However where we differ is in the examples you sited and peoples reactions to how they are handled.
CoH is very very easy to find a group but you can't state that grouping is not challenging. You can set the challenge. It can be very challenging if you set it and the have the ability to do higher content areas like in all games. People don't, and then state the game is not challenging - doesn't hold with me - They have limited themselves and then whined about it.
With regards to WoW, yes it does sometimes take 15 minutes for a dps to get a dungeon. And people say this is why it was not a group friendly game but they hold up EQ as a group friendly game. What?? Sometimes we had to wait an hour or mutliple hours to get a group. 15 minutes is a walk in the park, I'd then say that is 4x more group friendly than EQ. And for a tank or healer your wait time is less than a minute. And of course they can also do harder content.
So what else can be done. They've reduced the wait times and provided the challenge. They've also given better rewards for group content, more coin, more xp. They've even put the quest givers inside the dungeons themselves for groups to accomplish. Is there anything more short of forcing it? Seriously what more can they do.
Venge Sunsoar
As I said, I'm not entirely familiar with CoH, especially the modern version. I only played for a couple months before I got bored. So perhaps I'm wrong there and it is easy to find a good challenge as a group (though I suppose that leaves open whether being challenged is properly rewarded, which I suppose we could list as a third issue).
As for WoW, it is certainly more group-friendly than EQ if you are doing dungeons now. Before the Dungeon Finder, it was about the same. As far as raiding goes, that's still a total pain AND the only place you can find a real challenge since the progression of dungeon content is very mild and you get the same badge rewards whether you do an easy dungeon or a hard dungeon (AND you have to go with a random selection to get full rewards, which is also bad). The DF is a terrible system for the community though, since it makes connections between people even more fleeting and meaningless given the cross-server aspect. Anyhow, 15 minutes is still too long a time, imho, and still presents an unpleasant obstacle when you have to wait that long before any PvE group activity.
I suppose this is where I toot my GW2 horn again. They look to have a pretty good system for doing things with others. Roles aren't as heavily specialized as you see in Holy Trinity games, which should make forming groups easier (especially since you can swap out skills between combat, tweaking your abilities to what is needed). The most challenging content is tuned for 5 players, which makes that easy to access. Dynamic Events provide for massive group stuff, which could have 60 players or even a lot more and will scale accordingly. Though not as tightly tuned for difficulty as dungeons, there will be ones that are harder than others. Add to that the fact that the whole PvE game is built around liking it when someone else shows up (good mechanic for community there), and I think they get rid of most of the problems by having a seamless transitions between working solo and with others while still letting guilds work together to get impressive stuff done across a whole zone.
Outside of GW2 though, there's hasn't been a lot of innovation (Warhammer had the most, but GW2 takes the PQ idea and rachets it up a few levels). I don't see any other upcoming games really trying to resolve these problems; they seem resigned to them instead.
Most games like WoW, LotRO, etc, are NOT group friendly. Certainly there is good content for groups, but forming a group is at the very least a time-consuming task for most of the participants (even with WoW's dungeon finder it can take 15 minutes easily for a DPS to get into a group...to say nothing of how the dungeon finder is a terrible mechanic for building a strong community). They certainly are solo-friendly in that solo content is easy to find and not at all hard to get into (FFXI on the other hand, is NOT solo-friendly, though you can solo with great difficulty in it if you are of the right class).
I always find it funny that all of the innovations that are suggested to make it easier and/or faster to group are always decried by the pro-groupers. WoW's dungeon finder make it easy to put together a PUG, yet there are nothing but complaints about it. Suggestions that mobs ought to alter their strength and behavior based on the size and composition of a group always get complaints too. Yet they still complain that nobody ever wants to group. Make up your mind, do you want grouping to be more popular or not? If you want a challenge, probably the best you're going to do is adaptive dificulty, that or just go out and find harder prey, an idea which seems to elude most people.
Somehow, the idea of being "group-friendly" always seems to mean a game where people are forced, by bribery or difficulty, to group whether they want to or not.
Most games like WoW, LotRO, etc, are NOT group friendly. Certainly there is good content for groups, but forming a group is at the very least a time-consuming task for most of the participants (even with WoW's dungeon finder it can take 15 minutes easily for a DPS to get into a group...to say nothing of how the dungeon finder is a terrible mechanic for building a strong community). They certainly are solo-friendly in that solo content is easy to find and not at all hard to get into (FFXI on the other hand, is NOT solo-friendly, though you can solo with great difficulty in it if you are of the right class).
