Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Dev Discussion #16 - Group-Oriented Activities
LieutenantToast
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.
Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!
Dev Discussion #16 - Group-Oriented Activities
What sorts of things stop you from joining a group or participating in group-oriented activities?
Keep an eye out for our next Dev Discussion topic regarding non-progression content!
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Comments
another thing that stops me from doing group content is if there is no point to it, or rather what would be gained from it is less than the effort required to finish it.
I also won’t be inclined to group if that means I now have to throw lots for any loot on a mob I kill.
I’m not inclined to engage with grouping systems that give all authority to the group leader without question. In a guild based group, or a formal raid, that makes sense. Joining a pug in the open world should not make rando#5 the all-important leaderman.
I’m still dubious on Ashes’ planned loot system in general. I tend to think instanced loot is superior just to avoid how much hassle and drama comes solely from loot drops, and the group mechanics shouldn’t end up making that drama worse.
1. Time constraints
2. Lack of the proper classes if the difficulty curve requires certain classes
3. Poor rewards from the content the group is preparing to consume
4. Someone in the group that I know from a previous experience whose attitude is very poor and possibly because they are flat out awful at performing their role (it would have to be truly bad, mind you)
5. Content is not relevant to my interests or goals
6. Needed accesses have not been obtained
Generally the things that would keep me away from group activities were loot rules or poor reputation of the group members. Like toxic guilds and such.
I mean you can't really take your time to enjoy the scenery, do a bit of roleplay on the side of the road with a random stranger passing by or take your time to read the lore or even what the npc asks for his quest. And that's even more true if one of the member of your group already did this quest/dungeon/raid/[insert anything to do in a game]
Standard small group activities like mob farming
It's pretty common in other MMORPGs that the smaller your group is the better whether it's solo farming mobs or doing dungeons with the minimal amount of people. It discourages the social aspect of MMORPGs, although I don't believe it should be necessary that you have a group for every aspect of any game since it functions as gatekeeping. Have a variety of mobs on each map where one area is better suited for solo farming and another for farming as a party. An example for group mob farming would be having strong, dense mobs that can't be aggroed one at a time with better loot or drop rates. This would provide incentive to actually form a group whether you're with friends, guildmates, or in chat with randoms. I've found this type of social aspect to the game does a good job of boosting the social aspect of the game where you meet more people as this type of gameplay is basic enough that you can do it with randoms. I think another good thing would be for leveling from 1 to cap to be viable with a party so leveling with friends can be done without it hindering progression.
Gatekeeping in the dungeon scene.
Another very common where if the game is new and everyone is new there's usually not an issue, but as soon as a couple of months after launch passes you run into gear/experience requirements. It gets to a point where new players or those slow to progress catch up and find difficulty finding groups that accept them. A similar issue is when certain classes are completely irrelevant in the dungeon meta making it difficult to find a group when for example they might only accept mages, a healer, and a tank. Solutions to this is to ensure each dungeon has a variety of difficulties that are practical for use like easy to learn mechanics if you're new, normal if you know mechanics but don't have good gear, hard if you have good gear and knowledge of the mechanics, and expert for players with high tier gear, experience, and organization like premade teams from top guilds while all modes are still viable to take part in. The class bias issue just comes down to proper game design and taking into account what each class brings to the table when designing dungeon mechanics and mob types[/b]
Large scale/zerg content
To each their own, but I personally dislike zerg content greatly. It removes any level of skill or individual impact while typically just being a gear check and to a degree leadership difference. I think this comes down to well thought out content rather than extremely basic content that gets boring fast. Instead of just a single objective where everyone just spams abilities mindlessly into a single target or RvR where both raids just collide until one side runs out of numbers there should be more nuance. Having smaller objectives where you can have the main raid focusing on the zerg aspect while smaller elite teams handle side objectives that have a significant impact on the main raid's objective is an example of the layers content should have. An example of this is comparing League of Legends' standard Summoner's Rift map to the Howling Abyss aram map. One objective where both teams just mindlessly clash versus a more intricate one where you have many primary objectives and small objectives to get to the main objective of the enemy's nexus.
If the quest is collect 10 Unicorn Horns. Everyone in the group should get the credit. Not 20, 30, etc Unicorn Horns depending on the group side. Especially if if there is TERRIBLE RNG. Why does that Unicorn NOT have a horn when I clearly can see it does!
