Sounds like a nice idea. I would rather see it scaled at 10 and above though. Of course loot wise, the hardcore would be against giving out the same loot across the board. Which would be fine with me ... They could do loot like they do now, scaling the instance but only rewarding 10 man loot to all raids under 25 players. The amount of drops could go up based on the amount of people over 10 that you have.

 If done well, it could be really great. Sucks tryign to do a 10 man and having to pick who goes and who doesn't. Or you watn to do a 25 man .. but your 5 short.

Scaling instances would be awesome but I can see many issues with balancing. Most WoW instances are balanced for 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS with room for small variences. Do you scale the difficulty equally if you add another healer or another tank? Do you make the mobs hit harder if another healer is added or do you spawn more trash mobs if you get another tank? Do you make the mobs enrage faster if you add another DPS? I'm sure it can be done but I think a lot of factors play into how to make scaling work and maintain a challenge.

How is it that a game that boasts some 13 million players has a problem getting 40 people to work together? Older games like EQ, which had around 500k players at peak, were quite capable of putting together 72+ man raids. Instancing put a cap on raiding which in the long run has made it more difficult to fill out larger groups. When EQ offered large scale raids, large guilds were quite common. Once WoW came out with the 40 man raids, most guilds downsized to accomodate the raid size. Being that 41st person on a 40 man raid caused many players to leave guilds to look for a guaranteed raiding spot. This made matters even worse when you had a no show because fewer and fewer guilds maintained a large number of standbys which results in canceled raids if one or more people dont show. Recently it has become increasingly difficult for the 10-25 man raiders to fill out raids regularly because of the same problem.

WoW has even made it so that raiding rewards barely outshine the 5 man grouping rewards. Today, purple epic items have become the new blue rares.

scaling dungeons would be kewl, but i think that might create some odd ball gear they way Bliz currently gears.  You know something like a chest piece with 1 point on each stat increased.  How much of a requirement would it be to do the 7 or 9 man version before you do a 10 man raid? (silly)

One thing i found interesting in your article though is you said that even on your older server guilds were having problems filling the 25man version.  From my experience this tends to be the problem when everyone on the server just wants to be a guild leader.  100 guilds all with 17 players and not enough of a server community to just make 30 guilds with 50 players, then you can do a few 25 and a few 10mans, leaves lots of room open for alts runs etc.

I've been harping this idea around for a couple of years now. I am a diehard solo player and an amateur game dev in my own right and I've long believed this to not only be possible, but the wave of the future for mmo's. I think it will take some complicated formulae beyond the number of players that enter the instance, though. Classes, Talents and Gear will all have to be considered in order to accurately tailor a dungeon's difficulty. An instance will have to be able to adapt on the fly as well since players can swap out gear and even Talent builds, summon others in or have someone leave the group. The best approach to this may involve the formula being applied at the time that combat begins with an NPC rather than when a group enters the instance. In this way every fight is tailored to the group/individual rather than to those that entered.

I pay the same $15/month as everyone else and have long been discontent with why I must group in order to get the good gear. I am anti-social and I know it, but I much prefer to conquer all by my lonesome. If I enter The Eye solo (can you imagine it?) and every battle in there are just as difficult (respectively) for me as they are for a 25 man raid group then why shouldn't I be entitled to the same loot they would get?

There is still time and something like this could be worked out and implemented with Cataclysm. I can see where this would extend the life of a declining game as well. Whether you disagree as to whether or not that is happening with WoW it does eventually happen to all games and software companies can take preventive measures to forestall it.

Originally posted by Murashu

Scaling instances would be awesome but I can see many issues with balancing. Most WoW instances are balanced for 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS with room for small variences. Do you scale the difficulty equally if you add another healer or another tank? Do you make the mobs hit harder if another healer is added or do you spawn more trash mobs if you get another tank? Do you make the mobs enrage faster if you add another DPS? I'm sure it can be done but I think a lot of factors play into how to make scaling work and maintain a challenge.

 

How is it that a game that boasts some 13 million players has a problem getting 40 people to work together? Older games like EQ, which had around 500k players at peak, were quite capable of putting together 72+ man raids. Instancing put a cap on raiding which in the long run has made it more difficult to fill out larger groups. When EQ offered large scale raids, large guilds were quite common. Once WoW came out with the 40 man raids, most guilds downsized to accomodate the raid size. Being that 41st person on a 40 man raid caused many players to leave guilds to look for a guaranteed raiding spot. This made matters even worse when you had a no show because fewer and fewer guilds maintained a large number of standbys which results in canceled raids if one or more people dont show. Recently it has become increasingly difficult for the 10-25 man raiders to fill out raids regularly because of the same problem.

 

WoW has even made it so that raiding rewards barely outshine the 5 man grouping rewards. Today, purple epic items have become the new blue rares.

please post a recent link (anytime in 2009) from the official world of warcraft site states they have 13 million million subscribers at the moment or at any point this year .
 

Originally posted by Murashu

How is it that a game that boasts some 13 million players has a problem getting 40 people to work together?<~~~ LOL

Older games like EQ, which had around 500k players at peak, were quite capable of putting together 72+ man raids.

The reason why WoW has problems with the 40 mans is because a lot of people just don't have patients to wait on a party. People now days are all I want it and I want it now, running through dungeons lightning speed and when your done everyone jets.  When I played WoW i got to level 50 and got bored of solofesting all these crappy quests and going through the endless grind of getting gear.  You get a piece and you level so damn quick in the game in a day or 2 its obsolete and you have to go through another mindless speed run through another dungeon.

I guess my pace of gaming is slower than most the people in the world.  I just like to chill in parties and go out and adventure, I could care less about all these crappy kill x monster bullshit. If you're going to make quests make fewer longer and more interesting quests, but I guess that's not what the masses want.

LotRO is creating this scaling method with its skrimishes. I know its not exactly like what you suggested but it is close. I also think that since instanced raids have limits on players, it causes a problem of telling people your full and them people not showing up. To solve this problem I think that raids should be without a cap of players. If I can get 40 people together for a 25man raid, then wouldnt'i be stopped in real life. I dont think anyone would said "Hey Persians, this war is only for 1,000 people max! Can't you see there is only 300 Spartans? That is totally unfair!" If a guild can put together the forces, then let them!

Another idea is to create a instance for each encounter that is created but then have it accessible to others. So instead of having to be in the right group, you run up to the instance and a dialog box pops up. "Please enter Instance name and password." Therefore; the raids are instanced but persistant. Once everyone leaves the zone the zone is deleted after 30 minutes or can be manually deleted by the raid leader.

I know I sound crazy but with a bit of work and tweaking this could actaully work. As a result  of this, people could use 80 people for a raid that is suggested to be for 25men. Sounds fun to me. But they also have a choice of only taking 25 or even 20 men. 

Aside from raids, i think that dungeons should be designed like they used to be in EQ (think Karnor's Castle or Sebilis) then when a group enters the zone, they get a copy of thier own zone. They can set a name and password for it like mentioned above and have people join it. With this guild can create thier own "Karnor's Castle" and have fun with multiple groups and multiple camps all day/night. Once they are done and everyone is left for 30 minutes or the guild leader chooses to do so, the instance/zone is deleted. I also discussed possible treatments of dungeons in a formet post of mine called "why does everyone love instancing." I talked about another method there. I like this one better. There is no need for scaling when dungeons are treated this way.

Thanks for reading my wall of text:)

Swoogie McDoogie

Originally posted by googajoob7

please post a recent link (anytime in 2009) from the official world of warcraft site states they have 13 million million subscribers at the moment or at any point this year .
 

Sorry I don't visit the official site :(

I read the 13.1 million on wow.com and they mention where they got the numbers.

http://www.wow.com/2009/09/29/is-wows-audience-still-increasing/

Originally posted by Murashu

How is it that a game that boasts some 13 million players has a problem getting 40 people to work together? Older games like EQ, which had around 500k players at peak, were quite capable of putting together 72+ man raids.