Somehow, the idea of being "group-friendly" always seems to mean a game where people are forced, by bribery or difficulty, to group whether they want to or not.
Thats really the only proven way to make a game group friendly. If you give players the ability to solo through most of the game, despite having optional group content, the majority will take the path of least resistance and just solo.
Not to mention most games lately offer more solo content than group-based content, your lucky if theirs 1 or 2 instances that a group can grind repeatably, while soloers get entire zones and hundreds of quests aimed at them.
That is why recent games like Lotro, AoC, WAR, etc. are often noted as not being group-friendly, group content was not only rare in comparison to solo content, but also ignored by large amounts of players who just want to solo to end game because they can.
Most games like WoW, LotRO, etc, are NOT group friendly. Certainly there is good content for groups, but forming a group is at the very least a time-consuming task for most of the participants (even with WoW's dungeon finder it can take 15 minutes easily for a DPS to get into a group...to say nothing of how the dungeon finder is a terrible mechanic for building a strong community). They certainly are solo-friendly in that solo content is easy to find and not at all hard to get into (FFXI on the other hand, is NOT solo-friendly, though you can solo with great difficulty in it if you are of the right class).
Somehow, the idea of being "group-friendly" always seems to mean a game where people are forced, by bribery or difficulty, to group whether they want to or not.
Thats really the only proven way to make a game group friendly. If you give players the ability to solo through most of the game, despite having optional group content, the majority will take the path of least resistance and just solo.
Not to mention most games lately offer more solo content than group-based content, your lucky if theirs 1 or 2 instances that a group can grind repeatably, while soloers get entire zones and hundreds of quests aimed at them.
That is why recent games like Lotro, AoC, WAR, etc. are often noted as not being group-friendly, group content was not only rare in comparison to solo content, but also ignored by large amounts of players who just want to solo to end game because they can.
Well, I did my best to give a solid definition to group friendliness. Group content is different from being group friendly. Forcing people to group is different from being group friendly. How friendly a game is to a certain playstyle is about how easy it is to start playing that way once you log on. Forced Grouping games aren't that friendly, generally speaking, as forming a group still takes quite a while.
Thats really the only proven way to make a game group friendly. If you give players the ability to solo through most of the game, despite having optional group content, the majority will take the path of least resistance and just solo.
So you're saying that the only way to make a game group friendly is to force the majority of players to do something they otherwise don't want to do? That's not group friendly, that's not player friendly, that's just damn stupid.
Thats really the only proven way to make a game group friendly. If you give players the ability to solo through most of the game, despite having optional group content, the majority will take the path of least resistance and just solo.
So you're saying that the only way to make a game group friendly is to force the majority of players to do something they otherwise don't want to do? That's not group friendly, that's not player friendly, that's just damn stupid.
I said it's the only "proven" way to make a game group friendly.
Games like EQ and FFXI are often largely considered good group friendly games because players actually wanted to group up, it was faster, safer, and arguably funner. You could in theory solo in both games, and some people did, but they advanced faar more slowly and had a much tougher time killing things.
Most modern games that offer a majority of solo content over group content have not been generally regarded as group friendly, again because players will more often that not take the easy and quick path and solo through as much as the game as possible.
Players are not going to group up for anything if their aren't major incenitives to do so, and the only methods really get players to want to play together is to force it either for the sake of simple progression, or to get end-game gear otherwise unobtainable. Players who group up otherwise in a solo oriented game are a minority.
Originally posted by Wolfenpride I said it's the only "proven" way to make a game group friendly. Games like EQ and FFXI are often largely considered good group friendly games because players actually wanted to group up, it was faster, safer, and arguably funner. You could in theory solo in both games, and some people did, but they advanced faar more slowly and had a much tougher time killing things.
You are mistaken group friendly and group focus.
Group friendly means that it is easy to get into groups and there is content for groups.
Group focused means that the content is aimed mostly for groups, at the expense of other play styles - like your described EQ and FFXI.
So you're saying that the only way to make a game group friendly is to force the majority of players to do something they otherwise don't want to do? That's not group friendly, that's not player friendly, that's just damn stupid.
The thing iis, people DO want to do it, but if the game doesn't push toward a certain playstyle then it just isn't going to happen. If a game is designed such that the whole levelling process is soloable then what do you think people will do? People won't group for the novelty when it doesn't achieve anything over what they can do alone.
