If everything is so bad, why don't you come up with some suggestions on how to shorten downtime?

SInce FFXI introduced the Level Sync system it has made it much easier to find a group particularly for mid range players where the population is less.

It's pretty simple. If you have players at all different levels you can drop to a level decided by the party leader. You'll get XP as if you were at that level. It basically means that players of any level can play together if they wish.

You might still have to LFG, but there are more options available.

The answer is simple. Game after game stick with levels as a measurment of character development.

There has been a few exceptions. UO and SWG (pre-cu) to name a few.

Originally posted by spades07

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A vast amount of MMO content can easily be soloed, and two people together can blaze through that content at a hell of a rate - if you can manage it that way, why would you need any more players than that? People who feel they MUST group are just inept.

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There are instances in WoW, what point your purpose of going on about 'the vast amount of mmo content' when we are talking about grouping for instance, in WoW, we are referring to instances most likely. So your accusation of ineptness is quite bizarre.

I play WoW (amongst other MMOs) and you can trust me on this -  with regards to the grouping aspect, the whiny "forced grouping" players aren't referring to grouping for Instances. Instances are specifically designed for several players of the appropriate level, and you have to be a fair way over that specific level to solo an Instance. Nope, nobody means "forced grouping for Instances", which - if you'd actually thought about it - would be blindingly obvious.

No, the whiny players actually want "forced grouping" for normal PvE content, which is hilarious, given that PvE content (particularly in WoW) is so easy that grouping is wasting time.  Quests in WoW marked as being a 3-person quest can be soloed by ANY class, and with my DK I can solo WotLK quests that are supposed to be for a group of FIVE... yes, PvE in WoW is THAT easy. I've soloed virtually all the way to lvl 80, bar the times when I duo with a friend for a while, and if I can solo so easily I'm hardly going to drag along players who will be nothing more than a drain on my XP and who will be splitting my loot.

Short answer

Because MMORPG Means MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAME

If its a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER it will take some time to find willing and able geared players in this MASSIVE world to come do whatever MULTIPLAYER activity you want to do.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

No, the whiny players actually want "forced grouping" for normal PvE content, which is hilarious, given that PvE content (particularly in WoW) is so easy that grouping is wasting time.  Quests in WoW marked as being a 3-person quest can be soloed by ANY class, and with my DK I can solo WotLK quests that are supposed to be for a group of FIVE... yes, PvE in WoW is THAT easy. I've soloed virtually all the way to lvl 80, bar the times when I duo with a friend for a while, and if I can solo so easily I'm hardly going to drag along players who will be nothing more than a drain on my XP and who will be splitting my loot.

     Er, I'm hardly one to promote forced grouping, but it usually means making the content too difficult to solo.  That it's so easy is exactly the problem people who want forced grouping are usually complaining about.

     Typically goes something like this;  Any mob that'd be worth any half decent xp will be a close fight at best, one on one, but they almost always BAF.  So you can sorta solo, but progress painfully slowly, and die a lot, constantly getting jumped 2-5 vs 1.  You get so frustrated, you either join a group, or quit.  The upside to this, aside from the game being more of a challenge, is that there are way more groups to be had.

     As I'm trying to point out, though, the LFG frustration that comes with all that can be offset by giving players the tools to get around a lot of what makes it suck, and in so doing, just maybe it wouldn't even need to be forced afterall, so both sides of this issue could be relatively happy.

     I'm also not usually one to promote trying to make both sides happy in MMOs, as it usually means watered down crap that doesn't appeal that much to either side, but in this case, you've also got the issue of all the players that want to be able to solo sometimes, but want to be able to group sometimes, too - only to give up trying to do so, if it means spamming global for hours.

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Originally posted by Elder_CLOWN
The answer is simple. Game after game stick with levels as a measurment of character development.
There has been a few exceptions. UO and SWG (pre-cu) to name a few.

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I agree. Levels are a horrible mechanic that split the player base up. Typically, once a game gets up their in age, most people are max level and the mid level areas are dead and desolate and therefore horrible.

Originally posted by Elder_CLOWN

The answer is simple. Game after game stick with levels as a measurment of character development.

There has been a few exceptions. UO and SWG (pre-cu) to name a few.

1 Big level or a whole bunch of little levels grouped together.  Doesn't solve anything.  It just makes grouping even more convoluted.  Before you say it doesn't,  please say the group content in UO or SWG was superior to EQ or WOW and allow eveyrone to LOL.  Level based MMOs basically all have better group content than all the skill based ones.   The reason is that skill based MMOs have far too many factors per character to try to balance anything properly.   Once you find out the uber skill template, group content gets trivialized.  Happens every time.

Thats not saying it has to.  But its pretty hard to make group content work when theres no measuring stick..IE class or level.

Originally posted by Calintz333

Short answer

Because MMORPG Means MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAME

If its a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER it will take some time to find willing and able geared players in this MASSIVE world to come do whatever MULTIPLAYER activity you want to do.

Actually, that's "Massively-Multiplayer", as in "thousands of people interacting in the same venue".  Geographically large and unstructured game worlds work against the players by spreading them out, and make it difficult for people to find each other - and to get to each other.

There are game designs that would permit players to easily find each other, not have to group, and still operate as a team.  But they involve eliminating most personal rewards such as levels and loot.  For example, current games that try to concentrate players require that the players who come together agree on who gets what personal rewards.  In World of Warcraft, that is formalized as raids.  In EverQuest, players were practically standing on top of each other in the available dungeons and it was generally agreed that they would  respect other groups' claims on sets of monsters that they were farming.

If players didn't have to worry about who gets what, then there would be no need to have formal mechanisms to address that concern.  Players could happily congregate and tackle the same problems.  For example, show the player base a set of castles that need to be cleared and they'll just dive in and clear them.  Make the goal of clearing the castle to free its prisoners.  Every now and again, a prisoner is freed who can provide a new service to the player characters.  Such as teach them a new crafting recipe, or a new combat skill, etc.  The game changes for everyone as the content is worked through instead of that content being worked through by individual characters.

Once the castle is taken, move on to the next one.  The entire player base moves along through the geography of the game, leaving the old content behind and moving on to new content.  Just like a single player RPG, except that the entire player population fills the role of the single player.

Believe it or not, that's the short answer.

Originally posted by Caldicot

If everything is so bad, why don't you come up with some suggestions on how to shorten downtime?

A) Make more mobs and quest needing a group. EQ2 had a great swing from group quests/mobs towards solo friendly mobs. When people need to group it is easier to find a group, because many solo just because they are too lazy. Some just need a little nudge to find the enjoyment of grouping.

B) Make quests with less complicated steps. EQ2 was a hell in this. It was almost impossible to find people for any of those dozens of subquests and steps of any quests with someone being on the exact same part. EQ2 quests are unbelievable complex, and streamlining can really help a lot.

C) Give rewards for mentoring and quest helping, so people not just help you out of charity!

D) Make the layout of quests and the world so that things overlap, so even when you are not all on the same quests, you still can run through dungeon X as example and everyone accomplishes something.

E) Make group dungeons/zones not SO difficult that the XP & loot income of grouping is lower than soloing. VG has many terrible places which are for groups, but the XP and loot output is so bad, because you just die dozens of times. (Try Kragnors End at Dwarf area if you dont believe me.)

F) Many helpful looking for group tools, maybe where people on the same quests are grouped together automatically, if they activate that feature as option. Hard to believe but SWG doesnt even have a regional or global channel! How is anyone to find a group there?? Warhammer has a great feature where a group can set itself as "open" and anyone can just join, which is a great idea.

G) Create central player hubs where people meet and greet, and have a reason to go to. Like centralized Auction Halls. Those player hubs must be large, visually attractive and reachable even by low level characters. VG totally failed in this, for instance, while WOW has implemented this very successful. You can just go to Ironforge or Ogrimar or what and meet people, and thats definitely strengthens the community feeling.

H) Give players mounts early, so travel and getting the group together isnt a bit issue wasting away hours.

Given more time I could think of plenty more suggestions.

Originally posted by Elikal

F) Many helpful looking for group tools, maybe where people on the same quests are grouped together automatically, if they activate that feature as option. Hard to believe but SWG doesnt even have a regional or global channel! How is anyone to find a group there?? Warhammer has a great feature where a group can set itself as "open" and anyone can just join, which is a great idea.

This is my favorite idea.  I know some people wouldn't use it, would even scoff at the very idea of PUG being even less discriminating, but some of us just want to be social sometimes, work with others, without all the obsessing over optimal xp rates.    I'd just hope they'd put some thought into it, like different ways players might want to keep it limitted, to have some optional controls over the basics, like level range, or class limits - max number of healers, or tanks, or maybe one healer per tank, etc.  Could also be limited by faction or guild, or whatever social framework the game has set up, to encourage camaraderie - some "us vs them" can be a good thing, when it comes to bringing players together, when there's enough population for it.

