So let me get this straight, you just want to be able to solo in a massively MULTIPLAYER rpg. That would be fine if you never intend to group with anyone, ever. Because guess what happens when you solo your way to level cap? You learn nothing about your class or how to play it. Most of these mmos that have the ability to solo all the way through are too easy, you just faceroll the content. If you never have to group with anyone, how are you going to learn what works and what doesn't in a group environment? All you have to use is one or two skills from 1 through whatever and you'd be just fine. That's what most soloers do anyway. You don't need to build a rotation or learn mob mechanics or anything. Group content provides this for you. This is why I'm excited about FFXIV. I never played a single FF game but when I heard that 1-50 will basically just be a tutorial and much of the leveling will actually require grouping, I thought it was a godsend. Finally a game that teaches you how to play at endgame, so 99% of players aren't just spamming 1-2 skills on a boss with real mechanics. You solo players just gotta learn to accept that soloing is not a challenge and it doesn't teach you anything, and if you can't, well then don't expect to do any endgame raiding.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
Originally posted by Shadowguy64 Halp! I want to leave the city, but I can't go solo! I've been here for three weeks! Please group with me!!!!!!!!!
Has there ever been a game other than FXI where everything your level would kill you and it was impossible to solo? That is honestly the only one I can think of where it wasn't possible to solo. Well at least back in the day it wasn't, I know it has changed over the last few years.
Well, I can't really think of another way to force grouping without making the mobs so tough that trying to solo them would mean certain death.
So fill the world with hard to kill elite mobs and corral the soloists inside the cities until they finally bend to the groupers demands.
The answer is simple.
You don't try to force people to group all the time.
But I thought soloing was the Deviljuice...
If a game launched in which it required people to group to solo, then I highly suspect most people would ragequit. It would be the biggest shit storm the internet has ever seen.
Well, if mobs are easily soloable, then why the heck would I want to stand around and wait for for a group when I can just go solo and level faster? Not to mention that if it's a quest centric game, not everyone would be on the same quest.
I can chat with people in my guild and friends without being in a group.
Have you ever played a sandbox game before?
Nope. Pretty hard to find one that isn't Eve or some FF PVP game.
Fair enough.
FFA pvp is a themepark trait, not a sandbox trait through. Sandboxes or virtual worlds are about immersion. Sandboxes or virtual worlds require you to risk your own enjoyment if your goal is to ruin others.
Themeparks allow you to grief others. Griefing is not possible without the help and assistance of the developers.
Virtual worlds dont have towns that you can murder all the inhabitants, and still have a functional town.
Themeparks let you spawn camp newbs outside city hall literally preventing people from playing.
Themepark pvp and ffa pvp is one in the same.
Id like virtual world pvp similar to eve. It's the fairest, its the most realistic, and the worst abusers are subject to the community instead of protected by the devs.
Age of Wushu and Archeage with their policing system with FFA pvp work quite well (full loot pvp especially if FFA is asinine)
Just two quick examples that completely deflate the OPs theory. Of course, your experience may differ but I doubt it.
Played Tera last year. As I leveled up, I attempted to explore the map and complete as many quests and dungeons as possible. Every area I visited, I would hang out by the quest hubs to try to recruit other players to group with, especially for the harder quests. Other than 1 or 2 friends I convinced to play with me, I never had a player respond to my group requests at any time. Never. I ended up randomly inviting players every day, at which point I would, without fail, end up following them around to simulate the feeling of grouping. They'd finish a quest and, whether my quest was completed or not, they would end up running off to solo the next quests without any concern for other party members. Within a few minutes, every member of the party would be in a different place on the map soloing their quests with no regard to other group members. Every day, it was the same thing. Had I not started the game with two friends from another game, I'd have never made it as far as I did.
Fast forward a few weeks, I'm in a level 40ish dungeon and I finally was in my first group that actually spoke to each other. It was an argument over whether a certain player really needed items they were rolling on, or whether they should roll greed. That conversation degraded into a flame war where one of the players ninja logged. I quit a day or two later.