Players are not going to group up for anything if their aren't major incenitives to do so, and the only methods really get players to want to play together is to force it either for the sake of simple progression, or to get end-game gear otherwise unobtainable. Players who group up otherwise in a solo oriented game are a minority.
When I went through leveling content in WoW I had a number of spontaneous groups form for content that didn't need grouping. People LIKE doing things with other people, generally. The problem is current game design tends to make finding a group a pain in games with a group focus or grouping has significant penalties (such as some quests taking forever, and content having no real difficulty) in games like WoW.
Players are not going to group up for anything if their aren't major incenitives to do so, and the only methods really get players to want to play together is to force it either for the sake of simple progression, or to get end-game gear otherwise unobtainable. Players who group up otherwise in a solo oriented game are a minority.
When I went through leveling content in WoW I had a number of spontaneous groups form for content that didn't need grouping. People LIKE doing things with other people, generally. The problem is current game design tends to make finding a group a pain in games with a group focus or grouping has significant penalties (such as some quests taking forever, and content having no real difficulty) in games like WoW.
While I agree people like doing things with other people generally, the game design has to encourage players to group. (see DAOC the first 3 or so years after launch). It also has to be designed so that anyone can quickly pug up and succeed, vs needing a "pro" team all the time to be successful.
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So you're saying that the only way to make a game group friendly is to force the majority of players to do something they otherwise don't want to do? That's not group friendly, that's not player friendly, that's just damn stupid.
The thing iis, people DO want to do it, but if the game doesn't push toward a certain playstyle then it just isn't going to happen. If a game is designed such that the whole levelling process is soloable then what do you think people will do? People won't group for the novelty when it doesn't achieve anything over what they can do alone.
If people do *WANT* to do it, whether the game pushes you toward it or not is irrelevant, people will do it regardless. The evidence, however, is that most people don't want to do it, that's why the games have changed over the years to become more solo-friendly because that's what the majority of paying players want.
If people do *WANT* to do it, whether the game pushes you toward it or not is irrelevant, people will do it regardless. The evidence, however, is that most people don't want to do it, that's why the games have changed over the years to become more solo-friendly because that's what the majority of paying players want.
That really isn't the case. A game has to be designed with group content otherwise people won't group. Just putting the mechanic in place doesn't make it a 'group friendly' game, it needs the challenges and difficulty that only a group could tackle. Ever played a game of chess on your own? Same principle. If you can win by playing alone then why play with other people? Is playing chess alone a pointless exercise? Absolutely. And that's how pro-groupers see solo based gameplay in an MMO. It might challenge your own ability by trying to find new ways to attack or defend, but at the end of the day, the difficulty is matched by your own ability.
If people do *WANT* to do it, whether the game pushes you toward it or not is irrelevant, people will do it regardless. The evidence, however, is that most people don't want to do it, that's why the games have changed over the years to become more solo-friendly because that's what the majority of paying players want.
That really isn't the case. A game has to be designed with group content otherwise people won't group. Just putting the mechanic in place doesn't make it a 'group friendly' game, it needs the challenges and difficulty that only a group could tackle. Ever played a game of chess on your own? Same principle. If you can win by playing alone then why play with other people? Is playing chess alone a pointless exercise? Absolutely. And that's how pro-groupers see solo based gameplay in an MMO. It might challenge your own ability by trying to find new ways to attack or defend, but at the end of the day, the difficulty is matched by your own ability.
Actually thats not the case either. What has been happening is that even in those solo based games the people that want to group do in fact group. They put it together and go for it, whether the content is challenging or not, whether they are even seeking harder content or not. The people that want to group are still doing it. To say they won't, denies the evidence that they in fact are doing it.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Actually thats not the case either. What has been happening is that even in those solo based games the people that want to group do in fact group. They put it together and go for it, whether the content is challenging or not, whether they are even seeking harder content or not. The people that want to group are still doing it. To say they won't, denies the evidence that they in fact are doing it.
Venge Sunsoar
Please point me to the game where this was happening as I've been through pretty much every decent MMO and it's solo city.
I play lotro and it is a very solo friendly game for people who like to play alone however, I am in a group every single day with my kin doing things. We do skirmishes, dungeons, slayer deads, general group quests etc. Most of my kin are always doing something in a group and the LFF chat is always occupied with people getting groups togeather.
Imho, if people want to group, they will group regardless aslong as there is some reward for doing so.
