Is this game, like most mmo's out in the last few years, a single player with optional grouping ?

I heard the game is heavily instanced.

One of the main reasons I avoided it. So.. I'd presume its mostly solo.

i played the beta solo all the time. Only one time i joined one other player to do some quests. But i never needed help to finish any quests. I noticed the second beta was so easy... bosses were a lot easier to kill than in the first beta. Not sure on release because im not buying it.

EDIT: also... for some reason that was the only game i was not tempted to even talk in general chat....

Originally posted by citalkay

I heard the game is heavily instanced.

One of the main reasons I avoided it. So.. I'd presume its mostly solo.

You know what they say about assumptions right? Not sure why you would answer a post like this with zero knowledge of the game...

There are instances between the giant maps, but its not as lame as AoC where it was a giant open field then a lottle wagon guy you had to click on to go one to the next instance...at least here its realistic...aside from argatha.

There are solo dungeons too but they seem pertty rare, think ive come across 2-3.

Other than that, you get bonuses for grouping, everything goes faster, its easier with more minds as far as difficult stuff goes..and theres no penalty or restrictions to who you can group with...the vet can group up with the noob in kingsmouth and they will both get 2ap and 1 sp worth of XP for a misson, generally speaking..the rewards and the xp gain for AP/SP is flat.

its a pretty group friendly game, especially since servers only matter for pvp....meaning you can group with anyone in game across any server (except french and german server maybe...not sure about that one)  However chat is across servers as well so chatting with friends or joining a cabal(guild) on another server is acceptable aside from pvp.

Also, just about every mission can be repeated, so you really wont find people who cant help you because its already been done...unelss it was completed in the last 24hrs at least.

Game is not heavily instanced.  Its the same as most other games of its types.  Large zones with some solo/story instance and some dungones instances.

Games has a number of dungeons and some bonuses for grouping, but it basically follows the WoW-model of solo vs grouping type stuff.

In this regard its pretty standard.  An argument can be made that its even more single player oriented since many quests require individual thinking/detective work and the only thing a group would do is cause spolier.  I guess if you group with a boy scout he could do the morse code deciphering for you.

I was going to say heavily solo based, I went in with the mindset I was playing a single player game with co-op, but after last nights game I'm not so sure. Yeah, you can run around and solo everything, but it's so easy to just invite someone nearby to join you and have some fun that way. It might be because I was healing them before inviting them that they were more amiable, but I grouped up three times last night with three different people for a total of 6 hours, so I wasn't disappointed. One of them even went out of their way to join up when I said in LFG that I was having trouble with a quest.

So sure, it can be played solo and mainly that's how I play it, but for grouping.. well, the option is there and people don't seem abject to taking the offer.

Originally posted by citalkay

I heard the game is heavily instanced.

One of the main reasons I avoided it. So.. I'd presume its mostly solo.

Such nonsense..

Please refrain from ansering these questions if you don´t know what you´re talking about and leave the answering to people that actually played the game.

In general most of the questing works well solo, the main dungeons have a 5 man group requirement, tough a LFG tool is missing.  You can easilly join PvP solo and then join the zerg in mass PvP or be grouped up in the smaller PvP zones. 

You can group and the quests will be much easier and faster however I have been soloing about 95% of the time and I find way more enjoyable.

Originally posted by cujo603

Is this game, like most mmo's out in the last few years, a single player with optional grouping ?

They found a good balance in making it soloable, but grouping recommendable. You can finish all the zone quests solo (at least in the first 3 zones that I played), however, you will have to change your deck frequenlt to be able to do so. AoE build here, single target there, then some tanking hybrid for another quest. Playing at leat as a duo makes questing much more conveniant and efficient.

So the anser in short is, besides the dngeons you can solo everything, but the game and difficulty encourages you to team up with other players. A good design in my opinion. If you focus on one specific build only and insist on using it on each quest against every mob, you will hit a wall in blue mountain!

I would say it is more accomidating to what you prefer to play really than being solo or group based or friendly. The buff you get from being grouped is not a breaker to weather you should or should not group or solo, but yet also it still gives a good reason to group with allowing you to do content either much faster or much harder content; also how really your deck's can be thinned out to add more utility to them with the other players bringing things like afflictions, hinders, and such to make it that you need to less worry about having the synergy in your sole deck. So it is more if i were to say it is one thign or anothher it would be playstyle choice, with good advantages and disadvantages for going either way, now the issue is more how does the playyerbase feel about grouping. I have always been more worried about how well recieved the pug groups are, as in every mmo i have player guild or friend groups are very plentiful in them, while pugs are scorned at really.

It's weird, the game on the whole is an excellent single player game well worth the box price alone, the MMO features are also pretty good. I much prefer to see other people in my RPGs rather than just AI.

Like many recent MMOs though there is no forced grouping here, so you pretty much could solo everything apart from the 8 dungeons, and obvisouly in PvP you will have to interact with other players.

Originally posted by citalkay

I heard the game is heavily instanced.

One of the main reasons I avoided it. So.. I'd presume its mostly solo.

I would not say heavily instanced no... There are some quests but most are done in the main world with everyone else running around..

Is this a solo or group game?

Well thats up to you really as you can play it how you like...

Groups get slightly better drops and some quests are better to run in groups and of course there are the dungeons and stuff that have to be done in a group.

Saying that if you wanted you can run through most of the quests solo if you wanted, some get quite hard by yuorself tho so you will probally die a few times.

So if you want to solo then solo, if you want to group up then group up.. your choice.. but your not forced into anything unless you want to run the dungeons.

