DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2
I mean... even in Tolkien... the individulas were not forced to be in a group.
They often split up - sometimes soloing.
One of my favorite memories in Vanilla EQ was encountering a group that needed healing while Medding.
I healed them and ran off to do other stuff.
Sometimes it's fun to adventure alongside other players and help them complete quests you've already completed - and then go your separate ways.
You don't have to be in a formal group in order to play together with other players.
And players don't have to be forced in order to play with other players or to group with others.
Do so because you want to; not because you're forced to.
Um. You don't have to formally join a Group/Party in order to be in combat alongside other players.
Sieges and Caravans don't force grouping, for example.
Are you sure, Dygz ? ;-)
This Mechanic can "still" feel forceful to People who would love to Solo absolutely everything as if they would be freakin' Saitama and could One-punch every single Enemy in Existence.
I get your point,
but now You have me stuck with the Imagination of a single Person "sieging" a whole Node.
Content designed for multiple players is not the same thing as forced grouping.
And i agree with other People here in this Topic on this one Sentence,
most MMO's nowadays don't do the "forcing Part" hard enough. There should be Places You can not just come in and raid everything alone. For Example Goblin- Bandit- Minotauer-Camps and whatever else is there.
Am i a weird Person when i say, in an " MMO~RPG Game " - i want to see "several People", maybe even Groups ABOVE Four to Five People, in Place where it would make Sense ?
In World of WoW-Token Craft - i can attack pretty much every single Base in Existence completely alone.
I can raid Castles who are mostly or partially Ruins and full of Enemies, alone.
I can go into the biggest "BASES" in the so called "Maw" in the Shadowlands Expansion COMPLETELY alone.
That Place is supposed to be the freakin' "HELL" of WoW - and the Forces and Troops there are supposed to be scariest and most evil Folks around.
The only Exceptions are Instances and/or Raids in the current Max-Level Range of current Expansions regarding Strength. Those can "force" me to team up with Others - but otherwise the whole Game is free real Estate.
And by now there are like 8 " Continents " full of Enemies, Factions, Challenges and Storylines. That Game feels more like a SinglePlayer with a "Lobby" instead of an MMORPG at times.
Do i want to solo a Dungeon/Raid? No that is imho the fun group content. Do i want to group up for a story beat? Hell no
On release that is generally not a problem but years/months later is can be one. I am not a completionists so i can skip a old dungeon and not lose sleep
0
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
This Mechanic can "still" feel forceful to People who would love to Solo absolutely everything as if they would be freakin' Saitama and could One-punch every single Enemy in Existence.
I get your point,
but now You have me stuck with the Imagination of a single Person "sieging" a whole Node.
Yep. You don't have to Group to participate in a Siege.
And i agree with other People here in this Topic on this one Sentence,
most MMO's nowadays don't do the "forcing Part" hard enough. There should be Places You can not just come in and raid everything alone. For Example Goblin- Bandit- Minotauer-Camps and whatever else is there.
Am i a weird Person when i say, in an " MMO~RPG Game " - i want to see "several People", maybe even Groups ABOVE Four to Five People, in Place where it would make Sense ?
You should be able to see several players fighting together without being joined in a Group.
Especially in Sieges and Caravans.
Without it being forced.
I wouldn't worry about it being "forced". Who is to say that your friends/guildmates are online, in the same area, and are interested in the same content you are on any given day?
Personally, I expect a lot of the day to day content to be soloable. Gathering mats, grinding levels, doing commissions/side quests and professions. There are a bunch of open world events that involve groups you can auto join, apparently, so that's not a problem. In fact, it could be more optimal to be going around in the open world as a solo/duo for more mats/exp and then just joining groups as the events pop up around you.
The more people you have in group, the more bathroom breaks, snack breaks, cig breaks, attention loss breaks etc. Realistically, it is difficult to get a group of 4+ to do anything for an hour straight, unless they are all on exactly the same page and ready to go (like a raid or something)
The team stuff so far seems more about planning big caravan runs, doing dungeons/raids/bosses, and then eventually node stuff.
Sure you can zerg the open world for just mat gathering, but is it an actually efficient use of time?
