Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Kyleran

I can find myself a court and play one vs one if I want to.  Same game, same rules, same scoring system, and I don't need anyone else on my team. 

But I disagree that you can't make a game solo friendly and have satisfying grouping.  All it takes is scalable mobs, that adjust their strength to the size/power of the group facing them.  (and give corresponding better rewards)

Most people don't group because the rewards for grouping don't outweigh the challenges of working with a group.

Give people 1.5X exp/gold/drops  vs solo play and you see a whole lot of folks suddenly want to group.  Add in the challenge of scalable mobs and you have a game that supports both solo and group play.

 

 

 

Scalable mobs? Are you serious? I HATE scalable mobs. Might as well have an "I win" button.

 

A valid argument that I can't counter with reason?  I hate those!

Might as well have  an "I win the argument" button and save us all the time.

 

I will gladly spell it out for you.

RPG means ROLE PLAYING GAME. IN a COMPUTER role playing game, that means character progression.

The fun thing about character progression is overcoming challenges that are set in stone, at least for me.

This mob is X. He is not X-1, or X+2, or X-20. He is ALWAYS X.

When I am tough enough, OR have a tough enough group I can beat X, but not before.

Scaleable Mobs mean I'm always tough enough, because he just scales to whatever I am, or whatever goup I have.

That was my biggest complaint about City of Heros.

Scaleable mobs destroy the entire fun of character progression, and group challenges, IMO.

 

Well, I can concede your point about why you dislike scalable mobs, however I'm willing to bet you won't bother going to challenge a mob of a certain X value until you are fairly certain you can't lose, (esp if a game has harsh death penalties) therefore its still an automatic "I win" scenario in any case, (as is true with almost all PVE content)

But you overlooked my 2nd point, which was how about bumping up the group rewards so that content can be conquered by both solo and group, but far faster (not greater) rewards await those willing to group.

So many of the older MMO's actually penalized people who grouped unless they were willing to take on a much greater risk than frequently the rewards were worth, esp with death penalties and low drop rates.

 

 

Much of the thread has been about loot.

I"m talking most about XP, not so much loot.

Some games like CoH don't even have loot.

It's mostly about the rate of xp. Solo players generally want the same exact xp groups get, even though grouping usually takes double, triple, four times or more the time to coordinate and maintain than solo play.

As for the first poin, it's not about teh "i win", so much as the I have made it over this bar. Doesnt' mean much when you can just change the bar.

"I can beat this mob when I'm level 12, or when I have a six person group that knows what they are doing at least levels 8 and 9."

That's a bar you can cross that measures character progression.

"I can beat this mob, today at level 8, tomorrow at level 12, now with 2 people, tomorrow with 7 people, whatever it just scales  in difficulty...."

So what, who cares? Why work your way up to beat the mob when you're level 12, or work to get a group fo 7 and eights? Just go in and beat it now while you're level 5, you know, it scales.

 

If a mob dies, it should give out a certain number XP points.  If I kill it myself, I should get all of it.  If you did it with 5 friends, you should all have to split that.  How is that so hard to understand?

No you SHOULD get all of the XP. BUT it should also take you 5times as long..

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

This is not sufficient for the solo player.

FORCED GROUPING, means the solo player cannot level, or earn skills, JUST AS FAST as teh grouped player.

Anything less, and the solo player will cry "FORCED GROUPING!"
 

That's entirely wrong.  What soloers want is the ability to see the same content and do the same things and get the same gear as the team player.  There's no expectation that it'll be done as fast or as easily.  Take Anarchy Online for example.  There's a common leveling spot in Shadowlands where you fight Mortiigs, pretty much ever SL player goes there and it's strictly team-only or you'll die.  However, over time they become easier and can be soloed, although by then most teams have moved on to harder, higher-XP prey, but even that will eventually  be soloable.  There's no expectation that a solo player ought to be able to run in at level 60-70 and solo Mortiigs, but eventually, probably around level 90-100, they could do it.