I play lotro and it is a very solo friendly game for people who like to play alone however, I am in a group every single day with my kin doing things. We do skirmishes, dungeons, slayer deads, general group quests etc. Most of my kin are always doing something in a group and the LFF chat is always occupied with people getting groups togeather.
Imho, if people want to group, they will group regardless aslong as there is some reward for doing so.
That's the only game since EverQuest that I've managed to reach end game in, purely for the reasons you mention. However, the game is starting to turn more solo based as they change the old dungeons and give massive buffs for book quests. Also, I ran out of content, no more quests to do or deeds to complete, etc.
But I'll agree with you, LOTRO was one of the rare MMO's that got it mostly right. Still too much solo content while levelling though, and even more than before with the changes. I just wish they could have added more content more regularly instead of giving up and turning it to a F2P model.
Actually thats not the case either. What has been happening is that even in those solo based games the people that want to group do in fact group. They put it together and go for it, whether the content is challenging or not, whether they are even seeking harder content or not. The people that want to group are still doing it. To say they won't, denies the evidence that they in fact are doing it.
Venge Sunsoar
Please point me to the game where this was happening as I've been through pretty much every decent MMO and it's solo city.
The three games I'm playing right now are WoW, CoH and Istaria and I'm grouped most of the time. Only play for an hour a day during the week, but on weekends it is more and as I said I'm grouped most of the time. My druid just hit 60 today and I've soloed for maybe half a day tops.
So once again, the people that want to group are grouping. If your not grouping than I think that says more about you, because we can group pretty darn easy.
Venge Sunsoar
edit: and actually I don't think end game has anything do do with it. I've never hit end game in well any game I've played ever. MMO or solo. Eventually I just get bored of the game.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
If people do *WANT* to do it, whether the game pushes you toward it or not is irrelevant, people will do it regardless. The evidence, however, is that most people don't want to do it, that's why the games have changed over the years to become more solo-friendly because that's what the majority of paying players want.
That really isn't the case. A game has to be designed with group content otherwise people won't group. Just putting the mechanic in place doesn't make it a 'group friendly' game, it needs the challenges and difficulty that only a group could tackle. Ever played a game of chess on your own? Same principle. If you can win by playing alone then why play with other people? Is playing chess alone a pointless exercise? Absolutely. And that's how pro-groupers see solo based gameplay in an MMO. It might challenge your own ability by trying to find new ways to attack or defend, but at the end of the day, the difficulty is matched by your own ability.
Playing chess alone is hardly a pointless exercise, they sell tons of computer chess games every year, there are probably more people who play computer chess than who play against other people. It's personal choice what you want to do. Lots of people go out and shoot baskets and never join a basketball team, are they just wasting their time? In fact, I play all kinds of games alone that other people choose to play in groups. I was playing COD earlier, doing the solo missions. Did I waste my time because that's not how other people choose to play?
Just because you see the game a particular way doesn't mean that the game actually is that way. If you want to play in a group, play in a group. Go ahead, nobody is stopping you. Likewise though, you cannot stop others from playing solo if that's how they want to play. People of like-mind will gravitate together, people who want to play in a group are going to do so regardless. Anyone who doesn't choose to doesn't really want to play in a group to begin with.
Maybe that's your problem, the vast majority of people really don't want to group in the first place. They'll do it only when it serves their interests, it's a means to an end, it's not a preferred playstyle. That puts the pro-groupers in an even worse position than they would be otherwise. Not only can't you get people to play group of their own free will, when you try to bribe them to do so, lots of them balk at the idea anyhow. It's like having your mother tie meat around your neck so the dogs will play with you and they still turn up their noses.
Maybe that's your problem, the vast majority of people really don't want to group in the first place. They'll do it only when it serves their interests, it's a means to an end, it's not a preferred playstyle. That puts the pro-groupers in an even worse position than they would be otherwise. Not only can't you get people to play group of their own free will, when you try to bribe them to do so, lots of them balk at the idea anyhow. It's like having your mother tie meat around your neck so the dogs will play with you and they still turn up their noses.
Most people want to group... SOMETIMES. This is where "group-only" people are most delusional.
In real life, there are some things you prefer to do with other people, and some things you prefer to do alone. Even more to that point, there are some things which, if you can't do them with a friend(s) or loved one(s), you'll do them by yourself or not at all.
Imagine if the mall REQUIRED you to show up with 5 other people in order to shop there.
