LOTRO provides some 3 man dungeons. I also found them to be far better than the others. It's common for 3 people who know each other to play a game together 'all the time'.. it's far less common that 5-8 people do.
The problem is Axehilt that challenge is being removed in EzMMO’s, so no challenge to find a group then little challenge in what you do as a group. My specific problem with finding groups easily is that it reduced the social connections we make in MMO’s. That’s an essential part of the Massive, and playing with players from other servers you cannot meet outside of a handful of dungeons does not live up to that.
The 3 mans in Lotro worked well but had some problems with class balance. They were very well done and showed of one of Lotro’s main strengths, dungeon design.
When Lotro went MMO lite (certainly not an EzMMO yet) you just did not have as much reason to do those difficult 3 mans.
Give players a choice and they will play the less challenging way. But they end up being less satisfied with what they have done, at top level more quickly and looking for that next MMO before you can say "Grats!"
Please, stop with the "Lotro is doing 3-man instances".
They are doing them for the same reason that they went from 24-man raids to 12, for the same reason that they made the epic books soloable, same reason for nerfing all the outdoor group areas to solo or small group, same reason for nerfing certain instances to smaller groups, same reason for announcing next expansion with zero instances.
Lotro is hardly an MMO any longer but a solo-fest with a chat window attached and a cash shop.
Please, stop with the "Lotro is doing 3-man instances".
They are doing them for the same reason that they went from 24-man raids to 12, for the same reason that they made the epic books soloable, same reason for nerfing all the outdoor group areas to solo or small group, same reason for nerfing certain instances to smaller groups, same reason for announcing next expansion with zero instances.
Lotro is hardly an MMO any longer but a solo-fest with a chat window attached and a cash shop.
It's a bad example. A very bad one.
No, it is a great example of the trend of MMOs ... focusing on small group co-op content.
There is a different feel to a huge group fight, I love that, but yes you individually contribute less. So I am not advocating huge groups for entry level grouping.
What I am getting at is the reason for making the groups smaller, is it to do with making group dynamics more flexible or is it to do with ezMMOde? I am afraid it is the later, in smaller groups spots are easier to fill. The hallmark of the way MMO’s are developing is everything must be quick, instant even, no room for patience when you are appealing to joystick gamers.
Group finders or dungeons which throw together people from different servers are all about the same thing, ‘I must play now!’ Developing a network of friends, working in a guild to form dungeon groups, that’s not for a console boy. And they are the demographic MMO companies are pandering too.
Making it difficult to form or join groups achieves no desirable design goal.
Forming a group should be ultra convenient.
Getting to the group should be ultra convenient.
Getting to the part where you're playing the game should be ultra convenient.
Challenge should exist in the content itself. There's no game depth to making it inconvenient to form a group, but there's tons of potential game depth to have group PVE challenges which demand a lot of skill and teamwork.
Those games aren't selling the game as content, they are selling people as content. That is why I don't like them
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Those games aren't selling the game as content, they are selling people as content. That is why I don't like them
What are you talking about? PVE dungeon games overwhelmingly selling game content as content.
You can't possibly dislike TF2 or LoL on the basis that there would be no content without players, can you? Those are games which genuinely are selling people as content (and they're great.)
In fact most here at MMORPG.com feel MMORPGs should be more player-driven, and by extension MMORPGs which "sell people as content" more.
Personally I don't think that matters as long as the gameplay itself is fun. But forming a group isn't gameplay (there's no depth and very little decision-making); the content itself is gameplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Those games aren't selling the game as content, they are selling people as content. That is why I don't like them
What are you talking about? PVE dungeon games overwhelmingly selling game content as content.
You can't possibly dislike TF2 or LoL on the basis that there would be no content without players, can you? Those are games which genuinely are selling people as content (and they're great.)
In fact most here at MMORPG.com feel MMORPGs should be more player-driven, and by extension MMORPGs which "sell people as content" more.
Personally I don't think that matters as long as the gameplay itself is fun. But forming a group isn't gameplay (there's no depth and very little decision-making); the content itself is gameplay.
In games like LoL and TF2 all you need to do is to bring yourself and your skill.
In games following the EQ mold your skill is just a part, probably not even the most important part - it is all about who you know and all the things you need to do to get in that raider guild. So bring a few dozen player or you get stuck.
There is a reason you starting to see LFR tools - but that is just a quick fix for the problem.
