Forced grouping is actually for anti-social players

TheScavenger

MMOs that force groups to do content are actually promote anti-social behavior.

Forcing people to talk to each other, or forced to help each other does NOT promote a healthy social behavior. At the very best, it'll promote people using each other to get ahead in the game. Sure, in solo MMOs there is a lot of solo activities...but the people who socialize and group with each other WANT to, making a far friendlier environment. No one is grouping to get ahead, because they could otherwise solo it. They are grouping because that is what they want to do. 

Not only that, but the person must be VERY anti-social to be forced to actually be social. In WoW, I go up and talk to people and group all the time...but I'm a pretty social person. Where as, I can see how someone really afraid to go up and talk to people or group, needs the push to be forced to do so.

Going back a ways, in Asheron's Call you could solo pretty much any content. But everyone was social enough to group up and communicate with each other, despite being able to do the content solo.

So, for people too afraid to group with people or communicate with others, I can see how forced grouping is needed by them. But, that doesn't really promote a friendly social atmosphere because its really just a bunch of anti-social people getting together and using each other to progress the game. Look at EVE, people spend months even years rising in ranks of a corp/alliance and then take it down within...very antisocial. Where as in Asheron's Call, WoW and other solo focused MMOs...grouping is generally a pretty friendly activity and people tend to be a lot friendlier to each other. Sure bad eggs, but they are blacklisted and overall people are social enough to do groups for dungeons/raids/pvp.

I know I never need to be forced to be social, but like I said, I can see how anti-social people need that big push to socialize and group with people if they are too afraid to do it and need the game's guidance to do so.

DeadSpock

Only mmorpg I ever found very forced grouping was FF11 and guess what community and socially that game was the best, all other solo able mmorpg  have toxic community exclude LOTRO the rest are full of mean non social low life losers.

TheScavenger

DeadSpock said:

Only mmorpg I ever found very forced grouping was FF11 and guess what community and socially that game was the best, all other solo able mmorpg  have toxic community exclude LOTRO the rest are full of mean non social low life losers.

But in FF11...if you were able to solo easily, would you have still grouped? Or can you only group or socialize with others if you are forced to?

DeadSpock

TheScavenger said:

DeadSpock said:

Only mmorpg I ever found very forced grouping was FF11 and guess what community and socially that game was the best, all other solo able mmorpg  have toxic community exclude LOTRO the rest are full of mean non social low life losers.

But in FF11...if you were able to solo easily, would you have still grouped? Or can you only group or socialize with others if you are forced to?

In FF11(back then at release and for 7 years) it took long time to reach end game and from early on you had to group. You couldn't change name or server back then and people would remember you if you were nice or not. If you made a bad name of yourself was better to just quit the game as you needed others and that helped with getting all mean and toxic players off the game. Also Square Enix use to ban and punish even for using bad language let alone for all the trash that goes on in all the games now including FF14 where I took pics and reported a bot and so did many others in that zone but yet again the dude boting was there everyday. 

Loke666

I dunno, games with more solo-content still tend to have less social people then games focused on grouping. Promoting people to interact with eachother is a good thing.

Yes, some jerks can't be in any group without getting kicked fast and those people should probably go for singleplayer games instead but just leaving them to solo are not going to give us more social gaming, that kind of player tend to shout a lot in the chat as well and get banned sooner or later anyways.

Now, we can discuss how much of a game that should be group content compared to solocontent but unless you encourage people to spend time together many people wont.

In fact more then a few MMOs have leveling as a soloexperience (it encourage it since running soloquests is the fastest way to level up) and once that solocontent runs out (and since solocontent usually is quests it will run out, and usually pretty fast) you will suddenly be in the group focused endgame without knowing the group dynamics.

My point is that a MMO should reward people for interactions with others for the best community, not punish it as more then a few games do today. Sure, there can be enough solocontent so anyone can level up to max on it, but playing in groups still should be faster and more rewarding to encourage the social aspect of the genre.

TheScavenger

Loke666 said:

I dunno, games with more solo-content still tend to have less social people then games focused on grouping. Promoting people to interact with eachother is a good thing.