Realistically, it is difficult to get a group of 4+ to do anything for an hour straight, unless they are all on exactly the same page and ready to go (like a raid or something)
Soloable mmos have truly been a plague on the genre, if this is the common thought process for party play
Realistically, it is difficult to get a group of 4+ to do anything for an hour straight, unless they are all on exactly the same page and ready to go (like a raid or something)
Soloable mmos have truly been a plague on the genre, if this is the common thought process for party play
I mean this is just a fact. If you meet people in the open world and group, its different. But when you are trying to organize irl friends and guildies its a thing.
What is the alternative? Log off and play something else until your friends are online?
Making a group based MMO means making the difficulty so great that in order to complete content you need a group to do so. A lot of MMOs i have played have been too easy at the overland level to where I don't find it interesting.
A resurgence in difficulty in the space is something I am looking forward to, but having that balance between fun and challenging group based content and some soloable quest content like what we saw in the commissions livestream sounds good to me.
I think there's a serious lack of good content right now. At least from what we've seen. I understand the desire to form groups but the devs run content where bigger groups are required in 3 or 4s and stomp the enemies. Its not conducive to a challenge. One would hope the challenge is put in at some point down the line because I want to be engaged in a team fight, not afk watching netflix whilst we tank and spank all comers.
What is the alternative? Log off and play something else until your friends are online?
Alternative is to find a group of people that can play at the same time every day, even if it's just for 1-2h. I could do these with people of all ages and all types of "family situations" throughout my 12 years of playing an mmo.
Ashes will already be primetime-based, so even 2h of primetime gameplay will provide some good progress to those who can only play those 2 hours.
And if you can play way more than 2h - find several groups of people that are interested in different parts of the game (so that you don't outpace your other groups in their preferred content). Or hell, have several alts that can progress at different times.
To me playing an mmo solo or in a small group means barely any progress and reward (if any at all). Those who're fine with that will already have their fun in Ashes. But those who expect more should be shit outta luck imo.
the devs run content where bigger groups are required in 3 or 4s and stomp the enemies. Its not conducive to a challenge. One would hope the challenge is put in at some point down the line because I want to be engaged in a team fight, not afk watching netflix whilst we tank and spank all comers.
Well if the area is too easy for you, go to a harder (higher level, more monster density) area. The monster levels don't scale to the player.
Or, if you are solo, go to a lower level area. Seems like a pretty straight forward way to fight content that is appropriately difficult. Only "hard" part is finding the areas that are a good fit, and still getting a decent rate of exp/mats/game progress.
the devs run content where bigger groups are required in 3 or 4s and stomp the enemies. Its not conducive to a challenge. One would hope the challenge is put in at some point down the line because I want to be engaged in a team fight, not afk watching netflix whilst we tank and spank all comers.
Well if the area is too easy for you, go to a harder (higher level, more monster density) area. The monster levels don't scale to the player.
Or, if you are solo, go to a lower level area. Seems like a pretty straight forward way to fight content that is appropriately difficult. Only "hard" part is finding the areas that are a good fit, and still getting a decent rate of exp/mats/game progress.
The zones are limited to the node level. All well and good if you come to the game 12 months after launch and can drift between higher level mobs. Not so good when you are at launch and must keep pace with node progressions. The whole base level of the mobs needs to be adjusted. I haven't seen a mob stun a single dev for ages. In A1 the pirates used to chain cc you. All that seems to have vanished.
To me playing an mmo solo or in a small group means barely any progress and reward (if any at all). Those who're fine with that will already have their fun in Ashes. But those who expect more should be shit outta luck imo.
Look, I can see that you need reliable groups to move caravans, do dungeons and raids and stuff like that. But if you just get owned every time you walk out of the node solo, or be level 1 locked because you didn't get any friends/family to play with you then the game is going to get old pretty fast.
MMOs have never been about being locked to town with no way to advance or progress without joining a group before leaving. This is absurd.
MMOs have never been about being locked to town with no way to advance or progress without joining a group before leaving. This is absurd.
Afaik early games had "playing solo" as almost a challenge, because the game was exactly NOT built for that. Could you do it? Of course. But your progress and reward were low as hell.
And Steven wants to go in a similar direction, while maybe not going as far. Which is exactly what I'm saying. Solo progress is slow as hell and/or horizontal (though imo even this should be fairly limited), while group progress is flying.
