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Maximum Group Size
angus858
Member UncommonPosts: 381
I play mmorpgs with a group of friends one night each week. We are thinking about starting a new game I want to be sure the game we pick allows us all to be in one group. These days it seems that games lean toward smaller groups for some reason. Does that bug anyone else? I really want 8 or more. I suppose a raid group could count as long as it it easily formed and has all the features of a regular group.
Anyway, I'm going to throw out a list of games. If you know how many players can be in a group for any of these games please let us know:
Allods Online, Argo Online, DDO, EQ2, Jade Dynasty, PWI, Star Trek Online, Vanguard
Thanks, and feel free to throw in your two cents regarding maximum group sizes.
Comments
I fully agree.
I hope someone else can help you with your actual problem, because I frankly dont know the maximum group size of most MMOs.
The problem is rampant, though. For example, checking out SW:TOR.
SW:TOR has 8 starter classes, divided into two factions, republic and empire. They are basically mirrors of each other, the Jedi Consular is the republic version of the Sith Inquisitor, and vice versa, and so on.
So basically you have 4 starter classes per side, which split very early into 2 subclasses per starter classes, confusingly named "advanced class" even if there is nothing advanced about them - they are your real, actual class in the game.
Afterwards, these 8 advanced class per side each offer 3 skilltrees. For simplicity, and because thats how it most likely will end up, one can assume that most people will skill one tree full and put the rest of their skillpoints into one of the other two skilltrees.
So in the end you have a whooping 24 different builds - per side. Whow.
But of the 8 advanced classes, only 3 get a skill tree for full healer, and another 3 get a skilltree for full tank.
In another word - 3 of these builds will be full healers, 3 others will be full tanks.
So logically, what SW:TOR should have if you check out the class design, is that it should support 8 people per group. Meaning 1 tank, 1 healer, 6 dps. Thats how classes are distributed in the first place !
What the actual game has, however, is typically 4 people in group. Now that is the biggest "WTF" moment ever. It basically means there will be a HUGE pressure on ANYONE playing one of the three advanced classes able to heal, or one of the three advanced classes able to tank, to switch to their respective skilltree for healing or tanking.
Totally silly.
So yeah, SW:TOR would be a bad choice for you (its not out yet, anyway, though). WoW has 5 people parties, thats forbidden as well. Personally the only game I know of that will support 8 people in group is Lineage 2, and ... well thats a bit a case for special taste, because its an asian grinder.
P.s.: Oh, and Vanguard supports 6 people per group, and has 18 and 24 man raids. Raids however do NOT function like a normal group and cant replace them.
I just learned that Allods has 6-person parties. You can form a raid group with 24, see everyones status bars, and use a raid chat tab. All it lacks is loot splitting but I could live without that.
The games I used to play all allowed 8+ in a party. I know, I'm an old fart and the genre has moved on. Why the trend to smaller groups, though? Is there some aspect of the newer games which is better with smaller groups? Is it easier to develop content or to balance classes or something?
I know in WoW you can't complete quests or get quest XP when you're in a raid, at least, you USED to not be able to so the "max" size is pretty much stuck at 5 unless its instanced content.
Rift has 5 person parties but allows full XP and quests etc. in a raid and there is actually a fair amount of content you can do in a raid in the regular open world.
If you are going to be playing exclusively in a group though, like 100% of the time in a group then a game like FF XI is probably one of your best bets because there is SO much content and the game is designed around forced grouping, which shouldn't be a problem for you and your team.
6 people parties have been the norm since... a long long time. I don't know if I have played an MMO that has had groups and not been a max of 6 players in a party.
Edit: Is WoW only 5. It has been a while since I have played anything.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
WoW is only 5? That might explain the trend, then. Producers might be pushing devs to adopt similar features from that very successful game. Sad, though.
FFXI has only 6 in a group but allows 3-group raids. I do not know how functional those raids (called alliances) would be for open world adventuring. Chat tab and visible health bars are a must. XP sharing is highly desireable. Loot splitting would be nice to have, too.
I've only ever seen 5 or 6. I think the 6 became standard back in EQ's day. 5 with WoW.
Not all MMOs are like that... I mean, the max party size in FFXIV is 15 players... but you get sharply reduced EXP rewards if you're not targeting monsters considered "tough" by the game's broken difficulty system.
RoM has raids of 30+
I did like the disconnection between "Group" and "Raid" that most MMO's have. I liked that there was just "Party" and it floated anywhere from 2 up to 15 players.
I do agree, the difficulty system is whacked though. Great theory, poor implementation.
EVE's fleet implementation works for that game, but it's more like the Group->Raid system (only with more division for organization of large fleets).
Most of those games on the OP's list are going to be 5-6, that's been the "standard" for a good while
FFXI is a great idea, there is a lot of good content there if you can get past the aging graphics and somewhat arcane UI.
That game is a static 6 per group, or 18 per raid, or ungrouped in battlefield type encounters (although the emphasis on on group content). But once you get past about L10 for most classes, you absolutely have to group (fortunately, Level Sync, the ability to switch classes in cities, and Dual Class leveling makes that a whole lot easier).
But as far as a total package game, FFXI is a gem.
EQ2 has a max of 6 members in a group, 24 members per raid.