Yes, some jerks can't be in any group without getting kicked fast and those people should probably go for singleplayer games instead but just leaving them to solo are not going to give us more social gaming, that kind of player tend to shout a lot in the chat as well and get banned sooner or later anyways.

Now, we can discuss how much of a game that should be group content compared to solocontent but unless you encourage people to spend time together many people wont.

In fact more then a few MMOs have leveling as a soloexperience (it encourage it since running soloquests is the fastest way to level up) and once that solocontent runs out (and since solocontent usually is quests it will run out, and usually pretty fast) you will suddenly be in the group focused endgame without knowing the group dynamics.

My point is that a MMO should reward people for interactions with others for the best community, not punish it as more then a few games do today. Sure, there can be enough solocontent so anyone can level up to max on it, but playing in groups still should be faster and more rewarding to encourage the social aspect of the genre.

This I agree with. In Asheron's Call grouping was far more rewarding than soloing, but Turbine did NOT force groups on people. People could still solo, but groups were vastly better (better exp, could hunt tougher monsters, even better loot).

Rewarding grouping is the way to go. not forcing it on people.

iixviiiix

You don't need to rewarding grouping , just don't punish people for grouping like nowadays game is okay .

Wow style MMORPG make it nearly impossible to enjoy grouping

We need more sharing instead of bind and instance for MMORPG .

SEANMCAD

TheScavenger said:

MMOs that force groups to do content are actually promote anti-social behavior.

....

absolutely agree.

Distopia

DeadSpock said:

Only mmorpg I ever found very forced grouping was FF11 and guess what community and socially that game was the best, all other solo able mmorpg  have toxic community exclude LOTRO the rest are full of mean non social low life losers.

Hmm are they on forums calling most others low life losers?

SEANMCAD

my view (and I do acknowledge this as an 'opinion' and I could be wrong) is that people who advocate force grouping have basically extinguished all other social connections they have and are looking toward 'forced' so that they can subconsciously continue the same behavior that got them banished from other social groups. They do this because when alone they would be forced to face their demons.

Developers who placate to the desire of 'forced grouping' and 'punishment systems for pvp ganking' do have some intresting game mechanic ideas and I do see where they are going with such ideas however I think its going in the wrong direction and time would be better served going in a different direction.

That all said, my personality type of not being very social to begin with puts me at a great deficient of understanding on this topic but that is how I see it

Loke666

SEANMCAD said:

my view (and I do acknowledge this as an 'opinion' and I could be wrong) is that people who advocate force grouping have basically extinguished all other social connections they have and are looking toward 'forced' so that they can subconsciously continue the same behavior that got them banished from other social groups. They do this because when alone they would be forced to face their demons.

Developers who placate to the desire of 'forced grouping' and 'punishment systems for pvp ganking' do have some intresting game mechanic ideas and I do see where they are going with such ideas however I think its going in the wrong direction and time would be better served going in a different direction.

That all said, my personality type of not being very social to begin with puts me at a great deficient of understanding on this topic but that is how I see it

It comes down to what people consider "forced grouping". Some people see all group content as it but since it usually is optional content no-one really forces you to group.
Some content is not optional and that is another matter completely, if you must pass a group instance to get to the next zone or to unlock something it is certainly forced and that is not the best way to go.

Carrot is usually better then stick.

SEANMCAD

Loke666 said:

SEANMCAD said:

my view (and I do acknowledge this as an 'opinion' and I could be wrong) is that people who advocate force grouping have basically extinguished all other social connections they have and are looking toward 'forced' so that they can subconsciously continue the same behavior that got them banished from other social groups. They do this because when alone they would be forced to face their demons.

Developers who placate to the desire of 'forced grouping' and 'punishment systems for pvp ganking' do have some intresting game mechanic ideas and I do see where they are going with such ideas however I think its going in the wrong direction and time would be better served going in a different direction.

That all said, my personality type of not being very social to begin with puts me at a great deficient of understanding on this topic but that is how I see it

It comes down to what people consider "forced grouping". Some people see all group content as it but since it usually is optional content no-one really forces you to group.
Some content is not optional and that is another matter completely, if you must pass a group instance to get to the next zone or to unlock something it is certainly forced and that is not the best way to go.