I think there are tons of  players who just want to jump in and play these games.  The whole LFG thing not being built into the game just isn't intuitive enough at all.  Like we're just tossed into the gameworld and expected to be social enough to work it out.    Maybe in the old days, when groups looking for more were everywhere, but not now, where everyone's doing their own thing, or already wrapped up in their established circles.

Some players maybe aren't that social, some don't want to be that social, some can't be that social, but why should we really have to be?  Social dynamics make for lots of grey area, and MMOs are usually more about the grey area than the black and white.  How many of us fall somewhere between the antisocial and social butterfly, not one or the other.

That "Open Group" idea sounds good, as long as people would actually use it.  I boggle when I'm playing WoW and I end up in a zone where two or even three players are repeatedly saying "LFG" in the General Channel.  I'm thinking "Err, why don't you lot do the sensible thing and GROUP!"  What do they want - a golden ticket and a red carpet?

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Elder_CLOWN

The answer is simple. Game after game stick with levels as a measurment of character development.

There has been a few exceptions. UO and SWG (pre-cu) to name a few.

 

1 Big level or a whole bunch of little levels grouped together.  Doesn't solve anything.  It just makes grouping even more convoluted.  Before you say it doesn't,  please say the group content in UO or SWG was superior to EQ or WOW and allow eveyrone to LOL.  Level based MMOs basically all have better group content than all the skill based ones.   The reason is that skill based MMOs have far too many factors per character to try to balance anything properly.   Once you find out the uber skill template, group content gets trivialized.  Happens every time.

Thats not saying it has to.  But its pretty hard to make group content work when theres no measuring stick..IE class or level.

The problem here is you are stuck on 'group content'. That then leads to the necessity of a certain group to complete it. You feel there is no 'measuring stick' because you aren't looking beyond 'grouping' and 'levels'.

"The reason is that skill based MMOs have far too many factors per character to try to balance anything properly."

Actually, quite the opposite. Skill-based systems allow for devising tactics and strategies based on the group's strengths and weaknesses. It also means, in PvP situations, that players now have the added dynamic of discerning the enemy's strategy and working towards countering that. It's a more engaging game play than getting a healer, a tank and damage dealer together and repeating the same tasks in the same fashion over and over again from level 10 to cap.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

That "Open Group" idea sounds good, as long as people would actually use it.  I boggle when I'm playing WoW and I end up in a zone where two or even three players are repeatedly saying "LFG" in the General Channel.  I'm thinking "Err, why don't you lot do the sensible thing and GROUP!"  What do they want - a golden ticket and a red carpet?

people are funny.  if you build something into a game, so that it's pretty much automatic, sure, they'd use it.  make it optional, like actually communicating with eachother, and they'll err on the side of avoiding it.

I don't like solo games played online. If  you get rid of the need for a group, that's what you get, ala WoW before raiding, CoH, WAR, and others.

So take your pick. A solo game played online with other people, or a good grouping game.

Devs should make both for players that like each sort of game, but it is not possible to put both in the same game.

A game where you NEED to group, is called "forced grouping". A game where you CAN group if you want to but dont' have to for anything, is a solo game played online with other people. Again, take your pick.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

That "Open Group" idea sounds good, as long as people would actually use it.  I boggle when I'm playing WoW and I end up in a zone where two or even three players are repeatedly saying "LFG" in the General Channel.  I'm thinking "Err, why don't you lot do the sensible thing and GROUP!"  What do they want - a golden ticket and a red carpet?

Why group if you dont' really need to? You just waste the time required to group, with no reward for your effort. No one needs to group in WoW until you get to raiding.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Devs should make both for players that like each sort of game, but it is not possible to put both in the same game.

If you have ever been soloing and found yourself helping another player do something without grouping with them, then you have seen why it is possible for a game to have both soloing and grouping - because grouping as a formal activity should be abolished.

The problem here is you are stuck on 'group content'. That then leads to the necessity of a certain group to complete it. You feel there is no 'measuring stick' because you aren't looking beyond 'grouping' and 'levels'.

"The reason is that skill based MMOs have far too many factors per character to try to balance anything properly."

