When a game is new you don't really need solo content because you can easily get a group together because there are so many people playing. But as time goes on all you can do is play buy yourself so you do need solo content. I would not worry about it at first.
MMORPGs have always included soloable challenges. MMORPGs aren't all about challeneges. And challenges aren't all group challenges.
RPGs typically have a focus on group challenges. Single-player RPGs are impossible to play multiplayer. MMORPGs cannot be be single-player. There will always be multiple players online. Usually playing together in the same space even if they aren't playing together in the same group... which is what MMORPGs are all about.
Ashes will have soloable content and soloable challenges. Much of which will be benefiting masses of players because everything we do -including soloing- affects the growth of the nearby nodes.
Nah, not a fan of solo content. This isn't a Massively Solo Online Role Playing Game.
Nor is it a, "Massively Group Online Role Playing Game".
All Multi-player denotes is that the world is populated with more than just NPCs. Basically other real players like you and me. It has nothing to do with being forced to group up with others to enjoy the world (although it is obviously encouraged) You are then free to interact (or not) with those players to whatever level you are comfortable with.
There are a LOT of players (myself included) that do enjoy solo content because we often don't have the time needed to form a group to go do something. And by solo content I don't mean going out and killing mobs for an hour. Not that I'm saying group content is secondary, because I agree that to complete most "high end" content you should need a group (although I do enjoy the challenge of trying to complete "group content" solo)
Having solo content is GREAT because it gives everyone OPTIONS for differing play styles.
Today many MMOs are very group focused and this is great! Raids and high rated team based pvp are usually the end game content for most games. Still, something that should not be disgarded is single player content that is designed to be done solo. Down below are some ideas that could help improve the solo experience of the game and give players something to work on while some of their friends, in the end, will go to sleep.
A soloable special questline or campaign There should be some form of quest line that may start at low lvl, and follow you all the way to max lvl and then end a bit later with an epic 1v1 boss fight that will test your characters ability and skill. This boss should be unique for each class to tailor it for each one and thus making it a fair fight for everyone. This quest should also not require the highest end gear and should mostly focus on player skill (Postioning, kiting, interupting boss abilities, timing and tacts). Lastly, this questline should also give interesting lore to your class, all missions in this questline should naturally not only be killing missions. A reward for this could be a rare item, an estetic reward or maybe a new place to have your home in.
A role trial: Since this game will follow the trinity of tank, healer and dps (maybe support aswell?) there could be a trial for each role to complete. This trial could work as a role tutorial and start with easy challanges and ending with advanced ones (Automaticly teaching players how to play their role in a more advanced and efficient way. This could be done inside a place dedicated to each class, and these places should be spreadout around the world (Rogues in a shady place, clerics in a holy place).
A Fighter guild: This idea is greatly inspired by the world of warcraft feature "Brawlers guild" Which consist of a special location where people are standing in line to enter an arena to fight a boss one on one. This is done while the people standing in line are watching. People do this because the boss fights are fun, creative and sometimes challangeing. This is something I would love to see here. A great problem with the wow version is that the queue times take for ever, to solve this, multiple arenas in the same place would help (wow has 1, queue time is about 10 min, so 3 arenas should be enough).
Non combat, storydriven missions There could be some form of questlines which involves exploring, tresure hunting or solving a mystery other than murdering 5 horses for their hoves. These quests could be weekly, as in one new is released every week or there could be a set amount of them. These quests should take time and give people something to do when they dont want to murder 50 rabbits for their furs or work on proffesions.
Daily exploration missions (or something that makes you walk to places you don't normaly would) There should be some optional missions, that rewards a decent amout of currency (since people wont do them othervise). These missions involve going back to places your character would not normaly be, like a distant node that you have no conncetion to or a low lvl zone. This would actually give people a reason to keep running around in the world even after the endgame nodes are set. This will help make the world feel alive.
What do you think should be avaible as solo content? Do you think it is needed?
Sounds like a WoW reskin.
Role Trial, quest in Garrison (for healers, tanks, and dps). Fighter Guild, The Brawlers Club, at SW Deep Run Tram. Non Combat quests......so many, especially with the Kirin Tor. Each class used to have class based quests (Locks and pets, Rogues making poison, Drd forms) but people got bored.
Admittedly I do have a bias, I would like a game that encourages me to group up.
I
don't know what MMORPG's you play, that encourage group play. I see the
opposite, where games have been melted down to fit the solo player
(WoW, Rift, EQ, EQ2, LotRO, and SWtoR to name a few), giving everyone
"Legendary" item's (making them not so Legendary). All of the mentioned
games started with being a challenge. I know asking people in MMORPG's
to group is now considered sacrilegious, until endgame anyway, but I can
play Skyrim if I want to solo. I do hope (and considering what the
team has said there is) that there is some solo play for those that want it, but
the reward should never be on par with a groups. Working to a goal, is harder on all fronts in a group. Player dynamics, and tactics is just the start.
So why should a solo player do a watered down version, yet get the same quality loot? I am genuinely asking? I may not being seeing the reason why.
Also, what impact would solo play have on a guild? Have been in many guilds where people don't have to group together anymore. It's like playing in a library 8)
Down below are some ideas that could help improve the solo experience of the game and give players something to work on while some of their friends, in the end, will go to sleep.
A soloable special questline or campaign There should be some form of quest line that may start at low lvl, and follow you all the way to max lvl and then end a bit later with an epic 1v1 boss fight that will test your characters ability and skill. This boss should be unique for each class to tailor it for each one and thus making it a fair fight for everyone. This quest should also not require the highest end gear and should mostly focus on player skill (Postioning, kiting, interupting boss abilities, timing and tacts). Lastly, this questline should also give interesting lore to your class, all missions in this questline should naturally not only be killing missions. A reward for this could be a rare item, an estetic reward or maybe a new place to have your home in.
A role trial: Since this game will follow the trinity of tank, healer and dps (maybe support aswell?) there could be a trial for each role to complete. This trial could work as a role tutorial and start with easy challanges and ending with advanced ones (Automaticly teaching players how to play their role in a more advanced and efficient way. This could be done inside a place dedicated to each class, and these places should be spreadout around the world (Rogues in a shady place, clerics in a holy place).
A Fighter guild: This idea is greatly inspired by the world of warcraft feature "Brawlers guild" Which consist of a special location where people are standing in line to enter an arena to fight a boss one on one. This is done while the people standing in line are watching. People do this because the boss fights are fun, creative and sometimes challangeing. This is something I would love to see here. A great problem with the wow version is that the queue times take for ever, to solve this, multiple arenas in the same place would help (wow has 1, queue time is about 10 min, so 3 arenas should be enough).
Non combat, storydriven missions There could be some form of questlines which involves exploring, tresure hunting or solving a mystery other than murdering 5 horses for their hoves. These quests could be weekly, as in one new is released every week or there could be a set amount of them. These quests should take time and give people something to do when they dont want to murder 50 rabbits for their furs or work on proffesions.
Daily exploration missions (or something that makes you walk to places you don't normaly would) There should be some optional missions, that rewards a decent amout of currency (since people wont do them otherwise). These missions involve going back to places your character would not normaly be, like a distant node that you have no conncection to or a low lvl zone. This would actually give people a reason to keep running around in the world even after the endgame nodes are set. This will help make the world feel alive.
What do you think should be available as solo content? Do you think it is needed?
So why should a solo player do a watered down version, yet get the same quality loot? I am genuinely asking? I may not being seeing the reason why.
Also, what impact would solo play have on a guild? Have been in many guilds where people don't have to group together anymore.
You probably aren't seeing the reason why because watered-down version and getting the same quality loot is all in your imagination and has nothing to do with what you quoted.
I am quite sure that people will be able to solo tasks and missions which will help progress the guild and the guild house. No reason that all tasks must require a group. Keep in mind that Ashes includes utility tasks like disarming traps and purging curses - which don't necessarily require a group. Soloers should be able to solo such activities in a dungeon in advance of groups following to clear the dungeon of mobs.
As was stated at the beginning of the quote, this gives people something to do when other people in the guild are sleeping or offline.
These days adventuring parties often don't talk despite being in a group - so it's like playing in a library anyways. but, you don't have to be in a group to talk to other players. You don't have to be in a group to Roleplay with other players.
Down below are some ideas that could help improve the solo experience of the game and give players something to work on while some of their friends, in the end, will go to sleep.
A soloable special questline or campaign There should be some form of quest line that may start at low lvl, and follow you all the way to max lvl and then end a bit later with an epic 1v1 boss fight that will test your characters ability and skill. This boss should be unique for each class to tailor it for each one and thus making it a fair fight for everyone. This quest should also not require the highest end gear and should mostly focus on player skill (Postioning, kiting, interupting boss abilities, timing and tacts). Lastly, this questline should also give interesting lore to your class, all missions in this questline should naturally not only be killing missions. A reward for this could be a rare item, an estetic reward or maybe a new place to have your home in.