Carrot is usually better then stick.

yeah and I admit I speak to this as a at a strong deficit but it seems to me the last people you would want in your group are people who otherwise really would rather not be there. That doesnt sound like a good foundation to work from for anyone which is why I think from a game design side its going in the wrong direction

cameltosis

SEANMCAD said:

my view (and I do acknowledge this as an 'opinion' and I could be wrong) is that people who advocate force grouping have basically extinguished all other social connections they have and are looking toward 'forced' so that they can subconsciously continue the same behavior that got them banished from other social groups. They do this because when alone they would be forced to face their demons.

Developers who placate to the desire of 'forced grouping' and 'punishment systems for pvp ganking' do have some intresting game mechanic ideas and I do see where they are going with such ideas however I think its going in the wrong direction and time would be better served going in a different direction.

That all said, my personality type of not being very social to begin with puts me at a great deficient of understanding on this topic but that is how I see it

Well, you are an extremely anti-social person and you can't comprehend why MMOs exist as a genre, so it doesn't surprise me that you can't understand why some people would want more grouping / forced grouping in their games. 


It comes down to community. 


The more time people spend together, the closer their social bonds. This creates a feeling of community, which is a very attractive feature to a lot of people. The feeling of community is something that is gradually being lost in western civilisation as well as in some asian areas - a natural result of a global workforce and regular job changes. 

So, as players, it gives us a good feeling to belong to a healthy, fun community of like minded players. For the developers, community is something to strive for too as it increases retention rates (friends don't let friends quit) and also increases word of mouth referrals. 


But, how do you get players to spend more time together?


Forced grouping is one option. As with all things, implementation is the key. Vanilla LotRO is what I would hold up as a shining example of it working well. You got your first group quest at lvl 2 or 3 and continued to get group quests through to cap. If you didn't do the group content, there wasn't anywhere near enough content to hit the cap so you had to grind mobs - but the xp for that was so low it took forever. This may not be considered absolute forced grouping, but in the base game if you never grouped, you had to grind mobs for something like 20-30% of your total xp. 

What happened is that grouping was just considered normal in that game. You grouped as a noob and continued to group all the way through. There were no dps meters and player skill counted for far more than gear, so there was minimal e-peening or dickish behaviour. The difficulty slowly ramped up through the game, so by endgame most players at least knew how to play their class in a group. The game even had inbuilt voice chat, making leading a group so much easier. 

As a result, the community was amazing. Everyone was polite and helpful, and that legacy lasts today. When they revamped the base game and made everything solo, the difference was enormous. New players were rude. They couldn't play their class. They didn't want to group, but still wanted endgame gear. Luckily, the original community ethos managed to prevail, but the overall tone of the community dropped a lot following solofication. 

Another factor in this working is that the game was roughly 20% group content. So, whilst you need to do the group content (forced?), if you couldn't find a group there was still other things you could do in game. 


I contrast this to FFXI. I only played it for a few months before quitting. After lvl10, you had to group up to grind mobs for the majority of classes. You simply couldn't progress without grouping. As I was late to the party (2007), it meant my standard evening was log on, spend 30mins - 1hr searching for a group, then grind mobs for an hour, then someone drops and we spend ages searching for replacement. This is forced grouping, which is fine, but there was no alternative, so if you can't find a group, you can't play. 


The other issue with forced grouping is dealing with the playerbase numbers. If your game uses vertical progression, the forced grouping below the level cap will inevitably result in a bad experience for new players. Once the game has released and the bulk of your playerbase is at endgame, the available pool of players for group content shrinks to the point of being too small, at which point (like my FFXI example) it becomes a bad experience for new players and they quit. This is the primary reason why most MMOs are now solo - its not that we're anti-social, its that vertical progression screws over grouping. 

SEANMCAD

Rhoklaw said:

I have played many many MMOs over the years, some of which grouping was necessary to acquire the best gear. I however never did most of the raid content that required grouping. I normally did 5 man dungeons and that was it. I was still social. I was in a guild. I was talking on teamspeak. I just wasn't interested in large group dungeons or raids.