Where solo players rightfully scream "forced grouping" is in games where you cannot get something, cannot fight a mob, cannot get gear *AT ALL* without a group.  Ever.  They have every right to be pissed off at that.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Then you punish group players by taking away the satisfaction of team play.

All you're saying is you prefer solo play, so it's better to punish the group player than the solo player.

Either way one player is not going to be happy. Which is fine. You can't ad RvR and make the FFA PvP player happy either.

Exactly how does what anyone else do affect your "satisfaction"?  Is your emotional well-being utterly damaged because someone else can do something solo that you need a group for?

Maybe you ought to stop being so concerned about what everyone else is doing and just play the damn game.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You like solo games. Yes, we get it.

You hate the ability for anybody to play solo.  Yes, we get it.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by madeux

Originally posted by Khaunshar

Guys, can we just agree that for the hardliner solo gamers, there is no acceptable solution that doesnt put EVERYTHING at their hands solo, and nothing exclusively, or even just with a certain advantage, to group players? Its the same argument every single time all over again: As soon as grouping as a slight advantage, or some exclusive content, one part of the soloist playerbase will scream they are "forced" to group.

On the flip side, as has been tried and proven several times, modern MMO players play primarily by efficiency and progress. Extremely solo-centric games in recent history have often proven to be silent, isolated experiences for many people, in which it is also extremely hard to get any kind of socializing going because people quickly arent used to it anymore. And interestingly enough, these people leave pretty quickly because they dont feel involved in the game much.

So, you cannot make a game that is fine for the solo hardliners, and at the same time keeps a lot of people playing because it will lack the social "glue" to make it a real MMO experience for many players, even though they themselves dont seem to realize what it is that makes them disinterested and disconnected.

Your argument might have some validity if the most popular game on the planet were not so solo friendly... Try harder next time.

 

Popular = better.

Really?

Perhaps you should try actually reading the posts?

He stated "you cannot make a game that is fine for the solo hardliners, and at the same time keeps alot of people playing".  Nothing was said about it being better, simply about the number of people playing it.

Get it?

Originally posted by Khaunshar 

Then why exactly is WoW considered a "forced grouping" game by many of the hardliner soloists, even in this thread? Why is it that even today, I often see people advocating for so-called casuals that WOW is too hardcore? WoW is actually a rather decent balancing act, with a slightly too strong solo-side in the late WotLK, but not all that bad. And the soloists arent happy because of raids, instances etc.

Actually WoW has a very solid solo side in the leveling phase of the game and then flips to a very strong grouping game at the end-game.  Once you reach level 80 the solo content starts to dry up pretty fast.  Once you finishe the quest line you are left with dailies, crafting/gathering and non-team PvP.  Almost all the newer content and gear is available through group play only.  The balance majorly tips toward group play. 

Personally, I am a solo to small-group type of player so I get to experience more of the content then a pure soloist but the raid content is not for me.  After a while I exhaust the content made for my playstyle and want to progress to newer content but usually that content is raid content.  Too often when a new patch is released the raiders get a big flashy new raid instance and the non-raiders get scraps.  This created the Raid or Quit problem when raiders would get new content and the non-raiders could either raid or quit the game.  Blizzard has been moving away from that but they are still lagging. 

I feel for both sides.  I myself prefer to mostly solo, yet there have been many games where that inhibits the kind of loot you get.  I generally don't mind, and am fine with having mediocre loot, however, I am opposed to it when it puts me at a severe disadvantage to gaining experience.  I would cite DDO as an example.  Run through the same dungeon seven times on solo and you might get the same experience doing it once with a group on Hard or Elite.  I get why they do that, I just don't agree with it. 

As for groups, I thought Vanguard was a rather good game for grouping.  There were several areas i could not go with my bard unless I had a group.  The ant hill being one example. 

In the end, I think if you use instances, you should be able to easily create a solo and group friendly game.  Without them, I'm afraid you're going to see the same thing over and over, solo and group content, neither of which completely satisfies the extreme solo or group player.