MMOs have never been about being locked to town with no way to advance or progress without joining a group before leaving. This is absurd.
Afaik early games had "playing solo" as almost a challenge, because the game was exactly NOT built for that. Could you do it? Of course. But your progress and reward were low as hell.
And Steven wants to go in a similar direction, while maybe not going as far. Which is exactly what I'm saying. Solo progress is slow as hell and/or horizontal (though imo even this should be fairly limited), while group progress is flying.
The whole of the hunting grounds is solo friendly. And only the hunting grounds exist.
Afaik early games had "playing solo" as almost a challenge, because the game was exactly NOT built for that. Could you do it? Of course. But your progress and reward were low as hell.
Well something like 50% as effective solo when compared to a group is slow enough, probably. That's the difference between 250 hrs to level 50 and 500 hours to level 50.
Definitely slow enough to encourage people to group whenever possible. Enough to ask a random person in the same area as you to group up and expect a "yes". Which is all I want.
None of my old friends are going to be playing this game, and I don't want to get in a guild until I start playing. My preference is to meet people in game, because the game systems encourage it, and become friends/join guilds based on people I party with and see active in my area.
I understand most people in these forums are already in guilds and want the game design to require you to be in a guild before launch, as they are, but I don't agree.
I recently played WOW classic and was saddened that I leveled faster solo than in a group.
I understand most people in these forums are already in guilds and want the game design to require you to be in a guild before launch, as they are, but I don't agree.
I'm gonna make my own node guild and help anyone in my node to progress. And I want the game to push those people to me, so that I don't have to go look for them
I understand most people in these forums are already in guilds and want the game design to require you to be in a guild before launch, as they are, but I don't agree.
The guilds you see on this forums will not even be encountered on full launch, wont even be a dot on the player count so don't worry about that. There's a chance you'll see 1 or 2 but what's a couple 100 out of thousands
Yep. You don't have to Group to participate in a Siege.
Ohh REEEAAALLLYYYY ??? ^.^
Did you just really write what i HOPED You would write ?
I wonder if this will piss off Mag7spy, though ... ...
... ... because that means as many People - AS - THEY - WANT - cran participate in a Siege, right ? Or is that System still designed that it will shrink Attackers Numbers as much so that Defenders can still easily fend them of ?
You should be able to see several players fighting together without being joined in a Group.
Especially in Sieges and Caravans.
Without it being forced.
As long as Sieges are " free " and not limited to " WHOEVER " can either join the Attackers,
"OR" the Defenders, i am all for it.
The game shouldn't "force" players to do or not do anything. If someone thinks they can solo a dungeon designed for a group of 40, then let them try. It is like a lvl 1 trying to farm a lvl 60 mob, they should still be allowed to go to that area and try, but they shouldn't be locked out of the area just because they are lvl 1. Freedom of action and movement is important in open world.
In my humble opinion, group content is kind of pivotal to the health of an MMO.
Does everything have to relate to group content? No. But do I want to drag my friend to a dungeon and collaborate to get even greater rewards? Absolutely, yes.
While players shouldn't be forced into group content, some concepts are just non-negotiable. You're not going to down world bosses solo, or complete elite dungeons by yourself, but you're still more than welcome to try and maybe one day succeed as Verra is developed.
If it is one thing that humans do well, it's the ability to try and collaborate, even if it's not working as one may have hoped for.
Players should still be able to enter dungeons solo or even duo, rather than requiring a full-on group. If dungeons require a group of five, players will find a way around it and group random folks to enter. It will always be in our nature to do this.
The game shouldn't "force" players to do or not do anything.
I am quite confident neither You or me will be able to beat a World Boss completely One-on-One, no matter how much we have maxed out our Characters or how legendary our Gear will be, though.
So what would that " force " us to, if we want to take down said World Boss in Question ?
This is an MMO. An actual MMO. Open world PvP MMOs have always about group play.
Years ago, many popular MMOs decided to turn into mutiplayered colored single player games with 0 social interaction but that's not the way forward, IMO.
AoC will be a social MMO and the contrast will the stark with other "MMOs"
I hope that solo content will be available as much as group content. Exactly forcing players to group together should not be a good idea, as it could cut off a large percentage of players.
