Designing a group-friendly MMORPG

Quizzical

There are a lot of MMORPGs that have some amount of group content.  MMORPGs with grouping that is actually done well are much rarer, however.  Off hand, I can't think of a single one that is heavy on group content but doesn't have some enormous, glaring problems with its grouping methods.  Before explaining what I want to the game to do, let's start by explaining what I don't want it to do:

1)  Require players to spend a large fraction of their online time assembling groups.  Half an hour to get a group is not okay.

2)  Be a soloing game throughout the leveling process, and then suddenly a grouping game at endgame.  If almost the entire game is almost entirely solo, then that's not a group-friendly game.

3)  Have some group content scattered throughout the leveling process, but nearly everyone skips it because it's much easier to just solo to endgame.  In practice, this makes a game effectively the same as (2).

4)  Most of the group content gets completely skipped by most players because other group content gives better rewards.  This makes it very difficult to get a group for most of the group content, which turns it into a game with very little group content.

5)  A given character can expect to clear a particular group dungeon many times before moving on.  Maybe this is okay at endgame when the developers have to slow players down, but not in the leveling process.

6)  Some players are unable to get a group quickly because they play a class that is undesirable or too popular.  If a group mechanism requires that 20% of each group be a healer, but only 10% of players are healers, everyone else spending half their time waiting for a healer isn't viable group content.  Or similarly for other roles, but this problem seems to be most common with healers.

7)  Group content is scaled to be stupidly easy so that players hardly ever fail at it, even when group members abruptly leave or go AFK.

8)  It is common for a single group member in the groups that players actually assemble to be strong enough to solo the dungeon on his own.

9)  You're often stuck in a group with someone else who is too weak to be much help because he's trying something way above his level and expecting to be carried through it.

10)  You can't group with your friends because they're on a different server.

11)  You can't group with your friends because their levels are too different from your own.  Or perhaps rather, maybe the game will technically allow you to group, but at the expense of problem (8) or (9).

Any of those are huge problems if an MMORPG is supposed to be group-friendly.  I can't think of a single MMORPG that doesn't suffer from at least one of them.  Many suffer from several of them.

Let's add that players shouldn't get stuck and unable to progress.  MMORPGs are generally pretty good at avoiding that particular pitfall, if only by making everything really easy.  So, how can we make a group-heavy MMORPG while avoiding the problems listed above?

Quizzical

First of all, the game will be extremely on rails.  Every zone will have an associated group dungeon.  You must complete that dungeon in order to access the next zone.  Encouraging players to skip 80% or 90% of the content is how games run out of content quickly.

The zone associated with each dungeon has some solo content available, so that players don't have to group all of the time.  You can solo some while waiting for a group or whatever.  You don't have to do solo content if you don't want to, but it's there as an option.

The first time you beat a dungeon, the game will record your current level, gear, and whatever else contributes to your power that your character has.  Whenever you return to that zone, whether for the group dungeon or solo content near it, your character returns to the state that it was in when you first cleared that dungeon.  You can swap out gear that you had at the time, or make changes to your build that you could have made the moment you left the dungeon, so you're not stuck with exactly that build forever.  But your character can't get any stronger in that particular zone.

The point of this is that, you can go back and repeat old dungeons if you want to.  But you can't be overleveled for them to make it easy to carry other players through the dungeon.  Some games have a sort of level scaling, but they generally don't dare try to make higher level characters as weak as they were at the appropriate level, for fear that the formula will be off and players will be too weak and get stuck.  That results in higher level players who get scaled down somewhat still being way too strong for the dungeon.  This will fix that problem entirely.  You're demonstrably strong enough to clear the dungeon because you just did, without being way overleveled for it.

The fastest way to get experience should generally be to do the group dungeon for the zone that you're on.  You can go back and do older dungeons, but you get half experience for them.  The solo content in your current zone is also scaled to give you experience about half as fast as the group dungeon.  Solo content in older zones can still be done, but for half the experience that it was when it was your current zone.

A lot of games make it so that if you do all of the content, you'll always be overleveled for whatever content you're doing.  So let's not do that.  Doing each dungeon exactly once and always clearing it should get you about half of the experience that it would take to be at an appropriate level for the next dungeon.  Doing all solo content and each dungeon once gets you about 80% of the experience to be at an appropriate level for the next dungeon.

So how do you get up to the proper level?  By trying the dungeon and failing, of course.  A dungeon can get harder as you get further into it.  A group that isn't strong enough to clear it might get halfway through, or 80% of the way through, and then wipe.  They still get quite a bit of experience for that run, so they'll be stronger when they try it the next time.  Someone who is really averse to that can grind solo content instead if he prefers, but it will tend to take longer.