As a side note, LotR, which I'm presently playing for the first time, seems to have a good handle on grouping and solo content.  Group quests continue the storyline, solo quests are intermediary objectives set up to enhance your skill in between the chapters.

Imhotepp, it seems you would enjoy MMOs a lot better if you weren't constantly measuring your character against others.  If you want to compete with others, that's fine, but you seem to want to shut down or remove any playstyle or path that is different from yours... and that isn't really going to work out well for you either. Even if you got rid of xp boosts, rest multipliers, and soloability there would still be other factors by which you'd feel someone else is excelling beyond you.

If you're having fun playing, don't worry about the other players. You'll probably find the game even more fun and a lot less frustrating that way.

Sorry, didn't read all the posts.  CoH/CoV is the master of a great grouping game with great solo.  No game does it better.
 

Yet it's the heavy instancing that allows it to do so.  I played it for 5 years, yet many of you hate instancing even though it can mean better gameplay.

Really don't see the need for all this discussion.

A solo noob gains A xp/hour.
A solo expert gains B xp/hour.
A group of average players should gain vaguely B xp/hour.

This means a group of experts will make more XP than they would soloing, but not by a whole lot. It also means that a solo expert typically makes about the same while grouping, which gives him enough incentive to join groups (because if the average group made less XP, the expert wouldn't join groups; which is sadly how Planetside's XP system worked.) Overall grouping is slightly better than soloing.

This setup lets players do whatever the hell they want and get vaguely balanced progression.

I really don't see how someone could disagree with this setup, unless they were trying to force others to play the way they enjoy.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Really don't see the need for all this discussion.

A solo noob gains A xp/hour.
A solo expert gains B xp/hour.
A group of average players should gain vaguely B xp/hour.

This means a group of experts will make more XP than they would soloing, but not by a whole lot. It also means that a solo expert typically makes about the same while grouping, which gives him enough incentive to join groups (because if the average group made less XP, the expert wouldn't join groups; which is sadly how Planetside's XP system worked.) Overall grouping is slightly better than soloing.

This setup lets players do whatever the hell they want and get vaguely balanced progression.

I really don't see how someone could disagree with this setup, unless they were trying to force others to play the way they enjoy.

*cough* FFXI*cough* See this is one of the problems....Soloist say they want just that ^^^^. But then when I say FFXI they are "OH nos we can't have that it forces us to group"

DOES NOT!. example: solo newb in ffxi will earn around 90xp a minute, a expert (and depending on the class) will get around 180xp a minute. and a avrage groupe will make about 180 a minute, and a expert group will make around 300xp a minute

(Alot of this depends on how good the group is/and what level you are/What class you are)

So if this is the formula that the soloist want....great!  but somthing tells me that it isn't...

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Originally posted by Dewm
So if this is the formula that the soloist want....great!  but somthing tells me that it isn't...

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If people complain about balance when a game is balanced (and they will, on occasion) they're being jerks -- and it really doesn't matter what they say. :P

Originally posted by Axehilt

 

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Originally posted by Dewm
So if this is the formula that the soloist want....great!  but somthing tells me that it isn't...

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If people complain about balance (and they will, on occasion) they're being jerks -- and it really doesn't matter what they say. :P

its true, some one will always complain about somthing, eather way we could sit here all day and talk about it. but in the end its up to the devs...and unfortunatly it doesn't look good for my game style :(

*prays that FFXIV is good*

Honestly...i've play probably, 6 mmo's since FFXI, and I havn't found a game that is chalenging, such a cool/vast world, exiting, edicting, or as fun....and its sad. :(

Originally posted by RedwoodSap

Originally posted by rmk70

2 words: Ultima Online.

 

Discussion over.

 

Can't deal with isometric view only. I don't feel like my character, I feel like I am playing a strategy game.

UO needs a major graphic and interface update which would basically require a new game.

 wrong quote,sorry.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Imagine playing a game of Basketball like this.