Even in ESO, I spent 95% of my time soloing in the wild, doing quests and unlocking achievements. I however never claimed to be forced to do certain content in order to enjoy any game I've played. So, if people feel forced grouping is affecting their enjoyment of a game, I have to wonder to what extent are they playing the game? Are you trying to be #1 or acquire the best gear or are you a completionist trying to unlock every achievement? Sorry to tell you, but those things just might require you to break down and make some friends. As for me, I play MMOs like a living, breathing world. I do what I want, when I want. If something is too hard to solo, then I simply make the choice to skip it and move on or come back when I can solo it.

Most of my socializing in MMOs today revolves around talking to other guildmates on teamspeak. I rarely participate in group activities, but I do if the guild needs me.

proper game design is to find multiple ways for players to get achievements of the same general value for the same general amount of work.

its not the job of the game designer nor other gamers to try and 'force' players to do something they do not want to do in the first place and are only doing it because its the path of less resistance to their next goal.

Developers should focus on creating multiple venues

SEANMCAD

Rhoklaw said:

SEANMCAD said:

Rhoklaw said:

I have played many many MMOs over the years, some of which grouping was necessary to acquire the best gear. I however never did most of the raid content that required grouping. I normally did 5 man dungeons and that was it. I was still social. I was in a guild. I was talking on teamspeak. I just wasn't interested in large group dungeons or raids.

Even in ESO, I spent 95% of my time soloing in the wild, doing quests and unlocking achievements. I however never claimed to be forced to do certain content in order to enjoy any game I've played. So, if people feel forced grouping is affecting their enjoyment of a game, I have to wonder to what extent are they playing the game? Are you trying to be #1 or acquire the best gear or are you a completionist trying to unlock every achievement? Sorry to tell you, but those things just might require you to break down and make some friends. As for me, I play MMOs like a living, breathing world. I do what I want, when I want. If something is too hard to solo, then I simply make the choice to skip it and move on or come back when I can solo it.

Most of my socializing in MMOs today revolves around talking to other guildmates on teamspeak. I rarely participate in group activities, but I do if the guild needs me.

proper game design is to find multiple ways for players to get achievements of the same general value for the same general amount of work.

its not the job of the game designer nor other gamers to try and 'force' players to do something they do not want to do in the first place and are only doing it because its the path of less resistance to their next goal.

Developers should focus on creating multiple venues

That makes sense for single player games, but what is the point of making an MMO where everyone only goes solo? As I said, some content is created specifically for large groups. That is the nature of an MMO. These aren't single player games and should not be catered as such. I don't understand the need to undermine the purpose of a game simply to meet someone else's particular interests or satisfaction.

Single player games are an entire genre dedicated to those of us who like to go it alone. As for the MMO genre, I think it's safe to say that solo play or lone wolf behavior was NOT the intended audience. However, as I pointed out, you can still solo in almost every MMO, but don't expect to be #1, acquire the best gear or complete every achievement.

there are people who like the idea of contributing to the whole but prefer to do the work of their efforts solo.

That said, if people are willfully getting on an MMO and willfully not getting group then one should not try to force it because they will just leave the game.
more over, who wants to play with people who do not want to play with them. regardless of if those people are to blame for being on the MMO in the first place. why would you WANT to play with them in the first place, even more so if you think they are playing the wrong game?

SEANMCAD

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

I've been saying that since the old times of EQ. Anyone needing the game to force him to be social and go towards other players needs to question himself, not the game.

and the people who want to be social with those who do not want to be social need to as well.

Octagon7711

I usually play solo and don't group because it's usually the best way to do what I want to do for that session.  I'll group usually for two reasons.  One, content I want to do that can only be done by a group but that's rare for me or someone throws me a lets group popup and I think ok, I haven't group in a while and we're doing the same content, so why not.

I like the new way of open groups in which you don't really have a traditional group formed and everyone works together to clear a dungeon, or take down a world boss, or run through a dynamic event.  Within such a group there can be several joined groups or just people working solo to support a goal.

All kinds of problems with forced groups.  Kicking people who are doing this as a first time experience and so are learning the ropes.  Playing with people with bad gear or a bad build.  Playing with people who don't know their roll.  Kicking people who score low on a DPS meter.  Ending up with no healer or a bad healer.  Or getting the occasional Leroy who really wants to see the group fail.  I understand that putting together a group can be a lot of fun and life long friendships can be formed, so if people love to group, enjoy.