This year I played NW2. Same deal. In the few weeks I played the game, I could never find a real group that conversed or formulated a strategy for anything. Because the vast majority of the content could be completed independently, players just rushed around at full speed in order to reach max level. I ended up joining groups with their insta-grouping system, and never at any time would anyone actually talk. Just like in WoW, grouping was only a means to an end and never required players to actually coordinate. There was never any real challenge, everything was zerged, and there was never enough downtime to so much as talk about the weather.
Both games were completely void of any sense of community, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Every game I play I like to meet people, but when the content is that easy, the vast majority of players are only passing through with no need or desire to stop and truly work together.
The only game I actually played that actually did naturally encourage player communication through the use of player created cities, interdependent crafting, and challenging dungeons was Age of Wushu. Unfortunately, after playing the game for a while and reaching max level, I realized the PvE content was horrible, the group and guild content was superficial and meaningless, and the combat system was all dps and lacked the balance of a game with distinct roles. That said, I still only played the game as long as I did because it had an intelligent system that encouraged that sense of community lacking in 99% of modern MMOs.
if you need a game to promote mechanics that FORCE people to group with you ... you are the problem. I have run with groups constantly in EQ2, WoW, Guild Wars 2, Rift and countless other "solo MMORPGs".
see thats the beauty of MMORPGs right now, people have options, they can either solo or they can group IF THEY WANT. recently in guild wars 2 my guild took 2 groups and started over, just running from event to event leveling up some new players from another guild game. it was amazing and fun but if someone wanted to go and do their own thing they could by themselves.
forced grouping to do anything in a game is bad game design, sorry but someone has to say it. sure there should be some content that can only be done as a group however designing the whole game NOW around the concept of "you must group or get left behind" is destined to fail.
so to all those out there saying they can't find groups or the community feeling and games need to force grouping. its most likely YOUR attitude that's keeping people from interacting and grouping with you.
LFR doesn't give the "best loot in the game", which was what Ecoces was talking about. The best gear comes from heroic raids, try to solo those... please post screenshots of your repair bill.
Yep. If you want the same armor in a more high status color and few more stat points, you have raid with a guild. Granted that its the exact same dungeon with the difficulty turned up...But that miniscule amount of content sure is hard.
Its good thing the rest of the game is solo/matchmaker to offset all that content. This should be the model every MMORPG ever made should follow. FREEEDOOOOOOM!!!
Hey your that douche that trained us the other night or didnt listen, acted like a child was obnoxious. Good lucky finding a group word spreads around.
I am happy to group with such people. It does't guarantee they'll be good groupmates and not d-bags who leave right after they get what they want if you still need something, but usually it works out well.
When I see someone in chat like this:
Someone please help. I need a group for ____ .
I wouldn't group with that person if I was paid to do it. For me, this promises nothing but neediness. I've had those kind of in-game stalkers before when I first started in WoW and I just won't ever go there again.
I am happy to group with such people. It does't guarantee they'll be good groupmates and not d-bags who leave right after they get what they want if you still need something, but usually it works out well.
When I see someone in chat like this:
Someone please help. I need a group for ____ .
I wouldn't group with that person if I was paid to do it. For me, this promises nothing but neediness. I've had those kind of in-game stalkers before when I first started in WoW and I just won't ever go there again.
People only ask for help if they want someone to carry them.
I am happy to group with such people. It does't guarantee they'll be good groupmates and not d-bags who leave right after they get what they want if you still need something, but usually it works out well.
When I see someone in chat like this:
Someone please help. I need a group for ____ .
I wouldn't group with that person if I was paid to do it. For me, this promises nothing but neediness. I've had those kind of in-game stalkers before when I first started in WoW and I just won't ever go there again.
People only ask for help if they want someone to carry them.
That isn't a common ad for people LFG.
Fortunately, you are correct.
Nonetheless, you still see it sometimes. It's kind of how I interpret the posts in these forums which seem to be crying about how lonely games are these days. I would prefer to see threads a little more objective about how to make games more social experiences for people who like to group,* rather than emotional declamations about how terrible communities are these days (or about how greedy game designers are -- which may or may not be true depending on the case).