To avoid people just farming the first room and resetting, if you fail a dungeon without getting halfway through, you're locked out of dungeons for five minutes upon exiting.  You can still do solo content in that time, or go AFK for a while, or whatever.  A group that is strong enough to clear one dungeon should usually be strong enough to get halfway through the next, even if not necessarily strong enough to clear the whole thing, so that kind of early failure should be relatively rare.  Particular players who bail on groups too early, too often might need harsher punishments for it, but most players will never experience those harsher punishments.

Another benefit to this is that most characters who do a dungeon will have never cleared that dungeon before.  As soon as you beat it once, you move on.  Maybe you'll have seen the dungeon before when you play an alt.  But this would restore some of the mystery and exploration factor, rather than everyone being able to assume that everyone else has already cleared the dungeon many times and knows exactly how everything goes.

Quizzical

So where do groups come from, anyway?  That's the traditional problem, after all.  There are two direct answers to this.  One is an automated group finder.  But some players complain about impersonal pick-up groups created by group finders.  And they do have a point that grouping with other people while going through entire dungeons without anyone saying a single word is kind of dumb.  That's not what interacting with other humans is supposed to be like.

So there will be a group finder, but you can only use the group finder for the dungeon that is currently next for you.  You can't use it while already in a dungeon, whether your next one or some older one.  And the group finder generally won't give you a group within five minutes of queueing for it.  The exception is that if someone has been in the queue for ten minutes, the group finder will try to get him a group quickly, even if it requires grabbing people who haven't been in there as long.  So the group finder basically serves as a backup in case manual group finding fails, to ensure that you can get a group within ten minutes.

The game should also have an interface to allow people to assemble their own groups.  You can register that you're forming a group, and others can see your group on the list and ask to join.  Players in the queue automatically get listed as being interested in a group for that particular dungeon, and a group leader can manually invite them.  Players can reject manual invites, of course, but this is a way for players interested in the same dungeon to find groups.

Both the group finder and manual invites should be cross-server.  If five people want to do a dungeon and would make an appropriate group, then being scattered across three servers shouldn't prevent the group from forming.

Once the group is full, everyone warps to the dungeon automatically.  When they leave the dungeon, whether victoriously or otherwise, they warp back to where they were.  Some MMORPGs already do this, but it's important to avoid the problem of waiting 15 minutes for everyone to arrive once a group is assembled.  This should happen whether a group was created manually or by the group finder.

The game would also have henchmen akin to those available in GW1, DDO, or some other games.  There could be 15 or 20 different henchmen available for a dungeon, with a variety of different classes and builds, but at a level suitable for the dungeon.  You can even summon a henchman as a replacement if a player leaves halfway through a run.  This way, if there aren't enough healers, everyone can still get a group, but just a lot of the groups use a healer henchman.

To make this remain a grouping game, the group must be more than half players.  You could bring two henchmen to a five-man group.  You could bring three to an eight-man group.  Summoning a henchman to replace someone who leaves requires that you aren't already at your limit.  A group of three humans and two henchmen is still fundamentally a grouping game, and not at all similar to a game of one player and a bunch of AI bots.

I think that this would avoid all of the problems that I cite above.  That could allow for an MMORPG to be heavy on grouping almost right from the start, with group content that actually works well and provides an interesting challenge.  Players getting experience even when they fail would mean that no one really gets stuck for very long, as even several consecutive failed dungeon runs would mean that you're now overleveled for the dungeon.

Rungar

i would wager that if you want more people to socialize and group you need to design systems that promote such things. 

for instance linear dungeons are problematic because the very design of them often goes against the whole idea of being in a group. It often would work as well if the people were bots. in some games they are! (eso) The dungeons are rollercoaster rides, not adventures. Get on the ride, go as fast as you can, get off the ride. what do you really need the other people for. You only need to do 1 thing at a time till the end. No strategy, just learn by repetition. 

Radial dungeons overcome this because all the action stems from a central hub that people come and go to. To go with this design you have multiple simultaneous tasks to complete. How could you do all these tasks without talking to the people in your group? 


add in the groupfinder where the machine does everything your supposed to be doing and its not really a grouping game anymore. You just show up. Its all very mechanical but has no heart to it. 

This is why i prefer concepts like npc guilds. It funnels people based on skill and intent and also gives you the final say if you ever read my description of them. It also applies to all activities and is low tech. 

the standard class/role design is a bust in mmo's. 80% of ( and really all) players want to be dps but no matter your groupsize this leads to severe imbalance in tanks and healers. Its an old outdated model that just doesn't work. 

that's why you need situational mitigation so everyone can dps like they want to. The difference being it wont always work depending on what your fighting. Again you might actually need to talk to someone in your group to decide, based on the enemy, who should tank, who should dps and who should crowd control. This can change as fast as changing the enemy so your character will be more fulfilling having to wear different hats sometimes than doing the same thing over and over and over. 

lastly we just make the groupsize three because its easy to make that, more comfortable to talk amongst a few people than a alot and is efficient for other modes of content. 


personally i dont think anyone actually wants anything new. not the players and not the developers. So it is what it is. 
 

laserit

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

Cleffy

MOBAs have some lessons for MMORPGs. They are by nature group oriented and make forming groups easy. However, they tend to be disconnected from the world.
Fallout 76's grouping system is fairly good. It's rare not to be in some group in that game due to the benefits.