SEANMCAD

Octagon7711 said:

I usually play solo and don't group because it's usually the best way to do what I want to do for that session.  I'll group usually for two reasons.  One, content I want to do that can only be done by a group but that's rare for me or someone throws me a lets group popup and I think ok, I haven't group in a while and we're doing the same content, so why not.

I like the new way of open groups in which you don't really have a traditional group formed and everyone works together to clear a dungeon, or take down a world boss, or run through a dynamic event.  Within such a group there can be several joined groups or just people working solo to support a goal.

All kinds of problems with forced groups.  Kicking people who are doing this as a first time experience and so are learning the ropes.  Playing with people with bad gear or a bad build.  Playing with people who don't know their roll.  Kicking people who score low on a DPS meter.  Ending up with no healer or a bad healer.  Or getting the occasional Leroy who really wants to see the group fail.  I understand that putting together a group can be a lot of fun and life long friendships can be formed, so if people love to group, enjoy.

yeah on the one hand there is a lot of possible compelling game play in cooperative tasks. but on the other hand it doesnt make sense to even abstractly 'force' a person to do it. but on the 3rd hand if the reward is more attractive and thus getting the reward in the easiest way possible supercedes grouping then people will do that.

it might be nothing more than the choice of words to describe the subject. 'forcing' 

Loke666

SEANMCAD said:

proper game design is to find multiple ways for players to get achievements of the same general value for the same general amount of work.

its not the job of the game designer nor other gamers to try and 'force' players to do something they do not want to do in the first place and are only doing it because its the path of less resistance to their next goal.

Developers should focus on creating multiple venues

It is not the amount of work that matters but risk VS reward. And group content tend to be riskier since you can die because someone else mess up as well as yourself and therefor should generally speaking have higher reward as well. Coordinating a team is harder then just playing yourself basically.

The easier a path is the less XP and loot it should generate. You can of course have easy group content and hard solo-content and those should be rewarded accordingly.

And there is of course the people that group up for easy solo-content to maximize the loot & XP/hour. While I generally are all for rewarding people for working together that is not a good thing to promote since the chance of failure for that is zilch. 

So go slowly with limited rewards on the easy path or take the hard one that pays out good in XP and loot. This isn't really relevant to the forced grouping issue but more about rewards.

Margrave

I consider forced grouping the sign of a poor development team. They couldn't think of anything else. Sad really.

SEANMCAD

SEANMCAD said:

Octagon7711 said:

I usually play solo and don't group because it's usually the best way to do what I want to do for that session.  I'll group usually for two reasons.  One, content I want to do that can only be done by a group but that's rare for me or someone throws me a lets group popup and I think ok, I haven't group in a while and we're doing the same content, so why not.

I like the new way of open groups in which you don't really have a traditional group formed and everyone works together to clear a dungeon, or take down a world boss, or run through a dynamic event.  Within such a group there can be several joined groups or just people working solo to support a goal.

All kinds of problems with forced groups.  Kicking people who are doing this as a first time experience and so are learning the ropes.  Playing with people with bad gear or a bad build.  Playing with people who don't know their roll.  Kicking people who score low on a DPS meter.  Ending up with no healer or a bad healer.  Or getting the occasional Leroy who really wants to see the group fail.  I understand that putting together a group can be a lot of fun and life long friendships can be formed, so if people love to group, enjoy.

yeah on the one hand there is a lot of possible compelling game play in cooperative tasks. but on the other hand it doesnt make sense to even abstractly 'force' a person to do it. but on the 3rd hand if the reward is more attractive and thus getting the reward in the easiest way possible supercedes grouping then people will do that.

it might be nothing more than the choice of words to describe the subject. 'forcing' 

I will just reply to myself because I think above puts my position the most clear and with this statement below as the solution.

The solution is to make the path of grouping or the path of soloing the same in amount of effort to reward. doing so people will naturally gravitate toward the play style they want to rather than the choice being strictly technical on reward. If they dont group that that means people dont want to, for whatever reason (which maybe because people are dicks like I think, or it might be a game mechanic problem) assuming over course the effort to reward is the same.

Tamanous

Please learn the definition of antisocial and find an appropriate word to use. You clearly do not know what it means.