A role trial: Since this game will follow the trinity of tank, healer and dps (maybe support aswell?) there could be a trial for each role to complete. This trial could work as a role tutorial and start with easy challanges and ending with advanced ones (Automaticly teaching players how to play their role in a more advanced and efficient way. This could be done inside a place dedicated to each class, and these places should be spreadout around the world (Rogues in a shady place, clerics in a holy place).
A Fighter guild: This idea is greatly inspired by the world of warcraft feature "Brawlers guild" Which consist of a special location where people are standing in line to enter an arena to fight a boss one on one. This is done while the people standing in line are watching. People do this because the boss fights are fun, creative and sometimes challangeing. This is something I would love to see here. A great problem with the wow version is that the queue times take for ever, to solve this, multiple arenas in the same place would help (wow has 1, queue time is about 10 min, so 3 arenas should be enough).
Non combat, storydriven missions There could be some form of questlines which involves exploring, tresure hunting or solving a mystery other than murdering 5 horses for their hoves. These quests could be weekly, as in one new is released every week or there could be a set amount of them. These quests should take time and give people something to do when they dont want to murder 50 rabbits for their furs or work on proffesions.
Daily exploration missions (or something that makes you walk to places you don't normaly would) There should be some optional missions, that rewards a decent amout of currency (since people wont do them otherwise). These missions involve going back to places your character would not normaly be, like a distant node that you have no conncection to or a low lvl zone. This would actually give people a reason to keep running around in the world even after the endgame nodes are set. This will help make the world feel alive.
What do you think should be available as solo content? Do you think it is needed?
So why should a solo player do a watered down version, yet get the same quality loot? I am genuinely asking? I may not being seeing the reason why.
Also, what impact would solo play have on a guild? Have been in many guilds where people don't have to group together anymore.
You probably aren't seeing the reason why because watered-down version and getting the same quality loot is all in your imagination and has nothing to do with what you quoted.
I am quite sure that people will be able to solo tasks and missions which will help progress the guild and the guild house. No reason that all tasks must require a group. Keep in mind that Ashes includes utility tasks like disarming traps and purging curses - which don't necessarily require a group. Soloers should be able to solo such activities in a dungeon in advance of groups following to clear the dungeon of mobs.
As was stated at the beginning of the quote, this gives people something to do when other people in the guild are sleeping or offline.
These days adventuring parties often don't talk despite being in a group - so it's like playing in a library anyways. but, you don't have to be in a group to talk to other players. You don't have to be in a group to Roleplay with other players.
So over 15 years MMORPG experience, watching games evolve, is in my head. When hitting level cap in games took months? (Also you could ding, then in the next fight unding). Instead of the few weeks it takes now. How in WoW for example, in vanilla Warriors, nor Priests, could effectively solo, now a Paladin can solo all the original group content, and now how every class has a heal, and in the same game players can be awarded with "Legendary" items, with a handful of quests in Legion (Artifact chain), which everyone gets! But this is just my imagination?
It seems these things you are alluding to, has the sole reason of supporting your narrative
Everything you have suggested is an easier route for the solo player. Which I don't have an issue with, you pay, you play your way, but personally I don't want to be spoon fed, and am damn sure the Devs don't want to write a game of that type. I want to play a game where it truly is risk vs reward (as the AoC team keep saying).
The AoC team have stated they want synergy in a group, so Ranger tracks to a wall, a Mage then uses see magic to "remove" wall. But this example was in a group!
Even the concept of AoC is about community (as stated by Steven Sharif), that leads me to me to think grouping, defending a node solo is going to be extremely hard (if not impossible solo). I have many friends from my experiences in MMORPG's, these were people I met when I was in a group (even my best RL friend was a healer who I met in a group, 12 years ago!).
Where did I say you needed to be in a group to role play? Or to talk to players?
I said that the lack of a group imperative meant that guilds did not feel the need to run together, everything is just a PuG. I know PuG's don't talk, apart from an occasional "Hello" and "Go! Go go go".
Seems your reply is really just muddying the waters, bringing up reasons not present in your post or my reply, and not answering my question as to why a solo player should get the same loot, that a group gets. I never said that all activities should be group based either. I never said there should be no solo play, you are seeing that because of your bias. Something at least I admitted to.
As the reply you sent seemed antagonistic, only reply if you are going to address what I originally posted.
I still stand by what you really want is a WoW reskin. Everything you asked for is available already. I want AoC to not be theme park MMORPG, I want it to be a great community, where people want to help, out of altruism, not greed.
I would just like to say, I have read all the posts, and you guys are wonderful! I cringe at the idea of reading forums on most MMORPG's, where people disagree. Lots of love, catch you all defending that node, I will be the guy playing with his instrument!
So over 15 years MMORPG experience, watching games evolve, is in my head.
Yes. It's all in your head because you are focused on what you believe are the ills of other games while completely ignoring the content of the post you quoted.
Everything you have suggested is an easier route for the solo player. Which I don't have an issue with, you pay, you play your way, but personally I don't want to be spoon fed, and am damn sure the Devs don't want to write a game of that type.
You can be as damn sure as you want to be, but the devs are including solo content. Solo content does not have to be a replacement for group content. And, in Ashes it is not.
Including solo content does not inherently mean that you will be spoon fed.
If you don't want to pursue solo content, there will be plenty of group content for you to focus on.
Nothing in the post you quoted has anything to do with people being spoon fed. Spoon fed is all in your head.
Where did I say you needed to be in a group to role play? Or to talk to players?
I said that the lack of a group imperative meant that guilds did not feel the need to run together, everything is just a PuG.
And, I'm saying that that's a problem with those players; not with the game.
Because it's a Roleplaying game; not a grouping game.
Plenty of reasons for a guild to interact with each other in an MMORPG besides needing a group to complete a challenge.
All of which is really beside the point...
Because the topic is about having solo content in addition to group content - specifically stuff to do after the group has gone off line and one player still wants to have fun adventuring.
I used to be a hardcore gamer, grouping and raiding 7 days a week, but that has since ended with a career and more time spent on education. When I played EQ 1, it was fun to group, to meet people and become friends (friends which I still talk to occasionally these days even after all this time). The early days of vanilla WoW were like that as well, but games since then have left something to be desired. More and more people have become toxic due to the anonymity of the internet and lack of accountability. At my age, I just don't have time nor patience for that kind of drama. I am hoping the Ashes community brings back that "want" for grouping again in me.
Right now, I mainly stick to soloing in most MMO's. Yes, I don't get to see all the content I want to see, but it is worth it to me to stay away from the toxicity. Unfortunately, playing solo, means I get bored more quickly, which is why I have had trouble finding a game I feel at home in. I am playing BDO right now, and mostly what I do is train my horses. It is relaxing. I have played over 30 days and I am only lvl 40, when some people level to max level in a matter of days. Where is the fun in that? I enjoy exploring the lands, seeing what I can do, finding little prizes hidden at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea. I plan on doing the same in Ashes - taking my time and exploring. I play to get out of the stressful, but boring real world that is my life.
Playing a good MMO should be like enjoying a gourmet meal... eat slow and savor longer!
uhhh .... I wouldn't go there. Long-Story short, SWTOR is a tragedy - could've been a whole lot more. Specifically, it's mostly Solo-ing nearly everything.
We all like different stuff... we're all going to spend our time doing different stuff...some of us VERY different.
So @Marzzo1337 wants to ensure that their concerns around attention to the solo play style are listened to, and has put forward a decent group of suggestions. Great!
I say why not, as long as the other play styles aren't ignored, solo content is going to be used by most of the population most of the time anyway.
Some solo stuff, I suppose is fine. A 1 v 1 arena type thing for example hunting and gathering in the woods of love and rainbows. But once you start going to more dangerous places. Grouping needs to be a requirement. I mean, if you are good enough, you should be able to solo it, but it should be slow, and painful. And you should want to group with others. I honestly cannot hammer this home enough.
If you tune the content so that grouping is a more streamlined experience, and soloing is rather slow and tedious. People will move to groups, which, inevitably creates friendships, which are such an important part of MMO's. It's hard to put into words. But consider this, many people, at some point or another in vanilla WoW for example, paid a subscription fee for a glorified chatbox. Coming online, because you wanted to spend time with the people whom you considered friends.
The problem with providing solo content is. If you can level all the way to max level doing solo content, people will do that. The path of least resistance is almost always taken. Unless you consciously make a choice not to.
One of the important things, therefore is to make sure that levelling solo is harsh, and maybe even impossible at times.
