up to go back to soloing. There's no reason to group up that is worth the shallow gameplay that results from grouping. Therefore, I - and a great many others - play exclusively solo and thankfully game companies saw sense and designed their games accordingly.

Amathe · February 2020

There is social grouping, where what is important is being around friends and fun people.

And there is XP grouping, where what is important is steady and continuous pulls to grind down for the XP.

And there is loot grouping, where you try to kill named mobs for their shinies.

They don't all have the same considerations.

And it's tough for Developers to target all three.

hallucigenocide · February 2020

in a lot of mmo's you see people begging the devs to force people into grouping. that's just not how it works.

if you have to force them it's just not appealing enough.

i play mmo's and hardly interact with other people at all.. i just like to have them around doing whatever it is they're doing. best group things that i've experienced have always been random stuff. not some mandatory task.

Sovrath · February 2020

hallucigenocide said:

in a lot of mmo's you see people begging the devs to force people into grouping. that's just not how it works.

if you have to force them it's just not appealing enough.

i play mmo's and hardly interact with other people at all.. i just like to have them around doing whatever it is they're doing. best group things that i've experienced have always been random stuff. not some mandatory task.

ugh

people are looking for group centric games. Games where the content allows for groups to properly work, not steamroll over everything.

Games where you can group and actually do so for longer than one quick quest (looking at you Lord of the Rings Online)

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MMORPG grouping is in decline because developers never figured out how to make groups

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MMORPG grouping is in decline because developers never figured out how to make groups

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV