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General: Player Perspectives: The Magic Number

StraddenStradden Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696

MMORPG.com columnist Jaime Skelton looks at "the magic number" of players allowed into groups and raids and how more is not necessarily always better.

Jaime Skelton

I think we can all agree that underneath it all, MMORPGs are a bunch of numbers. Programming is, of course, more complicated than 1s and 0s, but ultimately all MMORPGs come down to a complex interchange of formulas, from experience, levels, and skills; to damage, attributes, and RNG. You could strip away the story, strip away the fancy armor and rare mounts, and run numbers and formulas in spreadsheets and the basest form of game and achieve the same functional result.

The problem with numbers is that alone, they strip away all the fun that a game can offer. Numbers don't make awesome weapons, incredible plots, or a world worth living in. Numbers can't create social interactions; they can't force two individuals to meet, like each other, form a bond, learn team-work, start a guild or PvP team, melt faces and boast of their prowess. Yet numbers hold the restraints for these interactions in an MMO. Numbers place limits on skill, restrict the usefulness of a person based on their choices as a character, and often are the deciding factor over whether a person is even needed.

Read The Magic Number.

Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com

Comments

  • SnarlingWolfSnarlingWolf Member Posts: 2,697

    Ineresting read. It doesn't apply to players like me though because I hate the concept of raiding. I dislike having to get a massive group together who has to run a dungeon by a script (Ok rogue A you stand there and attack with this, Priest B you stand over there and focus on Warrior C.....). It was never a fun aspect for me and I never had to deal with it before WoW came along, it was always enough to just have a group of buddies who smashed their way through a dungeon.

     

    I like small groups (anywhere from 2-8 people) as my max size. Now I am fine with battlegrounds/PvP setups where it's an instance and 40 people from each side come in and battle it out, but that plays very different from a dungeon raid.

     

    I will always prefer a magic number of 8 or below, and prefer a game without Raiding being necessary to maximize your character.

  • nekollxnekollx Member Posts: 570

     I've never been a fan of minimum team size. I much prefer the Hamidon Raid in CoH then WoW style.

    Hamidon's lair supports 50 people before another instance is created.

     

    You need to clear some some guards to spawn hammi, don't got 50 people. You can try with 30 and add more durring the raid your not "locked in"

  • SzaynZaniirSzaynZaniir Member Posts: 6

    I would have to slightly disagree with the opening statement where it stated that it considers everybody equal and that he seemingly assumed would be impossible because it would consider everybody equal.

     

    Here is the problem with that. Blizzard has already created pieces of game coding that already separate the gear into specific types. If they further separated them into categories based on what they are for; DPS, Tank, or Healer, then they could easily have the raid scaling working to a good degree. How would they determine the loot dropped? Simple. The difference between 10man and 25man loot isn't all that different. The only changes is that, for instance, 10man ICC drops 251 while 25man ICC drops 264. On a side note, the BoE's that drop in 25man ICC seem to drop more often, but not to an overwhelming amount... So it is safe to assume that it is roughly 2.5 times the 10man ICC drop rate.

     

    Now, as for the Boss Loot, that is easily understood. The Bosses drop 2 times more loot to accompany for the extra players in the raid. The reason why they didn't make it exactly 2.5 times more loot was to accompany for the fact that the loot in 25man raids are better, for the most part.

     

    If you were to set a system that addresses both of those and would also set a variable to check the offset balance of raid members, the loot dropped could easily be changed into something that works as well. This is not an impossible idea... The only thing is that this does not work with the way Blizzard currently has their LFG System... I personally hate that thing more than raiding.

  • tro44_1tro44_1 Member Posts: 1,819

    30-40 is the right number for Large scale Raids.

    10-15 for Small Scale Raids

     

    And 5 is the right number for small group

  • montinmontin Member Posts: 218

    I enjoyed reading that, thanks. Though it does highlight the way MMOs are going, in part thanks to WoW. It's no longer about leveling up but now about the end game. Indeed some players see leveling up as an annoying barrier to the end game. I remember the days of MUDs when months of play would eventually see you at the level cap. At which point your gaming experience would become a lot more social as you stopped the killing and chatted more to people.