SEANMCAD

Tamanous said:

Please learn the definition of antisocial and find an appropriate word to use. You clearly do not know what it means.

I actually think he is using it correctly.

if you force people to do something they dont want to they might very well be inclide to become anti-social (which is different from non-social)

Tamanous

SEANMCAD said:

Tamanous said:

Please learn the definition of antisocial and find an appropriate word to use. You clearly do not know what it means.

I actually think he is using it correctly.

if you force people to do something they dont want to they might very well be inclide to become anti-social (which is different from non-social)

That distinction was not clearly made. If the term anti-social is used it should be an exclusive example. The comparison between social and anti-social was made several times instead of social and non-social players which implies labeling players not willing to group as anti-social.

To not make a distinction is inferring all solo players are destruction and abusive to the community. 

But that said, I do get his point. However, and using AC as an example like he did, it depends on what one calls "forced grouping". If content is too hard to solo it isn't forced, it is optional. Now if it gates required gear it certainly becomes forced if that content is what you want. AC did have content impossible to solo as well but it's greatest asset for socializing was the Monarchy system. At least early in the game you basically couldn't level without xp chains and being in a Monarchy was critical.

AC was also a Diablo-like random gear drop game that required trade skills to modify and most players only had the one free racial skill. Only those leveled high enough had enough skill points to raise the skill so those on top of xp chains in Monarchies were highly sought after. All of this could be viewed as forced grouping depending on how you chose to view it.

The fact is that socializing is forced. We only do it in real life for the benefits it provides. All animals form social bonds only because it benefits the individual and therefore benefits the whole group collectively. Games must add reasons to do it. Whether or not you called it forced is subjective.

I'd argue even social players wouldn't come together to accomplish fully optional group oriented content without some benefit attached to it. I constantly see the bulk of the player base taking the path of least resistance no matter the style of content. Same could be said in AC with linear xp chain abuse and skill buff ladder mules. Certainly my experience in games like early wow had it's share of asshats in group play. During that time guilds were very important I commonly saw the very social (some times entire guilds) being the ones being complete jackasses. They had their social group that enabled it. They logged in to play the game for social reasons; they logged in to be social assholes.

SEANMCAD

Tamanous said:

SEANMCAD said:

Tamanous said:

Please learn the definition of antisocial and find an appropriate word to use. You clearly do not know what it means.

I actually think he is using it correctly.

if you force people to do something they dont want to they might very well be inclide to become anti-social (which is different from non-social)

That distinction was not clearly made. If the term anti-social is used it should be an exclusive example. The comparison between social and anti-social was made several times instead of social and non-social players which implies labeling players not willing to group as anti-social.

To not make a distinction is inferring all solo players are destruction and abusive to the community. 

i read it to mean if you force someone to do something they do not want to do they will become socially destructive and and abusive to the community that made them do it.

in other words, I am aware of the definition and I think when you force someone to do something they do not want to do or change the game so that they have to leave a game they enjoy it might instill 'anti' social behavior at least that is how I read what I felt was a clever use of words in the title

Loke666

SEANMCAD said:

I will just reply to myself because I think above puts my position the most clear and with this statement below as the solution.

The solution is to make the path of grouping or the path of soloing the same in amount of effort to reward. doing so people will naturally gravitate toward the play style they want to rather than the choice being strictly technical on reward. If they dont group that that means people dont want to, for whatever reason (which maybe because people are dicks like I think, or it might be a game mechanic problem) assuming over course the effort to reward is the same.

People tend to pick the fastest and easiest way to get as much stuff and XP as possible. In modern MMOs running soloquests is the fastest way so even many group fans do that while they level up.

But since MMOs tend to have slim to nun solo focused endgame that means you will have a max level character without the skill you need for the endgame.

I explained above why risk Vs reward is the most important factor for the effort (edit: in my last post), rewarding someone just as much for running simple soloquests as for co-ordinating a group in what generally is harder content is just a terrible idea.

It is totally fine to not force soloplayers to group as they level up but if you want equal rewards you should have equal difficulty and that means a high rise in the difficulty of solocontent or far less XP and rewards. And raising the difficulty in soloquests seems like something that get people crying as soon as someone tries it.

Therefor, not considering that social behavior really should be encouraged, should soloing have less rewards then grouping.