Amaranthar

laserit said:

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

UO was very organic. 
Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. 
Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events. 

So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels. 

Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc. 

Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. 
Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way. 

laserit

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

UO was very organic. 
Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. 
Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events. 

So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels. 

Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc. 

Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. 
Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way. 

UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.

Things started going downhill from there

 If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.

UO did that.

Amaranthar

laserit said:

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

UO was very organic. 
Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. 
Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events. 

So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels. 

Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc. 

Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. 
Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way. 

UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.

Things started going downhill from there

 If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.

UO did that.

I didn't even think about "group" content. I just ran into some Players that I made friends with and was asked if I wanted to join their Guild. At first I said no, because I enjoyed trying to go it alone. And that didn't change my relationship with them. UO was like that. It was a hard game PvE wise (plus the PvP on top of that), and people just had a different attitude. 
Eventually I did join them and had more fun than I ever expected. 

I tried joining Guilds in WoW, and found myself alone anyways. I grouped, and that was unsatisfying due to being treated as a stranger and "just a number" all of the time. People didn't even remember me the next day, even if we had worked very well together. 
Like I said, the attitudes were different. And in my mind, it was entirely due to game design. Knowing people from running into them, seeing how they act, talking to them in-game, passing info back and forth, business dealings, it was an entirely different situation. 

A lot of the new conveniences that's been added over the years destroys that important Player interaction. 

Rungar

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

UO was very organic. 
Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. 
Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events. 

So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels. 

Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc. 

Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. 
Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way. 

UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.

Things started going downhill from there

 If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.

UO did that.

I didn't even think about "group" content. I just ran into some Players that I made friends with and was asked if I wanted to join their Guild. At first I said no, because I enjoyed trying to go it alone. And that didn't change my relationship with them. UO was like that. It was a hard game PvE wise (plus the PvP on top of that), and people just had a different attitude. 
Eventually I did join them and had more fun than I ever expected. 

I tried joining Guilds in WoW, and found myself alone anyways. I grouped, and that was unsatisfying due to being treated as a stranger and "just a number" all of the time. People didn't even remember me the next day, even if we had worked very well together. 
Like I said, the attitudes were different. And in my mind, it was entirely due to game design. Knowing people from running into them, seeing how they act, talking to them in-game, passing info back and forth, business dealings, it was an entirely different situation. 

A lot of the new conveniences that's been added over the years destroys that important Player interaction. 

Part of it is your perception as well. UO was groundbreaking back then and people have been hardened over time playing these games which is why so many scream for solo content. 

I think we can go back the other way but we need need new and more thoughtful organic systems that gently funnel players to where they need to be, making them feel like a part of the system and new gameplay models to restore the wonder of it all.

we need to accept a few things: 

1) levelling processes are inherently anti-group.
2) tank/dps/healer model has significant problems due to everyone wanting to play dps. 
3) some of the conveniences like groupfinder are naturally antisocial. 
4) the more people required for a group the more you have to rely on things like groupfinders and the less likely they will just form organically. 
5) Linear dungeon design is not optimal for social interaction. Combined with the trinity and groupfinder, rarely do you have to talk much. The only time people talk is when they encounter failure and thats usually not productive either.
6) I consider player guilds to be a failed concept overall. It works for a small number of people and the rest are transient filler. Players also get fatigued trying to find that one great guild that's likely not coming.  

if all these design elements are maintained into the next mmo as standard features, you should expect the same results no?    

AlBQuirky

Overall, this is a great breakdown!

Point 10 has me wondering...

Quizzical said:

10)  You can't group with your friends because they're on a different server.

Whose fault is that? Did start before or after your friends? Did you not communicate with them to see where everyone is gathering? Why is this placed on the game maker's shoulders?

I can see it as problem, but not a major one for me

[edit]

After reading the next 2 installments, It doesn't seem quite as fun as at first glance.

I skipped GW1 because I had to go through the "time portal" to play the rest of the game. In SW:TOR, I dreaded going through the "group mission" (flash(?)) at the end of the tutorial. This is just another to "force grouping", just in a different way.