Do you want some cheese with that whine?
Asheron's Call 9 man groups, you actually get more exp for grouping.
I think every game should have scaling dungeons, that way you can go with 2 or up to 10 for fun
Aika has 6 classes and the party limit is 6. In fact, it gives bonus buff if your party consists of 1 of each class. For raid, I think you can join several parties, like 6 parties of 6 people to raid, which is called a Squad.
Another game that I recall with a lot of members in a party is With Your Destiny (WYD). It's an old game, but it allows up to 10 people in a party.
You would almost need a vanguardish system to have a really wide variety of party sizes... IE monsters having 1 2 3 4 5 or 6 stars as opposed to group and normal.
A 1 star monster might give full exp only to a solo player of its level or higher.
A 2 star monster might give full exp to a solo player 2 levels above it, or a duo of its level, or a trio 2 levels below it.
A 3 star monster might give full exp to a solo player 4 levels above it, a duo 2 levels above it, a trio of its level, 5 players 2 levels below it.
A 4 star monster might give full exp to a solo player 6 levels above it(but not recommended), a duo 4 levels above it, 4 players 2 levels above it, 7 players of its level, or 10 players 2 levels below it.
A 5 star monster might give full exp to a trio 5 levels above it, 5 players 3 levels above it, 7 players 2 levels above it, 10 players of its level, or 15 players 2 levels below it.
A 6 star monster might give full exp to 5 players 6 levels above it, 7 players 4 levels above it, 10 players 2 levels above it, 15 players of its level, or 24 players 2 levels below it.
I think between 6 and 8 is a good size limit for group. anything bigger would be too chaotic or invite too many leechs to slack.
Less is more.
Although there is some appeal in having perhaps a group of 6 to 8 people splitting up inside a dungeon and coordinating their efforts while cooperating in a mini-sized teams of 3-4.
With 10 people it becomes harder to control everyone and individual effort is less meaningful.
I've led a guild with 40+ people in an event and a guild with 6~12 and these are my experiences.
256 in EVE.
(Sorry for the trolling, but couldn't help myself).
Well I don't think group size is what really matters , but how content is made. What do I mean by that?
Let's say you have two games.
One standard group size is 6 , second has standard group size 5.
What is easier to get? well 5 obviously.
But game nr. 1 has alot of content (groups , instances) made for smaller groups (like 3 or 4 ppl size groups) apart of content for full groups of 6.
Game nr. 2 , has almost all content made for full size groups only (or solo).
So it might be lot easier to group in game nr. 1 even though on first sight game nr. 2 is easier to find cause standard size is smaller.
Just my 2 cents
I wish more games went the City of Heroes route.
it doesn't matter if you solo a mission or go in with a full team of 8, the thing scales up, so it can always be a challenge - there's even a difficulty setting where you can say I'm going to solo this mission, but I want it to spawn as though I were a full team.
Well , this solution is not very bad , but I would not like it to became standard. Why?
Well it has very big limits. Easy scaling like in CoH or in one type of Lotro instances (skirmishes) is made by simply scaling mobs hp, damage ,resistances and mobs amounts or very simple mechanics like it there is timer for something in instance then for grup it is shorter ,etc
But it is impossible to implement auto-scalling for many more complex mechanics. So this auto-scalling is very limiting.
Not to mention it is almost impossible to apply it to open world stuff , so it is limited to instances. Well GW2 will have some sort of dynamic open world scaling we'll see how it will work.
So while I am not against this totally , I feel that it is not ultimate solution.
I think best thing is that game just offers much varied content for solo , small group , bigger groups and also non-combat content , becasue if combat is only thing it get burned down much much quikcer and put much more strain on devs.
The scaling in CoH is a little more sophisticated than that - scaling up to higher levels gives new mob types which have different abilities (eg at lower levels, you might not get the 'boss' mobs that can easily stun you).
Scaling in open world would be impossible to balance for any game, there is no ultimate solution.
DAoC had a max group size of 8. It worked very well and was a lot of fun.
6 is a good group, with room for 2 more.
What's great about that is forming groups that last, so players can come and go.
Your healer has to leave in 15 minutes. With a group size of 8, no problem. You can let another healer join NOW if you're not full, and then the other healer can leave later with no real disruption.
With a group of 6, you'd have to say, sorry, we're full, then the healer wanting to join runs off somewhere else, then the healer in your group leaves, then you're looking for a new healer, etc.
It also encourages you to let those dual class players join. So what if you're not full tank, or full dps? Maybe you're a hybrid tank/dps. No problem with an 8 member group. We already have a full tank and a full dps, so the more the merrier.
PLUS DAoC gave you a bonus in XP for a full group. So adding another player was a Bonus! So what if we don't REALLY need another DPS? We get a bonus in XP if you join, so come on in!
That's the way to do it, IMO.
No idea why.
They just do, any nobody protests.
I cant believe you.
A guy wants to play with 7 friends - and THATS what you tell him ?
Send some of his friends away because "less is more" ?
Now thats too diablo for me.
I prefer the Vanguard approach - theres different content, some can be done solo, some can be done with 2 people, some can be done with 3 and more (i.e. 1 tank, 1 healer, n dps), some need really good full group (1 tank 2 healer 2 dps 1 bard) and some need a raidforce.