  I think that overall statement is flawed. For one , no one said 40 man raids didn't happen. The overall community ... which is casual complained about it. There was a a HUGE gap in classic between raiding guilds and smaller guilds. I would guess the same percentage of people could raid 40 man in WoW as 72 in EQ.

 You would have to excuse my assumption though If everyone raided 72+ in EQ. I ws guessing not, but If everyone did and you could easily throw pugs together as well ... then I would have no earthly idea why they could not in WoW.

Originally posted by cukimunga

Originally posted by Murashu

How is it that a game that boasts some 13 million players has a problem getting 40 people to work together?<~~~ LOL

Older games like EQ, which had around 500k players at peak, were quite capable of putting together 72+ man raids.

 

The reason why WoW has problems with the 40 mans is because a lot of people just don't have patients to wait on a party. People now days are all I want it and I want it now, running through dungeons lightning speed and when your done everyone jets.  When I played WoW i got to level 50 and got bored of solofesting all these crappy quests and going through the endless grind of getting gear.  You get a piece and you level so damn quick in the game in a day or 2 its obsolete and you have to go through another mindless speed run through another dungeon.

I guess my pace of gaming is slower than most the people in the world.  I just like to chill in parties and go out and adventure, I could care less about all these crappy kill x monster bullshit. If you're going to make quests make fewer longer and more interesting quests, but I guess that's not what the masses want.

While this method is accepted by the masses becuase of its ease, it is not the best method to use. There are other ways of making a game easy, social, and fun(subjective I know)  without doing the kill 15 animals/humaniods. 

Games need to cut back on the crap quests and only have quality and important quests. I really dont give a damn if I get 15 boar intestines and give it to the Church so the orphans can eat. Keep experience speedy and focus on the group content OUTSIDE of instances/dungeons. Im not gonna go into detail.

Blizzard designs instances specically for a set amount of people. So, if its a 10 man raid then the trash and bosses will be balanced to be killed with 10 people.

If its a multi target boss encounter then the 10 man raid will be designed for 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS.

If you remove 1 or 2 of those raid members how do you rebalance the raid encounter?

If you remove a DPS then the boss health would have to lowered. If you remove a healer then the boss damage would have to be lowered. If you remove a tank then the number mobs would have to be lowered.

And thats just the mechanics of the raid instance. Loot is an entirely different and much stickier problem.

This clearly illustrates why Blizzard makes MMOs and people Garrett Fuller writes about them. People like Garrett Fuller dont understand the "big picture" or the "ripple effect".

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Blizzard designs instances specically for a set amount of people. So, if its a 10 man raid then the trash and bosses will be balanced to be killed with 10 people.

If its a multi target boss encounter then the 10 man raid will be designed for 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 DPS.

If you remove 1 or 2 of those raid members how do you rebalance the raid encounter?

If you remove a DPS then the boss health would have to lowered. If you remove a healer then the boss damage would have to be lowered. If you remove a tank then the number mobs would have to be lowered.

And thats just the mechanics of the raid instance. Loot is an entirely different and much stickier problem.

This clearly illustrates why Blizzard makes MMOs and people Garrett Fuller writes about them. People like Garrett Fuller dont understand the "big picture" or the "ripple effect".

Did you just read the OP and then begin your rant?

Had you read subsequent posts you'd know that it's believed that it can be done with the use of a formula that works out how difficult an encounter should be based on the group that attacks the NPC. If the Tank is removed prior to the fight then it doesn't matter because the mob gets "retooled" in difficulty at the commencement of that particular fight.

I'd like to note that this could be used for non-instanced mobs as well. PvE need not be confined to specific zones based on your level. This could be capped of course to not allow a level 5 to run through the Plaguelands unhindered. But will allow a level 45 in there where the next drops are that they might need to upgrade their gear.

Originally posted by cukimunga

If you&apos;re going to make quests make fewer longer and more interesting quests, but I guess that&apos;s not what the masses want.

That is what I miss about games like EQ. They had quests but they were longer, more challenging and thus more rewarding when you accomplished them. Quests in most MMOs today are nothing but a replacement for adventuring and killing mobs. They arent fun or rewarding.

Originally posted by Bama1267

Originally posted by Murashu

How is it that a game that boasts some 13 million players has a problem getting 40 people to work together? Older games like EQ, which had around 500k players at peak, were quite capable of putting together 72+ man raids.

 

  I think that overall statement is flawed. For one , no one said 40 man raids didn't happen. The overall community ... which is casual complained about it. There was a a HUGE gap in classic between raiding guilds and smaller guilds. I would guess the same percentage of people could raid 40 man in WoW as 72 in EQ.

 You would have to excuse my assumption though If everyone raided 72+ in EQ. I ws guessing not, but If everyone did and you could easily throw pugs together as well ... then I would have no earthly idea why they could not in WoW.

The OP didnt say they were not happening either, he said "getting 40 people to do anything was so difficult". After playing WoW for a while I agree with him and expressed why I think it has come to that.

Xiako sounds just like my brother. I love him, but when he plays WoW, hes an ASS.

Finding/Waiting around for a group is a PITA. Recalculating a mobs would be easy...and...why not lower EPL mobs to lvl 5 for a lvl 5 guy? If he ran all the way there, then he deserves it!  I've long thought that the RPG system is pretty rediculous.  In a FPS game, all you need is a gun and you can kill the guy whose been playing for 5 years.  Why is a white quality sword at lvl 1 1dps and at lvl 80, so much higher? 

Retooling loot is ALSO a no brainer. Scale it to their level. A lvl 5 guy is in ulduar with a lvl  65 and a lvl 80. If you equip it, then it scales to your level...and when you level, it scales again ;)   *That was easy*

The hard part is HOW MUCH loot.  In a 10 man OS run, you get a few items. On a 25 man, you get roughly 2.5x the number of drops. So...lower drop rate or number of items dropped in an intsance by the percentage.  How you say? Well Wow makes that easy as well. There are 1000s of items, and they each have an item level.  Give me drops that add up to that percent less...I can still get the purple that this boss drops, but other purple ends up as a blue...or a green (yuck). You could easily whipe up an equation that fills in the rounded off "item level" poitns with gold or something.

ANYWAY. If you take three seconds to talk about it, there is usually a solution.

Instances Need tanks and Healers. How would you scale if there were no tanks or no healers? (those two are often the most difficult to find).  I can't think of an easy way around their need.  Once again, i'm reminded of other action RPG games that don't even have healers...healing is done with potions and food. Perhaps an instance with no healers, removes the global cool down on health pots....but you'd spend a lot on potions! 

Whatever, where there is a will theres a way.

From all my discussion about changes to MMO's, the number one cause not to change things is $$.

MMO's are all about repeatable content....not only repeatable for the individual, but repeatable by millions of people...this is why the world is "persistant" so that someone else can do the quest I just finished.

In my mind, I see altering the instance to match the number and type of players as something that would make it MORE repeatable.

total bullshit.

i started raiding in the days of a 6 million playerbase when we were taking 5 people to pug the old 15-man instances and your 40-man consisted of 25 good players and 15 also-rans.

when they introduced the 20-man instances it was like the seas parted and we rolled the new bosses.

now you're telling me it's too hard to field 25 players when the playerbase has doubled?

screw you.

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Originally posted by cukimunga  You get a piece and you level so damn quick in the game in a day or 2 its obsolete and you have to go through another mindless speed run through another dungeon.

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my first wow dungeon was a vc run by a 43 pally and i was so bored that i left every group after that had someone who overleveled it.

YOU SUCK if you found dungeon runthroughs boring yet went through them of your own volition. if max level players got you gear so fast that you couldn't enjoy it, it's a failure of YOUR OWN DAMN SELF and not the design of the game.