*Or even threads started by like-minded players who want to make guilds in their games so they can play together in the way they like.
Originally posted by Theocritus Yes you can group in those games but its kinda like having 5 people to screw in a light bulb......
ding ding, this is the problem, outside of raiding and dungeons it becomes counter productive to group up, I don't belive grouping should be forced, It should however be strongly encouraged.
"Strongly encouraged" is equivalent with "forced".
-----------------------------------
Edit:
What should be discussed more than "forced grouping" is "forced soloing" as in games where soloing is far more efficient exp and wealth-wise than a random group doing content together. Specially quest-heavy games tend to have certain important aspects of their game being "forced soloing".
Originally posted by Theocritus Yes you can group in those games but its kinda like having 5 people to screw in a light bulb......
ding ding, this is the problem, outside of raiding and dungeons it becomes counter productive to group up, I don't belive grouping should be forced, It should however be strongly encouraged.
"Strongly encouraged" is equivalent with "forced".
In that case, all modern MMORPGs "force solo" for the first 90% of the game's content.
Edit: I responded before your edit. I agree that this is the issue people are not addressing.
I've never played a game that forced grouping. Now I've played some games that had a higher incentive to group than others, and I tended to enjoy them more.
OP, I'm looking at you -- this is a straw man argument, EQ1 didn't "force" grouping, but there was definitely an advantage to finding others to adventure with. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is little incentive to grouping in GW2, and that is reflected in the ways that players interact.
Originally posted by Shadowguy64 Halp! I want to leave the city, but I can't go solo! I've been here for three weeks! Please group with me!!!!!!!!!
Has there ever been a game other than FXI where everything your level would kill you and it was impossible to solo? That is honestly the only one I can think of where it wasn't possible to solo. Well at least back in the day it wasn't, I know it has changed over the last few years.
Well, I can't really think of another way to force grouping without making the mobs so tough that trying to solo them would mean certain death.
So fill the world with hard to kill elite mobs and corral the soloists inside the cities until they finally bend to the groupers demands.
The answer is simple.
You don't try to force people to group all the time.
But I thought soloing was the Deviljuice...
If a game launched in which it required people to group to solo, then I highly suspect most people would ragequit. It would be the biggest shit storm the internet has ever seen.
Well, if mobs are easily soloable, then why the heck would I want to stand around and wait for for a group when I can just go solo and level faster? Not to mention that if it's a quest centric game, not everyone would be on the same quest.
I can chat with people in my guild and friends without being in a group.
Have you ever played a sandbox game before?
Nope. Pretty hard to find one that isn't Eve or some FF PVP game.
Fair enough.
FFA pvp is a themepark trait, not a sandbox trait through. Sandboxes or virtual worlds are about immersion. Sandboxes or virtual worlds require you to risk your own enjoyment if your goal is to ruin others.
Themeparks allow you to grief others. Griefing is not possible without the help and assistance of the developers.
Virtual worlds dont have towns that you can murder all the inhabitants, and still have a functional town.
Themeparks let you spawn camp newbs outside city hall literally preventing people from playing.
Themepark pvp and ffa pvp is one in the same.
Id like virtual world pvp similar to eve. It's the fairest, its the most realistic, and the worst abusers are subject to the community instead of protected by the devs.
Age of Wushu and Archeage with their policing system with FFA pvp work quite well (full loot pvp especially if FFA is asinine)
They have virtual world type pvp. That's why they work quite well. All V World pvp works well. Eve online is graduate school for pvpers.
The pro pvp guilds play themepark pvp games. Or only pvp games that allow you to grief others who are artificially weaker than you. Usually grown men greifing children and women and hi-5 when they make someone quit.
It's hard to tell whats worse. Winning a a childs game against children as grown men and women, or needing childs game in order to feel like a winner.
