I am certainly a player who would classify as a soloer but I just don't get it when all these other solo players complain about group content gear being "better".
Look at it like this raids and instances certainly require more skill/discipline to complete than solo content so why should the gear they get not be a bit above that which you can get for tackling the easier content?
I may be wrong but if we all had access to the exact same gear maybe many of the people who engage in this gameplay would simply skip it and play the game the same way you or I do which wouldn't help the devs after having spent months to design encounters no one is playing.
Further in my experience people who enjoy instance runs and raids or even pvp (where the gear reawards are sometimes better than what you get solo) rarely turn around and use that gear to give themselves an easier time tackling the content you enjoy, raiders tend to raid dungeon runners run dungeons and pvpers pvp it's not like these people run the instance to get the gear and then use it to circumvent the difficulty of solo content, when you see these people outside of their desired element it's usually at the bank/ah or sometimes if we are lucky helping soloers like myself to complete an instance the rest of us aren't good enough to complete.
These kind of posts make me think of a guy who went to two years community college whining that his lawyer brother makes ten times what he does working at a factory.
I'm a soloer at heart often times my real life friends have come to accept they may not see me for a few months I will always naturally prefer to turn on my game and plug away at my own solo experience in a game without groups,voice chats, etc. but you folks who constantly complain about things that should be the way they are give players like me a bad rep.
And for crazynannies point in what rpg (non mmo) is gear progression such an important aspect? I haven't played them all but the ones that I have played gear is nowhere near as important as story
I don't like raiding because it means you have to put up with some egotistical bossy guild leader, who has "military experience" therefore we should all listen to him..makes me laugh. i try to avoid people in mmo's these days as the majority of people are loot hungry jerks with their e-peens hanging out.
I don't like raiding because it means you have to put up with some egotistical bossy guild leader, who has "milaritary experience" therefore we should all listen to him..makes me laugh. i try to avoid people in mmo's these days as the majority of people are lott hungry jerks with their e-peens hanging out.
I can give this to you I have played in some dungeons or raids with some pure tools (another reason I as well tend to avoid running them I don't like to see the worst in people) but one thing TOR does is reward everyone who runs a raid or instance so it's not like the "leader" will have the power that they had in other gamers.
Heck I recall many times over having a player piss me off with all his ordering around and simply ignored him without making an issue out of it or by simply making plausible excuses for why I was doing it while laughing my ass off behind the keyboard at home and in tells to the friends who also saw him for being the jerk he was being.
the great thing about tihs game is so long as you pull your weight he isn't going to have much of a leg to stand on by kicking you and he certainly won't have control over the gear you recieve for completing the content.
And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news.
Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion.
Is this thread still going on? It's 3 to 6 hours a week people, if you do not have the time to devote 3-6 hours to a MMO then you should not be playing one. God I hate these forums and this website. If it was not for some of the more informative posters here I would not be here. First the game was too single player, now it's too multiplayer. You know the game is going to sell like hotcakes, you know why? Because there are so many people with no vested interest in even playing the game chiming in on every little mechanic, just like WOW.
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
There is one whole planet dedicated for soloers in SWTOR.
cause game2 takes alot less effort to produce same ammount of playtime than with game1 but people need to get hooked or they won't stay in the geargrind threadmill, its all about $$
Is this thread still going on? It's 3 to 6 hours a week people, if you do not have the time to devote 3-6 hours to a MMO then you should not be playing one. God I hate these forums and this website. If it was not for some of the more informative posters here I would not be here. First the game was too single player, now it's too multiplayer. You know the game is going to sell like hotcakes, you know why? Because there are so many people with no vested interest in even playing the game chiming in on every little mechanic, just like WOW.
I doubt for most people it has a single thing to do with how much time, but rather how that time is spent. I think for many people the idea of SWTOR has been so appealing because they thought much of their time was going to be spent with story, but now some of them are realizing that's not the entire game.
BW is trying to please two masters, that I don't think can be pleased because raiders tend to hate when anyone gets anything they get in a way they perceive as "less work". You could design a system where a solo player gets the same gear in three times the time investment as a raid guild and they would still flood the forums with complaints. Likewise solo players solo, not usually only because of time, but also because of a prefered game style. SWTOR from the start has given solo players a great deal of hope, but the one thing solo players hate is being locked out from content and gear because of their play style. Most can accept a certain level of this, but it seems pretty clear that end game in SWTOR is raid and PvP-centric, so now all those solo players are complaining.
