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Why Group?
CactusmanX
Member Posts: 2,218
And I don't mean why do you group but what should be the reason to group in an MMO, other than social. There have been a lot of grouping vs solo threads lately which got me thinking about it.
Personally I think the reasons MMOs always provid not only have the wrong priority but also make the whole experience less fun.
I mean that in MMOs grouping is a means to do some content that cannot be done by yourself, and to that point joining a team feels more like checking off an item on a list of requirements to beat the dungeon rather than something I am doing to aid myself.
What I blame for this is the way MMORPG mechanics work, content for a single player or a duo would be a push over for a group, so group content has to ramp up the damage and health of the mobs for the group. The reason for this is that RPGs are stuck on combat that revolves around absorbing damage and trying to dish more out to kill a mob, ie kill it faster than it can kill me, which leads to the Tank/DPS/Healer strategy and makes what is possible for a group is impossible for a single person.
Where I would like to see grouping go is what I call a safety in numbers approach. Where by giving the player more control over the ability to avoid damage, like cover or dodging and blocking, you get away from the typical Tank/DPS/Healer combo and move toward a more twitch system. This also means fights are not just a practice of out DPSing the enemy while healing but using your ability to move to make opportune attacks, hitting weak points and avoiding damage. With typical RPG gameplay solo and group content have to be seperate, they can't be one in the same, or you have to use some sort of scaling option, but with twitch group and solo content are much more blurred.
A boss for example, lets say a dragon, could have a weak spot on the underbelly, the only spot that does any real damage to the beast. The tactic would involve having to find a way with your abilities to hit the weak spot to damage the dragon and do it enough without being killed so you can defeat it. A single person could accomplish this task, but a group would make it easier, as more people means more opportunities to hit the weak spot, plus aid each other in case they are hurt. In response the dragon, as would all mobs, could change tactics to use more AoEs when faced with a group.
A group could also provide general aid. A mob incases a player in a block of ice, slowly doing damage. By yourself you are stuck and there isn't anything you can do, but in a group a teammate could smash the ice to try and free you. This also means a group could tackle situations more directly where a single player would have to be more cautious. Even in non combat situations, like exploring, a group could find ways around something a single person could not, like a switch puzzle that requires multiple people to stand on pressure plates to open a door, a single person would either have to find a way around or try and push a rock onto the switch, where as a group has an advantage here.
Grouping would also have a downside, or an upside depending on how you look at it. If a group alerts guards more mobs are sent to look for the players, so the bigger the group the bigger the resistance. Whereas a single person would just have more guards sent after them a group could have griffon riders sent to kill them.
But you get the gist, a situation where a single person could do it but a group makes it easier. I also tend to think grouping would be more common in this situation, as you do not need a specific number or makeup to do content but grouping is still beneficial. And most importantly I think it is beneficial to have content that can be accessed by anyone, solo, small group, or pick up group or guild alike.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
Comments
Sounds reasonable. Though I would like to be certain that players are given equivalent experience for completing tasks and offing mobs via solo or group methods. It would be a bit folish to punish one side or the other for playing the way they feel like playing.
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Playing: Nothing
Played: Champions Online, CoX, STO, PSO, WoW, lots of free-to-play crap
Looking Forward To: DC Universe Online, Blade and Soul
This is the cancer that is killing MMO's
Go play a single player game if you want to do everything on your own!!
I don't know the reason to group is but i know why people don't and that is they aren't rewarded for it and in many cases are punished. Not every game is the same obviouly but using WoW as an example (since its so popular and most people are familiar) you get more experience for soloing. Playing MMO's with my wife I have found many of them give you less XP for grouping. Those quests that require you to get drops from mobs it takes you longer to get everyone in the group all their drops.
So to encourage people to group:
Collection quests (ie. collect spiders legs for spiders) have the item drop and let each group memeber get credit. Not realistic but heyyour "killing" a giant spider.
Give people more XP for grouping. Or divide the XP per creature killed so that on average being in a group grants more XP/hour than soloing.
But don't make it impossible for people to solo.
If in a given area it has say 10 quests to get to a highe nough level to go to the next area don't just put 10 quests in the area and especially don't make 4 of them group quests. then you are forced to group or grind. Make those 10 quests soloable and to encourage grouping add-in 3-5 group quests for a total of 13-15 quests in the area. That way the group questing truely is optional. of course its always better to have more quests than needed in an area, but some games don't seem to understand that.
No, the cancer is the bald assertion that MMOs are all about grouping which is simply not true. They never have been, they never will be. It is a complete and total lie that grouping is the only "correct" way to play an MMO.
