I was in a group the other day as a healer, The pally tank, would not use rightious fury after many hails. Now the twist is, the other members of the group were defending him saying "its his choice".....I was kicked from that group because i would not let the problem go...
Now, I could speculate that the tank, May not have any group experience because he was out there "questing all day" but such claims are unprovable, and therefore speculative.
Problem is, i encounter this all the time on a variety of classes, People not knowing the mechanics of there classes. this occurs in the whole leveling spectrum, even at 85 heroics, people dont interupt, or CC.
Im not an elitist, i give people a fair chance at stuff i even offer to help them. but Seems to me that the community (sry for the generalization) seem fair too ignorant these days to care.
So no. I dont think grouping is better, and I think the quality of groups will decline even more.
...written in january 2005...
The only difference now is that the grouping tool lets you experience the content in a fresh new group with strange adventurers in the same playing session.
Unless you want to play with friends on peak hours.
Nothing changed, only the dreadful "looking for group" yells for that odd dungeon at level 52 no one wanted to do was eliminated or at the very least reduced.
Op said 'forced grouping' atleast 4 times. Sorry but forced grouping doesn't make grouping fun or MMO fun by any means. i think you are looking for a wrong game here because MMO's have done away with this old concept of forcing players in to grouping. You should play FFXI, it will suit your needs more.
The only part where I have fun in wow is in the dungeons. So yeah forced grouping does make it fun for me.
You're still not "forced", you've chosen to take part in a group, granted it's impossible to do high level dungeons by yourself and I don't know why you'd want to anyway. Forcing someone to play how they don't like to play isn't how games become successful. Forcing to make people group up doesn't make things any harder or easier, so get over it. These are multi-player games where you must level to be able to compete and if you're slow getting on to the game you have to catch up with everyone else by yourself.
I find that there is definately more grouping in this expansion. Also of course, I am a rogue, so i do a lot of BGs, so I am constantly playing with other players. Also I enjoy how the new expansion smooshed alliance and horde together in a lot of zones so there is much more PvP in the normal world. I am enjoying every moment of it!
I think its always been very much a solo friendly game, but, when it comes to Grouping, WoW hasnt changed at all imo, its still as easy as ever, and the only way of completing dungeons, which, tbh, are fun enough that grouping is very rewarding. Unless your rabidly antisocial, then joining a guild and doing stuff with your guildmates, is definitely the most fun in game, and i dont mean just the end game raiding, though obviously that is too.
There is even less open world group content in this expansion than any other. Fewer solo quest lines end in group quests. This is something the solo gamers have been asking for for a long time.
BUT, there are more group instances in Cataclysm than any previous expansion had at launch so there is plenty of grouping to be had. As far as better, well that is subjective. Some of the Cata normal 5 man dungeons are on par with H HoR and the cata heroics are even more challenging. For some of us this is a welcome change from 10-15 minute heroic dungeon sprints in WotLK. For others it makes the game too hard and therefore not fun.
WoWs leveling quests can all be done solo. Much of the time, people will group for this content, but not through chat invites, generally just pick up groups as the quests are being completed. No balancing is necessary since they are all soloable - grouping is just more fun and faster (generally).
Dungeons and Raids are of course a major part of WoWs content and require groups. If you want to group in WoW, you need a solid guild or you need to be ok with the rdf.
If you want leveling content that is group oriented, then you should try different game - EQ or VG for example - however what you will find is those games are top heavy, and although they have the content for group leveling, they don't have the players available to do it- so their content is mostly filled with ghosts and tumbleweeds and you couldn't complete the content solo if you tried.
This is one major reason WoW went with a soloable content for levelling, because group centered leveling only works in that window of time where the majority of the player base is still levelling. Once the mass of the population moves passed those levels, the content becomes essentially undoable.
WoW is actually a product of good design for longevity. If you had to group to level, you would find it very difficult indeed - as 95% are already passed that content.
Unless you have some sort of "scaling" or mentoring option in the game.. Then you NEVER outgrow the content.. This is an option I wish all MMORPG games had.. If you allowed people to mentor down or scale their character to the content then you can make the trip to "end game" as long as you want.. What a wonderful gift it would be to be able to group up with anyone at anytime without being OP.. I enjoy the way EQ2 does it, and hope that GW2s version of scaling is equally enjoyable.. Take your time, enjoy the trip..
Unless you have some sort of "scaling" or mentoring option in the game.. Then you NEVER outgrow the content.. This is an option I wish all MMORPG games had.. If you allowed people to mentor down or scale their character to the content then you can make the trip to "end game" as long as you want.. What a wonderful gift it would be to be able to group up with anyone at anytime without being OP.. I enjoy the way EQ2 does it, and hope that GW2s version of scaling is equally enjoyable.. Take your time, enjoy the trip..