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
SWTOR has solo end game content... a whole world dedicated to it. They also have group content that you can do throughout the entire game, and its repeatable, so if you truly just wanted to do group content, mixed with grinding flashpoints until you reach the end game operations you could.
And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news.
Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion.
you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that. the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.
How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.
These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?
No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now". and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
Yeah, it makes no sense. I've done some raiding and I hate it, so usually I end up getting bored at end game and just switch to a new mmo. It's sad all the content that programmers put into mmos that never get seen by a large number of players. It's wasted effort on their part.
Originally posted by Creslin321 What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games. You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient. Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1. The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it. It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
because it's been a ridiculously lackluster progression from the times of "forced grouping" to "instant gratification / entitlement gaming"
sure you could level to 60 in vanilla wow, solo, but that was the inefficient path back then. At least 40-50% of the leveling content was group content back then. Also there were tons of quests to do at level 60 so endgame wasn't all about solo content. not to mention the games before that were actually "forced grouping" games and had very little real solo content. In fact at release there was probably more to do solo and way more to do in small group / solo at lvl 60.
Since then the tsunami of casual gamers has buried all but raiding and dungeons. the reason these have survived likely has to do with development time vs the time it takes the average gamer to chew through it.
The real crime imo is that there is virtually nothing left for those of use that prefer the group dynamic except raiding.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I typically find that if people just enjoy the game and stop worrying about what their gear looks like or what someone else's gear looks like they will have a lot more fun playing and it will be a lot less stressful.
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers.
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game.
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard.
And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news.
Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion.
you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that. the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.
How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.
These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?
No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now". and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.
They can't make raid story lines or even flashpoints that important to your personal story since, you don't get to actually decide the outcomes, yes you get the points for the decisions you make, but the outcome is based on a dice roll, too many people will be pissed off if those stories have a huge impact on your character.
Of course everyone is posting about the way they want it. This isn't like someone making a decision like, should I fired X employees or try to cut costs in my business another way. A post on an MMO forum is not about other people it will always be about you. Hence the reason Raiders refuse to see the fairness in letting solo players get the same gear in different ways or why solo players see no point in raiding. All posts about an MMO are about the individuals wants, there is no real "greater good" in an MMO and never has or will be since it is a product that people individually pay for.
This wont keep me from playing but if it does pan out this way it will probably keep me from staying after hitting max level. I am not actually a soloing fan, I like groups, I prefer group, that is why I play mmos and not rpgs. But I don't raid because I don't want to put that level of effort into a game. I also don't like more than the occasional pvp, especially if it is battleground style. So just because you don't like raiding or much pvp doesnt mean that a solo planet with daily quests is going to do it for you.
So really, the folks who are saying, "if you don't like it just go play an rpg" need to look up False Dichotomy.
But this really isn't much of a surprise. We knew that SWTOR would be substantially similar to WoW so this type of design was to be expected. I will enjoy SWTOR until I stop having fun. Which will probably be shortly after hitting max level. And then I will move on. If Bio wants to hang on to casual players long term then they will come up with something interesting for them to do after hitting max level.
Play what you find to be fun. Let the market decide who will be rewarded for making the best fun.
Originally posted by Creslin321 What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games. You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient. Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1. The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it. It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers. The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time. For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game. Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard.
You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Raid or die was exactly why I stopped playing Rift after 1.5 month, despite having 3-month sub paid. It's sad to see same thing in ToR. To be honest I don't mind that there is a content for big groups. But I think there are better solutions than forcing people to hardcore raid or skip content and gear progression. Raiding and hardcore raiding guilds are like 2nd job, been there, done that.
Then I'm for 3-6 people group content at end game(or yet better scalable content, valid trough the whole game). I mean group content has more complexity and thus more challenge(than solo), but at raid point it's more about cat herding then each player skill.
Still gear rewards should be at very same level as solo. I'm up for special titles, cosmetics or achievements though.
So you can tolerate 6 man content but 8 is just way too much?