Originally posted by axhed

 

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Originally posted by cukimunga  You get a piece and you level so damn quick in the game in a day or 2 its obsolete and you have to go through another mindless speed run through another dungeon.

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screw you too.

 

my first wow dungeon was a vc run by a 43 pally and i was so bored that i left every group after that had someone who overleveled it.

YOU SUCK if you found dungeon runthroughs boring yet went through them of your own volition. if max level players got you gear so fast that you couldn't enjoy it, it's a failure of YOUR OWN DAMN SELF and not the design of the game.

Thats right. Everyone sucks except WOW and the drooling epeen swinging  fanbois .  Man, they just dont get it do they?

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

I pay the same $15/month as everyone else and have long been discontent with why I must group in order to get the good gear. I am anti-social and I know it, but I much prefer to conquer all by my lonesome. If I enter The Eye solo (can you imagine it?) and every battle in there are just as difficult (respectively) for me as they are for a 25 man raid group then why shouldn't I be entitled to the same loot they would get?

I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you here, but I just wanted to point out two things within this paragraph which I see as possible flaws in your argument. First, the statement about wanting to conquer all by your lonesome.  MMOs are inherently set up for the social aspect of gaming, and as such, for anti-social people (of which I am as well) one either has to live with it or go play single-player games.

The second issue I have to address is the word you used in the last sentence of the quoted paragraph: entitled. Too often, and not only in the gaming culture, am I witness to people who have entitlement issues.  Just because you pay to play the game does not entitle you to anything aside from the experience. You have to put the effort into it to reap the rewards.

Of course, my entire reply here is just my opinion. Jussayin'.

Originally posted by axhed

 

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Originally posted by cukimunga  You get a piece and you level so damn quick in the game in a day or 2 its obsolete and you have to go through another mindless speed run through another dungeon.

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screw you too.

 

my first wow dungeon was a vc run by a 43 pally and i was so bored that i left every group after that had someone who overleveled it.

YOU SUCK if you found dungeon runthroughs boring yet went through them of your own volition. if max level players got you gear so fast that you couldn't enjoy it, it's a failure of YOUR OWN DAMN SELF and not the design of the game.

Axhed helped prove numerous points in this post, mainly why I hate the WoW community. :)

Originally posted by khaixiii

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

I pay the same $15/month as everyone else and have long been discontent with why I must group in order to get the good gear. I am anti-social and I know it, but I much prefer to conquer all by my lonesome. If I enter The Eye solo (can you imagine it?) and every battle in there are just as difficult (respectively) for me as they are for a 25 man raid group then why shouldn't I be entitled to the same loot they would get?

I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you here, but I just wanted to point out two things within this paragraph which I see as possible flaws in your argument. First, the statement about wanting to conquer all by your lonesome.  MMOs are inherently set up for the social aspect of gaming, and as such, for anti-social people (of which I am as well) one either has to live with it or go play single-player games.

The second issue I have to address is the word you used in the last sentence of the quoted paragraph: entitled. Too often, and not only in the gaming culture, am I witness to people who have entitlement issues.  Just because you pay to play the game does not entitle you to anything aside from the experience. You have to put the effort into it to reap the rewards.

Of course, my entire reply here is just my opinion. Jussayin'.

I don't pretend to know the inherent reasoning of why MMO's exist, but if I had to guess it would be more about competitive gaming than socializing, at least at the outset. Ultima Online and Everquest followed on the heels of multi-player First Person Shooter games. Games that offered a single player storyline and optional multi-player competitive gaming. At that time we had roughly a solid decade of personal computing gaming vs "the computer" behind us and we salivated at the chance to enter a persistant online world in which we could pit ourselves against other humans. Exploration, crafting, socializing all became natural additions to the games. But I personally have no doubt that a chat box was only added into the game originally so that you could scream "In your face!" to the other player you just fragged.
 

As for entitlements.. I posted earlier that if done properly a scale-based encounter system would allow a comparable fight for one person as it would for a 40-man raid group. Clearly, not as titanic of a battle, but equally difficult respectively. So, taking that all into account then the one person should very well be entitled to the same loot as the raid group. Imagine for a moment if it scaled both ways.. No more level 80's farming for lower-level loot, cloth, etc. Not without fighting mobs their own level to get it. It might very well deal a crippling blow to the sale of gold and evening out the ingame economy.

SOE thought they could lay the "You're not entitled to jack" rap on the paying customer as well. Look how that has worked out for them.

I do wish that your objections had thing one to do with the topic at hand rather than the wording I chose to use.

Lord of the Rings Onine is launching a new Expansion Dec 1st. In it, they are launching a new tech called 'skimishes' In Skirmishes they are doing exactly what the OP talks about.

Fully scalable and dynamic instances. They are only launching about a dozen to start. But if your a level 30 grouped with a lv 40, the instance will scale. If your a group of 3, one 30, one 50, and one 65 it will scale. The mobs are random, the bosses are random, the quests are random, ect  ect ect.

Additionally, the tech was built to encorperate exsisting assests. So instead of building 12 new instances, or digging up some old shells they never used, they can pull exsisting areas out of the game and drop them into the new skirmish tech. Of course, if they want to build new shells ect they can.

But I think if its done right, it could go along way into what the OP is talking about. Seperate games I know, but both games have shared a few ideas from time to time. ;)

First, I am in complete agreement that the implementation of scaling raids would be a wonderful thing, I also VERY much agree with you that the token exchange system needs work, we should be able to trade up-token as well as down-token and the trade down exchange rate should not be a 1:1 affair. However, later on, already encountering this a little, but down the road when I have the triple digits of Honor tokens it would nice to be able trade, say, 10 or 20 of em for Valor tokens, etc. I long wondered why the opted to now allow what is to me an intuitive exchange system for tokens, if you can downgrade them (Albeit at a massive loss in value) why can you not then up-trade them? Makes no sense to me.

It also occurs to me that actually rewarding players for working in teams would be nice. long run teams generally do not happen on WOW, especially in the below 80 content because you are actually penalized in xp for being in a team thus said team dissolves immediately after Loot to run back to solo experience grinding. Do they mean to be discouraging the social aspect like that?

Come on over to LOTRO...that feature is hitting us in December.

And DDO already has it.

Originally posted by Sevey13

Come on over to LOTRO...that feature is hitting us in December.

And DDO already has it.

Honestly? Why play one cookie-cutter MMO over another?

I play WoW but I've been burned out of it for awhile now. I just trundle along wearily waiting for a game to break the mold.

Lately, I've had a craving for a game that has both the virgin world aspect of SWG (players craft everything) coupled with a perma-death possible penalty.

You got it all wrong ppl. And anyone who has played pre TBC Wow will agree with me.

All the prblems in wow these days are caused by the fact that the game has gotten easier and easier with eatch patch. Back in the day when having epic items on you meant something, only uber players were able to run a 40 man raid. There were jokes and kits about how a MC Raider has no life.

Get serious today i have a lvl 80 Priest who is fully dressed from Naxx 25 and have barely touched Ulduar and a lvl 80 DK that can't get into any group because 5 man group requirements outvalue the raid requirements.

Go try and get in a group for any 5 man heroic with a character with only blue items and you will get a response like "pff with that gear? with that def? with that DPS ?" even if your gear/dps/healing/def is more than enough to go in a heroic dungeon. No .. the players these days want to run a Heroic instance in 10 - 20 minutes in order to be able to go to another. And why not? You can get more marks today doing 3 instances in 1 hour than your get in a raid. Think about it , an instance has 5 bosses, they all drop marks (or badges) and that can be done in 20 minutes with the latest gear from the latest Instances (i'm talking about Trial of the crusader or Tiral of the Champion) so a 5 man super geared group will get 15 badges in the time they would run a 3 -4 boss quester in Naxx ...

So in my oppinion, the worse thing blizz could have done, and did, is to make the game easy and accesible to every 10 year old kid who gets a char up in 1 week then begs and cries untill he gets some decent geat only to kick others out of a group just cuz they had a char not so well geared.