Go play a game like Call of Duty if you want to be in a team. Leave the rest of us alone.
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No, the cancer is the bald assertion that MMOs are all about grouping which is simply not true. They never have been, they never will be. It is a complete and total lie that grouping is the only "correct" way to play an MMO.
Go play a game like Call of Duty if you want to be in a team. Leave the rest of us alone.
Amen.
well grouping is what seperates mmorpgs from rpgs.
i think you should have the option to solo at all times, but the grouping is the fun part.
also without group role classes, the game leans more toward a fps style where everyone is pretty much equal in what they can do.
personal preference, however grouping should really be the focus of a mmorpg, either in dungeons, raids, guild, or pvp/faction.
To answer your question, there hasn't been enough incentive to group yet. I love grouping but if I'm not going to be rewarded for taking the time to put a good group of 4-6 players together then why do it? Especially if you take an instance for example. You get good rewards but then you level up a little more and the rewards become obsolete.
For grouping to make a comeback in MMOs there needs to be a big incentive to do so.
Grouping to me is fun for me for one main reason...The big draw of MMOs for me is the fact that I'm playing with real live players, not AI. So, I play multiplayer/online games so I can interact with other people and complete tasks together with others because it's fun for me. I've always enjoyed Co-op games and MMOs are a massive extrapolation of that.
As far as getting rid of the Tank/Healer/DPS thing. I'm not sure if that's necessarily the key to innovation across the whole genre. I think "twitch" based MMOs have there place (although I've yet to see a good one made) but some people prefer a relatively slower paced combat system that the traditional MMORPG offers.
You know what's funny? Everyone is all up in arms "OH MY GOD NO ONE GROUPS!"
Grouping being part of the MMO acronym is matter of opinion. However it is undeniable that ROLE PLAY is part of the ROLE PLAYING GAME. Yet, I see no posts asking people "How often do you role play in the rpg?"
Grouping is what makes an MMO an MMO. If you dont have grouping, you are playing a single player game like Guild wars. Guild wars may have some social interaction, but not much.
The incentive for grouping has always been powerleveling and getting through content faster.
Yes, you make less XP when you group but a group can take down much bigger mobs in bulk. In short, a solo player may get killed by reds but a group can just kill reds all night long. The net effect is that you actually advance about 30% faster. The rule of thumb is that the bigger the party, the faster the leveling. If any of you want to see this in action, let me know and we'll loot the hell out of a F2P game together as a proof of concept.
There's also the fact that if you're having trouble with a particular boss, you can either grind your level up on your own or just go grab a bunch of your friends and zerg it to death. Which do you think is quicker?
Those of you that think that you're being punished for grouping really haven't done the math. It's kind of like when a brand name drops it's price. They lose money on each individual sale but they make up the difference in volume. Same idea here.
What makes an MMO an MMO is a Massively Multiplayer Online game. As in a large number of people online at the same time. Nowhere does it say a massive amount of grouped players online.
Simply, a massive amount of players. That's it. Nothing more. Assuming that it means group is just that, an assumption. What you want, therefore you've attached that meaning to the name. However, that is not the name. Very simple.
If everybody youve told to "go back to WOW" or "go play a single player game" or "go play your carebear game" did you wouldnt have anyhone to group with or anyone to coment about.
Explain Ultima Online then.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
If everybody youve told to "go back to WOW" or "go play a single player game" or "go play your carebear game" did you wouldnt have anyhone to group with or anyone to coment about.
Heheh. Touche. Dare I say? BURN! @ Wolfenpride. : )
Kidding aside, I understand the OP's point and in my opinion, there is no 'reason' but rather a 'desire' that plays a larger part in the grouping mechanic in MMOs. Players 'desire' to progress through content that they can not progress through on their own, so they group together with others who have come to the same roadblock; then progress through the content. Whereas if they got to a point where soloing wasn't viable, they could possibly bypass the particular content and move on to other soloable content.
The only game that comes to mind just now, that 'forces' grouping is Guild Wars, in particular the beginner quest that you get where you have to activate a switch on a bridge and make it through a gate below, but the distance is too far to cover from the switch to the gate before the switch resets and the gate closes. This illustrates what I was attempting to explain above. To complete that quest, you MUST recruit at least one other person to hit that switch so you can get through the gate and continue / complete the quest, it is impossible to solo.
So, your 'desire' to complete that particular content dictates that you group up. Otherwise you simply skip that quest and move on to other content.