Agree to disagree. Im not trying to change anyones play style. playing solo is an option. I however feel like the game should be very, very, difficult and discourage ANY players from being solo. Thus driving the community to actually be a community.. easily the best part of MMO's is making friends and overcoming the obstacles together. Whats the point of having the holy trinity if we all just want to play solo? Shouldn't we all just play wizards or warriors so we can solo the content and be so fulfilled with the glory of beating a single player game? Or should we have a group working together utilizing each others skills so they can defeat whatever challenge they face?
I dunnno Hoody that sounds crazy id much rather play a single player rpg. Hoody your dumb you make no sense.. go away.
meh the qoute bugged anyways me ninja saying something
LOL, if i group with players even in mmo's even the elitist are morons.... they have a very small mindset because they wanna be bossy about any1 around them... do this do that... im more like half casual half hardcore... and solo is mostly so peacefull.... because i pay for my time i pay for the internet i make the choice to play a game so im my boss and nobody is my boss.. that is the thing about gaming, its not a job its a free to do so. So all ya bossy asses always want the same bullshit over and over.. can cry me a river so i can swim freely around in a peacefull manner :P
Some solo stuff, I suppose is fine. A 1 v 1 arena type thing for example hunting and gathering in the woods of love and rainbows. But once you start going to more dangerous places. Grouping needs to be a requirement. I mean, if you are good enough, you should be able to solo it, but it should be slow, and painful. And you should want to group with others. I honestly cannot hammer this home enough.
If you tune the content so that grouping is a more streamlined experience, and soloing is rather slow and tedious. People will move to groups, which, inevitably creates friendships, which are such an important part of MMO's. It's hard to put into words. But consider this, many people, at some point or another in vanilla WoW for example, paid a subscription fee for a glorified chatbox. Coming online, because you wanted to spend time with the people whom you considered friends.
The problem with providing solo content is. If you can level all the way to max level doing solo content, people will do that. The path of least resistance is almost always taken. Unless you consciously make a choice not to.
One of the important things, therefore is to make sure that levelling solo is harsh, and maybe even impossible at times.
A good RPG will include content that cannot be soloed. Grouping should never be a requirement. In Ashes we won't have to Group in order to defeat encounters that require multiple people for success. When the Spider Demon and her minions attack our town, we will not have to Group in order to defend the town. People will be able to join in that battle Solo.
Players should want to interact with each other. People wouldn't be playing an MMORPG if they didn't want some interaction with other players. That doesn't mean they have to Group.
What will move people to want to Group more is having towns and cities that people build and defend. With open world housing that allows people to easily find the neighbors they've enjoyed interacting with before. So that the towns and cities become more like actual communities. Finding like-minded players who like to play the way you like to play becomes easier. And those like-minded people will want to interact face to face on a regular basis, often hanging out in groups Solo as well as forming formal Groups.
Vanilla WoW may have been a glorified chatbox, but I didn't have to be in a group to chat with other players. Back in the day when MMOs began, the vast majority of players were hardcore/hardcore Killer/Achievers. Hardcore time/ hardcore challenge. I am a hardcore/casual Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0% I hate grouping with hardcore challenge Killer/Achievers and they hate grouping with me. So I typically Solo. In NWO, I mostly Duoed with a hardcore/casual Socializer/Explorer. I actually spend a lot of time socializing with other players in a wide variety of ways - but I rarely Group. To get me to frequently Group, it have to be easy for me to find other casual challenge Explorer/Socializers or casual challenge Socializer/Explorers.
The classes are way less important than the playstyles when it comes to Grouping - and I don't think Steven is thinking about that. But, again, should be easier to find like-minded players when you live in a town with open world housing that the town's community has to build and defend. Makes it easier to find and visit with our favorite players - more like frequenting our favorite NPC vendors.
There is really no way to tune content such that I will want to Group with hardcore challenge Killer/Achievers. I always ignore that content. If Solo content gets to be too tedious, I will stop playing until they nerf the difficulty or add more content I can Solo. If the devs make it easier for people with like-minded playestyles to find each other - more people will Group... regardless of it being required. Especially because casual challenge Socializers would Group because they enjoy socializing with each other even if they don't have to Group in order to defeat some challenge. Hardcore challenge Killer/Achievers won't Group if they can Solo everything.
I don't know what half these terms even mean. Hardcore x/y are not that big a chunk of the playerbase.
That being said, the defending a town, is in itself a social aspect. You may want to group up for it. I'll use a recent example, which, granted isn't the best one. But I didn't play Guild Wars or anything, so I don't know how it is there. During the pre-legion event of WoW. You had these invasions, big ass fudging demons rain down from the sky, to lay fake siege to cities. You could fight solo, no problem, you were still part of a collective. But the incentive to group up was there for classes that didn't have a lot of self healing. Made it easier to track health in the chaos of a big zerg.
As for your argument in regards to being forced to group. (To make the content easier, less down time waiting for cooldowns or mana and health etc.) you suggest that that would automatically put you in groups with hardcore whateveritwas players. This is simply not the case. Hardcore players make up a very small percentage of the community. That is not to say that every group you make will spawn friendships, bonds, and community building. As far as hardcore challenge/achievers go. I assume you mean the usual high-end PvE/PvP guilds. They usually just group with players they already know, or get to know by watching them handle themselves in certain situations, applications on forums outside the game etc.
Another argument you made was "Especially because casual challenge Socializers would Group because they enjoy socializing with each other even if they don't have to Group in order to defeat some challenge."
I don't even know what casual challenge socialisers are. So I'll try and interpret it using context. As I said in my post above. This is hardly ever the case. In my MMO's I prefer socialising. I ask friends I had already made, in my case through RP to make an alt and level with me. Because it's better than levelling alone. But when I just want to try a class, I'll just solo level, because it's less hassle, the path of least resistance as I said. Bottom line, I suppose, is that I want them to make grouping to do the content the path of least resistance for once. And I'm not talking about instances, or raids, or PvP groups. But standard "questing" and missions. Because I firmly believe that if you do it in a group, you'll ultimately have a better experience, and it'll be harder to leave the game. Short example, I LOVE Skyrim, but I can easily stop playing for several months, there's no social life to maintain, no friendships, the NPC's will not ask, blimey, where have you been? In MMO's if I have friends, I will want to return, to interact with them. And a system build from the ground up to encourage grouping will provide this in abundance. If you want to do your own thing, that's fine, but it should be a lot harder. And if you don't want it, and just interact with people and do things whenever you want, there's games for that, on the mobile market even. Things like Clash of Clans. Don't force it into a MMORPG. As the very essence of RPG's is the social aspect. Heralding back from the old table tops. Have fun solo'ing that.
There are two spectrums of hardcore/casual - challenge and time. Back in the day, most MMO players were hardcore time/hardcore challenge. Those people would sit around together for hours camping rare boss mobs which required mutliple players to defeat. They had the time to do that.
Now, most of those players don't have the time for stuff like that. They have jobs and families that mean they are now casual time/hardcore challenge players. They may not have the time to wait around for a Group of 8 players to form. Especially not one with one of each archetype. Which is another reason more people these days Solo.
Defending a town may be social. I think that is beside the point. The point is that players won't have to form a formal Group to defend the town. Many people will Group to defend the town and many people will join the same battle Solo. Soloers have always been part of the collective. All kinds of ways to self-heal if you prefer to Solo rather than Group. The people who like to Group will Group and the people who prefer to Solo will Solo and they will build their characters to support their decision to mostly Solo.
I did not suggest anything about automatically. If I meant automatically, I would have used the word automatically. Hardcore players do not make up a small portion of the playerbase. Hardcore time/hardcore challenge are a small part of the playerbase. But there are also people who are casual time/hardcore challenge players. Those two together are a significant part of the playerbase. Killer/Achievers and Achiever/Killers are also a significant portion of the playerbase. It's highly unlikely that I'm going to enjoy Grouping with them and highly unlikely that they are going to enjoy grouping with me. And that really has nothing to do with spawning friendships - that as to do with stomaching each others' playstyles long enough to complete even one encounter Grouped. "You don't have the right gear! You don't have the right spec! You don't even know how to play your class!"
Casual challenge folk typically aren't interested in filling out applications. That's kinda my point. They like their gameplay to be more casual.
If it's true that you Group to socialize with friends then there is no need to state that the content needs to be tuned to make Soloing slow and tedious. You and your friends would almost always be grouping regardless of it being required. You would Group with your friends as often as possible simply because it's fun to hang out with your friends.