Actually, quite the opposite. Skill-based systems allow for devising tactics and strategies based on the group's strengths and weaknesses. It also means, in PvP situations, that players now have the added dynamic of discerning the enemy's strategy and working towards countering that. It's a more engaging game play than getting a healer, a tank and damage dealer together and repeating the same tasks in the same fashion over and over again from level 10 to cap.

 

The problem is the Power Level of an encounter.  If any three random players can beat an encounter then a team of three people whose skills complement each other will trivialize the encounter.

The reason why the tank/healer/DPS model is so popular is because it is great synergy.  The three character types shore up each other's weaknesses and thus massively increase the power level of the party.  A properly structured group will be at least a magnitude more powerfull then a group of thre characters lacking synergy.

So any staticly structured encounter will have a minimal Power Level requirement.  If a simple aggregate of the Power Level of the group members is below that (ie can't just DPS spam yourself to victory) then you have to leverage the group synergies to boost th group's Power Level.  At this point you get into the usual min/maxing thing where people try to figure out what is the minimal and optimal group setup needed to beat the encounter.  If the encounter is difficult enough certain skillset combinations wil not be able to beat it no matter how good the players are.

Originally posted by Torik

The problem here is you are stuck on 'group content'. That then leads to the necessity of a certain group to complete it. You feel there is no 'measuring stick' because you aren't looking beyond 'grouping' and 'levels'.

"The reason is that skill based MMOs have far too many factors per character to try to balance anything properly."

Actually, quite the opposite. Skill-based systems allow for devising tactics and strategies based on the group's strengths and weaknesses. It also means, in PvP situations, that players now have the added dynamic of discerning the enemy's strategy and working towards countering that. It's a more engaging game play than getting a healer, a tank and damage dealer together and repeating the same tasks in the same fashion over and over again from level 10 to cap.

 

 

The problem is the Power Level of an encounter.  If any three random players can beat an encounter then a team of three people whose skills complement each other will trivialize the encounter.

The reason why the tank/healer/DPS model is so popular is because it is great synergy.  The three character types shore up each other's weaknesses and thus massively increase the power level of the party.  A properly structured group will be at least a magnitude more powerfull then a group of thre characters lacking synergy.

So any staticly structured encounter will have a minimal Power Level requirement.  If a simple aggregate of the Power Level of the group members is below that (ie can't just DPS spam yourself to victory) then you have to leverage the group synergies to boost th group's Power Level.  At this point you get into the usual min/maxing thing where people try to figure out what is the minimal and optimal group setup needed to beat the encounter.  If the encounter is difficult enough certain skillset combinations wil not be able to beat it no matter how good the players are.

You're still thinking in terms of game design wrapped around the class-restricted/level-based game play. You're also focusing on group meaning x amount of people tethered together inside of a party system. You see the two options as either the Holy Trintiy or "any three random players" as opposed to the other alternative which simply does not and cannot exist in class-restricted MMOs - creating a group based on character skill and player strengths of the group members.

You'll notice that spawns are designed differently in skill-based MMOs than in class-restricted MMOs - it's actually radically different because you don't have a game design that has to insure the viability of set groups.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

You're still thinking in terms of game design wrapped around the class-restricted/level-based game play. You're also focusing on group meaning x amount of people tethered together inside of a party system. You see the two options as either the Holy Trintiy or "any three random players" as opposed to the other alternative which simply does not and cannot exist in class-restricted MMOs - creating a group based on character skill and player strengths of the group members.

You'll notice that spawns are designed differently in skill-based MMOs than in class-restricted MMOs - it's actually radically different because you don't have a game design that has to insure the viability of set groups.

I prefer to look it as a 'right tool for the job'  model.  If you need to break down a door you bring a sledgehammer and not a scalpel.  However, if you need to perform surgery a sledgehammer is not what you want.  As such certain encounters will be easier done if you have a certain skill set and will be much harder if you lack a certain skill set.  So if you know ahead of time what skillsets a particular fight requires you will bring characters that have those skillsets and avoid characters with skillsets that do not help the group beat the encounter.  In this skill-based vs class-based games really do not differ that much. 

examples

-if a fight causes a lot of AoE damage to the entire group then you will prefer to bring someone with grooup healing skills. 

-if the fight requires a lot of crowd control then characters without crowd control skills are not gonna be as in demand for it.

I've played both skill-based and class-based MMOs and I really did not notice a significant difference in mob design between them.  Could you give me a better example of what you are talking about?