As long as that 3/6/8/12/20/40 group content don't lock me from gear and story progression I don't mind it. My second paragraph was about optimal group size for me, so yea 8 is too much.
The problem with "what do You need raid gear for solo?" is about excluding solo people from one of the key thing in RPG games. Character development(via gear). This and story are two things that developers are doing wrong, by hiding them behind raids who are only done by minority of players. Group stuff should be purely for fun, titles, cosmetics and such fluff. Just look what gear treadmill did with WoW community. It's all about Your GS number...
There was no such thing as a gear treadmill before WoW. Gear progression didn't exist. So forgive me for not understanding why it's so damn important for you and others to get the "best" gear. I've always thought that the best things in MMO's was socializing, exploring, and cooperating with others. When you raided in DAoC, it wasn't to get gear, so that whole mindset never got me. I don't mind raiding, especially when it's only 8 people, as long as it doesn't turn into a job. Being able to see the content is enough reward for me, but some developer in WoW thought it was a good idea to add gear progression to raids to give people a reason to run a raid more than a few times. I've accepted that, but if it's going to be like that, then there's no real need for non-raiders to get that gear. They should be happy with the gear set they receive by doing solo quests if they're soloers, or flashpoints if they're "group only" players.
EQ1 is a gear threadmill, from the plane of fear/hate thru plane of air and beyond. That is a big big big grind.
Of course, SoE issue things so much slower, it does not give you as many versions of upgrade as WoW.
I'll wait and see what the planet they're going to provide for solo endgame content is all about before crying about lack of things to do. Only reason I'd ever want raid gear anyway is because it usually looks better than the cobbled-together hodgepodge of dungeon/quest rewards most players end up with at endgame.
And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news.
Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion.
you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that. the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.
How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.
These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?
No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now". and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.
They can't make raid story lines or even flashpoints that important to your personal story since, you don't get to actually decide the outcomes, yes you get the points for the decisions you make, but the outcome is based on a dice roll, too many people will be pissed off if those stories have a huge impact on your character.
Of course everyone is posting about the way they want it. This isn't like someone making a decision like, should I fired X employees or try to cut costs in my business another way. A post on an MMO forum is not about other people it will always be about you. Hence the reason Raiders refuse to see the fairness in letting solo players get the same gear in different ways or why solo players see no point in raiding. All posts about an MMO are about the individuals wants, there is no real "greater good" in an MMO and never has or will be since it is a product that people individually pay for.
Nothing you said changes what I'm speaking in regards to, which is you giving the excuse that somehow BW is at fault for focusing on story and that is the reason people thought that the entire game would be able to be played solo. I also pointed out that it doesn't seem a correct assumption to make when a vast majority of the comments focus on gear not story.
the issue that had me reply to your post was not whether people had a right to voice an opinion about something they like/dislike and contrary to what you may believe I see lot's of posters on here who may let it be known they prefer something one way many don't try to make it a rallying point to destroy one feature or another.
Not every poster here makes five posts a month trying to tell people that rmt's are wrong or that raiders shouldn't be catered to or that people shouldn't play mmorpgs solo and just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should excuse it or create reasoning out of thin air as to why they do it.
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers.
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game.
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard.
You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.
Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW.
Originally posted by Leoghan Originally posted by azmundai
Originally posted by Leoghan
Originally posted by Creslin321 What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games. You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient. Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1. The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it. It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers. The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time. For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game. Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard.
You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable .. as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe. Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW.
Then which game exactly are you getting the "fact" that raiders will leave if not catered to? And while on the subject .. why wouldn't you leave a game when you preferred playstyle is ignored? It worked out well enough for EQ and EQ2. War, Aion? These didn't have raiding. So again where does your assumption come from and what does any of that have to do with the fact that its 1 game till endgame and another afterwards? Which again is a new development. MMOs used to actually be much more biased towards group mechanics.
imo the solution is even easier than all of this. swtor should me an ORPG not an MMORPG. Its really too bad someone didnt make a really good rpg with a chat box 4 or 5 years ago. instead the industry has diluted down to a game full of lowest common denominator (thats speaking for both casuals and hardcore .. and all of the other icky stereo types).