Soloers also like MMORPGs to interact with their friends, maintain a virtual social life, etc. It's not about building a game from the ground up to encourage Grouping. Rather it's about building a game from the ground up to encourage socializing - especially making it easy for people with similar playstyles to find each other. Rather than leaving it to chance - which will have the common result of many casual challenge players preferring to Solo rather than clashing with the demands and expectations of hardcore challenge or even hardcore time players.
http://4you2learn.com/bartle/ If you aren't aware of the Bartle Score test - might be fun for you to take it. Again, my Bartle Score is Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0% When I go through a dungeon, killing stuff is the last thing I want to do. I would prefer to explore the dungeon and map and disable stuff or steal stuff without killing anything. I will kill stuff since that's generally the main part of the quest objective, sure. And I like to do that with other players because I like to socialize; not because I can't survive the dungeon or clear the dungeon without them. I don't care how many times we wipe before clearing the dungeon - I don;t care how efficiently we do it. I am hardcore time, so as long as we are actively working on a solution rather than sitting in one spot waiting for a full Group/raid to arrive (I'm an Explorer, I'm not gonna sit in one spot doing nothing for very long), we are good to go. My playstyle clashes with people who are Killer/Achievers - especially if the last thing they want to do is explore. Especially if they are speed-runners. I don't like playing with them because I don't get to explore - and they don't like playing with me because I'm not trying to kill everything in sight in the most efficient manner.
In NWO, our guild was formed from those of us who followed a popular twitch streamer. I mostly Duoed with one of the other leaders of the guild. We sometimes Grouped with more people, but it was easier for us to just jump in and Duo. Easier because we didn't have to wait for a larger group - and easier because we could just have fun playing casually - rather than speed-running, etc. We weren't demanding that the other play a certain way or have a particular gear score. When we finally caught up to max level with the streamer and began joining his Groups for the end-game dungeon, we pretty quickly began to clash with those players. "Why aren't you wearing xx? What do you mean you aren't using Magnetism spells because you're an Ice Wizard? You need to respec and equip Repel!! No exploring, we only have 30 minutes before this dungeon closes and we want to run it at least 3 times. Follow this specific strategy so we can defeat the boss." That is all too common these days in MMORPGs - which is fine if you don't mind playing that way. We casual folk would rather Solo than be subjected to that kind of Group play. Which doesn't mean that Soloers are anti-social and don't have friends. You can socialize face-to-face with tons of friends in MMORPGs without Grouping.
There should be plenty of content for people to Solo. And there should be plenty of content that can't be fully completed without multiple players working together - regardless of whether none of them are in a Group, all of them are in a Group or there is a mix of Solos and Groups.
Soloers shouldn't be able to do everything alone. That really has nothing to do with tuning content so that Grouping is more streamlined and Soloing is more slow and painful. It's only natural that the same challenge should be easier with more people participating.
Less about tuning content and more about providing sufficient content for a wide range of playstyles. And creating an environment that makes it easy for like-minded players to find each other.
Most of the concerns you have listed are so easy to avoid by simply saying what sort of group you want. And all your examples are of encounters, which I'll assume means bosses, especially based on the rest of what you typed. Dungeons for solo play seem like an incredibly bad idea.
Another part of your premise is about friends, but explanation on how to get these friends is not mentioned. You might go in with friends, but the game, by its very nature should support the creation of new friendships.
"Does anyone want to explore dungeon Y with me?
"Does anyone want to go exploring in zone X with me?"
Besides, what makes a zone worth exploring? If it's easily trespass-able by anyone. It means it's already explored.
On the other end of that, the zone North of that, not much is known of it, your node stopped sending people there, as few patrols have returned alive. But, you, being the curious explorer you are, want to explore the zone, and find it's actually nothing special, and you can just walk through, solo. I mean, does that sound rewarding? I don't know, maybe it does. Who knows what you'll find. But isn't the saying. "It's not the destination, it's the journey?" In your scenario, what's the journey like? How would Lord of the Rings be, if Frodo just walked over to Mordor, and dispatched the Orcs? Without strife, it's ultimately meaningless. I gladly accept that I won't be able to experience everything in the game, simply because I'm not much for PvE. And what I do experience, I want to have fought for.
If you'll forgive me for using a WoW analogy one more time. I didn't raid much, I did dungeons, and did it with people I met through questing. Questing I could solo, and often did. Despite it being a lot easier to group. Anyway, when we finally finished a dungeon, the reward was not just the gear, but the feeling of completion. It was hard (At least for us). That sense of fulfilment comes through the hardships. And that's just dungeons.
Making questing hard when you do it solo, and time consuming, makes the levels themselves an achievement in and of themselves. Doing it with others just makes it naturally faster, as mobs go down quicker, and you should have less downtime or recuperation time as a result.
So many people have fond memories of Vanilla WoW for so many
different reasons, but one of the main ones that crops up time and time again
is the grouping aspect.
A lot of content could be done solo, but the world was
peppered with Elite mobs that you could not take down on your own (no class was
capable of doing it – back when Elite meant something). A lot of quest chains
could be done solo for the first couple of steps, but then when you hit part 4
or 5, you needed 3 people minimum. This wasn’t just a warning that the monsters
did 5 more damage, you really did need help.
Small groups would form constantly
to complete these quest chains and, inevitably, because you were questing in
the same zone, more often than not on the same quests, you stayed together for
a while.
That is exactly how I joined my first guild (which I stayed
with for 2 years), how I met more than half of the friends I made in that game
and how I had some of my most memorable world pvp encounters (*waves fondly at
Stranglethorn Vale*).
I remember putting groups together for UBRS, having 6 and
filling the final 4 with randoms from a zone shout out. Groups formed in
minutes. It was always a great way to meet people and recruit them – I dislike
the website recruitment for guilds, much preferring to play with people in
game.
Quests were also much more sparse on the information. Now
you have a big watermark on the map, quest items sparkling from 100 yards away,
arrows pointing you in the right direction *sigh* but back in Vanilla
you could spend 30 minutes looking for a tiny metal gadget hidden among the weeds
and if you failed, then a shoutout in zone would get you the answer, which
would let people know what quest you were on and many, many times a group would
form from that simple question.
I think Vanilla WoW got a huge amount of things right and
when you think about the claims from the Intrepid team, so much of them sound
exactly like Vanilla WoW.
I especially liked some of the solo content in WoW – content
that was specifically designed as solo content. The druid forms quests were
cool. The class quests early on were a nice little bit of flavour. But the one
I remember the most was for the Rhok’delar, Ancient Bow of the Seekers or
something like that. It was for hunters and they had to defeat 3 demons, each with
a different mechanic.
It was a solo quest because being in a group invalidated
it, and any outside help (heals) would reset the encounter. I remember helping
my best mate complete that by getting a group together and clearing an area so
he could kite one demon around half a zone, and to keep the pvp away as the
whole chain was completed out in the world.
So solo, but grouping helped
because they weren’t instanced. These quests were a direct reflection of the
skill of the player and were pretty hard – not too many people ever got the
Rhok’delar (he still wears it proudly as a transmog).
I also remember another
guy in the guild paying someone and handing over his account details after
failing 10 times – caused quite the kerfuffle at the time.
A good mix of solo and group content is a must for a healthy
game. I would draw the line at solo instancing though. I think that is a
slippery slope to disaster.
@Ariatras An encounter basically is really any potential combat occurrence. From Giant Rat all the up to Boss.
Just because you have friends doesn't mean you want to Group with them. Soloers tend to have lots of friends that they hang out with in the game - they just don't want to Group with them. You don't have to be in a Group to explore together. Grouping is pretty much all about combat.
lmao If there is any area on my map covered by the fog of war, it's worth exploring. If it's not been explored by me, I don't care whether it's already been explored by other people. First thing I always do when I level is explore as far as I can reasonably survive without being instant killed so I can uncover as much of the fog of war as possible. In Ashes, I expect to explore the entire map many times to see first-hand how the world has changed.
I don't necessarily care what the journey is like as long as it's beautiful to behold. I am a casual challenge player. I'm playing for a fun story - not for challenge. I explore to take tons of screen shots of exotic environments and cool-looking flora and fauna. I suppose Lord of the Rings would have been more like the Hobbit had Frodo just walked by himself over to Mordor. Bilbo encountered plenty of strife. The LotR and the Hobbit are both great stories. But, in LotR, the members of the Fellowship weren't telling Frodo that he sucks because he's not wearing uber armor, isn't using the right abilities and isn't using the most efficient strategy to defeat opponents. I seem to recall that Frodo and Samwise spend a good bit of their time Duoing rather than constantly adventuring in an 8+ Group. Gandalf solos quite a bit, yeah? If players respected each other like the members of the Fellowship, there would be a whole lot more Grouping going on in MMORPGs.
I gladly accept that I can't do everything in the game. I think I've said a few times already that there should be content that Soloers can't complete alone. But there should always be new content that Soloers can comfortably participate in that doesn't require them to join a Group. Like participating in a Monster Coin Event to defend a city. In Ashes, Soloers will be able to participate in that battle alongside the rest of the defenders without any requirement to form or join a Group.