I think what MMOs used to be, grouping was popular because the majority of the playerbase of MMOs liked grouping. WoW came along and brought the market to everyone, non groupers jumped on the boat and solo'd. Then they came to the forums and rose hell.
I know I group because I like talking to people. and MMORPGs SUCK to play alone in because compared to single player games, they are just bad. Why would waste my time solo'ing in WoW, not have any fun, and lose my highschool status when I could playing Zelda / Bethesda games or the millions of other fun titles?
Why do you want to play an online game where you do exaclty what you do in a solo game?
Would you go to a football pitch and expect to see everyone dribbling round each other, playing on their own? Most of us start our gaming experience on solo games, but your game play experience does not have to end there.
Some games feature a solo game which you finish and then go into multiplayer, do you expect that to play exactly like solo play? This is about trying out different play styles, not just grouping, but team sides, realm versus realm, or a massive bar brawl. Come out of your shell and try something new!
No one needs to be in a group to socialize. You can chat in the guild channel, or global channel, and socialize all day long without grouping.
If a single person can do it, who cares if a group makes it easier? That sounds like a game where it's pointless to group, IMO.
I don't think grouping should be purely "social".
I like grouping for the EXACT reasons you said you didn't like grouping, the combat mechanics.
Also, in a game where grouping is NECESSARY, not social it changes the entire community. If you're an asshat then people dont' want you in the group, and you actually suffer for that. With grouping being purely an optional social thing, who cares if people don't want you in a group because you're an asshat? You don't need them anyway.
Your post strikes me as basically, I like solo games, don't want to be required to group, here's some dumb "social" thing the groupers can do so they will shut up and let me solo the game. As a grouper, I'd have zero interest in this game.
Well you see I per-fer to solo on these boards. With comments like this who wants to group with you?I can have a wall list of WHY not to group..But why bother you got the point all ready!
Mod edit spelling
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
Well you see I per-fer to solo on these boards. With comments like this who wants to group with you?I can have a wall list of WHY not to group..But why bother you got the point all ready!
Mod edit spelling
I think this is a bit of a conundrum.
Solo players often complain that people are asshats, which is why they don't like to group.
But, single player type games are what allows people to be asshats.
In a good grouping game like EQ or DAoC, people tend to broadcast to the server that you suck if you're an asshat in a group, and then people won't group with you, which means you're screwed. In that situation, surprisingly, people tend to behave themselves more often because they learn quickly that being an ass actually has consequences.
Not groupingin an MMORPG is like playing pen and paper D&D by yourself. Its like playing a team-based FPS as the only player on the server. Yeah, you can do it. And it might even be fun, but you are really missing the point, in my opinion.
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Have you ever been a member of, for example, a raiding guild in a solo friendly game?
It's a forced-grouping mechanic and it isn't exactly populated by the most pleasant of people; in fact it seems to have exactly the opposite effect that you're describing. People tend to join up to the raiding community to get uber gear so that they can be asshats to the non-raiding community (i.e. the soloers).
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Well you see I per-fer to solo on these boards. With comments like this who wants to group with you?I can have a wall list of WHY not to group..But why bother you got the point all ready!
Mod edit spelling
I think this is a bit of a conundrum.
Solo players often complain that people are asshats, which is why they don't like to group.
But, single player type games are what allows people to be asshats.
In a good grouping game like EQ or DAoC, people tend to broadcast to the server that you suck if you're an asshat in a group, and then people won't group with you, which means you're screwed. In that situation, surprisingly, people tend to behave themselves more often because they learn quickly that being an ass actually has consequences.
The only time i group is when the game forces you to..Like Boss or dungeons..Other than that, I dont need to group just to kill 15 mobs when i can do that my self..Most of the time i see players group just to get exps to get to higher level.A few reason i see this is 1 that want to pk or 2 they show that there shit dont stink.3 there so high level they stll act like a asshats..
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"
MMO= massive multiplayers online
MMGO=massive multiplayers grouped online
Have you ever been a member of, for example, a raiding guild in a solo friendly game?
It's a forced-grouping mechanic and it isn't exactly populated by the most pleasant of people; in fact it seems to have exactly the opposite effect that you're describing. People tend to join up to the raiding community to get uber gear so that they can be asshats to the non-raiding community (i.e. the soloers).
I was talking about grouping, not raiding.
Group = 2 or more players up to a full party, typically 6-10.
Raid = more than one full party.
IMO, the dynamic change from group to raid. I don't care for raiding, but I do enjoy grouping.