That's why players are quiting wow. The bigest problem is that most ppl who played wow will not play anything else, because they like the idea of wow, the feeling and everything, just not what it has becomed today.

Most players say, oh .. i will put my subscription on hold and wait for cataclysm ... see what that brings.

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

Honestly? Why play one cookie-cutter MMO over another?

I play WoW but I've been burned out of it for awhile now. I just trundle along wearily waiting for a game to break the mold.

Lately, I've had a craving for a game that has both the virgin world aspect of SWG (players craft everything) coupled with a perma-death possible penalty.

I feel the same man, i feel the same.

It's been 2 years now since every mmorpg i tried was a biger and biger dissapointment.

Every time, they come with these great ads and presentations and intro trailers .. and then plosh ... down the drain..

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

I don't pretend to know the inherent reasoning of why MMO's exist, but if I had to guess it would be more about competitive gaming than socializing, at least at the outset. Ultima Online and Everquest followed on the heels of multi-player First Person Shooter games. Games that offered a single player storyline and optional multi-player competitive gaming. At that time we had roughly a solid decade of personal computing gaming vs "the computer" behind us and we salivated at the chance to enter a persistant online world in which we could pit ourselves against other humans. Exploration, crafting, socializing all became natural additions to the games. But I personally have no doubt that a chat box was only added into the game originally so that you could scream "In your face!" to the other player you just fragged.
 

YES!!! I'm sorry, but that really just clicked for me. I beleieve you are correct about the focus of MMO's being competitive gaming vice true socializing. Sure, people do enjoy socializing in game, hell some even get married in game, but the more I think about it the more I am convinced that true socializing was simply ported over from the table top D&D type of play.

I didn't even know MMORPG's existed when Everquest first came out so I couldn't pretend to speak on what base features were in the original version, but I still think you are correct. Crafting, socializing and the like were added as an afterthough but have now become the focus of the game, of the genre.

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Originally posted by Unrivaled1

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I don't pretend to know the inherent reasoning of why MMO's exist, but if I had to guess it would be more about competitive gaming than socializing, at least at the outset. Ultima Online and Everquest followed on the heels of multi-player First Person Shooter games. Games that offered a single player storyline and optional multi-player competitive gaming. At that time we had roughly a solid decade of personal computing gaming vs "the computer" behind us and we salivated at the chance to enter a persistant online world in which we could pit ourselves against other humans. Exploration, crafting, socializing all became natural additions to the games. But I personally have no doubt that a chat box was only added into the game originally so that you could scream "In your face!" to the other player you just fragged.

As for entitlements.. I posted earlier that if done properly a scale-based encounter system would allow a comparable fight for one person as it would for a 40-man raid group. Clearly, not as titanic of a battle, but equally difficult respectively. So, taking that all into account then the one person should very well be entitled to the same loot as the raid group. Imagine for a moment if it scaled both ways.. No more level 80's farming for lower-level loot, cloth, etc. Not without fighting mobs their own level to get it. It might very well deal a crippling blow to the sale of gold and evening out the ingame economy.
SOE thought they could lay the "You're not entitled to jack" rap on the paying customer as well. Look how that has worked out for them.

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Erm, Everquest followed on the heels of Meridian59, computer RPGs and was a huge dose of D&D.
It had bogg all to do with shooters. It was never a PvP or competitive focused game.

EQ stated from before Day One that it was designed as a group game - the 6 player group game was the entire focus of it - raids, pvp, soloing were very secondary - they werent balanced or properly catered for, especially at the start - BY DESIGN.
It was entirely "pit your party of 6 against the world" not against each other. I'm not even sure there were PvP servers at startup.

No idea about Ultima Online (never played it) but I saw EQ from beta and played it for six years.

On Entitlement - if a 40man raid is entitled to a couple of bits of uber gear then surely your scaled down one man raid is only entitled to a 5% chance of a bit of uber gear or a couple of bits of gear 1/40th as good? Would anyone want that kind of instance?

Meanwhile back at the actual topic :)
Scaling is a nice idea - but even with the scaling we have currently, it is hugely unbalanced
Koralon and Emalon are both harder (relative) in 25man than 10man due to space issues (avoiding the flames, chain lightnings, etc)
Sartharion + 3 Drakes was (for a long time) the hardest fight in the game on 10man but not on 25.
I'm not sure most raids could survive scaling beyond maybe +/-10% without becoming unbalanced by numbers issues (lack of tanks etc) or by space/range/avoidance issues.

Think of the old content - a paladin (or other hybrid) can solo instances that would annihilate an equivalent caster. Are you asking Blizz to redesign every class with scaling (and therefore the possibility of soloing raid content) in mind?

Boss abilities like sheep,sleep etc. scale up exponentially with lack of numbers - how would a small group cope if they (or he/she) are all CC'ed?

Player abilities also dont scale well - one of the best classes for doing lower instances is resto shaman - merely due to the Nature's Guardian talent.

Perhaps a minor scale up would be doable?
hmm, the name hard mode has been used - perhaps Big Mode? 5man instances with 6, 10man with 12, 25man with 30? One single modifier for damage/HP (+10%?) and extra loot rather than different/better loot. (cos different loot is more time consuming)

Conclusion
Nice idea, almost certainly unworkable without huge effort - probably more than I consider it worth.

Blizz has enough to do with D3, SC2, "the unnamed MMO", 3.3, Cataclysm, the latest wave of annoying bugs (get rid of pvp flagging inside VoA and let us share daily q inside instances again, please) and all the little good ideas that seem to have gotten lost/missed out in WotLK (everspore fronds etc - tho at least Eng teleporter finally turned up for Northrend)

Hmm, getting a bit ranty, best stop now :/

Enjoy.

I am not going to copy anyone's post or try and be grammatically correct for any of the spelling police - I'm just going to throw out my 2 cents and hope noone takes this as an attack on their personal beliefs.

I played MMOs starting in 2000 with the Rise of Kunark expansion for Everquest.  For most people just coming into the MMO genre - it would have been total shock.  You played a tutorial to show you the minimal ropes (completely stand alone program) and then you logged into the game and created your character.  You started with a note, a candle and 5 food 5 drink and a weapon based on your class.  After you maybe did one or 2 starter quests in which you had to actually interact with the NPC by typing responses like "where are these rats?" you were then left on your own to find them (no map) and kill them and no quest log or anything.  The game to many might be considered "hard".  After level 3 or 4 - you were basically "forced" by some peoples standards to group and it took a skilled group to muddy through orc1,2 & 3 in the commonlands.  The game forced you to create relationships - to be a skilled player - to become a part of the games community that was mostly player run.

I grouped from lvl 3 - 60.  I would only start fighting after the quadrinity were fulfilled (heals,tank,dps,CC) and even then I was reluctant.  There was no easy assist - you had to have a macro or hotkey setup to assist a player.  I digress to the actual issue of this thread - sorry for the mini rant.

Scaling of raids or instances, I don't believe any currently established game with a very established item level system with specific names could be scaled and it make sense.  I could however see a new game having the same premise behind it with item levels if when you started an instance it was like LDON, or AO in which you chose the difficulty of the instance based on slider bars and then went in.  You could in theory do a team mission or group mission (6 players) and scale it lower to meet your group lacking people or even levels.  This would then interpret into item level drops from mobs/bosses and it would just have to be the same named item with item level modifications to the loot itself.  

I have to agree that it is funny to see a game with so many subs not able to create raids of 25 people.  However its a flaw in the games premise from the beginning that from 1-cap you can get there on your own and not teach you how to actually play your class in a grouped environment.  You go to cap solo and then you want to raid - well there are millions of other people who did the same - and milions of others that fully understand their classes mechanic in the raid/group setting and as such they won't group with people because they do not have the patience to teach a nub how to play or - worst case scenario someone just sucks at playing their class but the game difficulty gives them a handicap in success.  What further increased the issue of forming adequately sized groups to meet the X-man expectation was acheivements in which some people require you have the acheivement before you go with them - regardless of you being skilled you can't go with them.  Sorry I'll stop the rant but I think there are more pressing issues as to WHY you can't form a group rather than how the game should adjust to meet that need.