Imagine having to assemble a RAID group in order to go to an amusement park.
It would never work. And devs are more and more realizing that forcing these states ingame= doing exactly that. It keeps players from accessing the content, or it makes them team up with complete strangers which more often than not just makes things frustrating.
Imagine grabbing 5 random people off the bus to go shopping with.
Imagine grabbing 25 random people to go to an amusment park. 25 different people you know and love would be ENOUGH like herding cats. 25 strangers?
Having most content in an MMO be group content has been, and always will be, bad game design. Having some group content, however, I think is fine, so long as there's plenty of solo content. And most modern games have that.
I agree with your statement whole-heartedly. MMO-RPG massively multi-player online role playing game. When a game plays too much solo like WoW or too much group like FFXI you can absolutely get frustrated. I think one of the biggest problems game makers do is making your rewards for long hours of questing missions and grouping be gear, and new content access alone. Game makers need to give you a story to go along with the game something to emerse yourself in so that you play the game and not just pay the game. WoW is simply boring to me because for the most part it is a solo game that is played in an online world. FFXI hit the great storyline on the head but its forced grouping for almost anything you did past level 10-15 ish outside of crafts and the lack of exp for 2 hour long quests was something that the group forced games annoyed people into quiting. Economics of the games, when there is an in game economy like in FFXI and WoW and a game is solely gear based rewards, people would rather open thier wallets to keep pace and actually do what you bought or downloaded the game for.... To play it.
I'm all about grouping to adventure. It is the most fun way. But only if the other members are serious roleplayers and can stay in character. There is nothing I despise more than someone talking about homework in the middle of an adventure.
LOL you better never party with me then, I dont care about roleplaying.
I try not to break the atmosphere by choosing a name that fits to fantasy and I try to make my character behave overall according to the character I envision about him (or her), but I have definitely no qualms of breaking character and discussing reallife issues at any time.
If people do *WANT* to do it, whether the game pushes you toward it or not is irrelevant, people will do it regardless. The evidence, however, is that most people don't want to do it, that's why the games have changed over the years to become more solo-friendly because that's what the majority of paying players want.
That really isn't the case. A game has to be designed with group content otherwise people won't group. Just putting the mechanic in place doesn't make it a 'group friendly' game, it needs the challenges and difficulty that only a group could tackle. Ever played a game of chess on your own? Same principle. If you can win by playing alone then why play with other people? Is playing chess alone a pointless exercise? Absolutely. And that's how pro-groupers see solo based gameplay in an MMO. It might challenge your own ability by trying to find new ways to attack or defend, but at the end of the day, the difficulty is matched by your own ability.
I don't really know what to say to this.
I play chess alone all the time. I have two electronic chess sets.
I also love playing against other people. I would suggest that perhaps the world is less "black and white" and perhaps the act of doing one or the other delivers its own unique reward or experience.
My issue with statements like yours is that you seem to not be able to see anything except from your own vantage point. I coudl be wrong but that's my sense.
If a person gets up every morning at the crack before dawn and runs a mini-marathon I might make a remark like "they are nuts" but I assume there is value to what they are doing or they wouldn't be doing it.
Same with people who collect hummel figurines, who listen to punk rock, who swing dance, who dedicate their lives to religion, who drive motor cycles, who do Karaoke, etc.
We have to start getting it into our heads that we all experience things in different ways, we all find value in different things and there is no exact "one way".
To your point, a good many of my friends would say "playing video games is a pointless exercise"
Does that trump everything we are doing here? I think not.
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Its doesnt make much sense to me why someone would want to solo in a PVE MMORPG all of the time.
I can definitely understand why in a PVP game though since its funner and more challenging to defeat real people rather than the computer.
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That really isn't the case. A game has to be designed with group content otherwise people won't group. Just putting the mechanic in place doesn't make it a 'group friendly' game, it needs the challenges and difficulty that only a group could tackle. Ever played a game of chess on your own? Same principle. If you can win by playing alone then why play with other people? Is playing chess alone a pointless exercise? Absolutely. And that's how pro-groupers see solo based gameplay in an MMO. It might challenge your own ability by trying to find new ways to attack or defend, but at the end of the day, the difficulty is matched by your own ability.
I don't really know what to say to this.
I play chess alone all the time. I have two electronic chess sets.