I still agree something needs to be done, but hell if I know how

Dibdabs

In mmo games, hell is other people.  Being forced to group with randoms in order to do anything just isn't worth the time and effort expended.  Game populations are very fluid and transitory and there's no point in even making acquaintances because either they or myself could abandon the game without warning, never to be seen again. I do sometimes group (or duo) with RL family and friends, but if a game expects me to suffer the company of randoms in order to play the game they can screw that!  Randoms may obviously be nice people sometimes, but I'm not going to waste time finding the few nice people amongst the hordes of dimwits and mouthbreathers.

The only reason I play mmos rather than single-player games is because other players are handy to buy things from on the auction house, bazaar or whatever.  That's about the only function they serve for me.  New World is ideal in that regard.  A single-player game with a shared market is a genius idea.

laserit

Rungar said:

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

UO was very organic. 
Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. 
Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events. 

So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels. 

Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc. 

Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. 
Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way. 

UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.

Things started going downhill from there

 If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.

UO did that.

I didn't even think about "group" content. I just ran into some Players that I made friends with and was asked if I wanted to join their Guild. At first I said no, because I enjoyed trying to go it alone. And that didn't change my relationship with them. UO was like that. It was a hard game PvE wise (plus the PvP on top of that), and people just had a different attitude. 
Eventually I did join them and had more fun than I ever expected. 

I tried joining Guilds in WoW, and found myself alone anyways. I grouped, and that was unsatisfying due to being treated as a stranger and "just a number" all of the time. People didn't even remember me the next day, even if we had worked very well together. 
Like I said, the attitudes were different. And in my mind, it was entirely due to game design. Knowing people from running into them, seeing how they act, talking to them in-game, passing info back and forth, business dealings, it was an entirely different situation. 

A lot of the new conveniences that's been added over the years destroys that important Player interaction. 

Part of it is your perception as well. UO was groundbreaking back then and people have been hardened over time playing these games which is why so many scream for solo content. 

I think we can go back the other way but we need need new and more thoughtful organic systems that gently funnel players to where they need to be, making them feel like a part of the system and new gameplay models to restore the wonder of it all.

we need to accept a few things: 

1) levelling processes are inherently anti-group.
2) tank/dps/healer model has significant problems due to everyone wanting to play dps. 
3) some of the conveniences like groupfinder are naturally antisocial. 
4) the more people required for a group the more you have to rely on things like groupfinders and the less likely they will just form organically. 
5) Linear dungeon design is not optimal for social interaction. Combined with the trinity and groupfinder, rarely do you have to talk much. The only time people talk is when they encounter failure and thats usually not productive either.
6) I consider player guilds to be a failed concept overall. It works for a small number of people and the rest are transient filler. Players also get fatigued trying to find that one great guild that's likely not coming.  

if all these design elements are maintained into the next mmo as standard features, you should expect the same results no?    

The only thing ground breaking about UO was the multiplayer imho. At the time of release it was a step back from previous Ultimas except for that multiplayer element.

 Imho

I always loved Ultima’s for the worlds and the interaction within them.

Rungar

i wouldnt say players are hell. Most players ive come across have been good overall mixed with a few tares. 

i think though that mmo's need to do a better job with the funneling process to bring players together WITHOUT THEM REALIZING IT. I think this is key because then the rest will flow much easier. case in point: 

2 chats

chat 1: anyone
chat 2: must complete x achievement(s)

clearly if your making a group and say your tackling challenging content you will want to draw from chat 2. You would be loathe to draw from chat one because your unlikely to get what your looking for. 

so dressing up and fleshing out chat2 is critical such that when player x reaches those achievements and gets to use chat2 it feels like a real accomplishment since they are with the big boys now. 

for anyone who played eso knows that anyone who achieved stormproof title in the maelstrom arena, can most likely play. This is just an extension of that. Your achievements determine what you can and cant do and we just apply achievements to chats or even better bulletin boards or both. 

if done properly youll always be where you need to be and it wont seem nearly as painful to interact with others because they are basically the same as you. They roughly have the same skill as you and the same interest.  

it has to be achievements because you can work around levels and there are many a leveled player that cant play. There are few who have the achievements who never earned them. 

its not foolproof because some carry others but overall i think it would go a long ways.  

Amaranthar

Dibdabs said:

In mmo games, hell is other people.  Being forced to group with randoms in order to do anything just isn't worth the time and effort expended.  Game populations are very fluid and transitory and there's no point in even making acquaintances because either they or myself could abandon the game without warning, never to be seen again. I do sometimes group (or duo) with RL family and friends, but if a game expects me to suffer the company of randoms in order to play the game they can screw that!  Randoms may obviously be nice people sometimes, but I'm not going to waste time finding the few nice people amongst the hordes of dimwits and mouthbreathers.

The only reason I play mmos rather than single-player games is because other players are handy to buy things from on the auction house, bazaar or whatever.  That's about the only function they serve for me.  New World is ideal in that regard.  A single-player game with a shared market is a genius idea.