Saying that what you do, you want to have fought for is a hardcore challenge point of view. Which is fine. I have a casual challenge point of view. I doubt we would enjoy being in the same Group. Doesn't mean we can't be friends and hang out together doing other stuff besides adventuring. Maybe it ends up that we trade our crafted items with each other. But, when I want to stealth through a dungeon without killing anything, I don't think you're necessarily going to have fun tagging along since we won't be fighting anything. Maybe there will be times when we adventure alongside each other without me joining your Group - maybe we end up defending the same caravan. Not because it would be harder for me to defend Solo, but because we both have a vested interest in protecting that particular caravan.
Feeling of completion in a dungeon for me is exploring every nook and cranny and maybe opening every chest. I don't really care if we kill every mob - and I would probably prefer it if we could get decent xp without killing any mobs. Sense of pride for me would be successfully stealthing past threats. But, I don't understand why you think that Soloing doesn't include hardships. Soloing bosses in dungeons designed for full Groups can take many wipes and tons of hours to accomplish. You seem to think that soloing is always easy and challenge-free?
You don't "make questing hard when you do it Solo". You make plenty of challenging encounters for Solo players. You make plenty of challenging encounters for Groups. You make plenty of challenging encounters for Raids.
In Ashes, Soloers for the most part will not be able to defend a caravan alone. They will need to do so with other people. That doesn't necessarily mean they have to join their Group. Soloers will not be able to defend a siege alone. That does not mean that they will have to join a Group to participate in the siege. Soloers will not be able to defends their towns and cities from Monster Coin Events alone. That does not mean they will have to join a Group to participate in the MCE.
Adventuring with others might make it faster - which might be important for Achievers. I don't necessarily care about faster. Rather I care about enjoying my play session the way I like to play.
If I can easily find casual challenge Explorer/Socializers or Socializer/Explorers online and nearby when I'm playing - great! We will probably adventure together -- probably in a Group. I expect it will be easy to do so in Ashes because instead constantly spreading out through the world as we outlevel towns and zones, we will be sticking with the same towns and zones as we help the node level. The people we like to adventure with and who share similar playstyles will be on at the same time and reasonably nearby and we will know where their homes/freeholds are - which we can visit openly rather than via an instance. People in the same town/city will likely rally together at the same time during an MCE. Doesn't matter whether they Group up or stay Solo. They will be able to fight together to defend their homes.
Trying to "make questing hard to do when you Solo" is the wrong direction. Rather you design your world in such a way that people are often going up against encounters together. Even if they aren't in the same Group. Even if some or all of them are dealing with the encounter Solo.
In case that concept confuses you - Solo just means adventuring while not formally joined in a Group.
Back in the day, most MMO players were hardcore time/hardcore challenge.
They had the time to do that.
Now, most of those players don't have the time for stuff like that.
Pretty "brave" conclusion to say the least...
Your logic fail is that you only look at your own generation. Before you had time and now you don't.
But you are forgetting all the younger generations that still have time, and CAN be hardcore. Like "generation you are referring to" was before.
EVEN IF we assumed generation of players you were referring to didn't have time now, and that's completely unsubstantiated argument. Likely wrong for many people.
EVEN IF we assumed generation of players you were referring to didn't have time now, and that's completely unsubstantiated argument. Likely wrong for many people.
True. I was a player back in the heyday of MMOs and had plenty of time to play, but was never what I would call hardcore - lot of time played but not raiding three times a week for 5 hours a time. Still had a solid life balance.
Now I have a job, a mortgage and life has moved on, but we didn't (and won't) have children so that burden is not something we have to bear.
So both of us are more than up for playing hours each night after work, for long sessions, we are just waiting for a game in which to participate (she is playing ESO at the moment though).
Um. Nooooo. I have taken into account the younger generation that is hardcore/hardcore. That is part of my point. We still have hardcore/hardcore players. But, it's a significantly smaller portion of the playerbase than it was back in the day because the older generation is still playing, but they are no longer hardcore/hardcore, rather they are casual/hardcore. And then we also have a significant amount of hardcore/casuals, like me, as well as casual/casual players - now that most homes have multiple PCs connected to the internet.
Most players of MMORPGs are now some form of casual. But there are still tons of hardcore challenge players.
I want all groups of people to be involved and happy but I'll be extremely disappointed if people aren't encouraged to group up. I'll fight for solo Content for things to do in downtime or to move a certain part of the story forward but as a whole the game should focus on group play activity with varying degrees of difficultly.
A difficulty I can compare it to would FFXI. You could kill things solo and get exp but you pulled one at a time and had to rest and heal between pulls. If you got greedy or weren't paying attention and a patrol came into you mid fight you died or ran. On the flip side as a group your member roles allowed to you "chain" experience and it gave you a multiplier on your exp.
I can't remember who posted it but a few pages ago something along the lines of "it should be extremely challenging to do solo (so much so that it encourages you to group) and reasonably challenging as a group.
IF you can solo the same content as a group you should obtain the same quality gear.... But honestly you should NOT be able to perform that feat solo.
I saw someone saying something about being able to scale all/most content to what ever your party size either solo or grouped but that will do nothing to create any kind of community
Again, in Ashes, what builds community and working together is that we can't build and defend towns and cities alone. We can't defend caravans alone.
There will also be the typical xp bonuses for Grouping. I hope to see strategies that allow us to synergize abilities from different classes, like in Wizard101 or Log Horizon.
What you are describing is basically a single player game, with multiplayer encounters. It's the total loss of what makes an MMORPG an MMORPG. And I even said you don't need to group during a siege, or caravan raid if you don't want to. I just said it would probably be easier to communicate. But the fact that you'll do it with other people is what I was referring to. As for strife during adventures. I never said you'll need a full group of 8+ But, much like @Bajjer said. Not alone, you could not solo it, not with questing gear, at least.
We aren't ever going to see eye to eye though, and that's fine. It takes all different kinds.
I am not describing a single-player game with multiplayer encounters. There is more to playing an MMORPG than Grouping for combat encounters - way more. Solo is not the same thing as being alone. Solo just means you tend not to join a Group for combat.
There are all kinds of ways to communicate with other players without being in a Group or without being in the same Group.
Soloers do a whole bunch of stuff with other people in MMORPGs. Frequently with masses of of other players. That's why they are playing a multiplayer game. They just don't Group for combat.
Roleplaying while directly interacting with masses of other players does not have to involve Grouping or combat.
As for strife, you seem to be saying that soloing content does not include strife or enough strife. And that Solo content should be made harder and more tedious than Group content.
What you may be trying to say is that the game should include plenty of content that players cannot complete alone. But, that really has little to do with "dangerous areas". I should be able to explore dangerous areas on my own and survive - if I'm stealthy. I should be able to use Invisibility to steal an artifact from a dangerous area... as in the Art of War video... on my own. I shouldn't be able to defeat a final boss designed as a Group encounter my level or higher if I am alone.
Comments
MMORPGs aren't all about challeneges.
And challenges aren't all group challenges.
RPGs typically have a focus on group challenges.
Single-player RPGs are impossible to play multiplayer.
MMORPGs cannot be be single-player. There will always be multiple players online.
Usually playing together in the same space even if they aren't playing together in the same group... which is what MMORPGs are all about.
Ashes will have soloable content and soloable challenges.
Much of which will be benefiting masses of players because everything we do -including soloing- affects the growth of the nearby nodes.
All Multi-player denotes is that the world is populated with more than just NPCs. Basically other real players like you and me. It has nothing to do with being forced to group up with others to enjoy the world (although it is obviously encouraged) You are then free to interact (or not) with those players to whatever level you are comfortable with.
There are a LOT of players (myself included) that do enjoy solo content because we often don't have the time needed to form a group to go do something. And by solo content I don't mean going out and killing mobs for an hour. Not that I'm saying group content is secondary, because I agree that to complete most "high end" content you should need a group (although I do enjoy the challenge of trying to complete "group content" solo)
Having solo content is GREAT because it gives everyone OPTIONS for differing play styles.
Role Trial, quest in Garrison (for healers, tanks, and dps).
Fighter Guild, The Brawlers Club, at SW Deep Run Tram.
Non Combat quests......so many, especially with the Kirin Tor.
Each class used to have class based quests (Locks and pets, Rogues making poison, Drd forms) but people got bored.
Admittedly I do have a bias, I would like a game that encourages me to group up.
I don't know what MMORPG's you play, that encourage group play. I see the opposite, where games have been melted down to fit the solo player (WoW, Rift, EQ, EQ2, LotRO, and SWtoR to name a few), giving everyone "Legendary" item's (making them not so Legendary). All of the mentioned games started with being a challenge. I know asking people in MMORPG's to group is now considered sacrilegious, until endgame anyway, but I can play Skyrim if I want to solo.