You and Cephus seem to have missed the point of this statement. I'm not talking abotu electronic chess sets, I'm talking about a board with white and black chess pieces and you playing both sides. The only challenge is your own ability, you can't surprise yourself with a move, you can't plot an attack ten moves in advance because you know what that attack is so defend appropriately.
That's the thing with a pure solo game, the only challenge is your own ability. The developers could make it tough and you might have trouble with it, but at the end of the day, the developers have to design solo content so each class and 99% of people can eventually get through it.
With a group based game the challenges can be much larger, requiring multiple people for protection, extra or faster healing, multiple mobs to defend against simultaneously, or whatever else the developers minds can come up with.
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As I said, I'm not entirely familiar with CoH, especially the modern version. I only played for a couple months before I got bored. So perhaps I'm wrong there and it is easy to find a good challenge as a group (though I suppose that leaves open whether being challenged is properly rewarded, which I suppose we could list as a third issue).
As for WoW, it is certainly more group-friendly than EQ if you are doing dungeons now. Before the Dungeon Finder, it was about the same. As far as raiding goes, that's still a total pain AND the only place you can find a real challenge since the progression of dungeon content is very mild and you get the same badge rewards whether you do an easy dungeon or a hard dungeon (AND you have to go with a random selection to get full rewards, which is also bad). The DF is a terrible system for the community though, since it makes connections between people even more fleeting and meaningless given the cross-server aspect. Anyhow, 15 minutes is still too long a time, imho, and still presents an unpleasant obstacle when you have to wait that long before any PvE group activity.
I suppose this is where I toot my GW2 horn again. They look to have a pretty good system for doing things with others. Roles aren't as heavily specialized as you see in Holy Trinity games, which should make forming groups easier (especially since you can swap out skills between combat, tweaking your abilities to what is needed). The most challenging content is tuned for 5 players, which makes that easy to access. Dynamic Events provide for massive group stuff, which could have 60 players or even a lot more and will scale accordingly. Though not as tightly tuned for difficulty as dungeons, there will be ones that are harder than others. Add to that the fact that the whole PvE game is built around liking it when someone else shows up (good mechanic for community there), and I think they get rid of most of the problems by having a seamless transitions between working solo and with others while still letting guilds work together to get impressive stuff done across a whole zone.
Outside of GW2 though, there's hasn't been a lot of innovation (Warhammer had the most, but GW2 takes the PQ idea and rachets it up a few levels). I don't see any other upcoming games really trying to resolve these problems; they seem resigned to them instead.
I always find it funny that all of the innovations that are suggested to make it easier and/or faster to group are always decried by the pro-groupers. WoW's dungeon finder make it easy to put together a PUG, yet there are nothing but complaints about it. Suggestions that mobs ought to alter their strength and behavior based on the size and composition of a group always get complaints too. Yet they still complain that nobody ever wants to group. Make up your mind, do you want grouping to be more popular or not? If you want a challenge, probably the best you're going to do is adaptive dificulty, that or just go out and find harder prey, an idea which seems to elude most people.
Somehow, the idea of being "group-friendly" always seems to mean a game where people are forced, by bribery or difficulty, to group whether they want to or not.
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Thats really the only proven way to make a game group friendly. If you give players the ability to solo through most of the game, despite having optional group content, the majority will take the path of least resistance and just solo.
Not to mention most games lately offer more solo content than group-based content, your lucky if theirs 1 or 2 instances that a group can grind repeatably, while soloers get entire zones and hundreds of quests aimed at them.
That is why recent games like Lotro, AoC, WAR, etc. are often noted as not being group-friendly, group content was not only rare in comparison to solo content, but also ignored by large amounts of players who just want to solo to end game because they can.
Well, I did my best to give a solid definition to group friendliness. Group content is different from being group friendly. Forcing people to group is different from being group friendly. How friendly a game is to a certain playstyle is about how easy it is to start playing that way once you log on. Forced Grouping games aren't that friendly, generally speaking, as forming a group still takes quite a while.
So you're saying that the only way to make a game group friendly is to force the majority of players to do something they otherwise don't want to do? That's not group friendly, that's not player friendly, that's just damn stupid.
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I said it's the only "proven" way to make a game group friendly.
Games like EQ and FFXI are often largely considered good group friendly games because players actually wanted to group up, it was faster, safer, and arguably funner. You could in theory solo in both games, and some people did, but they advanced faar more slowly and had a much tougher time killing things.
Most modern games that offer a majority of solo content over group content have not been generally regarded as group friendly, again because players will more often that not take the easy and quick path and solo through as much as the game as possible.