You get a team together, and you go out on the court to play against another team. You've practiced with your team, and each member has his or her position to play, guard, forward, center, etc.

Suddenly, your center walks off the court, and gets another basket ball. He then walks up to the basket, and starts shooting. He tells you, yeah, the rules have changed.

He doesn't want to be FORCED to play as part of a team. But, he's still going to play the same exact game of basket ball, just the rules are a little bit different.

He can shoot at the basket, and you can't take the ball away from him, and he will score the same points as your "team" (xP).

So, why are you practicing, and playing different positions, and passing the ball now? What's the point? Oh, because it's FUN, and this guy tells you, don't worry, even though he's changed the rules, you still CAN play as a team. You know, if you really WANT to.

What? You don't really want to play as a team now that he's changed the rules? Why not? Well, it MUST be because playing as a team was never really fun, right?

Uh, no, it's because you've changed the rules to make playing as a team now irrelevant.

It's a silly argument to say changing the rules doesn't make any difference, and you should just play as a team for fun. I think everyone can agree that in this instance, teams would be irrelevant, and most people would just walk out on teh court and shoot at the basket.

Oh sure, they might form a team for  a few minutes and pass the ball around, then everyone would walk off and shoot baskets by themselves. Why not? The rules allow it, and it's MUCH easier than playing as a team. But you have to realize you've now destroyed the team play of the game. There is no way with such a rule change that the game is still the same for teams, but that's what solo players constantly argue.

I'll still LET you play as a team. I havent' changed anything, because you have the CHOICE! to play solo or as a team, so taht's better right?

If that was better, why dont' we make thaty rule change in Basket ball? Because it's retarded, and everyone can see it would destroy the team aspect of the game. It's not about FORCING everyone to play basketball as  a team player, it's about the GAME and the RULES which make Team play fun.

And so you 're not confused, the other "Team" in the MMORPG is the mobs you're fighting, not the other players.

 

 

AC 1 did it perfectly due to no having set classes .You chose skills instead of classes so could combine any combination you wanted to up to your credit max. (ie. An Archer with Life Magic for example) .By not being locked into a set class with only certain abilities to do only one thing you could choose both offensive as well as defensive abilities with crafting,lockpick or whatever you wanted to train up to max credit limit.Worked great so that everyone could pretty much solo or group if they planned their toon correctly discounting trade mules who only were used for crafting
They just need to get away from all this set in stone classes with no customization to solve the problem ie. Vanguard ,and everything would be fine although you could still gimp your character if you chose a crazy template like training Mace with Spear (2 Off weapons) and not picking Mellee def.
 

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Originally posted by Scubie67
AC 1 did it perfectly due to no having set classes .You chose skills instead of classes so could combine any combination you wanted to up to your credit max. (ie. An Archer with Life Magic for example) .By not being locked into a set class with only certain abilities to do only one thing you could choose both offensive as well as defensive abilities with crafting,lockpick or whatever you wanted to train up to max credit limit.Worked great so that everyone could pretty much solo or group if they planned their toon correctly discounting trade mules who only were used for crafting
They just need to get away from all this set in stone classes with no customization to solve the problem ie. Vanguard ,and everything would be fine although you could still gimp your character if you chose a crazy template like training Mace with Spear (2 Off weapons) and not picking Mellee def.

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The OP wasn't talking about whether a class in a given game can both solo and group.

(which, by the way, has nothing to do with skill- or level-based systems; in fact, in AC1 a player's more likely to make a mistake in his character build and be weak in solo or group play than in class-based games where the class is designed to work well in both.)

He was purely talking about whether you could advance in both. AC1 had a decent balance between solo/group XP as I remember, considering the hefty group XP bonuses you could accumulate. Don't remember AC1's group combat being terribly interesting (didn't you just fight normal mobs still; so grouping made things ridiculously easy?), but I only played for 2-3 months.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

 

This is not sufficient for the solo player.