I do hope (and considering what the team has said there is) that there is some solo play for those that want it, but the reward should never be on par with a groups.
Working to a goal, is harder on all fronts in a group. Player dynamics, and tactics is just the start.
So why should a solo player do a watered down version, yet get the same quality loot?
I am genuinely asking? I may not being seeing the reason why.
Also, what impact would solo play have on a guild? Have been in many guilds where people don't have to group together anymore. It's like playing in a library 8)
I am quite sure that people will be able to solo tasks and missions which will help progress the guild and the guild house. No reason that all tasks must require a group.
Keep in mind that Ashes includes utility tasks like disarming traps and purging curses - which don't necessarily require a group.
Soloers should be able to solo such activities in a dungeon in advance of groups following to clear the dungeon of mobs.
As was stated at the beginning of the quote, this gives people something to do when other people in the guild are sleeping or offline.
These days adventuring parties often don't talk despite being in a group - so it's like playing in a library anyways. but, you don't have to be in a group to talk to other players.
You don't have to be in a group to Roleplay with other players.
It seems these things you are alluding to, has the sole reason of supporting your narrative
Everything you have suggested is an easier route for the solo player. Which I don't have an issue with, you pay, you play your way, but personally I don't want to be spoon fed, and am damn sure the Devs don't want to write a game of that type. I want to play a game where it truly is risk vs reward (as the AoC team keep saying).
The AoC team have stated they want synergy in a group, so Ranger tracks to a wall, a Mage then uses see magic to "remove" wall. But this example was in a group!
Even the concept of AoC is about community (as stated by Steven Sharif), that leads me to me to think grouping, defending a node solo is going to be extremely hard (if not impossible solo).
I have many friends from my experiences in MMORPG's, these were people I met when I was in a group (even my best RL friend was a healer who I met in a group, 12 years ago!).
Where did I say you needed to be in a group to role play? Or to talk to players?
I said that the lack of a group imperative meant that guilds did not feel the need to run together, everything is just a PuG. I know PuG's don't talk, apart from an occasional "Hello" and "Go! Go go go".
Seems your reply is really just muddying the waters, bringing up reasons not present in your post or my reply, and not answering my question as to why a solo player should get the same loot, that a group gets.
I never said that all activities should be group based either.
I never said there should be no solo play, you are seeing that because of your bias. Something at least I admitted to.
As the reply you sent seemed antagonistic, only reply if you are going to address what I originally posted.
I still stand by what you really want is a WoW reskin. Everything you asked for is available already. I want AoC to not be theme park MMORPG, I want it to be a great community, where people want to help, out of altruism, not greed.
I cringe at the idea of reading forums on most MMORPG's, where people disagree.
Lots of love, catch you all defending that node, I will be the guy playing with his instrument!
Including solo content does not inherently mean that you will be spoon fed. If you don't want to pursue solo content, there will be plenty of group content for you to focus on.
Nothing in the post you quoted has anything to do with people being spoon fed.
Spoon fed is all in your head.
Plenty of reasons for a guild to interact with each other in an MMORPG besides needing a group to complete a challenge.
All of which is really beside the point...
Because the topic is about having solo content in addition to group content - specifically stuff to do after the group has gone off line and one player still wants to have fun adventuring.
Right now, I mainly stick to soloing in most MMO's. Yes, I don't get to see all the content I want to see, but it is worth it to me to stay away from the toxicity. Unfortunately, playing solo, means I get bored more quickly, which is why I have had trouble finding a game I feel at home in. I am playing BDO right now, and mostly what I do is train my horses. It is relaxing. I have played over 30 days and I am only lvl 40, when some people level to max level in a matter of days. Where is the fun in that? I enjoy exploring the lands, seeing what I can do, finding little prizes hidden at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea. I plan on doing the same in Ashes - taking my time and exploring. I play to get out of the stressful, but boring real world that is my life.
Playing a good MMO should be like enjoying a gourmet meal... eat slow and savor longer!
So @Marzzo1337 wants to ensure that their concerns around attention to the solo play style are listened to, and has put forward a decent group of suggestions. Great!
I say why not, as long as the other play styles aren't ignored, solo content is going to be used by most of the population most of the time anyway.
If you tune the content so that grouping is a more streamlined experience, and soloing is rather slow and tedious. People will move to groups, which, inevitably creates friendships, which are such an important part of MMO's. It's hard to put into words. But consider this, many people, at some point or another in vanilla WoW for example, paid a subscription fee for a glorified chatbox. Coming online, because you wanted to spend time with the people whom you considered friends.
The problem with providing solo content is. If you can level all the way to max level doing solo content, people will do that. The path of least resistance is almost always taken. Unless you consciously make a choice not to.
One of the important things, therefore is to make sure that levelling solo is harsh, and maybe even impossible at times.
Though solo play as a choice (not my own preference) shouldn't be ignored, and if there are suggesting to improve it, they're worth considering.
Grouping should never be a requirement.
In Ashes we won't have to Group in order to defeat encounters that require multiple people for success.
When the Spider Demon and her minions attack our town, we will not have to Group in order to defend the town. People will be able to join in that battle Solo.
Players should want to interact with each other.
People wouldn't be playing an MMORPG if they didn't want some interaction with other players. That doesn't mean they have to Group.
What will move people to want to Group more is having towns and cities that people build and defend. With open world housing that allows people to easily find the neighbors they've enjoyed interacting with before. So that the towns and cities become more like actual communities.
Finding like-minded players who like to play the way you like to play becomes easier.
And those like-minded people will want to interact face to face on a regular basis, often hanging out in groups Solo as well as forming formal Groups.
Vanilla WoW may have been a glorified chatbox, but I didn't have to be in a group to chat with other players.
Back in the day when MMOs began, the vast majority of players were hardcore/hardcore Killer/Achievers. Hardcore time/ hardcore challenge.
I am a hardcore/casual Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0%
I hate grouping with hardcore challenge Killer/Achievers and they hate grouping with me.
So I typically Solo. In NWO, I mostly Duoed with a hardcore/casual Socializer/Explorer.
I actually spend a lot of time socializing with other players in a wide variety of ways - but I rarely Group. To get me to frequently Group, it have to be easy for me to find other casual challenge Explorer/Socializers or casual challenge Socializer/Explorers.
The classes are way less important than the playstyles when it comes to Grouping - and I don't think Steven is thinking about that.
But, again, should be easier to find like-minded players when you live in a town with open world housing that the town's community has to build and defend.
Makes it easier to find and visit with our favorite players - more like frequenting our favorite NPC vendors.
There is really no way to tune content such that I will want to Group with hardcore challenge Killer/Achievers. I always ignore that content.
If Solo content gets to be too tedious, I will stop playing until they nerf the difficulty or add more content I can Solo.
If the devs make it easier for people with like-minded playestyles to find each other - more people will Group... regardless of it being required.
Especially because casual challenge Socializers would Group because they enjoy socializing with each other even if they don't have to Group in order to defeat some challenge.
Hardcore challenge Killer/Achievers won't Group if they can Solo everything.
That being said, the defending a town, is in itself a social aspect. You may want to group up for it. I'll use a recent example, which, granted isn't the best one. But I didn't play Guild Wars or anything, so I don't know how it is there.
During the pre-legion event of WoW. You had these invasions, big ass fudging demons rain down from the sky, to lay fake siege to cities. You could fight solo, no problem, you were still part of a collective. But the incentive to group up was there for classes that didn't have a lot of self healing. Made it easier to track health in the chaos of a big zerg.
As for your argument in regards to being forced to group. (To make the content easier, less down time waiting for cooldowns or mana and health etc.) you suggest that that would automatically put you in groups with hardcore whateveritwas players. This is simply not the case. Hardcore players make up a very small percentage of the community. That is not to say that every group you make will spawn friendships, bonds, and community building. As far as hardcore challenge/achievers go. I assume you mean the usual high-end PvE/PvP guilds. They usually just group with players they already know, or get to know by watching them handle themselves in certain situations, applications on forums outside the game etc.
Another argument you made was "Especially because casual challenge Socializers would Group because they enjoy socializing with each other even if they don't have to Group in order to defeat some challenge."
I don't even know what casual challenge socialisers are. So I'll try and interpret it using context. As I said in my post above. This is hardly ever the case. In my MMO's I prefer socialising. I ask friends I had already made, in my case through RP to make an alt and level with me. Because it's better than levelling alone. But when I just want to try a class, I'll just solo level, because it's less hassle, the path of least resistance as I said.
