General Discussion

Would you play a forced grouping game?

In otherwords, this game would not be like WoW, where  you can do almost all the quests by yourself, and you can group if you want to, but it's not necessary because you level just as fast not grouping. (I"m talking about pre-max level, i.e. BEFORE WoW turns into  a raiding game).

 I'm not saying you couldn't do ANYTHING without a group, but leveling (or gaining skill points in a skill based game) would be 4 or 5 times slower solo than in a decent group.

You could access all the content, and get all the same gear,  but you'd have to level, and come back to lower level zones to do some of the dungeons solo to get the gear, etc.

Soo you mean kind of how FFXI did it?

If so then yes, I would love to play a new mmo that forced players to grouping if they want to advance in levels at a fair rate.

So tired of every mmo I play and no one wants to group :(

The post/question makes no sense to me.

Edit:  Oh, you edited the OP.  It was cornfusing before.

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

Soo you mean kind of how FFXI did it?

If so then yes, I would love to play a new mmo that forced players to grouping if they want to advance in levels at a fair rate.

So tired of every mmo I play and no one wants to group :(

Yes and no. Forced grouping yes, not necessarily as much of a grind as FFXI.

Not only am I sick of games where you don't have to group, but in games like WoW, even groups aren't that much fun, because they don't require that much teamwork.

It seems like pre-raid level in WoW, a group was almost the same as playing solo. IN other words, a group of 5 players could run around and kill mobs almost like they were playing solo, whereas in a good grouping game, you made much better xp by working together really well, and if you didn't pay attention you got the party wiped.

I like that sort of game play.

Originally posted by Thradar

The post/question makes no sense to me.

Edit:  Oh, you edited the OP.  It was cornfusing before.

Sorry. It was confusing before.

I would really love for an MMO to put into place several incentives for grouping through the game. Maybe make it so certain player classes and skill-combinations need other player classes in order to be effective in combat - I've seen this kind of thing in crafting (one crafting profession requiring components crafted by another profession in order to build something), so why not implement it in everything else? For example, in real combat, a sniper will always need a spotter, and vice-versa - I think it would be awesome if MMOs had that inter-class dependency. 

But yes, I would probably play an MMO focused on grouping. The only thing is that the MMO would also have to support a very active and robust player population, otherwise you'll just have a bunch of people sitting around and twiddling their thumbs.

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Originally posted by gillvane1
Would you play a forced grouping game?
In otherwords, this game would not be like WoW, where you can do almost all the quests by yourself, and you can group if you want to, but it's not necessary because you level just as fast not grouping. (I"m talking about pre-max level, i.e. BEFORE WoW turns into a raiding game).
I'm not saying you couldn't do ANYTHING without a group, but leveling (or gaining skill points in a skill based game) would be 4 or 5 times slower solo than in a decent group.
You could access all the content, and get all the same gear, but you'd have to level, and come back to lower level zones to do some of the dungeons solo to get the gear, etc.

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I play FFXI, so I *do* play a forced grouping game, which works pretty much exactly as you have described it. And I enjoy it a lot, as do a lot of other people.

Forced Grouping is a big no-no.

These games can be fun if you have a core group of friends that play 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, but otherwise, the pain in the ass it is to find groups of non-idiots of the appropriate classes/and or skills and levels is a titanic nightmare.

Grouping doesn't necessarily  take more skill than soloing, often, the reverse is true. Only when you truly challenge the group does grouping require much skill at all. A level 50 soloing level 50 stuff is more difficult than a group of level 50's grinding level 50 stuff to gain xp at a maximum rate with no chance of death.

I was given a free month of Vanguard here this month and because of its "Vision" (tm) system, I'm almost stuck at level 18 because 95% of my quests are group only and I can't find a group (I've managed to group *gasp* twice in 18 levels for a quest).

Sure, it isn't as much of an issue in a hugely popular (or at least, populated) game when it comes out (AoC and LOTRO come to mind), but if you fall behind the leveling curve, you're doomed.

Grouping should be a fun alternative for a challenge, not a requirement. It should be faster than soloing IF you are going up against challenging content, not just grinding easy stuff with no fear of wiping. But often, game companies CAN'T reward groupers with more than just the better loot drops because of the botters out there will do 6 chars at once to maximize their xp gain, etc.

no matter what people say about how succesful ffxi is, it's not compared to any non-grouping game, the games fail because groups become a hastle and pre-build settup such as if you have  this, this, this and this in your group you cant fail, otherwise you always fail. the system doesnt work in the same sense that not every active gamer plays at the same time so grouping becomes half or moreso of your played time