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Comments
I am certainly a player who would classify as a soloer but I just don't get it when all these other solo players complain about group content gear being "better".
Look at it like this raids and instances certainly require more skill/discipline to complete than solo content so why should the gear they get not be a bit above that which you can get for tackling the easier content?
I may be wrong but if we all had access to the exact same gear maybe many of the people who engage in this gameplay would simply skip it and play the game the same way you or I do which wouldn't help the devs after having spent months to design encounters no one is playing.
Further in my experience people who enjoy instance runs and raids or even pvp (where the gear reawards are sometimes better than what you get solo) rarely turn around and use that gear to give themselves an easier time tackling the content you enjoy, raiders tend to raid dungeon runners run dungeons and pvpers pvp it's not like these people run the instance to get the gear and then use it to circumvent the difficulty of solo content, when you see these people outside of their desired element it's usually at the bank/ah or sometimes if we are lucky helping soloers like myself to complete an instance the rest of us aren't good enough to complete.
These kind of posts make me think of a guy who went to two years community college whining that his lawyer brother makes ten times what he does working at a factory.
I'm a soloer at heart often times my real life friends have come to accept they may not see me for a few months I will always naturally prefer to turn on my game and plug away at my own solo experience in a game without groups,voice chats, etc. but you folks who constantly complain about things that should be the way they are give players like me a bad rep.
And for crazynannies point in what rpg (non mmo) is gear progression such an important aspect? I haven't played them all but the ones that I have played gear is nowhere near as important as story
I don't like raiding because it means you have to put up with some egotistical bossy guild leader, who has "military experience" therefore we should all listen to him..makes me laugh. i try to avoid people in mmo's these days as the majority of people are loot hungry jerks with their e-peens hanging out.
I can give this to you I have played in some dungeons or raids with some pure tools (another reason I as well tend to avoid running them I don't like to see the worst in people) but one thing TOR does is reward everyone who runs a raid or instance so it's not like the "leader" will have the power that they had in other gamers.
Heck I recall many times over having a player piss me off with all his ordering around and simply ignored him without making an issue out of it or by simply making plausible excuses for why I was doing it while laughing my ass off behind the keyboard at home and in tells to the friends who also saw him for being the jerk he was being.
the great thing about tihs game is so long as you pull your weight he isn't going to have much of a leg to stand on by kicking you and he certainly won't have control over the gear you recieve for completing the content.
And I think this is where the whole "story-driven" MMO comes back to bite SWTOR in the butt. I've said before if I was going to play SWTOR, I'd be more likely to play it (even pay a sub to is) if it was 100% soloable. By making it a "story-driven" game they've developed a large following of gamers that expected the entire game to be more or less soloable, they even said they have a solo planet for end game right? But what these people have ignored is the fact that the game will have raids and the one thing raiders can't tolerate is someone else getting gear in any manner other than a raid, heck look at the thread on the "everyone gets rewarded for flash points" news.
Sadly, I don't see story being the reasons raiders stay in a game and I don't see those seeking story above all else staying in a game that doesn't reward their play style equally. BW is going to at some point have to choose between the two. I personally think they have more to lose by choosing raiders, but that's my opinion.
Is this thread still going on? It's 3 to 6 hours a week people, if you do not have the time to devote 3-6 hours to a MMO then you should not be playing one. God I hate these forums and this website. If it was not for some of the more informative posters here I would not be here. First the game was too single player, now it's too multiplayer. You know the game is going to sell like hotcakes, you know why? Because there are so many people with no vested interest in even playing the game chiming in on every little mechanic, just like WOW.
In Bioware we trust!
What I never got about the traditional theme park paradigm is why they essentially always have two different games.
You have game 1, which is do quests/story and level up to max level. This is by and large a solo experience. Sure, you may group some to do a dungeon, but it's not necessary and you typically don't spend much time doing it because it's typically inefficient.
Then you have game 2, which is end game dungeons and raiding. This is all group content and is vastly different from game 1.
The problem is that a lot of people enjoy game 1 but not game 2 and then find nothing for them to do at end game. On the other hand, you also have people that want to do game 2, but are forced to grind through game 1 to get to it.