I agree about having a mentoring system. The only two systems I ever liked in EQ2 were the mentoring and guild systems. WoW finally added a watered down version of the guild system, hopefully mentoring will be added some day.
Comments
...written in january 2005...
The only difference now is that the grouping tool lets you experience the content in a fresh new group with strange adventurers in the same playing session.
Unless you want to play with friends on peak hours.
Nothing changed, only the dreadful "looking for group" yells for that odd dungeon at level 52 no one wanted to do was eliminated or at the very least reduced.
You're still not "forced", you've chosen to take part in a group, granted it's impossible to do high level dungeons by yourself and I don't know why you'd want to anyway. Forcing someone to play how they don't like to play isn't how games become successful. Forcing to make people group up doesn't make things any harder or easier, so get over it. These are multi-player games where you must level to be able to compete and if you're slow getting on to the game you have to catch up with everyone else by yourself.
I find that there is definately more grouping in this expansion. Also of course, I am a rogue, so i do a lot of BGs, so I am constantly playing with other players. Also I enjoy how the new expansion smooshed alliance and horde together in a lot of zones so there is much more PvP in the normal world. I am enjoying every moment of it!
I think its always been very much a solo friendly game, but, when it comes to Grouping, WoW hasnt changed at all imo, its still as easy as ever, and the only way of completing dungeons, which, tbh, are fun enough that grouping is very rewarding. Unless your rabidly antisocial, then joining a guild and doing stuff with your guildmates, is definitely the most fun in game, and i dont mean just the end game raiding, though obviously that is too.
There is even less open world group content in this expansion than any other. Fewer solo quest lines end in group quests. This is something the solo gamers have been asking for for a long time.
BUT, there are more group instances in Cataclysm than any previous expansion had at launch so there is plenty of grouping to be had. As far as better, well that is subjective. Some of the Cata normal 5 man dungeons are on par with H HoR and the cata heroics are even more challenging. For some of us this is a welcome change from 10-15 minute heroic dungeon sprints in WotLK. For others it makes the game too hard and therefore not fun.
This is the way I play WoW right now -
I ask my friends and guildmates if anyone wants to group for whatever reason.
Generally, 2 to 5 group and we go dungeon and/or raid hopping as a group - filling out the rest with the rdf when needed.
If no, then:
I load up on quests from a quest hub.
Then I queue for a dungeon.
I work on quests solo until the dungeon pops - I invite anyone I see on the same quest to group, I get about a 50% success rate.
When it pops, I complete the dungeon with a group.
Go back to solo questing while queue'd for a bg or another dungeon depending on how I feel.
I spend about 80% of my time with a group.
I spend about 60 to 70% with folks in the group I know.
So is grouping better and more frequent since expansion? It depends on how you chose to play the game.
If you sit in chat asking for groups for leveling content you won't group.
If you don't invite others in the area doing the same quests as you, you won't group.
If you don't have a good guild, you won't group.
If you don't want to do dungeons or raids, you won't group.
If you don't use the rdf to create or fill out groups, you won't group much.
If you choose to play as I have, you will group most of the time.
All of this has been true before the expansion as well.
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WoWs leveling quests can all be done solo. Much of the time, people will group for this content, but not through chat invites, generally just pick up groups as the quests are being completed. No balancing is necessary since they are all soloable - grouping is just more fun and faster (generally).
Dungeons and Raids are of course a major part of WoWs content and require groups. If you want to group in WoW, you need a solid guild or you need to be ok with the rdf.
If you want leveling content that is group oriented, then you should try different game - EQ or VG for example - however what you will find is those games are top heavy, and although they have the content for group leveling, they don't have the players available to do it- so their content is mostly filled with ghosts and tumbleweeds and you couldn't complete the content solo if you tried.
This is one major reason WoW went with a soloable content for levelling, because group centered leveling only works in that window of time where the majority of the player base is still levelling. Once the mass of the population moves passed those levels, the content becomes essentially undoable.
WoW is actually a product of good design for longevity. If you had to group to level, you would find it very difficult indeed - as 95% are already passed that content.
Unless you have some sort of "scaling" or mentoring option in the game.. Then you NEVER outgrow the content.. This is an option I wish all MMORPG games had.. If you allowed people to mentor down or scale their character to the content then you can make the trip to "end game" as long as you want.. What a wonderful gift it would be to be able to group up with anyone at anytime without being OP.. I enjoy the way EQ2 does it, and hope that GW2s version of scaling is equally enjoyable.. Take your time, enjoy the trip..
I agree about having a mentoring system. The only two systems I ever liked in EQ2 were the mentoring and guild systems. WoW finally added a watered down version of the guild system, hopefully mentoring will be added some day.