Since for me the most important thing about a game is the game play, I always disliked the drama and in fighting in guilds and the fact i would have go through that to enjoy the game play.
I don't mind socialization in games and in game communities - I just don't want them to be mandatory and i don't want to be completely dependant
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
It is very difficult to have more than one kind of PvE or PvP. If you have more than one type, then one will be seen as the best.
SWTOR's sign up 'battlefields' as opposed to the one you had to go to Illum was the winner. Looking at Lotro, Moria 3 mans were tougher than 6 mans, 6 mans won out. Even though finding a group was harder, 3mans where something you did (if at all) after you had a few 6mans under your belt. Then the 3 man arena in Mirkwood turned up and the Moria 3 and 6 mans fell out of favour. The Mirkwood arena was easier, the others got dropped.
So the easier path is always chossen. My objection to 3 man is that it is normally going to be chosen over 6 man if a game has both, it is easier to form a 3 man gorup. In the Lotro example they made the 3mans hard and that offset the problem, but making things hard so rarely gets done in EzMMO's. I cannot see Turbine doing that again, and doubt any other software house would.
So nothing against 3 man, it is just hard to run with 6 man + group content. If it is the easier option thats all people will play. I don't think there is an ideal group number, but variety is better if it can be balanced.
wonder if its possible to have the instance difficulty n loot table b dynamic so that it adapt after how many tht enters? after all its not certain yu can get a group together (got a vague memory coh had tht waay back)
In games like LoL and TF2 all you need to do is to bring yourself and your skill.
In games following the EQ mold your skill is just a part, probably not even the most important part - it is all about who you know and all the things you need to do to get in that raider guild. So bring a few dozen player or you get stuck.
There is a reason you starting to see LFR tools - but that is just a quick fix for the problem.
Since for me the most important thing about a game is the game play, I always disliked the drama and in fighting in guilds and the fact i would have go through that to enjoy the game play.
I don't mind socialization in games and in game communities - I just don't want them to be mandatory and i don't want to be completely dependant
Well I still don't see the "games selling people as content" angle, but I do agree with what youv'e said here.
LFR is a step forward, but raiding's still raiding. I'm not sure large-scale PVE content will ever appeal to me. It's either too easy (GW2 spontaneous raids throughout world content), or the challenge is right but failure is frequent due to poor teammates. The latter results in deciding between sticking with friends or ditching them to advance, which is a pretty terrible decision.
I think you can solve it for smaller-scale groups though, but giving players of similar skill the ability to find groups together and potentially befriend one another.
Some JRPGs have relationship/friendship status between characters. I sort of wonder if that might not keep a pair of random pub PVE players playing together. Basically it's a faction rating you have with every other character in the game, which enables better rewards or capabilities as you hit higher tiers (and the second tier would be hit at the end of your first dungeon together, giving you a reason to run that next group with someone you know rather than just ditching them.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In games like LoL and TF2 all you need to do is to bring yourself and your skill.
In games following the EQ mold your skill is just a part, probably not even the most important part - it is all about who you know and all the things you need to do to get in that raider guild. So bring a few dozen player or you get stuck.
There is a reason you starting to see LFR tools - but that is just a quick fix for the problem.
Since for me the most important thing about a game is the game play, I always disliked the drama and in fighting in guilds and the fact i would have go through that to enjoy the game play.
I don't mind socialization in games and in game communities - I just don't want them to be mandatory and i don't want to be completely dependant
Well I still don't see the "games selling people as content" angle, but I do agree with what youv'e said here.
LFR is a step forward, but raiding's still raiding. I'm not sure large-scale PVE content will ever appeal to me. It's either too easy (GW2 spontaneous raids throughout world content), or the challenge is right but failure is frequent due to poor teammates. The latter results in deciding between sticking with friends or ditching them to advance, which is a pretty terrible decision.
I think you can solve it for smaller-scale groups though, but giving players of similar skill the ability to find groups together and potentially befriend one another.
Some JRPGs have relationship/friendship status between characters. I sort of wonder if that might not keep a pair of random pub PVE players playing together. Basically it's a faction rating you have with every other character in the game, which enables better rewards or capabilities as you hit higher tiers (and the second tier would be hit at the end of your first dungeon together, giving you a reason to run that next group with someone you know rather than just ditching them.)
