I play Rift solo with my three friends in ventrillo. We want to play together but grouping would slow our leveling.
I really hear you. And exactly the same for me has happened in WoW, Aion, WAR... etc. I play with my friends on teamspeak, everyone leveling alone. All the games who use an open world quest grind leveling have the same issue : those quests are calibrated to be soloed, and even if you can duo or trio them it's sub optimal and you lose time redoing quests you have already done, or waiting for people to catch you. Of course there are dungeons you can do together, but they're not the majority of the leveling content and most of the time you'll be solo.
I didnt have this issue in CoH, or DDO for example, because they're more team centric games, much more instanced also.
But it seems that the majority like open world solo questing when it comes to MMOs nowadays and devs listen to them. So we all end up playing alone together
A couple of things:
You get bonus exp when you kill mobs grouped
The quest items that drop from a mob, drop for the whole team.
You get solo quest items even if you're in a raid group (we did that with our guid for the first levels until we had the money to make the guild)
Really, there is little reason not to group with others and quest. It's only benefits and no penalties.
Also:
When you click on somebody, sometimes you'll see an icon on the top of his portrait. That means that he's open to group. If he's waiting for a quest mob, you can click on that icon and you'll join his group automatically.
You can do the above even if he pulled and the mob is grey. You just need to throw enough contribution damage after the mob (once you grouped) and the mob becomes green again.
The quest items that drop from a mob, drop for the whole team.
You get solo quest items even if you're in a raid group (we did that with our guid for the first levels until we had the money to make the guild)
Really, there is little reason not to group with others and quest. It's only benefits and no penalties.
I understand that, and thanks for the clarifications.
But that wasn't exactly my point. The OP as well is not saying he doesnt group with other people times to times to complete a Rift or a quest. I do that too. He's saying he can't reliably team with the same 2 friends most of the time to play the quest content. And I have the same observation.
If you want to quest level your way with your little group of friends you need to have the exact same playtimes each day, because people need to be on the same quests. I have experienced that so many times in other games like WoW, that is waiting for each other, and it always ended up being more frustrating than anything else.
And it's nothing against Rift, it's just that nowadays the mainstream leveling system in most MMOs has many advantages, but it quite discourages fixed grouping when it comes to quest leveling.
Wow so after 32 levels you quit because of the TWO DEFINING characteristics of the game?
Wow, really, I am almost speechless.
Funny thing about his argument is that he notes he doesn't read tool tips for skills but he has played WAR which also talent tree system. IMO it sounds like another troll.
I'm sure everybody who dislikes features in Rift are secret troll agents!
Well he said he hit lv 32 in 3 days of play time (highest lvl we had in sunday in our guild was lv 30 and he played closed to non stop), i played quite a lot and done i00nstances and i just hit 30.
So after days of playing nonstop, hating the class system which he either didn't read or didn't like reading, and hating Rifts, he decided he hated the game. And all the while having to deal with the two things that he hated and for 32 levels of nonstop play.
It just does not make sense to me. I am all for people not liking Rift and that's fine but to come up with such a story and such reasosn that do not make sense leads me to think its a troll post trying to come off as a "review".
Playing nonstop? This guy has a point...I SOLOED to 35. I only play 4 hours a day. You get so much less exp for grouping. I never did a rift in my life. Quests all day everyday solo. Grouping DOES hurt you. He isnt trolling. Most games are like this. I also have a couple friends i play with, in teamspeak anyway, they are almost level 30 themselves. Leveling is easy, as long as you dont group. When i solo i get 480+ exp per kill for one mob. I have to kill 20 mobs to complete the quest...its way better exp than turning in the quest. Cheers
I see you edited your post, most likely in response to mine above, but I caught it none the less. You are looking at numbers, but not looking at time. If you take those same 20 enemies and kill them by yourself the EXP per hour would roughly be the same as if you were in a group of 3 knocking out the quests. The only difference is the person soloing would take LONGER to get the quest completed than the people in groups of 3, but the end result is they would level roughly the same BECAUSE of the difference in XP gained per mob.
It's not about "Instant XP" but "XP per hour" and you guys aren't seeing the trees for the forest.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
I rest my case, this is the problem with MMOs lately, everyone giving a crap about how the quickest way to get xp is. Damn I can t wait for a game that actually takes time and challenge, not just number crunching to be the fastest or best.
That is yours and the OP's choice. Numbercrunching to level as fast as possible, he does it by not grouping with his friends. Would you not still be crunching numbers to see what the fastest way to level are even if the game has a slower leveling curve?
And then because of that starts to dislike the game?
If you want to enjoy the journey, if you wants to play in a group with your friend, then do so. You are the one making that choice or not.
hehe it is funny but also painful to see the many arguments to defend rift. These precise problems with the quest-system in most mmos is talked about under the shortcut "quests" in this video: (I have linked to this in other threads also, I know)
This basic statement of this thread is false. Rift rewards you for grouping.