Yes, group content should have more rewards. But a solo player should be able to achieve similar results, even if for a longer period of time than in a group.
I hope that solo content will be available as much as group content. Exactly forcing players to group together should not be a good idea, as it could cut off a large percentage of players.
Yes, group content should have more rewards. But a solo player should be able to achieve similar results, even if for a longer period of time than in a group.
Comments
They often split up - sometimes soloing.
One of my favorite memories in Vanilla EQ was encountering a group that needed healing while Medding.
I healed them and ran off to do other stuff.
Sometimes it's fun to adventure alongside other players and help them complete quests you've already completed - and then go your separate ways.
You don't have to be in a formal group in order to play together with other players.
And players don't have to be forced in order to play with other players or to group with others.
Do so because you want to; not because you're forced to.
Are you sure, Dygz ? ;-)
This Mechanic can "still" feel forceful to People who would love to Solo absolutely everything as if they would be freakin' Saitama and could One-punch every single Enemy in Existence.
I get your point,
but now You have me stuck with the Imagination of a single Person "sieging" a whole Node.
And i agree with other People here in this Topic on this one Sentence,
most MMO's nowadays don't do the "forcing Part" hard enough. There should be Places You can not just come in and raid everything alone. For Example Goblin- Bandit- Minotauer-Camps and whatever else is there.
Am i a weird Person when i say, in an " MMO~RPG Game " - i want to see "several People", maybe even Groups ABOVE Four to Five People, in Place where it would make Sense ?
In World of WoW-Token Craft - i can attack pretty much every single Base in Existence completely alone.
I can raid Castles who are mostly or partially Ruins and full of Enemies, alone.
I can go into the biggest "BASES" in the so called "Maw" in the Shadowlands Expansion COMPLETELY alone.
That Place is supposed to be the freakin' "HELL" of WoW - and the Forces and Troops there are supposed to be scariest and most evil Folks around.
The only Exceptions are Instances and/or Raids in the current Max-Level Range of current Expansions regarding Strength. Those can "force" me to team up with Others - but otherwise the whole Game is free real Estate.
And by now there are like 8 " Continents " full of Enemies, Factions, Challenges and Storylines. That Game feels more like a SinglePlayer with a "Lobby" instead of an MMORPG at times.
On release that is generally not a problem but years/months later is can be one. I am not a completionists so i can skip a old dungeon and not lose sleep
We disagree.
You should be able to see several players fighting together without being joined in a Group.
Especially in Sieges and Caravans.
Without it being forced.
Best example out there. This applies to me as well 😉
Personally, I expect a lot of the day to day content to be soloable. Gathering mats, grinding levels, doing commissions/side quests and professions. There are a bunch of open world events that involve groups you can auto join, apparently, so that's not a problem. In fact, it could be more optimal to be going around in the open world as a solo/duo for more mats/exp and then just joining groups as the events pop up around you.
The more people you have in group, the more bathroom breaks, snack breaks, cig breaks, attention loss breaks etc. Realistically, it is difficult to get a group of 4+ to do anything for an hour straight, unless they are all on exactly the same page and ready to go (like a raid or something)
The team stuff so far seems more about planning big caravan runs, doing dungeons/raids/bosses, and then eventually node stuff.
Sure you can zerg the open world for just mat gathering, but is it an actually efficient use of time?
I mean this is just a fact. If you meet people in the open world and group, its different. But when you are trying to organize irl friends and guildies its a thing.
What is the alternative? Log off and play something else until your friends are online?
Making a group based MMO means making the difficulty so great that in order to complete content you need a group to do so. A lot of MMOs i have played have been too easy at the overland level to where I don't find it interesting.
A resurgence in difficulty in the space is something I am looking forward to, but having that balance between fun and challenging group based content and some soloable quest content like what we saw in the commissions livestream sounds good to me.
Ashes will already be primetime-based, so even 2h of primetime gameplay will provide some good progress to those who can only play those 2 hours.
And if you can play way more than 2h - find several groups of people that are interested in different parts of the game (so that you don't outpace your other groups in their preferred content). Or hell, have several alts that can progress at different times.
To me playing an mmo solo or in a small group means barely any progress and reward (if any at all). Those who're fine with that will already have their fun in Ashes. But those who expect more should be shit outta luck imo.
