Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
So, about the whole single player vs grouping thing...
Ortwig
Member UncommonPosts: 1,163
One of the things TSW has been accused of is being a single player game disguised as an MMO. It's strange to me, because it has all the things you'd ask for in an MMO -- 8 dungeons (3 levels of difficulty), the NYC raid with another boss on the way, 8 open world lairs/bosses. General and LFG chat channels continuously have people asking to group up, and I've found myself talking to more people in game than I have in pretty much 4 years of other MMOs -- maybe credit that to some nice folks in the community. Lots of people running around doing action quests in pairs or as teams. You can group across servers.
It's got to be the investigation and sabotage quests as well as the single-player story instances in the game. Which, while there are quite a few of them early on in Kingsmouth, really thin out as you progress. I don't mind the solo instances myself; those can be played when grouping isn't an option or when you just want to sit down Myst-like with some coffee to figure out a tricky puzzle. I also enjoy some of the challenge fighting something solo from time to time, and some of the solo instances are genuinely creepy. I find that for the story, I like to be completley focused on what's happening without the distractions of a group.
Is this a bad thing? Does having solo stuff alongside the multiplayer aspects make it a "single player" game?
Comments
mmo's should to be without sp instances , it is bad & worst content in TSW or in any other story driven mmo's ,same as cut scenes & personal story stuff( ,,personal,, it must to be joke,there no personal stories,they are all same for every single player)
With new & incoming content ,FC promiss no single player instances SP instances,but they again make it with last Tylor Freeborn mission(issue 5)
I don't think "single player game disguised as an MMO" is a fair criticism of TSW. Much of the content can be completed solo, but most works well in a group, too. I like having the option.
I tend to do missions solo the first time through as I enjoy taking it slow and enjoying the story without worrying about someone else waiting for me to finish. Repeating missions with a friend or two goes quick and can be fun. The "hard" missions that award signets, in particular, lend themselves to grouping, even at endgame. You can certainly get strong enough to solo them, but they go much faster with a friend.
Dungeons require a group, which can be a fun challenge. Different levels and types of challenges make for a better game. It is nice to have a choice of activities, depending on your mood and time available.
Some people feel that MMORPG's should be forced grouping. They only want to play in groups and feel that everyone else should be forced to play that way, and feel threatened by anything that makes the solo content more enjoyable.
There is plenty of group content, both in dungeons and outdoor areas. Really, this is no different than games like WoW, other than the stories engage the player more. Investigation missions do not have to be done. People that don't like them, can skip them, so I don't understand the problem.
THe one problem, however, is the limited number of quests you could have and the inability to share them (I've been away a while, is that still the case?). That makes it difficult for people to casually group up, as they will likely be in different places in the quest lines, or have different missions altogether.
Yep, you can share missions. Once you are grouped, you can share the mission with everyone in the party. I think the decision to have limited missions was so that players could concentrate on a single story until completion -- many have multiple tiers, so it's just a way of focusing the player in on the content instead of having it scattered over 30 possible quests. That said, you can always pause a mission and pick up a different one.
I'm one of those that call it a single player game. While there are multiplayer missions, mostly the end of map dungeons, they're so thinly spread that you spend 90%, if not more, of the time soloing the quest chains. You can group up with others to do the solo content, but you really don't need to, and sometimes the game actively stops you when you find yourself almost to the end of a quest line only to find a solo instance. That's happened to me the few times I've found a partner to travel with, and it usually signals the end of the duo.
While I haven't got there yet, still bashing my way through Transylvania, I can see how the game will open up into a more multiplayer experience once I get to the end game. Elite and Nightmare dungeons, raids, lairs, etc. But that's right at the end after perhaps months of solo-based content, so it's no wonder people call it a single player game - the group content is the last thing you do.
I love TSW but I agree, maybe this is one of the biggest problems of it (and not animations or pvp
).
It's great to play through the game in a fix group (for example duo with the same person), there's a lot more space for theory craft, you can build your decks to enhance and support each other - and then the game tells you "solo instance".
LotRO for example solved it and you can invite a fellow to any part of your progression. I don't know, maybe FC also made some solutions, to be honest I haven't grouped in months... but I only goofing around with decks nowadays.
Once you leave Solomon Island there are I believe a grand total of 3 solo instances in zone missions (1 sabotage mission in each Transylvania zone), although some of the Issue #6 content has been a bit glitchy if you try to run it in a group, these bugs are gradually being ironed out.