I meant in the context of forming guilds/raid groups/lists of contacts become game play. You don't do it (just) because it is people you like to socialize with, but because you need them to progress in the game.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
It is very difficult to have more than one kind of PvE or PvP. If you have more than one type, then one will be seen as the best.
SWTOR's sign up 'battlefields' as opposed to the one you had to go to Illum was the winner. Looking at Lotro, Moria 3 mans were tougher than 6 mans, 6 mans won out. Even though finding a group was harder, 3mans where something you did (if at all) after you had a few 6mans under your belt. Then the 3 man arena in Mirkwood turned up and the Moria 3 and 6 mans fell out of favour. The Mirkwood arena was easier, the others got dropped.
So the easier path is always chossen. My objection to 3 man is that it is normally going to be chosen over 6 man if a game has both, it is easier to form a 3 man gorup. In the Lotro example they made the 3mans hard and that offset the problem, but making things hard so rarely gets done in EzMMO's. I cannot see Turbine doing that again, and doubt any other software house would.
So nothing against 3 man, it is just hard to run with 6 man + group content. If it is the easier option thats all people will play. I don't think there is an ideal group number, but variety is better if it can be balanced.
so in your experience, given that the game wasnt designed classwise for a 3 man group, that if another game focused on a 3 man group and additionally designed player classes around that group size, it would likely result in more challenging gameplay?
It is very difficult to have more than one kind of PvE or PvP. If you have more than one type, then one will be seen as the best.
SWTOR's sign up 'battlefields' as opposed to the one you had to go to Illum was the winner. Looking at Lotro, Moria 3 mans were tougher than 6 mans, 6 mans won out. Even though finding a group was harder, 3mans where something you did (if at all) after you had a few 6mans under your belt. Then the 3 man arena in Mirkwood turned up and the Moria 3 and 6 mans fell out of favour. The Mirkwood arena was easier, the others got dropped.
So the easier path is always chossen. My objection to 3 man is that it is normally going to be chosen over 6 man if a game has both, it is easier to form a 3 man gorup. In the Lotro example they made the 3mans hard and that offset the problem, but making things hard so rarely gets done in EzMMO's. I cannot see Turbine doing that again, and doubt any other software house would.
So nothing against 3 man, it is just hard to run with 6 man + group content. If it is the easier option thats all people will play. I don't think there is an ideal group number, but variety is better if it can be balanced.
It is hard by there are ways to get people into harder dungeons.
WOW did it by giving a HUGE incentive to finish random dungeons, and you have to wait 30 min if you quit. Some people still will quit when they randomly draw a tough dungeon .. but not all.
Actually, depending on how you set up the scaling -- a dungeon set up for anywhere from 2 to 8 players could be easiest with 8 players and hardest with 2 players. It is not by default hardest with the maximum number of players. Plus even if one were overly concerned people were going to tend to go for the lower numbers and you wanted the higher numbers you could just have 16% more drops per player with 8 players than it would be with 2 players and in that case people would flock to the higher numbered groups.
I think the best solution is variable grouping content. It should be scaleable to at least 2 through 6 (throwing a random number at the end). It could be difficult to balance or make unique but I would like the option to go in with none standard groups and still be fine.
It is certainly easier to see 3 man working when there is no 6 man etc. But that then would make the MMO only for very small groups, in fact the smallest number you could call ‘a group.’
I don’t think it is too much to expect more than one group size in a MMO, we have all seen 6, 12 and mass groups in the same MMO. I would have thought it better to try to get the balance right there than give up and just go for 3 man. But I would not be against a 3 man game just because it is 3 man.
Penalties should play a part just like rewards, but nariusseldon MMO’s are only designed with carrot these days. It is all rewards no penalties, those MMO’s that penalise you in any way are the old MMO’s. The design culture has changed to instant gratification and no penalties.
In Rift I could change my warrior class into one which could rez players outside combat in a dungeon. In Swtor any player can rez another outside combat in a dungeon. You can swap your character half way through the operation. The one you used gets rewards up to that point, the new one gets the rest of the rewards. And it is only going to get easier, that’s something players don’t understand they think EzMMOde stops here.
It is certainly easier to see 3 man working when there is no 6 man etc. But that then would make the MMO only for very small groups, in fact the smallest number you could call ‘a group.’