Players are not going to group up for anything if their aren't major incenitives to do so, and the only methods really get players to want to play together is to force it either for the sake of simple progression, or to get end-game gear otherwise unobtainable. Players who group up otherwise in a solo oriented game are a minority.
You are mistaken group friendly and group focus.
Group friendly means that it is easy to get into groups and there is content for groups.
Group focused means that the content is aimed mostly for groups, at the expense of other play styles - like your described EQ and FFXI.
The thing iis, people DO want to do it, but if the game doesn't push toward a certain playstyle then it just isn't going to happen. If a game is designed such that the whole levelling process is soloable then what do you think people will do? People won't group for the novelty when it doesn't achieve anything over what they can do alone.
When I went through leveling content in WoW I had a number of spontaneous groups form for content that didn't need grouping. People LIKE doing things with other people, generally. The problem is current game design tends to make finding a group a pain in games with a group focus or grouping has significant penalties (such as some quests taking forever, and content having no real difficulty) in games like WoW.
While I agree people like doing things with other people generally, the game design has to encourage players to group. (see DAOC the first 3 or so years after launch). It also has to be designed so that anyone can quickly pug up and succeed, vs needing a "pro" team all the time to be successful.
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If people do *WANT* to do it, whether the game pushes you toward it or not is irrelevant, people will do it regardless. The evidence, however, is that most people don't want to do it, that's why the games have changed over the years to become more solo-friendly because that's what the majority of paying players want.
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That really isn't the case. A game has to be designed with group content otherwise people won't group. Just putting the mechanic in place doesn't make it a 'group friendly' game, it needs the challenges and difficulty that only a group could tackle. Ever played a game of chess on your own? Same principle. If you can win by playing alone then why play with other people? Is playing chess alone a pointless exercise? Absolutely. And that's how pro-groupers see solo based gameplay in an MMO. It might challenge your own ability by trying to find new ways to attack or defend, but at the end of the day, the difficulty is matched by your own ability.
Actually thats not the case either. What has been happening is that even in those solo based games the people that want to group do in fact group. They put it together and go for it, whether the content is challenging or not, whether they are even seeking harder content or not. The people that want to group are still doing it. To say they won't, denies the evidence that they in fact are doing it.
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Please point me to the game where this was happening as I've been through pretty much every decent MMO and it's solo city.
I play lotro and it is a very solo friendly game for people who like to play alone however, I am in a group every single day with my kin doing things. We do skirmishes, dungeons, slayer deads, general group quests etc. Most of my kin are always doing something in a group and the LFF chat is always occupied with people getting groups togeather.
Imho, if people want to group, they will group regardless aslong as there is some reward for doing so.
That's the only game since EverQuest that I've managed to reach end game in, purely for the reasons you mention. However, the game is starting to turn more solo based as they change the old dungeons and give massive buffs for book quests. Also, I ran out of content, no more quests to do or deeds to complete, etc.
But I'll agree with you, LOTRO was one of the rare MMO's that got it mostly right. Still too much solo content while levelling though, and even more than before with the changes. I just wish they could have added more content more regularly instead of giving up and turning it to a F2P model.
The three games I'm playing right now are WoW, CoH and Istaria and I'm grouped most of the time. Only play for an hour a day during the week, but on weekends it is more and as I said I'm grouped most of the time. My druid just hit 60 today and I've soloed for maybe half a day tops.
So once again, the people that want to group are grouping. If your not grouping than I think that says more about you, because we can group pretty darn easy.
Venge Sunsoar
edit: and actually I don't think end game has anything do do with it. I've never hit end game in well any game I've played ever. MMO or solo. Eventually I just get bored of the game.
Playing chess alone is hardly a pointless exercise, they sell tons of computer chess games every year, there are probably more people who play computer chess than who play against other people. It's personal choice what you want to do. Lots of people go out and shoot baskets and never join a basketball team, are they just wasting their time? In fact, I play all kinds of games alone that other people choose to play in groups. I was playing COD earlier, doing the solo missions. Did I waste my time because that's not how other people choose to play?
Just because you see the game a particular way doesn't mean that the game actually is that way. If you want to play in a group, play in a group. Go ahead, nobody is stopping you. Likewise though, you cannot stop others from playing solo if that's how they want to play. People of like-mind will gravitate together, people who want to play in a group are going to do so regardless. Anyone who doesn't choose to doesn't really want to play in a group to begin with.