FORCED GROUPING, means the solo player cannot level, or earn skills, JUST AS FAST as teh grouped player.

Anything less, and the solo player will cry "FORCED GROUPING!"
 

It does?

Last I heard, Forced means someone else is making you do something. No one's making you group but you.

Do you get less XP solo? Maybe, but you get the benefits of keeping 100% of the loot, nad not having to deal with 3-5 other people, some or all of whom might be total idiots. Seems a fair trade for a little less xp.

Now, there is such a thing as forced grouping in MMOs however. Look at (early) FFXI. Past 20 or so you could not possibly defeat much of the game content without at least a partner, usually a full group. Or EQ, where maybe 2-3 classes could kill anything even-conned at any level range, and anyone else needed a small army. Thankfully that's a lot less erious than it used to be. In WoW, there's maybe 3-4 specs (all healers) that cannot easily solo. And even those can to some extent, just at a slower pace. And AoC (as much as I hate it) retooled combat to where pretty much every class could solocontent at its own level, even healers. I'm fine with that. Sometimes I waant to group. Someitmes I want to solo. There will be benefits to each, and downfalls as well. I'm OK with that. Now if a game is made that past level x I can't kill anything without backup..then yes, that's forced grouping and I'd disapprove. But can't say I've seen anything like that come out in recent days.

Originally posted by Axehilt

 

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Originally posted by Scubie67
AC 1 did it perfectly due to no having set classes .You chose skills instead of classes so could combine any combination you wanted to up to your credit max. (ie. An Archer with Life Magic for example) .By not being locked into a set class with only certain abilities to do only one thing you could choose both offensive as well as defensive abilities with crafting,lockpick or whatever you wanted to train up to max credit limit.Worked great so that everyone could pretty much solo or group if they planned their toon correctly discounting trade mules who only were used for crafting
They just need to get away from all this set in stone classes with no customization to solve the problem ie. Vanguard ,and everything would be fine although you could still gimp your character if you chose a crazy template like training Mace with Spear (2 Off weapons) and not picking Mellee def.

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The OP wasn't talking about whether a class in a given game can both solo and group.

(which, by the way, has nothing to do with skill- or level-based systems; in fact, in AC1 a player's more likely to make a mistake in his character build and be weak in solo or group play than in class-based games where the class is designed to work well in both.)

He was purely talking about whether you could advance in both. AC1 had a decent balance between solo/group XP as I remember, considering the hefty group XP bonuses you could accumulate. Don't remember AC1's group combat being terribly interesting (didn't you just fight normal mobs still; so grouping made things ridiculously easy?), but I only played for 2-3 months.

You probably didnt play it long enough .Choosing skills means you have the option for instance a Battlemage with  War/Life Spec with creature /item trained could solo well and also could team up with an archer or a mellee and do vulns for them to weken monsters to allow them to kill quicker and more efficiently or the archer could have life magic trained and could handle vulns for him self(solo) or designate for others or do healing if needed.It had a lot of freedom to it.A set class these days may only do one thing well like heal and may not have def or off. capabilities.Also you chhose where to put exp earned in whatever you feel you needed whether trained or specialized so if you falling behind in one area you can bring it up to where you need it to have more effective character
 

Originally posted by Venger

Since mmos are fantasy virtual life simulators not team based sports your example is pretty bad. Unless you’re telling us you don’t leave the house without 5 of your friends?

LOL! I totally agree!!

 no, what the point of the thread is you can either have a soloable game or a game that uses groups to kill things, if you can kill it solo its way to easy to kill it with a group.  and if you need groups to kill stuff it cant be soloed.  thus you cant have everything in the game soloable and groupable, it just doesnt work, you have to have multiple kinds of content to pull it off and no one has really done it right yet, eq1 did it ok and everyone else has just been copying that system, which is badly outdated and not all that fun.