     

    Having maxed characters in severals MMOs I always find the end game to suddendly create a much less social experience. It's a case of your either a hard core raider or nobody wants you along. Strange as it may seem, some of us have a life and we dont want to raid into the early hours of the morning. Neither do we want some no-lifer order us around like he is God simply because he plays 16+ hours a day. And so we are left in a kind of no mans land. Nothing to do once level cap is reach and no social aspect. So many of us roll alts or try different games. In part we have WOW to thank and all the sheep who do as they are told. Now go raid something whilst the rest of us live in the real world.

  • schawoschawo Member Posts: 135

    >>Now, World of Warcraft has not offered the largest raids by a long shot (there have been 72, 100, and larger raid sizes in MMOs) but for the content offered, 40-man offered a solid core of people. The number was initially created as a balance of an "epic" feeling and individual contribution. The numbers were eventually toned down for many reasons, including (as Jeff Kaplan stated in an interview with Game Informer in December) the amount of stress 40 players put on guild leadership, and the mercenary style recruiting that many had done to meet the large raid requirements. Said Kaplan, "It was a very unhealthy social dynamic going on."<<

     

    EVE for example can handle 5000+ guilds (corps/alliances) and there are no unhealthy social dynamics, rather it is the best socialized MMO. It can handle 1000+ raid (fleet) sizes, and the leadership can handle the amount of stress of a 800 vs 800 battle (the server can't tbh)

    So thats above are all bullshit. Sizes are merely limited because of technical troubles.

  • DreamQueenDreamQueen Member UncommonPosts: 48

    Everquest had 72 and 54 man raids, and I prefered the 72 man raids.  It used to be a lot less stressful to raid (people individually have to be on their toes more the smaller the raid), and you used to be open to more class choices.

     

    These days with EQ2's 24 man limit, they demand the ratio of 4 or 5 bards and 4 or 5 chanters with 6 or 7 healers and 2 tanks.  If you have any extra tank or you can't find enough bards and chanters, you can't succeed period.

     

    Raids will refuse to invite classes that do less dps, because there's no longer any leeaway to invite anyone like in EQ1, and people are turned away from raiding guilds daily, as they search in vain for a guild willing to accept their unwanted class.

     

    Meanwhile, the raiding guild will spend 3 months trying to find a single cleric, because the only people lf guild are conjurers or the unwanted bruiser/monks.  Or, they will invite new chanters every month, trying in vain to find one who is a good enough player and will remain loyal to their guild (instead of jumping ship to a higher more progressed one).

     

    It's so much harder lately, for players to join a guild on the class that they want to play, because raids are now to difficult and class dependant. 

     

    I miss the old days when we could invite a ranger in the mage group and keep the wizards alive, without a proper healer.  Or, when we could have 12 tanks in a raid, and put a paladin in the mage group to heal the mages... EQ 1's raiding system was fun, but raiding has progressed and gotten harder with the passing of time, alas... the old simplistic raid style is dead...

  •  I have never been a fan of large raids (20 people or more). At least not in a PvE scenario. I played LOTRO for a month and hit just 12 levels short of the max level of 65. A fellowship (group) had 6 spots and many quests you needed a full group. There was a lot of solo fun to please players like myself and only a few forced groupings for storyline advancement.

    Things to turn me off from larger raids.

    Graphical clusterf%#k - How can you see what's going on with that many people running around in the same space. Not just the players, monsters... this is all assuming you turned off spell effects and some graphics, but I like to keep mine on.

    Difficulty finding valuable players - I'm up at odd hours playing games all the time. I like to be entertained at off-peak hours. It seems like most games that offer raiding only have just that as their end-game staple. Sorry but when you need even 10 people and start getting class specific, there is just too much time between action.

    Too involved in the end-game - I don't like large raids to be too involved in the end-game making it nearly forced just so you can keep up in the games' other aspects.