Other Players would make great weapon racks. 
  

cameltosis

Good posts again @Quizzical ! May I request that in future you add some extra formatting for these extra long posts, like proper headings, bullet points etc? That would make them a bit easier to read for me.

As for the content, whilst I can agree that you have identified common problems with creating group content in a themepark, I don't think your solutions will help much, if at all.

1) Why focus on group content?

This is the massively multiplayer genre, the point is to be playing with other people so I'm on board with trying to promote more group-focused content. But, what are you trying to actually achieve with your content? Your motivation will drastically change your implementation, but I can't tell what your motivation is beyond "more groups". Some possible motivations:

• Scale - "bigger is better". There is enjoyment to be had simply from participating in something with a lot of people. Focusing on group content could be a way to leverage this sort of enjoyment.
  
• Teamwork - group content generally teaches teamwork (not social), which is a valuable skill to learn.
  
• Friends - a lot of people just wanna play a game with their mates
• Social / Community - perhaps you want group content to be an important factor in building an online community
• Balance / Challenge - RPGs often have combat roles, which makes it really hard to balance content around solo players, because one role will always be better than others at soloing. Group content gives you an opportunity to provide more challenging content.

If you want to use group content as a foundation of your community building, then you don't want cross-server grouping or dungeon finders, as they hurt community building. But, if you want to focus on scale, then cross-server grouping would be excellent as it'll make it easier to form those large groups.

2) How will you tackle segregation?

The biggest problem with group content in most mmorpgs is that the playerbase has been segregated into miniscule chunks, making it very hard to form groups except at endgame.

We're separated by server

We're separated by faction

We're separated by level

We're separated by power

We're separated by classes

We're separated by quests

Who gives a shit if the game has 1 million active players if there are only 50 people online you can actually group with, and most of them are already doing stuff? This is the primary reason why MMORPGs have drifted towards being solo - unless you are playing at launch, there are simply too many barriers in the way of grouping....until you hit endgame.

My preferred solution is horizontal progression (removing level and power as barriers) and to have a more sandbox approach (removing / lessening quests as a barrier).

Ungood

Good posts here.

I would like to start off by saying that the biggest advantage of MMO's is interacting with other players.

I am going to say that again, because this is something that needs to be said, many times over, That is what really brings the MMO to life, is being able to interact with other players.

Now, the problem that many Devs and players make, is that they confuse "Interact" with "Group"

Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than "OMG lets zerg rush this Dungeon together and somehow this will make us bond, even if in reality we all hate the very fact that we are being forced together to do this content" 

In this venture, GW2 had a lot of cool features to allow for the game to feel alive and social.

Dynamic Events, were set up so that others could freely join in, contribute, Everyone gets rewards, and then you all move along, in a very organic, way.

In fact, the game did not need formal grouping, outside some World bosses and some Map Meta's, which involved squads of upwards to 50 people.

In that vein, they worked. I mean, I was not a huge fan of them, but they worked, for what they were. Ideally, kinda fun and in their own way, very organic, as players were not forced together, if you wanted to leave the map, you could, if you want to drop the squad while still staying on the map, and doing the content, you could, it was very open, which IMHO was a good way to move things about.

The Down Scaling, was also a super handy feature, as it gave players a sense of progress, that feeling of moving up and having the world expand, as opposed to some level scaling games were the world does not get bigger or small, it remains the same, or worse, in some games as you level up, you bottle neck into a small amount of end-game content. 

So at the core, GW2 really had a great system set up.

I mean, no lie, their dungeons always sucked, and when they later put a shotgun up their bum and pulled the trigger by putting in raids, that was a good WTF moment, but that does not pull away from their amazing grouping/interacting system their core game had.

Now with that said, there is a lot game developers could do to build a more social game, that did not sit squarely on needing players to group. That is where a lot of things fall apart.

Quizzical

Rungar said:

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

Amaranthar said:

laserit said:

I believe if you design a really good virtual world, the group-friendly should come organically.

If one just wants boss fights. battle grounds and raids, there is no need for a world.

Why waste the resources on one?

I'm all about the World and Immersion, otherwise the MMORPG is just not for me, and that's ok.

I want to be part of a World, that is what originally sold me on the MMORPG

The way the general public behaves in MMORPG's.... Just hurry up with the AI already

UO was very organic. 
Mainly because you got to know other Character names, and whether they were good players or jerks, etc. 
Because you saw them all the time, in Dungeons, at the banks, or sometimes even at Player Run Events. 

So you could go to a Dungeon, enter inside where Dungeons were designed for the lower Skills, and as you Skilled up you could go deeper into the Dungeon. You were always running into some of the same people, who were close enough to your Skills because it wasn't a divisive game of Levels. 