Themepark pvp is a childs game like it or not.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
forced grouping to do anything in a game is bad game design
completely false
people need the correct environment to socialize.
completely false
you need the correct environment to socialize.
these so called "solo" mmo's are filled with people socializing and just like every place on earth, there are people talking to each other.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
forced grouping to do anything in a game is bad game design
completely false
people need the correct environment to socialize.
completely false
you need the correct environment to socialize.
these so called "solo" mmo's are filled with people socializing and just like every place on earth, there are people talking to each other.
When you compare the community of group centered games to solo centered games, it's either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to claim that there is no difference. Take your pick. You build your game around how people are. Not how they "should be."
Just two quick examples that completely deflate the OPs theory. Of course, your experience may differ but I doubt it.
Played Tera last year. As I leveled up, I attempted to explore the map and complete as many quests and dungeons as possible. Every area I visited, I would hang out by the quest hubs to try to recruit other players to group with, especially for the harder quests. Other than 1 or 2 friends I convinced to play with me, I never had a player respond to my group requests at any time. Never. I ended up randomly inviting players every day, at which point I would, without fail, end up following them around to simulate the feeling of grouping. They'd finish a quest and, whether my quest was completed or not, they would end up running off to solo the next quests without any concern for other party members. Within a few minutes, every member of the party would be in a different place on the map soloing their quests with no regard to other group members. Every day, it was the same thing. Had I not started the game with two friends from another game, I'd have never made it as far as I did.
Fast forward a few weeks, I'm in a level 40ish dungeon and I finally was in my first group that actually spoke to each other. It was an argument over whether a certain player really needed items they were rolling on, or whether they should roll greed. That conversation degraded into a flame war where one of the players ninja logged. I quit a day or two later.
This year I played NW2. Same deal. In the few weeks I played the game, I could never find a real group that conversed or formulated a strategy for anything. Because the vast majority of the content could be completed independently, players just rushed around at full speed in order to reach max level. I ended up joining groups with their insta-grouping system, and never at any time would anyone actually talk. Just like in WoW, grouping was only a means to an end and never required players to actually coordinate. There was never any real challenge, everything was zerged, and there was never enough downtime to so much as talk about the weather.
Both games were completely void of any sense of community, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Every game I play I like to meet people, but when the content is that easy, the vast majority of players are only passing through with no need or desire to stop and truly work together.
The only game I actually played that actually did naturally encourage player communication through the use of player created cities, interdependent crafting, and challenging dungeons was Age of Wushu. Unfortunately, after playing the game for a while and reaching max level, I realized the PvE content was horrible, the group and guild content was superficial and meaningless, and the combat system was all dps and lacked the balance of a game with distinct roles. That said, I still only played the game as long as I did because it had an intelligent system that encouraged that sense of community lacking in 99% of modern MMOs.
Guilds don't exist in those games? Guess I'm lucky and have never had a hard time inviting or being invited by random people. Of course half the time they are clueless, but at least they try. Even if I don't plan on devoting the rest of my life to a guild, I join to have some connection beyond one play session. Should we have to join a guild for this, no, but too many people are in rush mode and fly past each other. There are still plenty of us going the slower path though. I'm fairly anti social and still have no issues that so many here seem to have. Guilds or meeting up with people from forums has always given some sense of community where I don't feel alone, unless I want to be, which is often as well.
Soloing in an MMO should never be the most effective way to progress. And if you prefer to solo, you should really examine why you play these games in the first place.
I can't think of anything more mundane than forming groups to tackle trivial objectives because a game's design won't allow for anything else, and that's seriously what people in this thread are suggesting. Get real, people. If an MMO with compelling gameplay came out and it required you to group most of the time, you probably wouldn't quit.
Soloing in an MMO should never be the most effective way to progress. And if you prefer to solo, you should really examine why you play these games in the first place.
I can't think of anything more mundane than forming groups to tackle trivial objectives because a game's design won't allow for anything else, and that's seriously what people in this thread are suggesting. Get real, people. If an MMO with compelling gameplay came out and it required you to group most of the time, you probably wouldn't quit.