Well if the area is too easy for you, go to a harder (higher level, more monster density) area. The monster levels don't scale to the player.
Or, if you are solo, go to a lower level area. Seems like a pretty straight forward way to fight content that is appropriately difficult. Only "hard" part is finding the areas that are a good fit, and still getting a decent rate of exp/mats/game progress.
The zones are limited to the node level. All well and good if you come to the game 12 months after launch and can drift between higher level mobs. Not so good when you are at launch and must keep pace with node progressions. The whole base level of the mobs needs to be adjusted. I haven't seen a mob stun a single dev for ages. In A1 the pirates used to chain cc you. All that seems to have vanished.
Look, I can see that you need reliable groups to move caravans, do dungeons and raids and stuff like that. But if you just get owned every time you walk out of the node solo, or be level 1 locked because you didn't get any friends/family to play with you then the game is going to get old pretty fast.
MMOs have never been about being locked to town with no way to advance or progress without joining a group before leaving. This is absurd.
And Steven wants to go in a similar direction, while maybe not going as far. Which is exactly what I'm saying. Solo progress is slow as hell and/or horizontal (though imo even this should be fairly limited), while group progress is flying.
Does it force you? No
The whole of the hunting grounds is solo friendly. And only the hunting grounds exist.
Well something like 50% as effective solo when compared to a group is slow enough, probably. That's the difference between 250 hrs to level 50 and 500 hours to level 50.
Definitely slow enough to encourage people to group whenever possible. Enough to ask a random person in the same area as you to group up and expect a "yes". Which is all I want.
None of my old friends are going to be playing this game, and I don't want to get in a guild until I start playing. My preference is to meet people in game, because the game systems encourage it, and become friends/join guilds based on people I party with and see active in my area.
I understand most people in these forums are already in guilds and want the game design to require you to be in a guild before launch, as they are, but I don't agree.
I recently played WOW classic and was saddened that I leveled faster solo than in a group.
What are "hunting grounds"?
I'm surprised you didn't have the reference, oh reference king.
Also, where exactly have they said that it's gonna be solo friendly? Or are you basing that judgement on the currently presented mobs?
It seems the wording has been updated. Its no longer all of the hunting grounds but 'certain' hunting grounds.
Ohh REEEAAALLLYYYY ??? ^.^
Did you just really write what i HOPED You would write ?
I wonder if this will piss off Mag7spy, though ... ...
... ... because that means as many People - AS - THEY - WANT - cran participate in a Siege, right ? Or is that System still designed that it will shrink Attackers Numbers as much so that Defenders can still easily fend them of ?
We disagree ? I had no Idea.
As long as Sieges are " free " and not limited to " WHOEVER " can either join the Attackers,
"OR" the Defenders, i am all for it.
Does everything have to relate to group content? No. But do I want to drag my friend to a dungeon and collaborate to get even greater rewards? Absolutely, yes.
While players shouldn't be forced into group content, some concepts are just non-negotiable. You're not going to down world bosses solo, or complete elite dungeons by yourself, but you're still more than welcome to try and maybe one day succeed as Verra is developed.
If it is one thing that humans do well, it's the ability to try and collaborate, even if it's not working as one may have hoped for.
Players should still be able to enter dungeons solo or even duo, rather than requiring a full-on group. If dungeons require a group of five, players will find a way around it and group random folks to enter. It will always be in our nature to do this.
I am quite confident neither You or me will be able to beat a World Boss completely One-on-One, no matter how much we have maxed out our Characters or how legendary our Gear will be, though.
So what would that " force " us to, if we want to take down said World Boss in Question ?
Years ago, many popular MMOs decided to turn into mutiplayered colored single player games with 0 social interaction but that's not the way forward, IMO.
AoC will be a social MMO and the contrast will the stark with other "MMOs"
Neither of these will be true in Ashes. They have been pretty explicit about it.
The game will have solo content but the best rewards will be from content requiring groups. It won't be similar or the same.
IMO this is how it should be. Solo mmos get hard to play after a while and the content is forgettable.
The rewards of social contact and relationships formed from pushing for a common goal keep you invested in the game.
And to be honest, its a lot healthier for you as a person to not grind away in isolation every day.
The rewards are the same regardless. Its just you won't have access to some rewards unless you are in a group.