TSW is no more or less group oriented than any other MMO since WoW. However, depending on your overall gear stats and skills, the later zones in the game could be quite challenging, and grouping for ordinary content may make your life a great deal easier.

That said, it almost feels like the average MMO player nowadays thinks that grouping for anything but dungeons is just a sign of weakness, because you're "not good enough" to complete content on your own. In all the MMO's I've played in the last 7 years, grouping for ordinary content was a rare sight.

Originally posted by SpottyGekko

TSW is no more or less group oriented than any other MMO since WoW. However, depending on your overall gear stats and skills, the later zones in the game could be quite challenging, and grouping for ordinary content may make your life a great deal easier.

That said, it almost feels like the average MMO player nowadays thinks that grouping for anything but dungeons is just a sign of weakness, because you're "not good enough" to complete content on your own. In all the MMO's I've played in the last 7 years, grouping for ordinary content was a rare sight.

I totally agree to the second oberservation, but I think the game is a bit more group oriented then WoW and most other MMO's (except Final Fantasy XI/XIV). In WoW they even removed group quests in the last two expansions and all the quests while leveling are around the same difficulty while you are questing through the zones and do everything at the intended level. Here the content actually gets harder the farther you progresses and the game gives you the following choise: either you insist on doing everything solo, then you need to come up with multiple decks for different quests and be willing to poke for quite a bit on certain enemies. You might even need to backtrack and redo quests in order to get the AP/SP you need to overcome later zones. OR you group and you will be able to quest in areas that would require much narrower specialisations for soloing or are simply a bit tedious. By this choise the game emphasizes on grouping, or at least encourages the choise.

Originally posted by cujo603

Is this game, like most mmo's out in the last few years, a single player with optional grouping ?

I had three friends of mine playing in a maraton session from 10am to 00:30am the next day as a group. I was on vacation and a bit sad to miss out on that. Especially the puzzle quests must be so rewarding doing together with somebody so you can bounce of ideas for solving them.

I would say that TSW is a solo AND group friendly game, so you can play it how you want to. There is some content that requires grouping, like the dungeons, lairs or region bosses or content where it's helpful to cooperate with other players like the persistant PvP zone Fusang.

To me, it's the perfect mix of soloable content and a group friendly game that encourages cooperation.

Originally posted by rojo6934

i played the beta solo all the time. Only one time i joined one other player to do some quests. But i never needed help to finish any quests. I noticed the second beta was so easy... bosses were a lot easier to kill than in the first beta. Not sure on release because im not buying it.

EDIT: also... for some reason that was the only game i was not tempted to even talk in general chat....

so, how often did you team up in other games to do solo player quests? =)

So far I've played it mostly solo. The chat for LFG for dungeons is kind of befuddling and has put me off more than one or two runs of the instances. (people are gearchecking...really???). I browsed a few people's gear for a Polaris group(The first instance) and some were in QL0 (starter gear) and we did just fine. Since you can rerun dungeons for decent xp people are doing QL5 and the like groups for the starter dungeon...Crazy...anyways I digress.

Originally posted by Terronte

So far I've played it mostly solo. The chat for LFG for dungeons is kind of befuddling and has put me off more than one or two runs of the instances. (people are gearchecking...really???). I browsed a few people's gear for a Polaris group(The first instance) and some were in QL0 (starter gear) and we did just fine. Since you can rerun dungeons for decent xp people are doing QL5 and the like groups for the starter dungeon...Crazy...anyways I digress.

 

Thats just stupid, in Polaris there are blue QL3 drops.... green QL5 drops are better in nature then Blue QL3 drops.  Ql4 (average) is the highest level you should play Polaris..

Keep in mind that its advisable to keep gear and skills at the same (QL) level.

Posted it in another thread with the same topic. It's like this:

The first 2 areas are simple. You do not feel the need to group. It is the same feeling you get in other games "i'd rather do my stuff alone, take breaks whenever i want etc instead of waiting for some other people to do their shiz".

Things change starting from the 3rd area. Mobs get tougher, places get more crowded, you don't wanna pull adds because you risk death and it's a long way back. Quests get more difficult. Still, solo-able, but if you "accidentally" get in one group, you can see it's worth it: things usually go very very smooth.

The game favours group play. Usually, finishing a quest leads you to a place where another quest starts and so on. Usually, i log on, take a quest, go to the quest area, meet other people doing the same thing and either having a group which i'll usually join, or not having a group - in this case i'm starting one. When the adventure ends, we add each other as friends (if things went good etc.) Now i'm getting tells asking for groups in the first 5-10 minutes after i log in. I'm currently in the 5th area, finished the story there, can follow the story to go ahead but won't do it before i clear the area.

Now, my TSW experience consists in joining or making groups and playing together for 2-4 hours. The game does not "force" you to group in the way EQ did but if you group, you will feel the benefits, trust me.

Originally posted by Terronte

So far I've played it mostly solo. The chat for LFG for dungeons is kind of befuddling and has put me off more than one or two runs of the instances. (people are gearchecking...really???). I browsed a few people's gear for a Polaris group(The first instance) and some were in QL0 (starter gear) and we did just fine. Since you can rerun dungeons for decent xp people are doing QL5 and the like groups for the starter dungeon...Crazy...anyways I digress.

 

The fact is you will see this as players hate waisting time in instances with undergeared or players that do not know better. I mean look at wow and such where you almost need to be at a point where you do not need the gear to run an instance for most people's groups. Yet this is mostly pug groups where they are looking to maximize thier enjoyment/speed of play, all games will have this to some extent, as it is more on the player side not the game side.