It depends what the community is like. If I were forced to group in an MMO game in order to level and the players that I was forced to group with were complete asses, then I would most likely quit. This is the conundrum that the MMO genre faces and one of the big reasons that I think that most games have gone the "soloable" route. Game companies want your money and if the community in a game sucks, then they instantly lose a bunch of subscribers that they could otherwise keep if the game is made soloable.
With that being said, I have no problem with making it easier to level for groups than for solo players, I just would not play a game where it is impossible to level solo. Most solo players are casuals anyway, and I don't think that they particularly mind the somewhat longer grind.
I want socialization and community on a MASSIVE scale... hence the first M in MMO. Sure you have a sense of community and grouping in WoW clones but so does showing up at your local gaming hobby store for a D&D or Magic the Gathering session. A close knit group isn't what many people want, they want something like in EVE where teamwork is in depth and one relies on the other.... like how an MMO should be. Why I have high hopes for PFO.
If soloing is your thing then why even play an MMO? If I want to play by myself then I play Skyrim or Shadowrun Returns, when I want to play with others I play MMOs.
When you compare the community of group centered games to solo centered games, it's either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to claim that there is no difference.
Simple answers, complex questions.
It's very possible that both sides of this argument are presenting answers that are far too simple for the complexity of the issue.
Is it possible that the difference is (at least in part) a generational one? The old guys who grew up playing coops like PnP games, vs the younger guys who grew up on consoles? Guys raised before the internet as children (cowboys and indians, army, kick the can, etc) vs guys who've always had the internet in their lives?
I can offer a dozen more possible explanations that do not include "forced grouping required to go beyond level X." Any or all of them may be pieces to the 'sociability" puzzle.
But when you oversimplify and bifurcate the issue down to "A/B" choices? You're both wrong. Or at best, only partially right.
Is it the developers fault / Is it the players fault... It's neither (entirely).
The first place to look is at your own habits. How have they changed in the last 15 years?
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.
When you compare the community of group centered games to solo centered games, it's either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to claim that there is no difference.
Simple answers, complex questions.
It's very possible that both sides of this argument are presenting answers that are far too simple for the complexity of the issue.
Is it possible that the difference is (at least in part) a generational one? The old guys who grew up playing coops like PnP games, vs the younger guys who grew up on consoles? Guys raised before the internet as children (cowboys and indians, army, kick the can, etc) vs guys who've always had the internet in their lives?
I can offer a dozen more possible explanations that do not include "forced grouping required to go beyond level X." Any or all of them may be pieces to the 'sociability" puzzle.
But when you oversimplify and bifurcate the issue down to "A/B" choices? You're both wrong. Or at best, only partially right.
Is it the developers fault / Is it the players fault... It's neither (entirely).
The first place to look is at your own habits. How have they changed in the last 15 years?
He didn't argue that there aren't many variables at play. He simply said it's dishonest to claim there's no difference between the two types of mmos.
For me forced grouping isnt about socializing , i am in several guild that play multi MMOs ,the main one i am in is a core group of players that have been together since Asherons Call...
That out of the way .. i like forced grouping for the group mechanics in combat it brings , GW2 just doesnt even feel like you are in a group when you are in one .. its just a hot mess... Of the 7 friends that went into that game .. we all left for the same reasons .. and that was one of them .. most have returned to EQ2 where roles in a group are still strong and necassary , you arent just another mess of pixels .. I am hoping that EQN is not taking this rout and is going to be something where invidual roles are needed {really doesnt seem clear on what there direction is yet}
if you need a game to promote mechanics that FORCE people to group with you ... you are the problem. I have run with groups constantly in EQ2, WoW, Guild Wars 2, Rift and countless other "solo MMORPGs".
see thats the beauty of MMORPGs right now, people have options, they can either solo or they can group IF THEY WANT. recently in guild wars 2 my guild took 2 groups and started over, just running from event to event leveling up some new players from another guild game. it was amazing and fun but if someone wanted to go and do their own thing they could by themselves.
forced grouping to do anything in a game is bad game design, sorry but someone has to say it. sure there should be some content that can only be done as a group however designing the whole game NOW around the concept of "you must group or get left behind" is destined to fail.
so to all those out there saying they can't find groups or the community feeling and games need to force grouping. its most likely YOUR attitude that's keeping people from interacting and grouping with you.