Bottom line, I suppose, is that I want them to make grouping to do the content the path of least resistance for once. And I'm not talking about instances, or raids, or PvP groups. But standard "questing" and missions. Because I firmly believe that if you do it in a group, you'll ultimately have a better experience, and it'll be harder to leave the game.
Short example, I LOVE Skyrim, but I can easily stop playing for several months, there's no social life to maintain, no friendships, the NPC's will not ask, blimey, where have you been? In MMO's if I have friends, I will want to return, to interact with them. And a system build from the ground up to encourage grouping will provide this in abundance. If you want to do your own thing, that's fine, but it should be a lot harder. And if you don't want it, and just interact with people and do things whenever you want, there's games for that, on the mobile market even. Things like Clash of Clans. Don't force it into a MMORPG. As the very essence of RPG's is the social aspect. Heralding back from the old table tops. Have fun solo'ing that.
Back in the day, most MMO players were hardcore time/hardcore challenge.
Those people would sit around together for hours camping rare boss mobs which required mutliple players to defeat.
They had the time to do that.
Now, most of those players don't have the time for stuff like that.
They have jobs and families that mean they are now casual time/hardcore challenge players. They may not have the time to wait around for a Group of 8 players to form.
Especially not one with one of each archetype.
Which is another reason more people these days Solo.
Defending a town may be social. I think that is beside the point.
The point is that players won't have to form a formal Group to defend the town.
Many people will Group to defend the town and many people will join the same battle Solo.
Soloers have always been part of the collective.
All kinds of ways to self-heal if you prefer to Solo rather than Group.
The people who like to Group will Group and the people who prefer to Solo will Solo and they will build their characters to support their decision to mostly Solo.
I did not suggest anything about automatically. If I meant automatically, I would have used the word automatically.
Hardcore players do not make up a small portion of the playerbase.
Hardcore time/hardcore challenge are a small part of the playerbase.
But there are also people who are casual time/hardcore challenge players.
Those two together are a significant part of the playerbase.
Killer/Achievers and Achiever/Killers are also a significant portion of the playerbase.
It's highly unlikely that I'm going to enjoy Grouping with them and highly unlikely that they are going to enjoy grouping with me.
And that really has nothing to do with spawning friendships - that as to do with stomaching each others' playstyles long enough to complete even one encounter Grouped.
"You don't have the right gear! You don't have the right spec! You don't even know how to play your class!"
Casual challenge folk typically aren't interested in filling out applications.
That's kinda my point. They like their gameplay to be more casual.
If it's true that you Group to socialize with friends then there is no need to state that the content needs to be tuned to make Soloing slow and tedious. You and your friends would almost always be grouping regardless of it being required.
You would Group with your friends as often as possible simply because it's fun to hang out with your friends.
Soloers also like MMORPGs to interact with their friends, maintain a virtual social life, etc.
It's not about building a game from the ground up to encourage Grouping. Rather it's about building a game from the ground up to encourage socializing - especially making it easy for people with similar playstyles to find each other.
Rather than leaving it to chance - which will have the common result of many casual challenge players preferring to Solo rather than clashing with the demands and expectations of hardcore challenge or even hardcore time players.
http://4you2learn.com/bartle/
If you aren't aware of the Bartle Score test - might be fun for you to take it.
Again, my Bartle Score is Explorer 87%; Socializer 73% ; Achiever 47%; Killer 0%
When I go through a dungeon, killing stuff is the last thing I want to do.
I would prefer to explore the dungeon and map and disable stuff or steal stuff without killing anything. I will kill stuff since that's generally the main part of the quest objective, sure. And I like to do that with other players because I like to socialize; not because I can't survive the dungeon or clear the dungeon without them.
I don't care how many times we wipe before clearing the dungeon - I don;t care how efficiently we do it.
I am hardcore time, so as long as we are actively working on a solution rather than sitting in one spot waiting for a full Group/raid to arrive (I'm an Explorer, I'm not gonna sit in one spot doing nothing for very long), we are good to go.
My playstyle clashes with people who are Killer/Achievers - especially if the last thing they want to do is explore. Especially if they are speed-runners.
I don't like playing with them because I don't get to explore - and they don't like playing with me because I'm not trying to kill everything in sight in the most efficient manner.
In NWO, our guild was formed from those of us who followed a popular twitch streamer. I mostly Duoed with one of the other leaders of the guild. We sometimes Grouped with more people, but it was easier for us to just jump in and Duo. Easier because we didn't have to wait for a larger group - and easier because we could just have fun playing casually - rather than speed-running, etc.
We weren't demanding that the other play a certain way or have a particular gear score.
When we finally caught up to max level with the streamer and began joining his Groups for the end-game dungeon, we pretty quickly began to clash with those players. "Why aren't you wearing xx? What do you mean you aren't using Magnetism spells because you're an Ice Wizard? You need to respec and equip Repel!! No exploring, we only have 30 minutes before this dungeon closes and we want to run it at least 3 times. Follow this specific strategy so we can defeat the boss."
That is all too common these days in MMORPGs - which is fine if you don't mind playing that way.
We casual folk would rather Solo than be subjected to that kind of Group play.
Which doesn't mean that Soloers are anti-social and don't have friends.
You can socialize face-to-face with tons of friends in MMORPGs without Grouping.
There should be plenty of content for people to Solo.
And there should be plenty of content that can't be fully completed without multiple players working together - regardless of whether none of them are in a Group, all of them are in a Group or there is a mix of Solos and Groups.
Soloers shouldn't be able to do everything alone.
That really has nothing to do with tuning content so that Grouping is more streamlined and Soloing is more slow and painful.
It's only natural that the same challenge should be easier with more people participating.
Less about tuning content and more about providing sufficient content for a wide range of playstyles. And creating an environment that makes it easy for like-minded players to find each other.
Another part of your premise is about friends, but explanation on how to get these friends is not mentioned. You might go in with friends, but the game, by its very nature should support the creation of new friendships.
"Does anyone want to explore dungeon Y with me?
Besides, what makes a zone worth exploring? If it's easily trespass-able by anyone. It means it's already explored.
On the other end of that, the zone North of that, not much is known of it, your node stopped sending people there, as few patrols have returned alive. But, you, being the curious explorer you are, want to explore the zone, and find it's actually nothing special, and you can just walk through, solo. I mean, does that sound rewarding? I don't know, maybe it does. Who knows what you'll find. But isn't the saying. "It's not the destination, it's the journey?" In your scenario, what's the journey like? How would Lord of the Rings be, if Frodo just walked over to Mordor, and dispatched the Orcs? Without strife, it's ultimately meaningless. I gladly accept that I won't be able to experience everything in the game, simply because I'm not much for PvE. And what I do experience, I want to have fought for.
If you'll forgive me for using a WoW analogy one more time.
I didn't raid much, I did dungeons, and did it with people I met through questing. Questing I could solo, and often did. Despite it being a lot easier to group. Anyway, when we finally finished a dungeon, the reward was not just the gear, but the feeling of completion. It was hard (At least for us). That sense of fulfilment comes through the hardships. And that's just dungeons.
Making questing hard when you do it solo, and time consuming, makes the levels themselves an achievement in and of themselves. Doing it with others just makes it naturally faster, as mobs go down quicker, and you should have less downtime or recuperation time as a result.
So many people have fond memories of Vanilla WoW for so many different reasons, but one of the main ones that crops up time and time again is the grouping aspect.
A lot of content could be done solo, but the world was peppered with Elite mobs that you could not take down on your own (no class was capable of doing it – back when Elite meant something). A lot of quest chains could be done solo for the first couple of steps, but then when you hit part 4 or 5, you needed 3 people minimum. This wasn’t just a warning that the monsters did 5 more damage, you really did need help.
Small groups would form constantly to complete these quest chains and, inevitably, because you were questing in the same zone, more often than not on the same quests, you stayed together for a while.
That is exactly how I joined my first guild (which I stayed with for 2 years), how I met more than half of the friends I made in that game and how I had some of my most memorable world pvp encounters (*waves fondly at Stranglethorn Vale*).
I remember putting groups together for UBRS, having 6 and filling the final 4 with randoms from a zone shout out. Groups formed in minutes. It was always a great way to meet people and recruit them – I dislike the website recruitment for guilds, much preferring to play with people in game.
Quests were also much more sparse on the information. Now you have a big watermark on the map, quest items sparkling from 100 yards away, arrows pointing you in the right direction *sigh* but back in Vanilla you could spend 30 minutes looking for a tiny metal gadget hidden among the weeds and if you failed, then a shoutout in zone would get you the answer, which would let people know what quest you were on and many, many times a group would form from that simple question.
I think Vanilla WoW got a huge amount of things right and when you think about the claims from the Intrepid team, so much of them sound exactly like Vanilla WoW.