It's so dumb that they separate the content out like this. Why not have group/raiding content all throughout the game and have some decent solo content at end game as well?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
There is one whole planet dedicated for soloers in SWTOR.
cause game2 takes alot less effort to produce same ammount of playtime than with game1 but people need to get hooked or they won't stay in the geargrind threadmill, its all about $$
Pi*1337/100 = 42
I doubt for most people it has a single thing to do with how much time, but rather how that time is spent. I think for many people the idea of SWTOR has been so appealing because they thought much of their time was going to be spent with story, but now some of them are realizing that's not the entire game.
BW is trying to please two masters, that I don't think can be pleased because raiders tend to hate when anyone gets anything they get in a way they perceive as "less work". You could design a system where a solo player gets the same gear in three times the time investment as a raid guild and they would still flood the forums with complaints. Likewise solo players solo, not usually only because of time, but also because of a prefered game style. SWTOR from the start has given solo players a great deal of hope, but the one thing solo players hate is being locked out from content and gear because of their play style. Most can accept a certain level of this, but it seems pretty clear that end game in SWTOR is raid and PvP-centric, so now all those solo players are complaining.
SWTOR has solo end game content... a whole world dedicated to it. They also have group content that you can do throughout the entire game, and its repeatable, so if you truly just wanted to do group content, mixed with grinding flashpoints until you reach the end game operations you could.
you are fooling yourself if you think these people think this way simply because BW said the game is story driven they would be making the same complaint even if they didn't say that. the problem is too many people lately want to play armchair dev and can never simply accept a product for what it is they feel like they have to go to war over any single feature they don't like.
How many people on this particular post have cried about raid content and being locked out of it and out of those people how many have said they care because they want to be a part of that story as opposed to being pissed because there is gear they won't be able to access without it.
These people know as well as all of us that this game is not going to make raid storylines an important part of your characters personal story and if so what's so hard about grouping up and getting it done to see the story that one time and moving on forgetting about the gear?
No this is just more "I want it my way and I want it now". and for a large percentage of posters here this is the stance they take on everything whether it is sandbox gameplay,innovation,rmt's and the list goes on and on people try to find some logic to why something they have no interest in has to be a problem for them not just something they don't do.
Yeah, it makes no sense. I've done some raiding and I hate it, so usually I end up getting bored at end game and just switch to a new mmo. It's sad all the content that programmers put into mmos that never get seen by a large number of players. It's wasted effort on their part.
because it's been a ridiculously lackluster progression from the times of "forced grouping" to "instant gratification / entitlement gaming"
sure you could level to 60 in vanilla wow, solo, but that was the inefficient path back then. At least 40-50% of the leveling content was group content back then. Also there were tons of quests to do at level 60 so endgame wasn't all about solo content. not to mention the games before that were actually "forced grouping" games and had very little real solo content. In fact at release there was probably more to do solo and way more to do in small group / solo at lvl 60.
Since then the tsunami of casual gamers has buried all but raiding and dungeons. the reason these have survived likely has to do with development time vs the time it takes the average gamer to chew through it.
The real crime imo is that there is virtually nothing left for those of use that prefer the group dynamic except raiding.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I typically find that if people just enjoy the game and stop worrying about what their gear looks like or what someone else's gear looks like they will have a lot more fun playing and it will be a lot less stressful.
But hey, that's just me.
There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers.
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game.
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard.
@OP- no worries you can always group with us if your on the same server.
They can't make raid story lines or even flashpoints that important to your personal story since, you don't get to actually decide the outcomes, yes you get the points for the decisions you make, but the outcome is based on a dice roll, too many people will be pissed off if those stories have a huge impact on your character.
Of course everyone is posting about the way they want it. This isn't like someone making a decision like, should I fired X employees or try to cut costs in my business another way. A post on an MMO forum is not about other people it will always be about you. Hence the reason Raiders refuse to see the fairness in letting solo players get the same gear in different ways or why solo players see no point in raiding. All posts about an MMO are about the individuals wants, there is no real "greater good" in an MMO and never has or will be since it is a product that people individually pay for.
This wont keep me from playing but if it does pan out this way it will probably keep me from staying after hitting max level. I am not actually a soloing fan, I like groups, I prefer group, that is why I play mmos and not rpgs. But I don't raid because I don't want to put that level of effort into a game. I also don't like more than the occasional pvp, especially if it is battleground style. So just because you don't like raiding or much pvp doesnt mean that a solo planet with daily quests is going to do it for you.