Every mmo game supports grouping and being social.
given your list.....
EQ2 if you didn't group from early on you couldn't take out any mobs or do dungeons that dropped items of any importance. Soloing even con mobs was actually tedious and boring.
WoW once again a game built around dungeons and raids. sure you could solo all the way to the top, and they made soloing actually doable and functional enough that it didn't feel bad. But once again the good gear was mostly in dungeons and you would need to outlevel them by huge margin to solo the content in them.
Guildwars 2. No other game I have played has made me feel alone while with so many people. The pug outdoor raids without groups. The zerg pulls without groups. Everything was geared towards being more solo friendly than grouping. Dungeon loots were the same as other loots in the game and the whole thing just didn't work well. Alot of interesting ideas that were thrown together with very little symmetry.
Rift was a fun game no matter what you did since the class functions were vast. You could save templates and have it your way. Nothing bad to say about Rift except that most sweet gear was in dungeons or through raid tokens.
All these games were level based grinds and only a few had content that had dynamic elements to it.
EQ Next is more like Ultima Online which was more of a sandbox. Sandboxes push players to play the way they want to more than any other style game. Working together on PvP or PvE or saving towards a castle or any number of things was great fun in UO. Also soloing was amazing as well. Just getting together with a single friend worked out excellent. It catered to every style through it's game mechanics. It didn't overly reward people for one thing or another. It respected time invested in the game by allowing a person to actually have a boat and a house and all sorts of things within the house and a sales npc that could be stocked with goods so people passing by could buy from you at prices you set. There really was a huge assortment of non-grind activities you could do that were more "adventure" related than the current crop of games.
I would very much like to see the "adventure" part of the game come back with EQ Next and give players a deep and functional toolset that promotes individuality, working together, socialization, symmetry, solo and group style content with fun rewards for both.
EQ Next...giving the player a more choose your own adventure kind of world. This is important to understand. This game should pull off the perfect balance similar to UO where you can group, but you can also solo. There will be content designed to keep everyone content. Sounds like dungeons and certain mob arrangements are designed to make a single player have to run for the hills and get friends which in turn drives the grouping. This game will also really strike a great balance within groups since there is no downside to grouping compared to other games. Other games made you need to wait around for a specific class to fill a roll for content. Now, everyone can switch to a class that fills that roll when needed as long as they have unlocked it. EQ Next is doing alot of things right and I, for one, can't wait to try it out. Should be good times just like UO was but better.
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Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
Age of Wushu and Archeage with their policing system with FFA pvp work quite well (full loot pvp especially if FFA is asinine)
Just two quick examples that completely deflate the OPs theory. Of course, your experience may differ but I doubt it.
Played Tera last year. As I leveled up, I attempted to explore the map and complete as many quests and dungeons as possible. Every area I visited, I would hang out by the quest hubs to try to recruit other players to group with, especially for the harder quests. Other than 1 or 2 friends I convinced to play with me, I never had a player respond to my group requests at any time. Never. I ended up randomly inviting players every day, at which point I would, without fail, end up following them around to simulate the feeling of grouping. They'd finish a quest and, whether my quest was completed or not, they would end up running off to solo the next quests without any concern for other party members. Within a few minutes, every member of the party would be in a different place on the map soloing their quests with no regard to other group members. Every day, it was the same thing. Had I not started the game with two friends from another game, I'd have never made it as far as I did.
Fast forward a few weeks, I'm in a level 40ish dungeon and I finally was in my first group that actually spoke to each other. It was an argument over whether a certain player really needed items they were rolling on, or whether they should roll greed. That conversation degraded into a flame war where one of the players ninja logged. I quit a day or two later.