Repetitive meetings meant you got to know them a little, their Guilds, their banks and favorite Cities, etc. 

Also, while UO was well known for the rampant PKing, what lots of people don't know is how much Players would help each other out. 
Friendships and trust were built that way, and many Players found their Guild that way. 

UO sold me on the MMORPG. I loved that game to pieces.

Things started going downhill from there

 If one wants to design good group content, you need to make it organically happen.

UO did that.

I didn't even think about "group" content. I just ran into some Players that I made friends with and was asked if I wanted to join their Guild. At first I said no, because I enjoyed trying to go it alone. And that didn't change my relationship with them. UO was like that. It was a hard game PvE wise (plus the PvP on top of that), and people just had a different attitude. 
Eventually I did join them and had more fun than I ever expected. 

I tried joining Guilds in WoW, and found myself alone anyways. I grouped, and that was unsatisfying due to being treated as a stranger and "just a number" all of the time. People didn't even remember me the next day, even if we had worked very well together. 
Like I said, the attitudes were different. And in my mind, it was entirely due to game design. Knowing people from running into them, seeing how they act, talking to them in-game, passing info back and forth, business dealings, it was an entirely different situation. 

A lot of the new conveniences that's been added over the years destroys that important Player interaction. 

Part of it is your perception as well. UO was groundbreaking back then and people have been hardened over time playing these games which is why so many scream for solo content. 

I think we can go back the other way but we need need new and more thoughtful organic systems that gently funnel players to where they need to be, making them feel like a part of the system and new gameplay models to restore the wonder of it all.

we need to accept a few things: 

1) levelling processes are inherently anti-group.
2) tank/dps/healer model has significant problems due to everyone wanting to play dps. 
3) some of the conveniences like groupfinder are naturally antisocial. 
4) the more people required for a group the more you have to rely on things like groupfinders and the less likely they will just form organically. 
5) Linear dungeon design is not optimal for social interaction. Combined with the trinity and groupfinder, rarely do you have to talk much. The only time people talk is when they encounter failure and thats usually not productive either.
6) I consider player guilds to be a failed concept overall. It works for a small number of people and the rest are transient filler. Players also get fatigued trying to find that one great guild that's likely not coming.  

if all these design elements are maintained into the next mmo as standard features, you should expect the same results no?    

This thread is largely an attempt at fixing the problems you cite, among others.

1)  That is true.  That is also why I made sure that everyone at the same stage of the game could naturally group together, and even people who were past there could come back to group at a previous stage.

2)  That is also true.  That's why I added henchmen to fill in missing roles.  Players can be whatever roles they want, and grab henchmen to fill in the rest.

3)  That's why I made it so that using a group finder automatically puts you on a list visible to other players who could invite you to their group.  It's also why I made the group finder take a while to form groups.  You can get your group faster if you do it yourself.

5)  The real problem that kills interaction is everyone knowing the dungeon ahead of time.  Everyone knows exactly what to do because they've all done it many times before, so they just rush through it.  I'm trying to fight that by saying, as soon as you complete a dungeon once, you're done with that one and can move on to the next.

In Vanilla WoW, I organized a lot of groups for lower level dungeons.  Hardly anyone in the game did that, so I mostly grouped with people who didn't know the dungeons.  We talked in chat because we had to talk in chat, as people didn't know what to do in the dungeon.

6)  In most MMORPGs, a guild is really just a chat channel.  That's not to say that they're a bad thing.  But you shouldn't try to attach meaning and expectations beyond what a chat channel can fill.

Quizzical

cameltosis said:

Good posts again @Quizzical ! May I request that in future you add some extra formatting for these extra long posts, like proper headings, bullet points etc? That would make them a bit easier to read for me.

As for the content, whilst I can agree that you have identified common problems with creating group content in a themepark, I don't think your solutions will help much, if at all.

1) Why focus on group content?

This is the massively multiplayer genre, the point is to be playing with other people so I'm on board with trying to promote more group-focused content. But, what are you trying to actually achieve with your content? Your motivation will drastically change your implementation, but I can't tell what your motivation is beyond "more groups". Some possible motivations:

• Scale - "bigger is better". There is enjoyment to be had simply from participating in something with a lot of people. Focusing on group content could be a way to leverage this sort of enjoyment.
  
• Teamwork - group content generally teaches teamwork (not social), which is a valuable skill to learn.
  
• Friends - a lot of people just wanna play a game with their mates
• Social / Community - perhaps you want group content to be an important factor in building an online community
• Balance / Challenge - RPGs often have combat roles, which makes it really hard to balance content around solo players, because one role will always be better than others at soloing. Group content gives you an opportunity to provide more challenging content.

If you want to use group content as a foundation of your community building, then you don't want cross-server grouping or dungeon finders, as they hurt community building. But, if you want to focus on scale, then cross-server grouping would be excellent as it'll make it easier to form those large groups.

2) How will you tackle segregation?

The biggest problem with group content in most mmorpgs is that the playerbase has been segregated into miniscule chunks, making it very hard to form groups except at endgame.

We're separated by server

We're separated by faction

We're separated by level

We're separated by power

We're separated by classes

We're separated by quests

Who gives a shit if the game has 1 million active players if there are only 50 people online you can actually group with, and most of them are already doing stuff? This is the primary reason why MMORPGs have drifted towards being solo - unless you are playing at launch, there are simply too many barriers in the way of grouping....until you hit endgame.

My preferred solution is horizontal progression (removing level and power as barriers) and to have a more sandbox approach (removing / lessening quests as a barrier).

1)  My goal here is to design group content that actually works well as group content.  Whether that leads to friendships or a good community isn't really the purpose.  A lot of MMORPGs have group content, but few seem to care much if it's any good.  If you're going to have it, make it good.  Don't make it something that people hate, but slog through anyway for the sake of loot.

2)  That's why the design goes out of its way to segregate players only by which dungeon they're working on next, and nothing else.  If you have 10000 players online and 50 dungeons in your game, the an average dungeon has 200 people on it who could group together.  Whichever one you're on likely has at least a few dozen.

In particular, there is no segregation by server or faction.  To the extent that there is segregation by level, power, or quest, they're all folded together into which dungeon you're on next.  You aren't really segregated by classes, as if you're having a hard time finding that one last class you need for an otherwise full group, you can just grab a henchman and go.

Quizzical

Ungood said:

Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than "OMG lets zerg rush this Dungeon together and somehow this will make us bond, even if in reality we all hate the very fact that we are being forced together to do this content" 

That's exactly what I'm trying to kill with this proposal.  That you sometimes come in a little under level and level up by failing means there's a challenge.  It's not just a case of winning because you show up.  If you're going to win whether you communicate or not, then why stop to communicate?  That just wastes time that you could have spent zerg rushing the dungeon and getting loot.  If discussing strategy is likely to be the difference between success and failure, there would be a lot more of it.

The other thing that makes zerg rushing common is when everyone knows all of the dungeons.  When you have to do a given dungeon six or eight or ten times to gear up before moving on to the next, you learn that dungeon really well, and expect that everyone else does so, too.

In my proposal, as soon as you clear a dungeon just once, that characters is discouraged from going back to that dungeon again.  While there will still be alts, I want it to be expected that a large fraction of players won't have beaten the dungeon before, so they have to talk about what's coming and how to do it.

Rungar

Quizzical said:

Ungood said:

Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than "OMG lets zerg rush this Dungeon together and somehow this will make us bond, even if in reality we all hate the very fact that we are being forced together to do this content" 

That's exactly what I'm trying to kill with this proposal.  That you sometimes come in a little under level and level up by failing means there's a challenge.  It's not just a case of winning because you show up.  If you're going to win whether you communicate or not, then why stop to communicate?  That just wastes time that you could have spent zerg rushing the dungeon and getting loot.  If discussing strategy is likely to be the difference between success and failure, there would be a lot more of it.

The other thing that makes zerg rushing common is when everyone knows all of the dungeons.  When you have to do a given dungeon six or eight or ten times to gear up before moving on to the next, you learn that dungeon really well, and expect that everyone else does so, too.

In my proposal, as soon as you clear a dungeon just once, that characters is discouraged from going back to that dungeon again.  While there will still be alts, I want it to be expected that a large fraction of players won't have beaten the dungeon before, so they have to talk about what's coming and how to do it.

Wouldn't the logical thing be to change the design of the dungeons rather than try to accommodate an existing bad design?

Quizzical

Rungar said:

Quizzical said:

Ungood said:

Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than "OMG lets zerg rush this Dungeon together and somehow this will make us bond, even if in reality we all hate the very fact that we are being forced together to do this content" 

That's exactly what I'm trying to kill with this proposal.  That you sometimes come in a little under level and level up by failing means there's a challenge.  It's not just a case of winning because you show up.  If you're going to win whether you communicate or not, then why stop to communicate?  That just wastes time that you could have spent zerg rushing the dungeon and getting loot.  If discussing strategy is likely to be the difference between success and failure, there would be a lot more of it.

The other thing that makes zerg rushing common is when everyone knows all of the dungeons.  When you have to do a given dungeon six or eight or ten times to gear up before moving on to the next, you learn that dungeon really well, and expect that everyone else does so, too.

In my proposal, as soon as you clear a dungeon just once, that characters is discouraged from going back to that dungeon again.  While there will still be alts, I want it to be expected that a large fraction of players won't have beaten the dungeon before, so they have to talk about what's coming and how to do it.

Wouldn't the logical thing be to change the design of the dungeons rather than try to accommodate an existing bad design?

If you think a different way to design dungeons could make group content work well, then make your own thread and explain how.

laserit

What are we trying to accomplish with dungeons?

Don't answer if you think its a dumb question.

Quizzical

laserit said:

What are we trying to accomplish with dungeons?

Don't answer if you think its a dumb question.

The goal is to make PVE content that is an interesting challenge for groups of several people working together.  That is as opposed to solo content.  It is also as opposed to group content that is really just a check of whether you can get enough people there at once or high enough level people, without it particularly mattering what the people actually do once there.

eoloe

Ungood said:

.

Now, the problem that many Devs and players make, is that they confuse "Interact" with "Group"

Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than "OMG lets zerg rush this Dungeon together and somehow this will make us bond, even if in reality we all hate the very fact that we are being forced together to do this content" 

In this venture, GW2 had a lot of cool features to allow for the game to feel alive and social.

Dynamic Events, were set up so that others could freely join in, contribute, Everyone gets rewards, and then you all move along, in a very organic, way.

In fact, the game did not need formal grouping, outside some World bosses and some Map Meta's, which involved squads of upwards to 50 people.

I entirely agree with on "Now, the problem that many Devs and players make, is that they confuse "Interact" with "Group" "

That is a great, if not the best, analysis.

Your following explanation is also amazing: "Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than [...]"

However, I would disagree on the rest.

GW2, yes has very organic approach but also the most anonymous one. I go there do that "organic multiplayer event, get MY reward, and leave". It feels even more asocial IMO with world bosses. Yes I need others to complete the content. No, I do not care about them at all nor I want to interact with them.

What needs a social game, like you mentioned, is a variety of social interactions. Not organic contents that are simply : "oh that thing appeared, let's bash it or let's gather it" or whatever action the game requires.

What fosters a variety social interactions is simply a society. What the devs need to do to make a social game is to create a virtual society.

That's it. (easy lol)

Amaranthar

eoloe said:

Ungood said:

.

Now, the problem that many Devs and players make, is that they confuse "Interact" with "Group"

Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than "OMG lets zerg rush this Dungeon together and somehow this will make us bond, even if in reality we all hate the very fact that we are being forced together to do this content" 

In this venture, GW2 had a lot of cool features to allow for the game to feel alive and social.

Dynamic Events, were set up so that others could freely join in, contribute, Everyone gets rewards, and then you all move along, in a very organic, way.

In fact, the game did not need formal grouping, outside some World bosses and some Map Meta's, which involved squads of upwards to 50 people.

I entirely agree with on "Now, the problem that many Devs and players make, is that they confuse "Interact" with "Group" "

That is a great, if not the best, analysis.

Your following explanation is also amazing: "Being able to socialize with other players, chat, trade, building that social interaction, is far more valuable than [...]"

However, I would disagree on the rest.

GW2, yes has very organic approach but also the most anonymous one. I go there do that "organic multiplayer event, get MY reward, and leave". It feels even more asocial IMO with world bosses. Yes I need others to complete the content. No, I do not care about them at all nor I want to interact with them.

What needs a social game, like you mentioned, is a variety of social interactions. Not organic contents that are simply : "oh that thing appeared, let's bash it or let's gather it" or whatever action the game requires.

What fosters a variety social interactions is simply a society. What the devs need to do to make a social game is to create a virtual society.

That's it. (easy lol)

Exactly. 
A group friendly MMORPG is dependent on Players that want to group together, and have fun doing that.
By "fun", well, that can mean a lot of things. And a good social game should try to hit all the marks. From entertaining content, to interesting things (surprises and a little bit of mystery), to discoveries, and to rewards like resources and treasure. 

But it all really starts outside of the Dungeons and other normal adventure play. 
That's where Players meet first. 
Trades are a great way to start that. A little bit of independency is wonderful. It doesn't have to be total. For example, a Blacksmith can get his ore to smelt himself, but he can build his skills faster if he's buying the metals from other players. Dependency, but not total, from the Player's own choice. 

That can lead into Dungeons, too. If there's rare ores in the Dungeons to mix with steel and other metals to make special alloys. 
This is great for guilds, as the Players are now working together for a goal. Great gear made by their own Smiths. 

That concept can be spread to all Trade Skills. Why shouldn't Alchemy offer something for making steel that's better in some way, or multiple ways? 

If it's widespread enough, you can also have that loose interdependence between Guilds, and even other Players outside of the Guild structure. 

There are all kinds of things that some Players want to do in MMORPGs, and make a mark in their game. (Horse breeding, for example.) 
Making them all so that there's this loose interdependence would benefit Player interaction, and thus Grouping with a *desired* reason.