If I play any game where a solo player can defeat "super mega boss A" and get the best loot in the game from him, then I will not play it.  The game is now in "easy mode"

The game should allow any player (solo or in group) to reach lvl cap in one way or another, but should not allow them to beat everything in the game solo. 

I also don't know what the big deal is anyways, once you reach lvl cap or remove lvl's completly then you are only left with the game content.  Most of which will involve taking over places for control, and this will never been done solo.  If you are ONLY playing to raise your level, then you are not really playing at all.  You will hit max lvl and quit.  In that case you should be playing a real game, and leave the end game for the group players.

Originally posted by Krisevol

If I play any game where a solo player can defeat "super mega boss A" and get the best loot in the game from him, then I will not play it.  The game is now in "easy mode"

The game should allow any player (solo or in group) to reach lvl cap in one way or another, but should not allow them to beat everything in the game solo. 

Why not? Where is this rule carved in stone, and why should MMOs not stray from it?

I can understand you saying that you will not play an MMO that allows that, but to say unconditionally that MMOs themselves should not allow it just seems a bit arrogant, no?

Originally posted by Krisevol

If I play any game where a solo player can defeat "super mega boss A" and get the best loot in the game from him, then I will not play it.  The game is now in "easy mode"

The game should allow any player (solo or in group) to reach lvl cap in one way or another, but should not allow them to beat everything in the game solo. 

I also don't know what the big deal is anyways, once you reach lvl cap or remove lvl's completly then you are only left with the game content.  Most of which will involve taking over places for control, and this will never been done solo.  If you are ONLY playing to raise your level, then you are not really playing at all.  You will hit max lvl and quit.  In that case you should be playing a real game, and leave the end game for the group players.

MMOs are not real games then?

I do agree that the group content is most fun and there should be rewards for grouping but if some people like to play just to level it is their problem, not yours.

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Originally posted by Kyleran
But I disagree that you can't make a game solo friendly and have satisfying grouping.  All it takes is scalable mobs, that adjust their strength to the size/power of the group facing them.   
 

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neorandom:
no, what the point of the thread is you can either have a soloable game or a game that uses groups to kill things, if you can kill it solo its way to easy to kill it with a group.  and if you need groups to kill stuff it cant be soloed.  thus you cant have everything in the game soloable and groupable, it just doesnt work, you have to have multiple kinds of content to pull it off and no one has really done it right yet, eq1 did it ok and everyone else has just been copying that system, which is badly outdated and not all that fun.

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In City of Heroes you didn't fight different mobs. Just more of them, and possibly higher difficulty.

Besides which, who's seriously going to complain about there being a split between group and solo content? All players care about is whether they can do what they want (solo or group) and have fun playing! If that means fighting different mobs, so be it.

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Scubie67:
You probably didnt play it long enough .Choosing skills means you have the option for instance a Battlemage with War/Life Spec with creature /item trained could solo well and also could team up with an archer or a mellee and do vulns for them to weken monsters to allow them to kill quicker and more efficiently or the archer could have life magic trained and could handle vulns for him self(solo) or designate for others or do healing if needed.It had a lot of freedom to it.A set class these days may only do one thing well like heal and may not have def or off. capabilities.Also you chhose where to put exp earned in whatever you feel you needed whether trained or specialized so if you falling behind in one area you can bring it up to where you need it to have more effective character

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I understand how AC1's advancement worked, and I'm actually a pretty big fan of it (definitely the best skill-centric game I've played.)

But AC1 doesn't really have an advantage over class-based games in terms of solo vs. grouping capabilities. Classes are basically the designer promising the player to always bring a certain amount of usefulness to grouping, and typically (nowadays) also promise that each class can solo effectively. So even a bad player is going to provide a rudimentary amount of group utility (and it's known exactly which abilities he has, unlike AC1's system where you basically have to ask someone's spec.)

AC1's freedom also let players (who might be your groupmates) freely choose poorly, so you weren't guaranteed that same baseline of utility. I'm not real sure AC1 was worse than class-based games, but it wasn't significantly better.