This year I played NW2. Same deal. In the few weeks I played the game, I could never find a real group that conversed or formulated a strategy for anything. Because the vast majority of the content could be completed independently, players just rushed around at full speed in order to reach max level. I ended up joining groups with their insta-grouping system, and never at any time would anyone actually talk. Just like in WoW, grouping was only a means to an end and never required players to actually coordinate. There was never any real challenge, everything was zerged, and there was never enough downtime to so much as talk about the weather.
Both games were completely void of any sense of community, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Every game I play I like to meet people, but when the content is that easy, the vast majority of players are only passing through with no need or desire to stop and truly work together.
The only game I actually played that actually did naturally encourage player communication through the use of player created cities, interdependent crafting, and challenging dungeons was Age of Wushu. Unfortunately, after playing the game for a while and reaching max level, I realized the PvE content was horrible, the group and guild content was superficial and meaningless, and the combat system was all dps and lacked the balance of a game with distinct roles. That said, I still only played the game as long as I did because it had an intelligent system that encouraged that sense of community lacking in 99% of modern MMOs.
100% agree
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
Yep. If you want the same armor in a more high status color and few more stat points, you have raid with a guild. Granted that its the exact same dungeon with the difficulty turned up...But that miniscule amount of content sure is hard.
Its good thing the rest of the game is solo/matchmaker to offset all that content. This should be the model every MMORPG ever made should follow. FREEEDOOOOOOM!!!
Hey your that douche that trained us the other night or didnt listen, acted like a child was obnoxious. Good lucky finding a group word spreads around.
Forced grouping fights trolls and douchebags
WHO HAS A PROBLEM?
When I look at global chat and see:
LFG for _____
or
Anyone want to group for ____?
I am happy to group with such people. It does't guarantee they'll be good groupmates and not d-bags who leave right after they get what they want if you still need something, but usually it works out well.
When I see someone in chat like this:
Someone please help. I need a group for ____ .
I wouldn't group with that person if I was paid to do it. For me, this promises nothing but neediness. I've had those kind of in-game stalkers before when I first started in WoW and I just won't ever go there again.
People only ask for help if they want someone to carry them.
That isn't a common ad for people LFG.
Fortunately, you are correct.
Nonetheless, you still see it sometimes. It's kind of how I interpret the posts in these forums which seem to be crying about how lonely games are these days. I would prefer to see threads a little more objective about how to make games more social experiences for people who like to group,* rather than emotional declamations about how terrible communities are these days (or about how greedy game designers are -- which may or may not be true depending on the case).
*Or even threads started by like-minded players who want to make guilds in their games so they can play together in the way they like.
"Strongly encouraged" is equivalent with "forced".
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Edit:
What should be discussed more than "forced grouping" is "forced soloing" as in games where soloing is far more efficient exp and wealth-wise than a random group doing content together. Specially quest-heavy games tend to have certain important aspects of their game being "forced soloing".
In that case, all modern MMORPGs "force solo" for the first 90% of the game's content.
Edit: I responded before your edit. I agree that this is the issue people are not addressing.
I've never played a game that forced grouping. Now I've played some games that had a higher incentive to group than others, and I tended to enjoy them more.
OP, I'm looking at you -- this is a straw man argument, EQ1 didn't "force" grouping, but there was definitely an advantage to finding others to adventure with. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is little incentive to grouping in GW2, and that is reflected in the ways that players interact.
They have virtual world type pvp. That's why they work quite well. All V World pvp works well. Eve online is graduate school for pvpers.
The pro pvp guilds play themepark pvp games. Or only pvp games that allow you to grief others who are artificially weaker than you. Usually grown men greifing children and women and hi-5 when they make someone quit.
It's hard to tell whats worse. Winning a a childs game against children as grown men and women, or needing childs game in order to feel like a winner.
Themepark pvp is a childs game like it or not.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
completely false
you need the correct environment to socialize.
these so called "solo" mmo's are filled with people socializing and just like every place on earth, there are people talking to each other.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
When you compare the community of group centered games to solo centered games, it's either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to claim that there is no difference. Take your pick. You build your game around how people are. Not how they "should be."