Loot systems. NBG needs to exist. Also do not let anyone Need on an item if they cannot use it. I am not there trying to get my shiny new weapon so that you (and you cannot use the item) give it to your guild mate who is not even online. Hell even more of a slap in the face is if they are in the group with us and you try to also NEED for them. if you win it on greed.. cool do with it what you want. Means no one needed it that could use it so it should be open for everyone after that.
I am sure I will think of more. I have over 23 years of MMO gaming experience lol.
Exception to this is when it comes to friends and guild mates. Will usually group with friends to help them out and hang out, even if it's not better for me but it's nice to still be getting something for my time.
It's important to make most aspects of the game viable and efficient in a group, but basic gameplay absolutely shouldn't punish players who want to go about things solo. Many newer games also streamline things like quest mob tagging so people don't need to go through the pointless ritual of adding someone to a party for all of 20 seconds, and I'm hoping AoC doesn't go for the intentionally obtuse way of handling things like that just for the sake of doing things 'old school'. Groups should feel necessary for challenging content that would be otherwise impossible, and completely optional the rest of the time.
I think this one gets most of the ones I would have said already:
Number 5 is the one I want to focus on : Stale Content prevents me from grouping a lot.
What this means for me is basically there are events that could be potentially fun with a group, but because they are not updated with a newer loot table and rewards when newer content comes out, I feel like these types of group events are lost forever.
For example: Fates in FFXIV were fun to group for at server / expansion launch for the XP and the bit of loot, but very quickly all these become stagnant, the loot never really got any better and we had all this neat fun content being generated on the maps with no one really taking advantage of them at all. No one wanted to group for them because of all the reasons quoted above.
I guess what I am trying to say is:
I feel like the general lack of incentive to group in the first place is something that prevents me from grouping with people.
Personally, my #1 issue is just regular social anxiety. I'm not expecting Intrepid to solve my personal issues, though. And I've mostly gotten over it in the context of MMOs. However, I will say that LFG systems (even informal community practices), which sorta codify the group-making process, help get me over the initial shyness.
The next issue, probably shared by a lot of people, is commitment to larger/longer objectives (such as end-game raids), with a static group or guild. Half of that is time commitment, because ideally you want to spend several hours each week, every week, on a regular schedule. The other half is social commitment to a group of people who you need to gel with for a long time. Again, this is not really something the MMO can help with, aside from offering every level of content for people with different levels of commitment (or lack thereof).
There is one situation that I think the game is mostly responsible for. If there is difficult content that stays around for a long time, but continues to stay relevant or give good rewards, it will eventually reach a point where it's incredibly difficult for newer players to find a group for it. This happens because most of the people who continue to run/farm that content get very good at it over time, and they begin to expect all of their teammates to be equally practiced, because they want fast smooth runs (especially if they are trying to grind out 100+ runs for some ridiculous achievement or cosmetic reward). At that point it's basically a miracle if a new player can find a group of veterans to teach or carry them through it, or even less likely, find a whole group of new players who stick around long enough to prog through it on their own.
In that situation, where content becomes exclusive to an elitist veteran community, I would prefer that the content died out completely (no longer giving relevant rewards, and letting the veterans go do something else with their time), or that it were eventually nerfed/made easier so that newer players can get through it without a miracle group.
Most mmorpgs cater to casual solo gameplay, in which one solo character can without danger:
Lvl up (pve combat)
Do silly quest chains (story mode)
Gather (all available professions)
Craft (all available professions)
This stops the need to socialize/group
Also the fact that when you're in a group with someone that has already completed certain content, they tend to skip cinematics or content that can add something to the story arc or the lore of certain area or characters, as someone who enjoys the development of the tale, that tends to frustrate me.
A couple things off the top of my head:
a) Players who have no intention of communicating.
It would be nice to filter the LFG system by who has a mic or not. Or at least filter for those who agree to listen to voice chat.
b) Players who intend to communicate but can't talk in voice chat.
Discussing fight mechanics etc. can be difficult when you have to type everything out. It would be cool to have a voice to text feature for people who don't want to talk in voice chat...and more importantly for raid leaders so they don't have to type out fight mechanics while explaining it over voice. It could be a toggle on the messaging window or something.
Also, having a poll system for asking questions to the group and a good 'ready-up' system are very handy.
For group to be successful the juice as to be worth the squeeze, meaning make the rewards for grouping obviously better and players will do it.
Only if they have *shudder* independent thought processes...
So dave counts then. That's all I needed to know
"Dave get your gear we are going on a quest!"