Honestly, WoW is already accesible enough. With each new tier of gear, they make the previous tier of badges give you more stuff. The easy mode raids can be done with 8 or 20 people respectively, and if you are doing hardmodes, then you should be in a guild that is organized enough to handle them. People have also suggested the solo instance thing multiple times, and Blizzard has always responded by saying that it is not part of their design goal to make the game soloable, and it completely goes against their vision of what they view an MMO to be. They already have plently of solo content, which can be done well enough with the epics that they make available for people who don't like to group, especially via BoE epics and the Argent Tournament.

As for your suggestion to make the instance change depending on however many people you have available, that would be a pain in the ass to implement to the point where it is completely not worth it. They would have to implement Diablo style loot tables that would randomly generate gear based on how many people you have. That would make balancing/theorycrafting a pain, because they would have to take even more item levels into consideration. And let's say you get an epic drop from trash and decide to sell it. Someone may want the item at a specific ilvl, but because it was randomly generated, it is lower than the one they wanted.

Also, part of the reason that gear in a 25 man is better is because Blizzard wants to recognize the increased effort it takes to get a group of that size together, which, quite frankly - at peak server activity - isn't that much. If you are missing a raid member or 2, opening up your friend tab and whispering for someone to join or porting to Dalaran and saying "LF3M H ToGC" isn't that big of an issue, unless you are on a New Player server or something.

People are already saying that the game is too easy just because Blizzard wants the game to be accessible to more players. Blizzard themselves have even stated that the game has more people raiding than ever before, in terms of percentage of population, cuz they get more players by the minute it seems...

Anyway, my point is that I don't think that Blizz needs to bend their necks anymore to make instances more accessible, else they might as well make the whole game solo content.

I'd say no to scaling in WoW -- even though I enjoy soloing and often wish I could solo the instances somehow.

What I'd kill for, however, in WoW, is the addition of Heroes (as in Guild Wars). This is a much better (and more fun, imo) way to scale dungeons to party size.

If Blizzard would just add a pack of 5 NPC Heroes (say, a Tanking Spec Warrior; a DPS specced Mage, Rogue, and Shaman, and a Healer spec Priest) with fairly reasonable AI and customizability, and allow them to be used within roughly the following parameters:

--Only to be summonable/usable in dungeons/instances
--Only to be summonable by players with active quests in a given dungeon (i.e., the player would have to have at least green instance quests)
--The NPCs would match the level of the player who summoned it/them
--The NPCs "shared the loot" (as in Guild Wars). (i.e., you'd only get your share of the loot)
--The NPCs rolled "Need" on all items (as would you). (i.e., you'd only have a 1-in-5 chance on any roll.)
--The NPC set consisted of 1 tank, 3 dps, and 1 healer (from whom you could pick any combo you wanted)
--The NPCs cannot use crowd control skills (sap, sheep, etc.)
--The NPCs could only be used in Old Azeroth and Outland instances -- NOT newer instances (such as in WotLK) since you can still find groups for these newer areas.

This is basically how the system works in Guild Wars and it is pretty effective. I would vastly prefer a system like this to a scaling setup, as I enjoy the party dynamic without the hassle it is sometimes to find a full group of players. Heck, I'd even pay extra to open a set of NPC Heroes on my WoW account. As it is now, I just skip past the instances nowadays.

In my opinion, WoW's single biggest flaw is the inaccessibility of it's group content to people unable to find full groups. Even on my (populous) server, you simply CANNOT find groups for any dungeon in Old World Azeroth or Outlands.

I guess something I'm seeing several times from people in this thread is that they want to be able to do things in the game with 1 person that others who actually socialize, meet players, group up and form a community do.  If I wanted to have a group of people that are mindless npc drones fighting alongside me - then I'll play neverwinter nights, or KOTOR.  If i want to play a game by myself and conquer the world - I'll play Zelda, Fable, Halo, (insert any console game here that I dont have to pay 15 a month for).  WTH is the purpose of playing online if you do everything yourself?  I guess I'd also kind of find it funny to dump money into a companies lap for something you don't really utilize.  Play MUDDs if you want to play solo some times and online others.  Not trying to be a dick or talk down but I think its a bit funny.  The more i thought about it I don't know if I even agree with scaling in the first place - if you can't meet the requirements - meet more people, form a community, and get out there and conquer the world in the way (I believe) most MMO companies want the game to be played.

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Originally posted by nosto
I guess something I'm seeing several times from people in this thread is that they want to be able to do things in the game with 1 person that others who actually socialize, meet players, group up and form a community do.  If I wanted to have a group of people that are mindless npc drones fighting alongside me - then I'll play neverwinter nights, or KOTOR.  If i want to play a game by myself and conquer the world - I'll play Zelda, Fable, Halo, (insert any console game here that I dont have to pay 15 a month for).  WTH is the purpose of playing online if you do everything yourself?  I guess I'd also kind of find it funny to dump money into a companies lap for something you don't really utilize.  Play MUDDs if you want to play solo some times and online others.  Not trying to be a dick or talk down but I think its a bit funny.  The more i thought about it I don't know if I even agree with scaling in the first place - if you can't meet the requirements - meet more people, form a community, and get out there and conquer the world in the way (I believe) most MMO companies want the game to be played.

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You really aren't getting it.

In Guild Wars, you use mindless drones when you cannot find real players. In WoW, however, you simply have to SKIP content. How is that an "improvement"? As for me, I'd rather actually PLAY content using drones than not play it at all, which is basically what is happening now in WoW.

Another thing you are not getting is the fact that, sometimes, I want to play with just one or two players. In WoW, you have to find FIVE people to do anything in an instance at your own level. In Guild Wars, you group up with your friends and fill in the rest with NPCs and actually PLAY.

Guild Wars made it possible for people to play solo or in small groups of 2 or 3, the latter of which you CANNOT do in KOTOR, etc.

Originally posted by tmr819

 

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Originally posted by nosto
I guess something I'm seeing several times from people in this thread is that they want to be able to do things in the game with 1 person that others who actually socialize, meet players, group up and form a community do.  If I wanted to have a group of people that are mindless npc drones fighting alongside me - then I'll play neverwinter nights, or KOTOR.  If i want to play a game by myself and conquer the world - I'll play Zelda, Fable, Halo, (insert any console game here that I dont have to pay 15 a month for).  WTH is the purpose of playing online if you do everything yourself?  I guess I'd also kind of find it funny to dump money into a companies lap for something you don't really utilize.  Play MUDDs if you want to play solo some times and online others.  Not trying to be a dick or talk down but I think its a bit funny.  The more i thought about it I don't know if I even agree with scaling in the first place - if you can't meet the requirements - meet more people, form a community, and get out there and conquer the world in the way (I believe) most MMO companies want the game to be played.

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You really aren't getting it.

In Guild Wars, you use mindless drones when you cannot find real players. In WoW, however, you simply have to SKIP content. How is that an "improvement"? As for me, I'd rather actually PLAY content using drones than not play it at all, which is basically what is happening now in WoW.

Another thing you are not getting is the fact that, sometimes, I want to play with just one or two players. In WoW, you have to find FIVE people to do anything in an instance at your own level. In Guild Wars, you group up with your friends and fill in the rest with NPCs and actually PLAY.

Guild Wars made it possible for people to play solo or in small groups of 2 or 3, the latter of which you CANNOT do in KOTOR, etc.