Guilds don't exist in those games? Guess I'm lucky and have never had a hard time inviting or being invited by random people. Of course half the time they are clueless, but at least they try. Even if I don't plan on devoting the rest of my life to a guild, I join to have some connection beyond one play session. Should we have to join a guild for this, no, but too many people are in rush mode and fly past each other. There are still plenty of us going the slower path though. I'm fairly anti social and still have no issues that so many here seem to have. Guilds or meeting up with people from forums has always given some sense of community where I don't feel alone, unless I want to be, which is often as well.
Soloing in an MMO should never be the most effective way to progress. And if you prefer to solo, you should really examine why you play these games in the first place.
I can't think of anything more mundane than forming groups to tackle trivial objectives because a game's design won't allow for anything else, and that's seriously what people in this thread are suggesting. Get real, people. If an MMO with compelling gameplay came out and it required you to group most of the time, you probably wouldn't quit.
It depends what the community is like. If I were forced to group in an MMO game in order to level and the players that I was forced to group with were complete asses, then I would most likely quit. This is the conundrum that the MMO genre faces and one of the big reasons that I think that most games have gone the "soloable" route. Game companies want your money and if the community in a game sucks, then they instantly lose a bunch of subscribers that they could otherwise keep if the game is made soloable.
With that being said, I have no problem with making it easier to level for groups than for solo players, I just would not play a game where it is impossible to level solo. Most solo players are casuals anyway, and I don't think that they particularly mind the somewhat longer grind.
I personally always preferred games like EVE more in this respect.
You can solo in EVE just fine.
But nobody is going to call EVE a solo game.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
I want socialization and community on a MASSIVE scale... hence the first M in MMO. Sure you have a sense of community and grouping in WoW clones but so does showing up at your local gaming hobby store for a D&D or Magic the Gathering session. A close knit group isn't what many people want, they want something like in EVE where teamwork is in depth and one relies on the other.... like how an MMO should be. Why I have high hopes for PFO.
If soloing is your thing then why even play an MMO? If I want to play by myself then I play Skyrim or Shadowrun Returns, when I want to play with others I play MMOs.
Simple answers, complex questions.
It's very possible that both sides of this argument are presenting answers that are far too simple for the complexity of the issue.
Is it possible that the difference is (at least in part) a generational one? The old guys who grew up playing coops like PnP games, vs the younger guys who grew up on consoles? Guys raised before the internet as children (cowboys and indians, army, kick the can, etc) vs guys who've always had the internet in their lives?
I can offer a dozen more possible explanations that do not include "forced grouping required to go beyond level X." Any or all of them may be pieces to the 'sociability" puzzle.
But when you oversimplify and bifurcate the issue down to "A/B" choices? You're both wrong. Or at best, only partially right.
Is it the developers fault / Is it the players fault... It's neither (entirely).
The first place to look is at your own habits. How have they changed in the last 15 years?
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.
For me forced grouping isnt about socializing , i am in several guild that play multi MMOs ,the main one i am in is a core group of players that have been together since Asherons Call...
That out of the way .. i like forced grouping for the group mechanics in combat it brings , GW2 just doesnt even feel like you are in a group when you are in one .. its just a hot mess... Of the 7 friends that went into that game .. we all left for the same reasons .. and that was one of them .. most have returned to EQ2 where roles in a group are still strong and necassary , you arent just another mess of pixels .. I am hoping that EQN is not taking this rout and is going to be something where invidual roles are needed {really doesnt seem clear on what there direction is yet}
EQ Next...giving the player a more choose your own adventure kind of world. This is important to understand. This game should pull off the perfect balance similar to UO where you can group, but you can also solo. There will be content designed to keep everyone content. Sounds like dungeons and certain mob arrangements are designed to make a single player have to run for the hills and get friends which in turn drives the grouping. This game will also really strike a great balance within groups since there is no downside to grouping compared to other games. Other games made you need to wait around for a specific class to fill a roll for content. Now, everyone can switch to a class that fills that roll when needed as long as they have unlocked it. EQ Next is doing alot of things right and I, for one, can't wait to try it out. Should be good times just like UO was but better.