Maybe that's your problem, the vast majority of people really don't want to group in the first place. They'll do it only when it serves their interests, it's a means to an end, it's not a preferred playstyle. That puts the pro-groupers in an even worse position than they would be otherwise. Not only can't you get people to play group of their own free will, when you try to bribe them to do so, lots of them balk at the idea anyhow. It's like having your mother tie meat around your neck so the dogs will play with you and they still turn up their noses.
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Most people want to group... SOMETIMES. This is where "group-only" people are most delusional.
In real life, there are some things you prefer to do with other people, and some things you prefer to do alone. Even more to that point, there are some things which, if you can't do them with a friend(s) or loved one(s), you'll do them by yourself or not at all.
Imagine if the mall REQUIRED you to show up with 5 other people in order to shop there.
Imagine having to assemble a RAID group in order to go to an amusement park.
It would never work. And devs are more and more realizing that forcing these states ingame= doing exactly that. It keeps players from accessing the content, or it makes them team up with complete strangers which more often than not just makes things frustrating.
Imagine grabbing 5 random people off the bus to go shopping with.
Imagine grabbing 25 random people to go to an amusment park. 25 different people you know and love would be ENOUGH like herding cats. 25 strangers?
Having most content in an MMO be group content has been, and always will be, bad game design. Having some group content, however, I think is fine, so long as there's plenty of solo content. And most modern games have that.
I agree with your statement whole-heartedly. MMO-RPG massively multi-player online role playing game. When a game plays too much solo like WoW or too much group like FFXI you can absolutely get frustrated. I think one of the biggest problems game makers do is making your rewards for long hours of questing missions and grouping be gear, and new content access alone. Game makers need to give you a story to go along with the game something to emerse yourself in so that you play the game and not just pay the game. WoW is simply boring to me because for the most part it is a solo game that is played in an online world. FFXI hit the great storyline on the head but its forced grouping for almost anything you did past level 10-15 ish outside of crafts and the lack of exp for 2 hour long quests was something that the group forced games annoyed people into quiting. Economics of the games, when there is an in game economy like in FFXI and WoW and a game is solely gear based rewards, people would rather open thier wallets to keep pace and actually do what you bought or downloaded the game for.... To play it.
I'm all about grouping to adventure. It is the most fun way. But only if the other members are serious roleplayers and can stay in character. There is nothing I despise more than someone talking about homework in the middle of an adventure.
LOL you better never party with me then, I dont care about roleplaying.
I try not to break the atmosphere by choosing a name that fits to fantasy and I try to make my character behave overall according to the character I envision about him (or her), but I have definitely no qualms of breaking character and discussing reallife issues at any time.
I don't really know what to say to this.
I play chess alone all the time. I have two electronic chess sets.
I also love playing against other people. I would suggest that perhaps the world is less "black and white" and perhaps the act of doing one or the other delivers its own unique reward or experience.
My issue with statements like yours is that you seem to not be able to see anything except from your own vantage point. I coudl be wrong but that's my sense.
If a person gets up every morning at the crack before dawn and runs a mini-marathon I might make a remark like "they are nuts" but I assume there is value to what they are doing or they wouldn't be doing it.
Same with people who collect hummel figurines, who listen to punk rock, who swing dance, who dedicate their lives to religion, who drive motor cycles, who do Karaoke, etc.
We have to start getting it into our heads that we all experience things in different ways, we all find value in different things and there is no exact "one way".
To your point, a good many of my friends would say "playing video games is a pointless exercise"
Does that trump everything we are doing here? I think not.
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Its doesnt make much sense to me why someone would want to solo in a PVE MMORPG all of the time.
I can definitely understand why in a PVP game though since its funner and more challenging to defeat real people rather than the computer.
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You and Cephus seem to have missed the point of this statement. I'm not talking abotu electronic chess sets, I'm talking about a board with white and black chess pieces and you playing both sides. The only challenge is your own ability, you can't surprise yourself with a move, you can't plot an attack ten moves in advance because you know what that attack is so defend appropriately.
That's the thing with a pure solo game, the only challenge is your own ability. The developers could make it tough and you might have trouble with it, but at the end of the day, the developers have to design solo content so each class and 99% of people can eventually get through it.
With a group based game the challenges can be much larger, requiring multiple people for protection, extra or faster healing, multiple mobs to defend against simultaneously, or whatever else the developers minds can come up with.