No I think you're missing my point.  "massive" to me - is not 2 peeps.  End of story.  And I'm saying wtf is the point of even having drones to work through the content - just make the content soloable then and allow you to hang with buddies to do it.  I have never and will never have an issue finding people in an MMO or working with others to get through things.  The reason you have to find drones is because you can't find people to play with - its not that they are not plentiful - its that the game caters to players being solo lone emo heroes - so unless a RL friend comes along - you have to use drones in GuildWars - fantastic they've found a solution to your dilema but had that dilema not existed in the first place by making the game group centric from the beginning - you wouldn't be so QQ about it.  

Garrett Fuller should look at LOTRO.

Personally, I don't give a fat, flying, freaking, Fresno **** what the game company "intends" the playstyle of their game to be. I play it the way that I enjoy. I enjoy pitting myself against other players online be it leveling, grinding, crafting or dungeon delving. I would just as soon murder the character standing next to me in my group than the Boss we are there to kill. I prefer to solo. Period.

I am downright sick of all this touchy-feely social community crap. I don't want to chat with other players, I want to defeat them.

Eventually, some visionary developer is going to put a game out like this, and I'll be there. You're all welcome to join me, just expect a bloody welcome.

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

Personally, I don't give a fat, flying, freaking, Fresno **** what the game company "intends" the playstyle of their game to be. I play it the way that I enjoy. I enjoy pitting myself against other players online be it leveling, grinding, crafting or dungeon delving. I would just as soon murder the character standing next to me in my group than the Boss we are there to kill. I prefer to solo. Period.

I am downright sick of all this touchy-feely social community crap. I don't want to chat with other players, I want to defeat them.

Eventually, some visionary developer is going to put a game out like this, and I'll be there. You're all welcome to join me, just expect a bloody welcome.

Everyone is entitled to play a game how they want, be who they want to be, have opinions about who they talk to and who they don't.  Thats fine I get that.  But don't complain or moan and groan when a game needs to be changed to fit YOUR perception of how it should be.  Thats a false sense of entitlement.  If the game company made a game to be played with others - don't cry because you can't. 

To me it isn't touchy feely social community crap.  To me its meeting new people, forming friendships and being social.  If I had your mentality I would not play MMOs, touch them with your dick - whatever you wanna call it because it would be against everything I stood for as a person.  Gladly, I am not you.  

If you're also anti-social and hate interacting with other players - why join a forum and discuss things?  Why not just go to this site to find information and read the site "how you want?" I mean its not like you need their opinions.  I am all about competition and if a game comes out where you can kill me - you'll most likely lose - because I'll have a mob - and you'll either be solo or have half retarded NPC bots assisting you.

Ciao

Your freudian slips aside.. The OP has to do with the possibilities of scaling instances. That is what this discussion is supposed to be about. I chimed in on my feelings about that idea and you among others are flaming the supporting of it, rather than the idea itself. Rather than posting your very own opinion on the matter you would rather jump on Blizzard's (assumed) bandwagon. Blizz can defend it's own stance. Try taking one yourself and defending it.

Originally posted by nosto

Originally posted by tmr819

 

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Originally posted by nosto
I guess something I'm seeing several times from people in this thread is that they want to be able to do things in the game with 1 person that others who actually socialize, meet players, group up and form a community do.  If I wanted to have a group of people that are mindless npc drones fighting alongside me - then I'll play neverwinter nights, or KOTOR.  If i want to play a game by myself and conquer the world - I'll play Zelda, Fable, Halo, (insert any console game here that I dont have to pay 15 a month for).  WTH is the purpose of playing online if you do everything yourself?  I guess I'd also kind of find it funny to dump money into a companies lap for something you don't really utilize.  Play MUDDs if you want to play solo some times and online others.  Not trying to be a dick or talk down but I think its a bit funny.  The more i thought about it I don't know if I even agree with scaling in the first place - if you can't meet the requirements - meet more people, form a community, and get out there and conquer the world in the way (I believe) most MMO companies want the game to be played.

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You really aren't getting it.

In Guild Wars, you use mindless drones when you cannot find real players. In WoW, however, you simply have to SKIP content. How is that an "improvement"? As for me, I'd rather actually PLAY content using drones than not play it at all, which is basically what is happening now in WoW.

Another thing you are not getting is the fact that, sometimes, I want to play with just one or two players. In WoW, you have to find FIVE people to do anything in an instance at your own level. In Guild Wars, you group up with your friends and fill in the rest with NPCs and actually PLAY.

Guild Wars made it possible for people to play solo or in small groups of 2 or 3, the latter of which you CANNOT do in KOTOR, etc.

 

No I think you're missing my point.  "massive" to me - is not 2 peeps.  End of story.  And I'm saying wtf is the point of even having drones to work through the content - just make the content soloable then and allow you to hang with buddies to do it.  I have never and will never have an issue finding people in an MMO or working with others to get through things.  The reason you have to find drones is because you can't find people to play with - its not that they are not plentiful - its that the game caters to players being solo lone emo heroes - so unless a RL friend comes along - you have to use drones in GuildWars - fantastic they've found a solution to your dilema but had that dilema not existed in the first place by making the game group centric from the beginning - you wouldn't be so QQ about it.  

Yep, forced grouping makes people more willing to group (they have to)  and  at the same time, there are fewer people to group with. Many people will not play a game if  they cant solo. Personally im good either way if the game is good but forced grouping isnt as popular as one would think.

I stopped reading at the word "scaling".

Any game design with "scaling" or any type of "linearity" in mind dont deserve any interest.

Originally posted by Interesting

I stopped reading at the word "scaling".

 

Any game design with "scaling" or any type of "linearity" in mind dont deserve any interest.

Linearity, as in leveling from 1-80? That is the very definition of linear.

Originally posted by grandpagamer

Yep, forced grouping makes people more willing to group (they have to)  and  at the same time, there are fewer people to group with. Many people will not play a game if  they cant solo. Personally im good either way if the game is good but forced grouping isnt as popular as one would think.

[not to stray super far from the thread but I'll tie it in]

I mean we can obviuosly tell that by the responses - a lot of people want to be able to solo - I would say it isn't a drastic amount of people want to solo vs. group.   I mean - the hype and love of MMOs (originally) was the idea of a D&D table in which you were interacting with fellow mates who wanted to join in.  What happened with WoW was that you got a huge Blizzard fanboi train jumping into the MMO stream and as such they catered to a Diablo 2 play style.  Do your jam solo - group if you want.  So the focus definitely changed - not because of Blizzard - but because of the people who play their games.

I can't say I've never played an MMO solo - I have.  I did it in wow, I had a solo toon on EQ1, I rarely grouped in AC.  However, I think that a grouping game is superior - if I really wanted to get my jollies off of being Epic Hero Solo #1 guy Jesus - I would have played something different (pretty much anything not an MMO).

Going back to the thread topic, if you make everything scaleable I want to ask the players not the game developers, "Why Play it?"  I don't see the reason to play a game where the only difference is the people in town are talking about the football game on or politics or chuck norris.  To get a feel like you're in a town from the fantasy world - you'd probably want to have only the NPCs chatting or play a game with a lively town life like in fable or something along those lines.  To me - if you are going to scale difficulty - allow the player to manipulate it vs. attempting to do your own concrete system where all calculations and decisions are made on your side.  That way - you don't get people bitching about it other than the choices they are offered.  No game can please everyone and its LOL to think it is possible.  For those who want competition and to fight other players and kill them - there are plenty of FPSes and RTSes

I still fail to see why your defintion of "MMO", which is grouping and socializing is one whit more realistic of our definition which is solo'ing and competitive gaming.

I play plenty of FPS/RTS games and am quite happy when I do. I also would like a persistant online world where I can thrive in player-to-player competition. And to head off someone saying "That is what pvp is for" that has nothing at all to do with this discussion. This has to do with challenging the solo player and offering them the chance towards high-end gear that is presently only possible if they partake in raid instancing.