    Don't get me wrong, I'll try bigger raids and they are fun but a game solely based on that is not my cup of tea.

  • WW4BWWW4BW Member UncommonPosts: 501

    The only raid limit imposed by game designers should be how many thier hardware can handle.. and even then it should perhaps be possible to bring 2 of those groups...

    Then they should do away with bind on pickup and keep the loot the same, regardless of the number of participants.

    That way players could bring as many friends as they like and only be limited by how many would bother comming seeing as the more they are the lower their chances of getting loot..

    Bring 50 people and be done in 20 minutes or bring 5 and be done in 2 hours. If 5 people get loot out of that both scenarios are  more than viable.

  • HorusraHorusra Member EpicPosts: 4,411
    Originally posted by montin


     In part we have WOW to thank and all the sheep who do as they are told. Now go raid something whilst the rest of us live in the real world.



     

    Yes because WoW is the only major game where raiding is the only real end game....

  • HorusraHorusra Member EpicPosts: 4,411
    Originally posted by schawo
    EVE for example can handle 5000+ guilds (corps/alliances) and there are no unhealthy social dynamics, rather it is the best socialized MMO. It can handle 1000+ raid (fleet) sizes, and the leadership can handle the amount of stress of a 800 vs 800 battle (the server can't tbh)
    So thats above are all bullshit. Sizes are merely limited because of technical troubles.



     

    And how often do these happen.......not nearly as often as in other games...if there were 1000+ raids hourly as large raids in most other games Eve's servers would explode.

  • WW4BWWW4BW Member UncommonPosts: 501
    Originally posted by Horusra

    Originally posted by schawo
    EVE for example can handle 5000+ guilds (corps/alliances) and there are no unhealthy social dynamics, rather it is the best socialized MMO. It can handle 1000+ raid (fleet) sizes, and the leadership can handle the amount of stress of a 800 vs 800 battle (the server can't tbh)
    So thats above are all bullshit. Sizes are merely limited because of technical troubles.



     

    And how often do these happen.......not nearly as often as in other games...if there were 1000+ raids hourly as large raids in most other games Eve's servers would explode.



     

    Even if WOW had all its players on the same server and If 1000+ raids were possible.. I doubt they would happen nearly as often as they do in eve... also I am certain they wouldnt happen as often as regular raids in WOW.. So,  what exactly was your point?

  • WW4BWWW4BW Member UncommonPosts: 501
    Originally posted by Horusra

    Originally posted by montin


     In part we have WOW to thank and all the sheep who do as they are told. Now go raid something whilst the rest of us live in the real world.



     

    Yes because WoW is the only major game where raiding is the only real end game....



     

    Thing is, in WoW there is pretty much only 1 solution to every boss encounter/dungeon. At least other games I've played you could base your strategy on what you had in your raid and not base your raid on what strategy you needed to use.

  • OzmodanOzmodan Member EpicPosts: 9,726

    Still stuck in that old EQ model via classes and levels....I get so tired of party makeup discussions....in a skill based game it is far more flexible, I so wish developers would stop being lazy and create a decent skill based MMO.  Many of us stopped playing Wow long ago because of the ridiculous raiding problems and don't get me started how idiotic EQ became.   A game is supposed to be fun to play, not work.

  • drago_pldrago_pl Member Posts: 384

    I hate WoW type raiding...

    "Sorry, mate, we have enough of mages already in group" - that turned me off this game. Even recruiting for a clan requires certain classes. It's all fault of scripted content. I much prefer FFA. It may be more difficult to balance but at least you have more freedom.

  • EvasiaEvasia Member Posts: 2,827

    Offcorse again this is all about promoting WoW if its only game on market :(

    But hey im so GLAD this whole piece written by OP, don't apply to me, this WoW crap thinking becouse im playing Darkfall and its so much more freedom and fun then all this stupid tank healer dps shit and pve raids, im glad i dont belong to this WoW themepark crap.

    And why every piece you mmorpg.com writers talk or comepare about WoW its starting to annoy me alot bah:(

    Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
    In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.

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