I don’t think it is too much to expect more than one group size in a MMO, we have all seen 6, 12 and mass groups in the same MMO. I would have thought it better to try to get the balance right there than give up and just go for 3 man. But I would not be against a 3 man game just because it is 3 man.
Penalties should play a part just like rewards, but nariusseldon MMO’s are only designed with carrot these days. It is all rewards no penalties, those MMO’s that penalise you in any way are the old MMO’s. The design culture has changed to instant gratification and no penalties.
In Rift I could change my warrior class into one which could rez players outside combat in a dungeon. In Swtor any player can rez another outside combat in a dungeon. You can swap your character half way through the operation. The one you used gets rewards up to that point, the new one gets the rest of the rewards. And it is only going to get easier, that’s something players don’t understand they think EzMMOde stops here.
no i would look at a 3 man as a unit, and you could have specific content made for 2 or 3 or 10 units if you wanted to, but at the core each unit would be made of 3 players and designed that way. so in a 2 unit dungeon, there are two different dependant paths which intertwine so two units can both work together and work apart ( i.e one group works its way to a switch, opening a door for the other group which opens the door for group 1 and both groups fight the boss...). You could do the same with three or even 10 units.
as for easy mode , its a self defeating cycle. lazy cannot be defeated so i guess there will be a niche longterm product for a company who understands this, and mmogarbage for everyone else which will make lots of bucks shortterm.
Why not 1 man groups ? They are definitely easier to find than 3 man groups. This cannot be argued.
I raise the stakes: half a man instances. Dungeons designed so that a single person must run two of them at the same time. Top that. (yeah , i know, one third of a man instances...)
There's multiple reasons for not having a 3-man group.
One is practical reasons. Most MMOs are setup with a trinity system where certain roles are required in a group - a tank, a healer and a number of damage dealers. Since by far most people are interested in the damage dealer role, having 3-man groups would in most MMOs cause crazy amount of waiting time for damage dealers to get groups.
Second is the genre's roots in old tabletop role-playing and CRPGs, most of which are designed for groups of 4 or more player characters.
There might be more, but those two are from the top of my head.
There's multiple reasons for not having a 3-man group.
One is practical reasons. Most MMOs are setup with a trinity system where certain roles are required in a group - a tank, a healer and a number of damage dealers. Since by far most people are interested in the damage dealer role, having 3-man groups would in most MMOs cause crazy amount of waiting time for damage dealers to get groups.
Second is the genre's roots in old tabletop role-playing and CRPGs, most of which are designed for groups of 4 or more player characters.
There might be more, but those two are from the top of my head.
interesting. on your first point i disagree because damage dealing is not one of the trinity. It wasnt in everquest and it wasnt in dark age of camelot. Those games had dedicated crowd control classes.
if you go back to that model you have no dedicated dps role, and thus all are required to do that. Actually all were always required to do that. I dont accept wows model of tank/heal/dps as a superior model for the reasons you suggested.
what if all the classes were designed around tank/heal and crowd control where each class could perform any two of those three roles by design. All classes are and have always been designed to deal damage. Even a daoc midgard healer could deal some damage.
on your second point, most players dont know what came before wow, so i doubt that tabletop games would have any effect at all.
lets say we use the original trinity and we design out classes based on the ability to perform 2 roles of the three well and the third role not so well, though each class would do that in a unique way. Wed end up with well rounded classes like below:
paladin: good tank, good healer, poor crowd controller
monk: good tank, good healer, poor crowd controller
battlemage: good tank, good crowd conroller, poor healer
Ranger: good tank, good crowd controller, poor healer
druid: good healer, good crowd controller, poor tank
wizard: good healer, good crowd controller, poor tank
this is a simple model, but with pretty much any 3 players your bound to fill all the roles. All classes would have range abilities, ability to dps in multiple ways, and utility spells would be obtainable equally across the classes ( they would be the same for all players..i.e gate spells). i wouldnt have buffs in the game per say but each class would be equipped with a unique set of debuffs. I would also have a focus system so that each class could focus on one of the two roles they can do well, or even focus on the third role, though it would be genrally inferior. You would only be able to focus one at a time of course.
in an age where mmo's are supposed to be soloable, i cant figure out why they wouldnt at least try to make a mmo with a smaller group size. Its superior in every way.
MMOs are supposed to be soloable? Why not just play Skyrim or something then.
The most fond MMO memories I have are 72 man raids in Everquest.
