Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why do modern mmos punish grouping?
Bootez
Member UncommonPosts: 72
I have never understood this logic. When in a group you get less experience. Why wouldn't they just boost the XP to get people grouping like crazy?
Seems counter productive to me to create a multiplayer game and then make it not worth while since it isn't the most efficient way to level up.
If they simply made all dungeons, quests, etc give more XP in a group than solo, these games would be social again and probably a hell of a lot more fun for most people.
Comments
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
You may get less experience per kill, but you net more experience in the same time due to the fact you can kill/farm faster as a group.
Now maybe some game your playing actually cuts the experience and divides it among the players, but most give right around 75% of the experience ungrouped no matter the number of players.
Well, players are just bad at math.
Most games reduce the exp gain because you can kill things faster in a group. So you can kill more mobs, quicker and with little to no downtime since the mobs die before they can do significant damage to you.
I'm sure exp per minute/hour is close to even and possibly in favor of the group as they can complete quests much faster too. Kill 10 rats? 5 people kill two mobs each, you're done in a couple minutes and are turning it in vs 10 minutes for one person.
Or you have the opposite scenario. Take Path of Exile for example. A game that prides itself on being for more hardcore ARPG fans. That is, until you join a group. Once you join a group it's faceroll easy mode, you have to really really screw up to die. You get more loot, more exp, and you get it faster than if you solo. So that's the flip side.
Says who? Last time i played WOW (which is 2012 though), LFD dungeons made a lot more xp than quests. In fact, i leveled up two alts that way.
I could see a push for solo play being difficult, but I don't think that it shouldn't be an option completely. There are times when people just want to solo for awhile, and that should be something that is doable without too much difficulty.
I think an easy solution to make games more social is to just increase the rewards. Imagine if something like WoW gave more XP for teaming than soloing? Currently, the fastest way to level a character is by yourself doing quests.
To me, that is the complete opposite of what an MMO should be. If the rewards were increased, the game would become a lot more social. People would either make "hunting packs" or questing groups. People like efficiency. And if teaming is the most efficient way to do something, that we all get drawn into it. We talk to people. We make friends. These games are supposed to be social and that part is falling away..
Personally I think they are discouraging grouping for another reason entirely.
I think its a financial strategy.
When we group we make friends, we have supporting both in leveling and in gear. Friends share with each other help each other out.
Making us into soloist, makes us less social, makes us more competitive, makes us more likely to spend money on things that give us an advantage.
Enter the item mall all the support we use to get from friends and guildmates now right there with shiny bells and whistles for our easy convenience.
When leveling in wow dungeons are only good when you have quests in those dungeons. Beyond that doing normal quests , alone, produces more exp per hour than dungeons.
This. Even without quests, the dungeons should be more XP to encourage grouping.
No way. Leveling in dungeons produce more xp and faster xp than outside dungeons.
Currently groups in wow get more xp than solo, get more coin than solo and get more loot than solo.
Grouping is completely rewarded over soloing. Not sure what the OP is driving at but ALL the good rewards are from grouping.
Seriously folks, more loot, more coin, more gear, plus they've made it totally easy to get a group. What more can devs possibly do to encourage grouping? If by this point people still don't do it, it's because they just don't want to. By far the most xp, fastest exp and best stuff is from groups.
Not only faster .. but way faster. You can get a level in 2-3 dungeon runs.
Which ones punish grouping? Nearly all the MMORPGs I've played over the years provide a slight XP buff to groups.
Sometimes it's not enough to make it worth grouping, but usually it's pretty close. For example, throughout WOW's lifespan it's kinda bounced back and forth with updates (sometimes it's been way faster to solo, sometimes about even, and sometimes it's been the fastest way to level.)
Certainly I'd agree it's best when grouping provides a slight advantage to overall progression.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Never fear, your dream MMO will be here....
just give me a decade or two to finely hone my Game development
and design abilities as well as start a Game Design Studio.
Thank you for your patience.
The problem is that people expect group xp to be considerably faster than going solo. There is an advantage to groups, but often it's in the group's ability to work together to kill things faster. If the group doesn't work together as a group, or if everyone has different quests or something, then they think that grouping has been nerfed.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I get the distinct impression this is happening as well. MMOs used to be Collaborative with Players of same faction, now it feels there's more Competition with same faction than there is with opposing faction.... and that could very easily spell "profit" for the Devs via cash shop.
Lets not forget the phenomenom called the "Power Leveller"!
