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What is your ideal party size in an MMO?
ArchivedUser
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Hey guys. So recently in a blog post Steven talked about how AoC will have a group size of eight people. I've never played an mmo with such a large group size. Most modern mmos stick with four or five. With that being said though I really do look forward to seeing how 8 man dungeons will work. I feel like having 8 man content makes it feel more epic. It takes more people to down a boss it makes it feel like a greater threat. So I just want to see what the community thinks is the perfect groupo size in an mmo and why.
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Really should be just bring however many you want and complete the tasks you're able to complete - leave the rest for others - or come back and try again, perhaps with more folks.
But if there are things like support, and dps is not just about damage, but about a form of environmental control (casting earthspikes around the place to function as lightning rods if applicable) Or in some way stopping the fireballs raining from the sky, etc.
Then I think more dps could be amazing.
I dont see anything other than an array of build penalties to go with an array of build bonuses as a viable balancing solution that enables variety. Build variety comes through a myriad of 'equally valid' choices. A dualistic sacrificial distribution system is the only way I see balance and diversity at the same time. Such a system enables any group size of any build because every build is internally balanced with itself, rather than externally balanced against others.
That does not detract form the fact the game may well be well balanced using preset builds and enforce some variety through the number of presets. I just dont think its as good as it could be. So there is always the opportunity for something better to come along that could force Intrepid to change to survive. So it would be better to use the best available option at the outset IMHO.
The biggest problem is the concept of themepark scripted dungeons. Such content is difficult to balance so you instinctively try to limit as many variables as possible. Group size being the primary one. The alternative is you say UPTO X players and scale the content and reward to suit. But you are still left with a difficulty issue. How do you balance difficulty vs variable players with variable skill sets without destroying variety ?
If you have preset dungeons there will always be optimal builds for known content destroying variety. If you have random dungeons, different group variety will have easy and hard content as luck determines. If you know how many people are entering an instance and you know every skill each build has, you can instead tune the difficulty to make a designer dungeon to suit the combined skillset instead. This last method means any build styles, of any group size can enter any dungeon and always have challenging content to match.
Thus the pack vs herd conflict of finding that perfect team to match the perfect dungeon never arises. There is simply groups of people adventuring together, built in a style that expresses their own nature. All the barriers between who what where and when you play with other people are removed.
2 = Infinity
It's Massive Multiplayer, not groups of 4 multiplayer.
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