I completely disagree that a smaller group size is superior or requires less specialists.
And some of my worst memories of any mmos were those esame exact 50+ person raids from everquest.
To each his own.
But, in recent years there have been polls done and they show that most players do NOT like large raids and prefer smaller group oriented content.
Comments
Yep.
I agree LOTRO does(or did) 3 mans awesomely. Too bad LOTRO made itself into a MMO-Lite.
Please, stop with the "Lotro is doing 3-man instances".
They are doing them for the same reason that they went from 24-man raids to 12, for the same reason that they made the epic books soloable, same reason for nerfing all the outdoor group areas to solo or small group, same reason for nerfing certain instances to smaller groups, same reason for announcing next expansion with zero instances.
Lotro is hardly an MMO any longer but a solo-fest with a chat window attached and a cash shop.
It's a bad example. A very bad one.
What does group size has to do with difficulty? Diablo has group size of 4 .. and Inferno is tougher than many WOW 5-man or 10 man dungeon.
Small group is good .. easier to design good content .. less wait to form a group.
I am all for 3 man group. Dungeon crawl is best done in small groups.
No, it is a great example of the trend of MMOs ... focusing on small group co-op content.
Those games aren't selling the game as content, they are selling people as content. That is why I don't like them
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
What are you talking about? PVE dungeon games overwhelmingly selling game content as content.
You can't possibly dislike TF2 or LoL on the basis that there would be no content without players, can you? Those are games which genuinely are selling people as content (and they're great.)
In fact most here at MMORPG.com feel MMORPGs should be more player-driven, and by extension MMORPGs which "sell people as content" more.
Personally I don't think that matters as long as the gameplay itself is fun. But forming a group isn't gameplay (there's no depth and very little decision-making); the content itself is gameplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In games like LoL and TF2 all you need to do is to bring yourself and your skill.
In games following the EQ mold your skill is just a part, probably not even the most important part - it is all about who you know and all the things you need to do to get in that raider guild. So bring a few dozen player or you get stuck.
There is a reason you starting to see LFR tools - but that is just a quick fix for the problem.
Since for me the most important thing about a game is the game play, I always disliked the drama and in fighting in guilds and the fact i would have go through that to enjoy the game play.
I don't mind socialization in games and in game communities - I just don't want them to be mandatory and i don't want to be completely dependant
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
It is very difficult to have more than one kind of PvE or PvP. If you have more than one type, then one will be seen as the best.
SWTOR's sign up 'battlefields' as opposed to the one you had to go to Illum was the winner. Looking at Lotro, Moria 3 mans were tougher than 6 mans, 6 mans won out. Even though finding a group was harder, 3mans where something you did (if at all) after you had a few 6mans under your belt. Then the 3 man arena in Mirkwood turned up and the Moria 3 and 6 mans fell out of favour. The Mirkwood arena was easier, the others got dropped.
So the easier path is always chossen. My objection to 3 man is that it is normally going to be chosen over 6 man if a game has both, it is easier to form a 3 man gorup. In the Lotro example they made the 3mans hard and that offset the problem, but making things hard so rarely gets done in EzMMO's. I cannot see Turbine doing that again, and doubt any other software house would.
So nothing against 3 man, it is just hard to run with 6 man + group content. If it is the easier option thats all people will play. I don't think there is an ideal group number, but variety is better if it can be balanced.
wonder if its possible to have the instance difficulty n loot table b dynamic so that it adapt after how many tht enters? after all its not certain yu can get a group together (got a vague memory coh had tht waay back)
Well I still don't see the "games selling people as content" angle, but I do agree with what youv'e said here.
LFR is a step forward, but raiding's still raiding. I'm not sure large-scale PVE content will ever appeal to me. It's either too easy (GW2 spontaneous raids throughout world content), or the challenge is right but failure is frequent due to poor teammates. The latter results in deciding between sticking with friends or ditching them to advance, which is a pretty terrible decision.
I think you can solve it for smaller-scale groups though, but giving players of similar skill the ability to find groups together and potentially befriend one another.