Some basic testing:
--------------
I did some quick checking in game on the XP issue. Killing Bomani Shadowclaws in the first Deviant zone at lvl 7, and the person I grouped with was also lvl 7.
Solo, the XP was consistently 80.
Grouped, the XP was 111 (+31 group bonus). Some of the mobs (about 1 of 3) were 55 (+15 group bonus).
Those mobs that were only 55xp in group, after some quick re-reading of logs, appear to be mobs I never damaged. The 111xp mobs I did (as well as some healing for my groupmate).
This is sampled from roughly 10 mobs grouped and 10 mobs solo.
My conclusion is: That you can get more XP grouping than just flying solo. At the very least, if you do nothing in the group, you come out slightly behind on mob XP. Even not killing 1 of 3 mobs, I came out ahead.
--------------
This is the basic result I've found, levelled to 33 so far grouped with my girlfriend for every single quest. We've done the three dungeons up to this point and also quite a few Rifts and invasions (purely because we wanted to at the time, not because we had to grind at any point.) We've been consistantly ahead of the level requirement for where we are, with quests often showing green before we complete them.
Di the OP and others just take a basic problem with themepark MMOs and assumed it applied to Rift without actually testing?
I think the OP's problem was being trained to believe reaching max level is greater fun than playing with friends. Obviously it wasn't since the OP couldn't be bothered to play to cap solo.
Comments
A couple of things:
You get bonus exp when you kill mobs grouped
The quest items that drop from a mob, drop for the whole team.
You get solo quest items even if you're in a raid group (we did that with our guid for the first levels until we had the money to make the guild)
Really, there is little reason not to group with others and quest. It's only benefits and no penalties.
Also:
When you click on somebody, sometimes you'll see an icon on the top of his portrait. That means that he's open to group. If he's waiting for a quest mob, you can click on that icon and you'll join his group automatically.
You can do the above even if he pulled and the mob is grey. You just need to throw enough contribution damage after the mob (once you grouped) and the mob becomes green again.
I understand that, and thanks for the clarifications.
But that wasn't exactly my point. The OP as well is not saying he doesnt group with other people times to times to complete a Rift or a quest. I do that too. He's saying he can't reliably team with the same 2 friends most of the time to play the quest content. And I have the same observation.
If you want to quest level your way with your little group of friends you need to have the exact same playtimes each day, because people need to be on the same quests. I have experienced that so many times in other games like WoW, that is waiting for each other, and it always ended up being more frustrating than anything else.
And it's nothing against Rift, it's just that nowadays the mainstream leveling system in most MMOs has many advantages, but it quite discourages fixed grouping when it comes to quest leveling.
Check my blog on mmorpg.com.
That is yours and the OP's choice. Numbercrunching to level as fast as possible, he does it by not grouping with his friends. Would you not still be crunching numbers to see what the fastest way to level are even if the game has a slower leveling curve?
And then because of that starts to dislike the game?
If you want to enjoy the journey, if you wants to play in a group with your friend, then do so. You are the one making that choice or not.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
hehe it is funny but also painful to see the many arguments to defend rift. These precise problems with the quest-system in most mmos is talked about under the shortcut "quests" in this video: (I have linked to this in other threads also, I know)
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic
Ofcourse you rift defenders choose instead to say that the op is "doing it wrong".
Note, I'm not sayin GW2 will fix all problems.
I suppose that a mentoring system would be nice. I hope they implement it at some point.
This basic statement of this thread is false. Rift rewards you for grouping.
Some basic testing:
--------------
I did some quick checking in game on the XP issue. Killing Bomani Shadowclaws in the first Deviant zone at lvl 7, and the person I grouped with was also lvl 7.
Solo, the XP was consistently 80.
Grouped, the XP was 111 (+31 group bonus). Some of the mobs (about 1 of 3) were 55 (+15 group bonus).
Those mobs that were only 55xp in group, after some quick re-reading of logs, appear to be mobs I never damaged. The 111xp mobs I did (as well as some healing for my groupmate).
This is sampled from roughly 10 mobs grouped and 10 mobs solo.
My conclusion is: That you can get more XP grouping than just flying solo. At the very least, if you do nothing in the group, you come out slightly behind on mob XP. Even not killing 1 of 3 mobs, I came out ahead.
--------------
This is the basic result I've found, levelled to 33 so far grouped with my girlfriend for every single quest. We've done the three dungeons up to this point and also quite a few Rifts and invasions (purely because we wanted to at the time, not because we had to grind at any point.) We've been consistantly ahead of the level requirement for where we are, with quests often showing green before we complete them.
Di the OP and others just take a basic problem with themepark MMOs and assumed it applied to Rift without actually testing?
I think the OP's problem was being trained to believe reaching max level is greater fun than playing with friends. Obviously it wasn't since the OP couldn't be bothered to play to cap solo.