So really, the folks who are saying, "if you don't like it just go play an rpg" need to look up False Dichotomy.
But this really isn't much of a surprise. We knew that SWTOR would be substantially similar to WoW so this type of design was to be expected. I will enjoy SWTOR until I stop having fun. Which will probably be shortly after hitting max level. And then I will move on. If Bio wants to hang on to casual players long term then they will come up with something interesting for them to do after hitting max level.
Play what you find to be fun. Let the market decide who will be rewarded for making the best fun.
All die, so die well.
You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
EQ1 is a gear threadmill, from the plane of fear/hate thru plane of air and beyond. That is a big big big grind.
Of course, SoE issue things so much slower, it does not give you as many versions of upgrade as WoW.
I'll wait and see what the planet they're going to provide for solo endgame content is all about before crying about lack of things to do. Only reason I'd ever want raid gear anyway is because it usually looks better than the cobbled-together hodgepodge of dungeon/quest rewards most players end up with at endgame.
Nothing you said changes what I'm speaking in regards to, which is you giving the excuse that somehow BW is at fault for focusing on story and that is the reason people thought that the entire game would be able to be played solo. I also pointed out that it doesn't seem a correct assumption to make when a vast majority of the comments focus on gear not story.
the issue that had me reply to your post was not whether people had a right to voice an opinion about something they like/dislike and contrary to what you may believe I see lot's of posters on here who may let it be known they prefer something one way many don't try to make it a rallying point to destroy one feature or another.
Not every poster here makes five posts a month trying to tell people that rmt's are wrong or that raiders shouldn't be catered to or that people shouldn't play mmorpgs solo and just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should excuse it or create reasoning out of thin air as to why they do it.
No point in explaing what MMOG means is there?
It's like complaining that your car using gasoline is unfair becacue your bicycle does not.
Apples and oranges dude.
Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW.
There is a false impression in the MMO world that Raiders keep games alive, because they dedicate so much time to end game. They will grind through the early parts of a game to get to end game and then grind all the epic gear and then do it again when new epic gear is released. Because raids usually take guilds it also gives the false sense that you are retaining more customers.
The problem with this impression is that it ignores that raiders will also be some of the quickest to leave your game the moment they think they are not being catered to 100% of the time.
For some reason no one wants to make an all raid game or an all quest game. Personally I think a game that chose a single path or at least decided to focus the majority of the game (from start to end game) on one path would be more successful than games that divide content at end game.
Just because WoW succeeded with the divided forumla does not mean it is why WoW succeeded, but most people don't want to think that hard.
You start by saying its a false impression that raiders keep MMOs alive .. then go onto make the baseless claim that raiders will be the first to leave a game despite warcraft for example still having a huge number of raiders despite the fact that raiding has been nerfed into the ground and back over the past 6 years into little more than a sideshow that is now actually being advertised as puggable ..
as for a dev making one of the other, they did. Warcraft used to be a group oriented communty game with some solo content. now it is a single player game with a chatbox, instance lobby and auction house because solo players couldn't accept that a multi player group oriented game couldn't be soloed from head to toe.
Hence reading where I said, just because something worked for WoW doesn't mean it is the reason WoW worked out... WoW is an anomaly, the more people who accept this the better. How many games have copied WoW almost completely yet still failed? Why? Because they are not WoW.
Then which game exactly are you getting the "fact" that raiders will leave if not catered to? And while on the subject .. why wouldn't you leave a game when you preferred playstyle is ignored? It worked out well enough for EQ and EQ2. War, Aion? These didn't have raiding. So again where does your assumption come from and what does any of that have to do with the fact that its 1 game till endgame and another afterwards? Which again is a new development. MMOs used to actually be much more biased towards group mechanics.
imo the solution is even easier than all of this. swtor should me an ORPG not an MMORPG. Its really too bad someone didnt make a really good rpg with a chat box 4 or 5 years ago. instead the industry has diluted down to a game full of lowest common denominator (thats speaking for both casuals and hardcore .. and all of the other icky stereo types).
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already