If there is one thing I hate in MMO's these days it is this guy. You know the guy who starts at level 1 and immediately wants to group with you so that he can do level 50 content in a group while achieving ridiculous amounts of experience points as well as skipping the majority of low level game content.
And he does all this just so he can get to endgame and complain that there is not enough content to keep him amused.
But aside from that I agree with most here, in that I don't really see grouping being punished in the games I have played. If grouping isn't necessay to do the content then generally there is always some bonus offered as incentive to group. But it shouldn't be excessive as other have stated.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The only problems I have seen with grouping is if quests can't be shared, or you have to do the quest multiple times (1 for each groupmember) for other reasons. I rarely see this anymore and apart from those rare occasions, grouping in my experience is a lot faster for lvling then playing solo.
You kill faster, you get less downtime per kill. So even if xp per mob is nerfed a little in group, you still get more xp in the same amount of time then when you are on your own. Not to mention that dungeons are usually made for groups and you get xp in those (especially in modern MMO's) crazy fast.
I tend to play MMO's nowadays only with a bunch of rl friends. And my experience is that my group toon levels a lot more efficiently then my solo alt (if the MMO is interesting enough to roll one). So I have no idea what the OP is going on about.
It's about the difference between plausible and credible.
Sounds like something we should all rally to the carry the torches and storm the castle.
Which 'modern mmos', op?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
The way modern MMOs punish grouping has to do with LOOT more than it has to do with XP. When you defeat a boss solo you get all the loot for yourself. Solo players have 100% of getting any loot that drops. On the other hand if you duo the mob and it only drops one piece of gear you only have 50% chance of getting it. Defeat the encounter with a 5 man group and now you are down to a 20% chance at loot. Go to 24 man raids and it is down to paltry 4% chance. This low caused the player communities to come up with their own band aid solutions like DKP. However dealing with DKP and associated guild drama has been a turn off to many players. This is why MMORPGs have gone solo centric. It was kind of accidental the way loot divided the player base but it doesn't have to be that way.
Vindictus came up with the best solution I have yet seen to this problem. Kill a boss with a 6 man group and it drops 6 pieces of loot. One for each person. As a result of increased loot distribution between group members Vindictus has the best grouping scene I have witnessed in an MMO. It is even better than Everquest 1 grouping which at one time was considered the gold standard for social group play. The new gold standard for a social grouping game is Vindictus.
How is that different from old MMO's (not vindicatus, just the new mmo statement). Old mmo's had the exact same set up, except you'd roll a /roll 100 to see who got it. or you waited for your turn at the bat and hoped the peice dropped.
I have ALWAYS said it should be a simple incentive formula for grouping:
In an 8 member group (using Dark Age as an example):
+12.5% for each member of a group, starting with the first player once he/she has invited one other person.
Hence, 2 players = 25% bonus xp
3 players = 37.5% bonus xp
4 players = 50% bonus xp, and so forth until 8 players = 100% bonus xp.
Such a basic formula for grouping. And yet - what developer will even ponder this as logical. This is the problem with the genre - such limited common sense and a sickening trail of failed or mediocre mmorpgs since 2004.
When you /roll 100 against 6 other people most of the time you walked away empty handed. Under the Vindictus model nobody walks away empty handed. Everyone gets loot. Sitting around and waiting to get lucky just isn't worth anymore since loot comes faster solo in most games and that is where the majority of the player base is.
Because they aren't MMOs. They're single player rpg's with other people running around in the same world as you.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
You already get these bonuses naturally due to synergy of the group. 8 players grouped and working together should easily get 100% more xp than 8 players working solo. Players should be rewarded for working together as a group and not merely for plaing solo while in a group.
Team Level
Ever wondered what the Team Level in the Team Window actually affected? After a little research through the Official Forums, a post by ARK Regulas from March 2004 provided the answer.
Team level is a bonus given to your team for sticking together. It grants the following:
-Increased chance of disarming a trap/opening a door successfully
-Increased chance of landing nano programs successfully.
-An AMS/DMS (attack and defense) boost
The 2005 Official Game Manual from FC gives the following information:
Teams that stay together for a long period of time get more coordinated, and fight better together. With time their team level increases, and they gain a small bonus to offensive and defensive skills.
The team level starts at 1, and can be no higher than 5. Getting your team level to 5 takes several hours though, and each time a member of the team leaves (or is kicked out), the team level decreases by 1.
The theory of Team Level affecting the percentage of valuable items dropping has never been proven.
---------------------------
http://www.ao-universe.com/index.php?id=14&pid=533
It can be more than just xp
.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **