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MMOs and soloplayers
Lasastard
Member Posts: 604
Greetings,
there is a question that I have been trying to answer for a while now. Please be assured, this is not supposed to be a flame-thread in any way, I am actually quite curious. So, here goes:
I keep reading posts where people complain that they can't solo their way through MMOs. Now I wonder, what is the motiviation for someone to play a MMO, if he or she does not like to group and socialize with other people? Don't offline-RPGs offer a better experience for this kind of playstyle? Maybe someone can enlighten me...
(I know its tempting for many to start pointless flame wars in discussions like this, but I do hope that we will get some interesting answers. )
there is a question that I have been trying to answer for a while now. Please be assured, this is not supposed to be a flame-thread in any way, I am actually quite curious. So, here goes:
I keep reading posts where people complain that they can't solo their way through MMOs. Now I wonder, what is the motiviation for someone to play a MMO, if he or she does not like to group and socialize with other people? Don't offline-RPGs offer a better experience for this kind of playstyle? Maybe someone can enlighten me...
(I know its tempting for many to start pointless flame wars in discussions like this, but I do hope that we will get some interesting answers. )
Comments
One of the reasons is because sometimes, a casual gamer, that can invest a limited amount of time per day for a game, needs that precious hour or two that was lost when forming a group.
I.e DDO is group based game and most of the game time is spent waiting for hours to get into group, thats why some like when the game is solo friendly.
Not only that, soloing doesn't preclude you from doing social things in an MMORPG. I've soloed my way through many levels in AO, EQ2 et al, and was busily chatting to bunch of people, either in guild chat or in server channels.
Kai
Mainly due to issues like Final Fantasy XI... You HAVE to group
after level 10 to level up, and getting into a group can take as long
as 1-2 hours!!!
Why would I want to pay for a game to get online every night to wait for an HOUR to actually start PLAYING the game.
So for me, I am just tired of games that make you do that. I do
enjoy grouping, but I don't want to have to sit around for an hour and
wait on someone else to actually get stuff going.
giving the option to solo in a game is all I ask.. Making it impossible to solo ... i stay away from you
It comes down to time as well. Many people have school, work, or both along side families. They play games as a source of enjoyment in order to escape life. They just don't have the time that is "required" to form groups or to wait on groups in order to advance in the game. That is a developer decision that was done. Developers make grouping an issue in order to slow players down so they will play longer. The more players it takes to kill a group of creatures or a single creature of the same level as you, the longer it is going to take you to gain experience and get to the next level to see more of the game. It's about money on the developer end why there is grouping. That has nothing to do with actual socializing I feel. You just happen to be able to socialize while grouped. The two aren't really one in the same or the only gate way to socializing.
Wanting to solo does not mean you are anti-social. It could be about time, not trusting other players, not having the patience to deal with people you don't know in real life, or even simply not wanting to be dependent on other players. There are a number of reasons.
Those that want to solo also want to play MMO because of the worlds in MMO. There isn't anything like them in single player games outside of the Elder Scrolls series of games. They simply aren't making RPG world games like they used to from what I can tell. The closest we've come to is Neverwinter Night and other games from Bioware, before that there were games from Black Isles I believe. These worlds in MMOs are well designed, massive. This is why many would like an offline option for the game.
I'm gonna be blunt MMO's are gaint chat rooms with a game attached to them
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
Few people have ever made a secret of that. That includes developers.
Soloing is fine.....
It doesnt make a whole lot of sense to go around alone when there are other players your level around though. I think that solo play should be doable but the game mechanics should encourage grouping. In my opinion most games have missed this point completely by making groups split XP for kills which amounts to less xp per kill per player and pretty much equals out to the xp you would have gotten while soloing which is why most people solo.
The answer to this "problem" is to offer MORE xp to people in a group. Let each member of the group get double the full xp of the mob while in a group and in close proximity to each other. There would be groups galore if this were the case. Developers are always talking about group mechanics and playing your class so they build the entire game around the concept of balanced teams, but then they defeat themselves by punishing you with lower XP when you do what they intended.
When developers finally get their heads out of their asses and realize this they will see an increase in teams. WE NEED A MOTIVATION TO GROUP NOT JUST TO BE FORCED TO DO IT IN A RAID BECAUSE WE NEED GEAR!!!!
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
I would like to add that value is subjective. What one person sees value in another person may not. We could be more tolerant of others when it comes to judging what they feel is worth paying for as long as it's nothing illegal. Player a has nothing to lose generally (at least financially or in terms of health and real life relations) if player b wants to solo in an mmo. Some people are genuinely pleased with playing solo in an mmo knowing that there are other flesh and blood players populating the same world. For them, that alone is worth their 15 dollars per month.
Grouping with strangers and people you don't particularly care for should only be done by people that really love that sort of thing. I don't think it makes sense for someone like that to want to group with someone who would rather advance alone. I can't understand what proponents of forced grouping would get out of watching soloers faced with the decision of forced grouping or not being able to advance their character. Could it be that they and the devs that create these dilemmas are sadistic? I don't know but I think it's a good question.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
Early Pre-CU days of SWG, you only needed to group to take on krayts or nightsisters. Yet there were tons of groups going out killing other things. You could still solo most mobs. But groups were plentiful.
So why do people still group in a game that is equal to both solo and group players? Because its more efficent. Technically, your already getting an xp buff with a group. 8 Players can kill more mobs faster then one solo player. So a group is already getting more xp, loot, and money then a solo player per hour.
Personally I think this is all a group should get in an MMO.
Kai
What the hell are you talking about?
SWG at release was nothing but groups. If you went at it alone you got dead alot. I am talking before SOE screwed up and put in the Doc buffs that made us all invincible. Grouping was beneficial and encouraged thus it was the best most populated time the game ever experienced. Once Doc buffs came out and "solo groups" started forming on dant we were all composite armor clones and jedi hologrinding began the population started to slip and from there it took a nosedive.
Why?
The social aspect of the game was taken away because of rampant soloability. I could make money and XP faster by myself than I could traveling around with a group. So I did and so did everyone else. It ruined the game and sent all the casual social players running for the cancel button.
If these mmo devs keep designing single player RPGs and marketing them as MMOs they are going to kill the genre alltogether.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
MMORPG until I came to the realization that most of my time in a MMORPG
is spend soloing and indeed most of my real life is spent
soloing. Both my online life and my real life is in fact VERY
social still.
The best things in life or the most important things in life are
usually done in a group, but the vast majority of your time is spent in
solo activities.
If I was a game designer I would make the majority of my game
soloable. The tastiest bits would require a group effort
though. That is you can max your level and visit every area if
you are skillful, but if you want the very best items and to kill the
very meanest mobs you have to do it with a group.
Playing a single player RPG gives better NPC interaction but no player interaction whatsoever. Sure part of an MMO is grouping. But many people either don't have the time (or the patience) to group with other players but DO like interacting with them via trade, conversation, combat, etc.
Why people have such a hard time grasping that is beyond me.
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
For some reason, you believe that people who want to be able to solo in an MMO and complain about lack of soloable content do not like to group and socialize with other people. The first step to understanding the position of other people is not to make broad assumptions about them for no good reason.
For example, grouping is not really related to socializing. I've been in plenty of groups with no socializing happening whatsoever, where the group just goes in runs a dungeon or kills some stuff, with no talk beyond 'rogue watch your aggro' 'mage AOE here'. And since these games have chat systems, someone can easily socialize with a guild or friends without even being in the same area as them. A lot of times, I find it easier to socialize with people when soloing because I have an easier time finding breaks in the action to type things and read what others have written. It's quite possible for there to be someone who likes grouping but not socializing, and for someone to like solo content because it's easier to socialize.
And wanting solo content in a game doesn't mean that a person never wants to group. Personally, I really enjoy grouping with friends or with a PUG that I can leave if it turns obnoxious or is grossly incompetent. That doesn't mean that I'm interested in a game where I have to be in a group to make any progress, and especially not a game where I have to be in a specific mix of group (tank, healer, some specific caster, etc.) to do anything.
Even if someone never wants to group to do a single thing in a group in the game, there's a lot that an MMO offers that a single player game doesn't offer. You can't PVP in single player, can't sell stuff on a market, crafting is pretty limited since you can't craft for anyone, can't take your character and do silly emotes at someone, and a whole host of other things.