I rather like the way scaling, grouping, and the optional use of NPCs are handled in DDO:U, since that game offers players a variety of ways to complete the content. Unfortunately, I do not like the clunkiness of the UI in DDO:U, nor the combat/skill/stats system, nor the lack of a truly persistent MMO world, else I would play it.

Nosto, you say 2 people is not "massive" to you, and I see your point. But somehow 5 people *is* "massive"? That's the standard group size in WoW and I wouldn't call it massive. Most MMOs are played out based on probably 80 to 90% solo content and 10 to 20% small-group -- not "massive" -- content. That should tell developers something right there.

You say you have no problems getting groups, well, I do. Just try getting a group together for Uldaman or Mauradon on my server. I'd rather at least have the option to solo these dungeons (scaled or with NPCs) than just routinely level past them, with quests not done and eventually abandoned. That's just a broken system, and one that Blizzard and LotRO and many other level-based games (apparently) choose to ignore, although I will say that WoW is getting better about dealing with the "accessibility issue" with each additional expansion.

I think games like WoW and LotRO have a problem in basic design: 5- or 6-man instancing works when a game or expansion is just released and popular -- there are lots of people around then -- but I think these games need to make adjustments as a game ages, the population at a certain level thins, and it becomes harder and harder to find groups.

WoW made certain accommodations to this problem by "de-elitizing" a lot of its group-oriented areas (Stromgarde in Arathi Highlands comes to mind) a few years ago, so that players can now complete quests on their own that used to require groups. Something similar ought to be done for the lower-level instances.

Scaling seems like as good a suggestion for dealing with this problem as any. I think that if WoW and LotRO continue to ignore this problem, they are are going to lose subscribers to games that offer a greater variety of options.

OMG

Time to go back to Tic, Tac, Toe.

"CAN WE PLEASE MAKE GAMES EASYER!"

"YOU SEE I HAVE A REAL LIFE AND CAN ONLY PLAY FOR 10 MINS TODAY"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY MY DOT COM( LEVELED) CHARACTER, I JUST GOT HIM!"

"I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE, BUT I PLAY A MMO!"

See what happens when you bring 10+ mil. into a system that have know idea what thay are doing?

Thanks Bizz.

Originally posted by LordDmaster

OMG

Time to go back to Tic, Tac, Toe.

"CAN WE PLEASE MAKE GAMES EASYER!"

"YOU SEE I HAVE A REAL LIFE AND CAN ONLY PLAY FOR 10 MINS TODAY"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY MY DOT COM( LEVELED) CHARACTER, I JUST GOT HIM!"

"I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE, BUT I PLAY A MMO!"

See what happens when you bring 10+ mil. into a system that have know idea what thay are doing?

Thanks Bizz.

Hah - I got a nice laugh from this - thanks.  Yea lets make games basically slightly interactive movie experiences!  Lets put a chat function in there so I can talk to my friends even tho millions of chat options exist out there already to do just that.  Let me buy a toon because I don't want the fulfilling experience of leveling my own toon.  I hate you all but I will pay 15 bucks a month to be around you.  This mentality didn't exist 8 years ago.  Thank you - you made my day.

It really shouldn't be to hard for any developer to add scaleable dungeons to any game instance. SOE did that with one of their adventure packs called The Splitpaw Saga.  

EverQuest®II The Splitpaw Saga™ - Deep within the Sundered Splitpaw Dwells a Great Threat!

In The Splitpaw Saga players will explore the collapsed caverns and twisted tunnels of Sundered Splitpaw. Throughout this adventure, the truth behind the dungeon's mysterious demise is uncovered by using moveable planks, crates and barrels to work through a series of intriguing event-based zones. A ferocious clan of cannibalistic gnolls will stand in the way as players seek to destroy a great threat. Experience the adventure right away and meet additional challenges a second time around as the encounters scale dynamically to match your player level or group size.

Unique content with an exciting storyline and plenty of action that solo players, groups and raids can enjoy for months to come.
Event-based adventure in two new dungeons with twelve additional instanced zones.
Dozens of unique scenario-based quests that take you right into the action.
Interactive Environments: Chop your way through barriers and use exploding barrels to destroy enemies or blast your way through tunnels

Scalable dungeons would not be difficult to implement.   Just scale them depending upon how many people are in the group.  Rather than have 5/10/25 - scale it as such [dps output of mobs would also scale]:

5-9 - 5 man [typical 5 man loot drops]

10-19 - 10 man [better loot drops]

25 - no change [high end loot drops]

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

I still fail to see why your defintion of "MMO", which is grouping and socializing is one whit more realistic of our definition which is solo'ing and competitive gaming.

I play plenty of FPS/RTS games and am quite happy when I do. I also would like a persistant online world where I can thrive in player-to-player competition. And to head off someone saying "That is what pvp is for" that has nothing at all to do with this discussion. This has to do with challenging the solo player and offering them the chance towards high-end gear that is presently only possible if they partake in raid instancing.

Our definition of MMO isn't - our definition of MMORPG is however.

The name of the Website you are posting on might also give you a clue to this.

WoW is (according to the label anyway) a Role-playing game.

Methinks you want to be playing a MMOFPS or a MMORTS (if such a thing exists). While I admit the amount of RP in most MMORPG's is not large it is where there origin is and where they try to be. Individuals filling a role in a team has been the basis for RPG's since they were invented 35years ago. We're supposed to be playing a role (tank, dps, healer, comedy sidekick, whatever) - not all the roles.

Also :

The basic point is effort & risk vs. reward - if you scale everything perfectly (which I doubt is possible) then a scaled instance that give one item to the soloer should give one item each to the raiders (and more or better due to the extra effort required to organise a raid). If it doesnt then why even bother with any group content?

Back to scaling :)

I think scaling would be very hard to implement - its more than just ramping up damage and HP - just look at the one scaling system they already have in place - Tenacity - you want something similar in instances & raids??

Never found anyone who is happy with Tenacity.

Scaling up is probably doable.

But scaling down will lead to a point where single target abilities overpower the players. The point of some boss abilities is to temporarily remove one player from the fight (sheep,sleep, web, freeze etc) - or to do that and require other to go rescue him (snobolds, webs, ice blocks etc). How do you scale that to 1 or 2 players?

Plus it trivialises, overpowers or negates other abilities - (as I mentioned before) - look at the difference between the "keep your distance" issues in Emalon10 and Emalon25

And how do you scale a fight so that one non-healer clothie dps can kill an entire pull without dying? That isnt doable without making it laughably easy for hybrids. My mage can do far more dps than my holy pally - but theres a ton of things my pally can solo that my mage cant. And don't mention CC as the balancer - its not 100% reliable and only works on certain types of mobs.

Scaling down to 1 (or 2) would require re-balancing all the classes for it - which I don't think is possible (without making them all far too similar and dull)  or worth the effort

This is what I meant earlier by posting your thoughts without having read or at least understood the posts that came before.

It would be a completely different fight for a "clothie" as it would be for a hybrid. When a solo cloth-wearer enters the instance the instance reorgs into clothie-friendly mob sizes and when said clothie initiates combat with a mob they are then adjusted in difficulty based on the player's Level, Class, Gear and Talent Spec. During the fight the player cannot swap out armor or talents so there is no chance of "cheating" the system. As I said earlier, it will have to be an elaborate formula to account for all of this but it's by no means impossible.

I get the impression that most of the angst concerning this proposal has more to do with "I had to do it the hard way, so should everyone else!" than anything else. Based on what Blizz has done before I'd wager there will be an option to toggle "dungeon scaling" on or off for the party leader. Want to do it the old way? Be my guest.

I hate to start off any post with "well back in the days of EQ" but I am going to anyway.

You can argue if you like which game was the start of the MMO genre but there is no denying that EQ brought the MMORPG to main stream gamers and SOE did it with grouping. As many have stated in previous posts, the whole game centered around the group and that was what made the game as popular as it was at the time. Not just because of the group but because of what happened when you grouped. You made friends! You came back day after day to play and interact with people you met while grouping. 