Joel has stated repeatedly (see e.g. this thread) that the intention in future content updates is to have as few solo instances as possible, at least outside the main storyline.
Additionally dungeons (which can only be soloed once you massively outgear them, at which point there is little benefit to running them) exist in each adventure zone and are not simply "end game" content, when I'm back in Kingsmouth I frequently see people in chat making Polaris groups.
I'm played TSW mainly solo during the "leveling" part because that's the way I like it. When I play a MMO the first time I want to soak up the atmosphere and story and that I only can do when I'm playing at my personal pace undisturbed by a group mate.
On the other hand a lot of people complained about the difficulty of the game therefore there is good reason to team up which of course is problematic when it comes to solo instances. But as already stated there are not so many solo instances after solomon island.
When there is a MMO which deserves the label of a single-player game than it's GW2. This autogrouping for events hardly qualifies as group content. Your group mates are nothing more than bots since you don't have to communicate with them, it doesn't matter if they are there or not.
Just a note that there are 3 levels of dungeons -- normal, elite and nightmare, so it is very possible (even encouraged, since the blue drops are nice to have for the next zone) to group and do the normal dungeons while you are leveling. It's also good practice, because while the nightmare modes are much harder, at least you can learn the layout of the instance.
Oh, I've done that, I love the multiplayer aspect of MMO's, it's the whole reason I play them in the first place. I was in awe of some of the boss fights in my first MMO, EverQuest, which at times had 5 different groups all dealing with other problems, while the larger part of the raid dealt with the main boss. Awesome times.
Whenever I enter a zone with a dungeon in it, I like to queue up. I'll queue up over and over, do the dungeon over and over, purely because I enjoy the experience of working with other players toward a goal. Before I left Kingsmouth I'd run Polaris about 8 to 10 times, the same for Hell Raised and everything else along the way.
That, however, doesn't change the fact that the vast bulk of the game is made up of soloable quests and instances. If the game wasn't so damn good I would have probably moved on by now, but even the solo quests are better than a lot of single player RPGs around these days.
The Secret World is just an awesome game. It could do with focusing more on the multiplayer part, but overall it's been a blast.
Odd, the main reason I rarely play this is because I found soloing to be excrutiatingly slow and ultimately unrewarding as far as gear. I probably would play more often if open world stuff didn't require manual teaming up (Guild Wars 2 got it right, wish other devs would follow suit).
Still happy to see the game currently #1 on the released list. It deserves it for the story crafting alone.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
So much of this has to do with the wildly varying opinions about what constitutes the "massively" part of MMORPG (the war wages on here) -- some folks believe that only RvR full loot sandbox is an MMO, others feel that 40-man raids are what it's all about, and other feel that as long as thousands of other players are running around on their server, and that it is possible to chat and group with them, that the "massively" part has been taken care of. There is no One True Definition, and probably won't ever be, since these games keep changing.
All the while themepark games like WoW lead a push to steadily add more soloable content for casual players. It really comes down what opinions you are coming to the game with. TSW has a smattering of solo instances, plenty of regular missions, and also has 5- and 10-man group content in the dungeons and raids. You can group up with anyone across any server. Also, large scale PvP in Fusang, and smaller scale battlegrounds in Eldorado and Stonehenge. But f you are looking for 40-man raids or RvR, or full sandbox, then TSW isn't the game for you -- it's a themepark, along the lines of WoW, SWTOR, Rift, GW2, AoC, TERA, TESO or Neverwinter.
It's how easy the gameplay is that makes it more a solo player thing. While you could find others to join you for quests, and indeed I did a few times, ultimately it's not needed as you can do it all yourself anyway. On top of that you have the quest chains, which means anyone who joins up has to pick up the same quest and be on the same section as you, and it just puts up these barriers that make most people figure it'd be easier to just get it done alone.
here is a concept , rewarding people not in your group for killing something someone else is fighting .
In other words kill stealing is actually considered grouping .
Uh what does this have to do with TSW? You cannot kill-steal in this game: for regular mobs it uses a first-hit tagging system, anyone not grouped with whoever gets the first hit gets no XP and no drops. Quest mobs (with the flag symbol above their names) give no XP and no drops, anyone who hits them gets credit if they're on the appropriate mission tier.
EDIT: typo, clarification.
No.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.