Some JRPGs have relationship/friendship status between characters. I sort of wonder if that might not keep a pair of random pub PVE players playing together. Basically it's a faction rating you have with every other character in the game, which enables better rewards or capabilities as you hit higher tiers (and the second tier would be hit at the end of your first dungeon together, giving you a reason to run that next group with someone you know rather than just ditching them.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I meant in the context of forming guilds/raid groups/lists of contacts become game play. You don't do it (just) because it is people you like to socialize with, but because you need them to progress in the game.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
so in your experience, given that the game wasnt designed classwise for a 3 man group, that if another game focused on a 3 man group and additionally designed player classes around that group size, it would likely result in more challenging gameplay?
It is hard by there are ways to get people into harder dungeons.
WOW did it by giving a HUGE incentive to finish random dungeons, and you have to wait 30 min if you quit. Some people still will quit when they randomly draw a tough dungeon .. but not all.
Actually, depending on how you set up the scaling -- a dungeon set up for anywhere from 2 to 8 players could be easiest with 8 players and hardest with 2 players. It is not by default hardest with the maximum number of players. Plus even if one were overly concerned people were going to tend to go for the lower numbers and you wanted the higher numbers you could just have 16% more drops per player with 8 players than it would be with 2 players and in that case people would flock to the higher numbered groups.
I think the best solution is variable grouping content. It should be scaleable to at least 2 through 6 (throwing a random number at the end). It could be difficult to balance or make unique but I would like the option to go in with none standard groups and still be fine.
no i would look at a 3 man as a unit, and you could have specific content made for 2 or 3 or 10 units if you wanted to, but at the core each unit would be made of 3 players and designed that way. so in a 2 unit dungeon, there are two different dependant paths which intertwine so two units can both work together and work apart ( i.e one group works its way to a switch, opening a door for the other group which opens the door for group 1 and both groups fight the boss...). You could do the same with three or even 10 units.
as for easy mode , its a self defeating cycle. lazy cannot be defeated so i guess there will be a niche longterm product for a company who understands this, and mmogarbage for everyone else which will make lots of bucks shortterm.
I like your way of thinking ! :-D
There's multiple reasons for not having a 3-man group.
One is practical reasons. Most MMOs are setup with a trinity system where certain roles are required in a group - a tank, a healer and a number of damage dealers. Since by far most people are interested in the damage dealer role, having 3-man groups would in most MMOs cause crazy amount of waiting time for damage dealers to get groups.
Second is the genre's roots in old tabletop role-playing and CRPGs, most of which are designed for groups of 4 or more player characters.
There might be more, but those two are from the top of my head.
interesting. on your first point i disagree because damage dealing is not one of the trinity. It wasnt in everquest and it wasnt in dark age of camelot. Those games had dedicated crowd control classes.
if you go back to that model you have no dedicated dps role, and thus all are required to do that. Actually all were always required to do that. I dont accept wows model of tank/heal/dps as a superior model for the reasons you suggested.
what if all the classes were designed around tank/heal and crowd control where each class could perform any two of those three roles by design. All classes are and have always been designed to deal damage. Even a daoc midgard healer could deal some damage.
on your second point, most players dont know what came before wow, so i doubt that tabletop games would have any effect at all.
some more thoughts..
lets say we use the original trinity and we design out classes based on the ability to perform 2 roles of the three well and the third role not so well, though each class would do that in a unique way. Wed end up with well rounded classes like below:
paladin: good tank, good healer, poor crowd controller
monk: good tank, good healer, poor crowd controller
battlemage: good tank, good crowd conroller, poor healer
Ranger: good tank, good crowd controller, poor healer
druid: good healer, good crowd controller, poor tank
wizard: good healer, good crowd controller, poor tank
this is a simple model, but with pretty much any 3 players your bound to fill all the roles. All classes would have range abilities, ability to dps in multiple ways, and utility spells would be obtainable equally across the classes ( they would be the same for all players..i.e gate spells). i wouldnt have buffs in the game per say but each class would be equipped with a unique set of debuffs. I would also have a focus system so that each class could focus on one of the two roles they can do well, or even focus on the third role, though it would be genrally inferior. You would only be able to focus one at a time of course.
And some of my worst memories of any mmos were those esame exact 50+ person raids from everquest.
To each his own.
But, in recent years there have been polls done and they show that most players do NOT like large raids and prefer smaller group oriented content.
So why not appeal to both?
There is no AH on SKYRIM. You can show off your gear in SKYRIM to other players. There are MANY reasons to play a MMO beyong large groups.
ANd smaller group is easier to co-ordinate and easier to build & balance content for.