Anarchy Online came around and changed that in a way. It was the first game to allow for real soloing based on scalable missions. You had the ability to scale your instanced mission by level and thereby alllowing for solo or group play based on the level of the mission. It wasn't dynamic like EQ2 Splitpaw Saga or the skirmishes coming out the the next LOTRO expansion but it still allowed you to group and interact with people and the difficulty and loot was determined by the level of the mission you selected.

In my opinion, as MMO's have evolved they have moved farther and farther away from the group and more toward the solo player in order to cater to the casual gamer and I don't fault any company for wanting to provide themselves a greater revenue stream but I still think that groups are the way to go, it is after all called an MMORPG for a reason.

Point is, scalable group instances are possible and if it is going to get more people to group then I am all for it. Just rambling but thats my 2 cents.

Originally posted by Unrivaled1

This is what I meant earlier by posting your thoughts without having read or at least understood the posts that came before.

It would be a completely different fight for a "clothie" as it would be for a hybrid. When a solo cloth-wearer enters the instance the instance reorgs into clothie-friendly mob sizes and when said clothie initiates combat with a mob they are then adjusted in difficulty based on the player's Level, Class, Gear and Talent Spec. During the fight the player cannot swap out armor or talents so there is no chance of "cheating" the system. As I said earlier, it will have to be an elaborate formula to account for all of this but it's by no means impossible.

I get the impression that most of the angst concerning this proposal has more to do with "I had to do it the hard way, so should everyone else!" than anything else. Based on what Blizz has done before I'd wager there will be an option to toggle "dungeon scaling" on or off for the party leader. Want to do it the old way? Be my guest.

I'm guessing that you meant "without having understood or at least read" rather than the other way round but I'll put that down to a typo or translation error :)

I didn't realise that your comment on class,level and gear was a suggestion to scale based on them rather than a simple mention to show the vast scale of variance within simple numerical scaling.

As we can already see scaling a single dungeon so it works at two different numbers (10 and 25) isn't easy and all the 10/25 raids have had numerous tweaks and nerfs post Test Server. So it can't be that easy to balance.

The idea that they can scale to fit 1-40 players in a single instance seems an enormous amount of effort when two scales takes repeated tries to get reasonably close right.

So the mere thought of scaling based on (at a very conservative estimate)

40 (number of raiders) * 10 (classes) * 3 (specs) * 11 (+/- 5 levels) * 25 (gear, average iLevel rounded to nearest multiple of 6) = 330,000 variants....

did not occur to me.

An only slightly less conservative estimate would be 40 * 10 * 5 * 21 * 50 = 2.1 million options.

Go playtest that :p

And you want it to do this as every fight starts??

A few secondary thoughts :

I'm also guessing you want to remove that capability to swap weapons during fights to avoid a rush to buy iLevel 1 weps for starting combat with? Not sure how that would effect things, I don't weapon swap during fights but I know that some people do for certain abilities. Doubt it would unbalanced things to remove that.

Scaling with gear also brings another question - why bother with new gear? If an instance scales with gear then you have removed the point of getting better gear.

If my new gear doubles my dps but scales the dungeon to have double the HP then its exactly the same fight just with bigger numbers floating above my head.

Some of the issues here come down to one basic flaw in WoW (and one of EQ's greatest strengths) - lack of focus.

EQ stated they were a group game and balanced for that. Very well once they had got their feet. Solo wasn't balanced, nor was raiding to a large degree (esp. early on)

WoW doesn't focus and suffers numerous balance issues because of it.

How many times has your class been nerfed in PvE because of a PvP issue? (or vice versa).

How many ongoing "x is underpowered" problems are not fixed in PvE because it would overpower in PvP? (or vice versa).

How many raid balance changes have nerfed solo play?

Until WoW either focuses or properly delineates PvE and PvP these issue will continue to crop up.

I am a great fan of the saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it"

but Blizz constantly "fix" issues with one aspect while breaking/nerfing the abilities in other aspects while leaving broken bits unfixed.

Once again getting a bit off topic but :)

 I think the problem is guilds just don't want to help gear up members you have to be on par with them or you don't get in which is why they struggle to get a 25 man off the ground. In classic WoW we never had a problem filling all 40 spots we did not just run current content we helped gear new players but we also farmed. So I'm not sure how current raids are but if guilds are not helping gear up new level 80's it might be because of the no farm aspect. But even with PUG you must have certain achievements or you don't go so me I'm forced to PvP and stuck not being able to raid thus results in me quitting due to lack of play. 

I would love to join a raiding guild but most are new that will end up disbanding shortly after being made the older guilds want you at their level so these guilds that want and need to fill 25 plus backups need to run the older dungeons they have cleared.

Excellent idea and easily implemented in spite of Kaplan's BS pontificating @ Blizzcon about raid instances needing the appropriate 'pacing'.    'Pacing' just means tedious timesink mechanics that are a useless holdover from his EQ days.  

Blizzard's clustered servers are just another attempt to try to force people to play the way Kaplan thinks they should play instead of the way they want to play.   The same thing happened at the first Blizzcon where people were asking for casual endgame content and developers told them they expected people to join large raid guilds.  

Blizzard is finally seeing that many players are not putting up with that anymore.  That's why there aren't any 40 man raids, that's why they're clustering servers.   All of these are just work-arounds that scaled instances would immeadiately solve once Blizzard realizes they have to stop trying to force all of  their customers into one playstyle.

Now if this is an issue over gear (and what isn't in WoW) just lower the chances of getting gear drops when you're in an instance with less people so you end up with the same probability of any individual of a large group getting the gear.    The elistist snobs won't be able to swing their epeens around as much, but wouldn't that be a shame.   

There are SOOOO many things wrong with this article....
 

/sigh...

isn't it just wonderful how so many people in these days actually thinks and believes that their meaningless "opinions" are actually "facts"...

Originally posted by Fr0z1nDuDe

There are SOOOO many things wrong with this article....
 

 

/sigh...

 

 

isn't it just wonderful how so many people in these days actually thinks and believes that their meaningless "opinions" are actually "facts"...

See the issue isn't that they think what they think is a fact.  Its that the "fact" or conclusion they have drawn should be the one the game they play does as well.  I wonder if these same people go out and buy a Corolla or some 4 cylinder car and then go onto forums and bitch and complain that the engine doesn't have the pickup or the seats aren't shaped the right way and as such the company should change the car to meet their needs.  The company set out with a vision and implemented it - of course as a business they want the most customer's possible - but I doubt any company has visions of grandeur that their product is going to make everyone happy.  If that were the case - why would any other game exist.  I mean kudos to these people for having an issue with a game and a possible solution they have come up with - at least its not full blown QQ fix it posts.  But I really don't understand why people seem to think they can just buy something and then expect the company to change its vision and apply their new one.  I mean when someone comes up with a game, they sit there and create THEIR game with THEIR rules - the people bitching about it are the kids that were never "it" in tag because "you didn't make contact with all 5 fingers" or never got shot when playing guns because "you were aiming at the tree" its just silly - they just don't wanna play by someone elses rules.

Originally posted by epitaxial

Scalable dungeons would not be difficult to implement.   Just scale them depending upon how many people are in the group.  Rather than have 5/10/25 - scale it as such [dps output of mobs would also scale]:

5-9 - 5 man [typical 5 man loot drops]

10-19 - 10 man [better loot drops]

25 - no change [high end loot drops]

 

That is not scaling, that is a static change. Scaling applies to the direct strength/amount of mobs per person added/removed. Six players has its own particular level of difficulty as does seven players, eight players etc... True scaling involves extremely difficult and tedious processes to achieve correct mob scaling versus players and added loot drops to reflect said difficulty. True scaling is a fantastic way to allow all players to experience all content and I support the idea of true scaling but what your suggesting is naive and lacks any forethought to the actual meaning of scaling and the hurdles needed to achieve true scaling.