I especially liked some of the solo content in WoW – content that was specifically designed as solo content. The druid forms quests were cool. The class quests early on were a nice little bit of flavour. But the one I remember the most was for the Rhok’delar, Ancient Bow of the Seekers or something like that. It was for hunters and they had to defeat 3 demons, each with a different mechanic.
It was a solo quest because being in a group invalidated it, and any outside help (heals) would reset the encounter. I remember helping my best mate complete that by getting a group together and clearing an area so he could kite one demon around half a zone, and to keep the pvp away as the whole chain was completed out in the world.
So solo, but grouping helped because they weren’t instanced. These quests were a direct reflection of the skill of the player and were pretty hard – not too many people ever got the Rhok’delar (he still wears it proudly as a transmog).
I also remember another guy in the guild paying someone and handing over his account details after failing 10 times – caused quite the kerfuffle at the time.
A good mix of solo and group content is a must for a healthy game. I would draw the line at solo instancing though. I think that is a slippery slope to disaster.
An encounter basically is really any potential combat occurrence. From Giant Rat all the up to Boss.
Just because you have friends doesn't mean you want to Group with them.
Soloers tend to have lots of friends that they hang out with in the game - they just don't want to Group with them.
You don't have to be in a Group to explore together. Grouping is pretty much all about combat.
lmao
If there is any area on my map covered by the fog of war, it's worth exploring.
If it's not been explored by me, I don't care whether it's already been explored by other people. First thing I always do when I level is explore as far as I can reasonably survive without being instant killed so I can uncover as much of the fog of war as possible.
In Ashes, I expect to explore the entire map many times to see first-hand how the world has changed.
I don't necessarily care what the journey is like as long as it's beautiful to behold.
I am a casual challenge player. I'm playing for a fun story - not for challenge.
I explore to take tons of screen shots of exotic environments and cool-looking flora and fauna.
I suppose Lord of the Rings would have been more like the Hobbit had Frodo just walked by himself over to Mordor.
Bilbo encountered plenty of strife.
The LotR and the Hobbit are both great stories.
But, in LotR, the members of the Fellowship weren't telling Frodo that he sucks because he's not wearing uber armor, isn't using the right abilities and isn't using the most efficient strategy to defeat opponents. I seem to recall that Frodo and Samwise spend a good bit of their time Duoing rather than constantly adventuring in an 8+ Group.
Gandalf solos quite a bit, yeah?
If players respected each other like the members of the Fellowship, there would be a whole lot more Grouping going on in MMORPGs.
I gladly accept that I can't do everything in the game.
I think I've said a few times already that there should be content that Soloers can't complete alone.
But there should always be new content that Soloers can comfortably participate in that doesn't require them to join a Group.
Like participating in a Monster Coin Event to defend a city.
In Ashes, Soloers will be able to participate in that battle alongside the rest of the defenders without any requirement to form or join a Group.
Saying that what you do, you want to have fought for is a hardcore challenge point of view.
Which is fine. I have a casual challenge point of view.
I doubt we would enjoy being in the same Group. Doesn't mean we can't be friends and hang out together doing other stuff besides adventuring.
Maybe it ends up that we trade our crafted items with each other.
But, when I want to stealth through a dungeon without killing anything, I don't think you're necessarily going to have fun tagging along since we won't be fighting anything.
Maybe there will be times when we adventure alongside each other without me joining your Group - maybe we end up defending the same caravan.
Not because it would be harder for me to defend Solo, but because we both have a vested interest in protecting that particular caravan.
Feeling of completion in a dungeon for me is exploring every nook and cranny and maybe opening every chest. I don't really care if we kill every mob - and I would probably prefer it if we could get decent xp without killing any mobs.
Sense of pride for me would be successfully stealthing past threats.
But, I don't understand why you think that Soloing doesn't include hardships.
Soloing bosses in dungeons designed for full Groups can take many wipes and tons of hours to accomplish.
You seem to think that soloing is always easy and challenge-free?
You don't "make questing hard when you do it Solo".
You make plenty of challenging encounters for Solo players.
You make plenty of challenging encounters for Groups.
You make plenty of challenging encounters for Raids.
In Ashes, Soloers for the most part will not be able to defend a caravan alone.
They will need to do so with other people.
That doesn't necessarily mean they have to join their Group.
Soloers will not be able to defend a siege alone.
That does not mean that they will have to join a Group to participate in the siege.
Soloers will not be able to defends their towns and cities from Monster Coin Events alone.
That does not mean they will have to join a Group to participate in the MCE.
Adventuring with others might make it faster - which might be important for Achievers.
I don't necessarily care about faster.
Rather I care about enjoying my play session the way I like to play.
If I can easily find casual challenge Explorer/Socializers or Socializer/Explorers online and nearby when I'm playing - great! We will probably adventure together -- probably in a Group.
I expect it will be easy to do so in Ashes because instead constantly spreading out through the world as we outlevel towns and zones, we will be sticking with the same towns and zones as we help the node level.
The people we like to adventure with and who share similar playstyles will be on at the same time and reasonably nearby and we will know where their homes/freeholds are - which we can visit openly rather than via an instance.
People in the same town/city will likely rally together at the same time during an MCE. Doesn't matter whether they Group up or stay Solo. They will be able to fight together to defend their homes.
Trying to "make questing hard to do when you Solo" is the wrong direction.
Rather you design your world in such a way that people are often going up against encounters together.
Even if they aren't in the same Group.
Even if some or all of them are dealing with the encounter Solo.
In case that concept confuses you - Solo just means adventuring while not formally joined in a Group.
Your logic fail is that you only look at your own generation. Before you had time and now you don't.
But you are forgetting all the younger generations that still have time, and CAN be hardcore. Like "generation you are referring to" was before.
EVEN IF we assumed generation of players you were referring to didn't have time now, and that's completely unsubstantiated argument. Likely wrong for many people.
Now I have a job, a mortgage and life has moved on, but we didn't (and won't) have children so that burden is not something we have to bear.
So both of us are more than up for playing hours each night after work, for long sessions, we are just waiting for a game in which to participate (she is playing ESO at the moment though).
I have taken into account the younger generation that is hardcore/hardcore.
That is part of my point. We still have hardcore/hardcore players.
But, it's a significantly smaller portion of the playerbase than it was back in the day because the older generation is still playing, but they are no longer hardcore/hardcore, rather they are casual/hardcore.
And then we also have a significant amount of hardcore/casuals, like me, as well as casual/casual players - now that most homes have multiple PCs connected to the internet.
Most players of MMORPGs are now some form of casual.
But there are still tons of hardcore challenge players.
A difficulty I can compare it to would FFXI. You could kill things solo and get exp but you pulled one at a time and had to rest and heal between pulls. If you got greedy or weren't paying attention and a patrol came into you mid fight you died or ran. On the flip side as a group your member roles allowed to you "chain" experience and it gave you a multiplier on your exp.
I can't remember who posted it but a few pages ago something along the lines of "it should be extremely challenging to do solo (so much so that it encourages you to group) and reasonably challenging as a group.
IF you can solo the same content as a group you should obtain the same quality gear.... But honestly you should NOT be able to perform that feat solo.
I saw someone saying something about being able to scale all/most content to what ever your party size either solo or grouped but that will do nothing to create any kind of community
We can't defend caravans alone.
There will also be the typical xp bonuses for Grouping.
I hope to see strategies that allow us to synergize abilities from different classes,
like in Wizard101 or Log Horizon.
And I even said you don't need to group during a siege, or caravan raid if you don't want to. I just said it would probably be easier to communicate. But the fact that you'll do it with other people is what I was referring to.
As for strife during adventures. I never said you'll need a full group of 8+ But, much like @Bajjer said. Not alone, you could not solo it, not with questing gear, at least.
We aren't ever going to see eye to eye though, and that's fine. It takes all different kinds.
There is more to playing an MMORPG than Grouping for combat encounters - way more.
Solo is not the same thing as being alone.
Solo just means you tend not to join a Group for combat.
There are all kinds of ways to communicate with other players without being in a Group or without being in the same Group.
Soloers do a whole bunch of stuff with other people in MMORPGs.
Frequently with masses of of other players.
That's why they are playing a multiplayer game.
They just don't Group for combat.
Roleplaying while directly interacting with masses of other players does not have to involve Grouping or combat.
As for strife, you seem to be saying that soloing content does not include strife or enough strife. And that Solo content should be made harder and more tedious than Group content.
What you may be trying to say is that the game should include plenty of content that players cannot complete alone. But, that really has little to do with "dangerous areas". I should be able to explore dangerous areas on my own and survive - if I'm stealthy. I should be able to use Invisibility to steal an artifact from a dangerous area... as in the Art of War video... on my own.
I shouldn't be able to defeat a final boss designed as a Group encounter my level or higher if I am alone.