@ Beaver Thats fine...crafting and trading are solo type of things. But what we are talking about is designing mobs specifically for solo play..which is something we are trying to avoid.
EQ was group centered, but with the right gear on my Paladin I could solo some patrol mobs in Lguk with the ghoulbane..was it better than a group..no..but I could still find away to solo in group content.
So a lot of us don't want to cater to solo..if you want to solo figure out how to solo certain places yourself...its called emergent game play...much more rewarding when you figure it out instead of the developers hand holding you to go to certain places where it is designed for soloing.
@ BeaverBiscuit so if you can solo a boss and get that drop and you are the same level as that boss..then it is the devs fault. But if you are max lvl boss farming something lower level by yourself..I see no problem in that. If you are in current level areas than you shouldn't be able to solo a boss.
@BeaverBiscuit And what I am saying is that soloers shouldn't be able to kill bosses in general. Usually bosses are in rooms and areas with a lot of mobs and is a death wish to a soloer trying to fight the boss. So naturally they wouldn't be able to do the boss. Most of the stuff you are talking about was already done in dungeons designed for groups. A solo person may be on a path way with 2-3 different mobs in range that are spread out and focus on killing those...etc. So they would get slower exp than groups and would only get trash mob gear drops..which weren't as good as boss drops 90% of the time. So I still fail to see your arguement for solo content when in fact all the stuff you suggested was pretty much the outcome of soloing group content. You couldn't go deep into the dungeon..you had to find patrols with single mobs usually, and it took you some time to kill. So why do you need content designed for solo play when in fact group content will do the exact same thing.
BeaverBiscuit said: @watemper Ohhh I finally get what you are asking. Sorry lol. So people have classes they absolutely must be. Don't question it, I don't understand it myself, they just do. Soloing group content basically counts as an accident that is allowed to keep people like me entertained. So not every class being able to solo it is fine...it's an accident that any can even solo it, and this hopefully doesn't happen everywhere with everything. The reason for catered solo content is because people who absolutely must be a class, need something they can solo ok, even if their class is bad at soloing. It should be somewhat meaningful, such as a giving decent drop and some experience, Maybe some stuff to gather for crafting so they can save money. It's also important to note that even those who do solo group content might wish to do something in their spare hours that isn't higher than 50% chance to kill them. The reason for this need is basically a loose need for some equality. Something for people to do, beyond trade, craft, and talk, while they are playing but not grouping for some good reason, like logging off in a few minutes. Catered content for soloing wouldn't cause any significant problems to the actual game, so far as I can see, so at this level it has no real opportunity cost or risk. However, at the dev level catered content may be too difficult/costly to make, just to cater to some loose need for equality. So the devs might decide to it's worth it, or they might not. But it doesn't bother me either way.
Any class can solo..even a warrior could solo. I soloed on my warrior in EQ through his leveling career..I would pull a light blue/dark blue mob that wasn't a caster and kill it...then I would bandaid up to 50%..then I would watch a video for 5-6 mins on youtube and rinse and repeat...is it effective as grouping..nope, is it considered soloing...yes..will you get better gear than people that group...nope. Still not seeing what you mean. Any class...even clerics in EQ in undead areas could solo...not at the capacity of a quad kiting druid or necro, but every single class could solo something that yielded exp and loot like materials etc...soo still not seeing your point that you somehow need to cater to the solo player with designed solo content.
I also had a Paladin(main) that could solo lguk entrance area at around 35ish with a ghoulbane...that I got myself before lguk( doing the quest). This was extremely dangerous and if I died it would be a nightmare getting my corpse back..but I did it..technically soloed...no bosses...still got some loot...I am missing the point still as to why you need solo content? Does the solo content magically make a warrior better at soloing? Once you enter this solo content do you get buffed and warriors now get healing spells to self sustain making it faster to level? Why waste space with solo content when you can make it group content with some areas that you can figure out to solo in?
@BeaverBiscuit My warrior was never twinked. If I wanted certain pieces of gear I would group for them and go get it..when I was alone I had pretty good gear from the groups over the time and could solo light blues and dark blues.
Also, I will quote you here "So long as soloing is not more effective than grouping, as in gives less gear and less exp, and, in addition, comes with various inconveniences like higher rate of death with no rezzer grouped with you...." so now you are back peddling with not everyone wants to die..and making it easer in solo content. If you keep true to what you just said then everything I described meets those requirements. Also if you knew the safe spots you wouldn't die idle unless someone trained you...which isn't the zones fault...it's your own and I assume you would have the same chance in solo content to be trained also.
Regardless if you solo or group you will have downtime. Sooo yes it is wasting space technically. They could of added more group content that can be soloed if you are somewhat smart and careful. Doesn't matter if they add it in and it expands the world...that content they put time into could of been used to make cooler dungeons, raid bosses, another city, etc...and not designed solo mob farming content.
((And what I am saying is that soloers shouldn't be able to kill bosses in general. ))
Time for me to jump back in to this debate. I agree solo content doesn't mean being able to kill group bosses. I agree it doesn't mean even being able to kill the trash mobs at the entrance to a dungeon.
1. Having *some* solo play is useful to give us something to do when not grouping (e.g. because of not having 2-3 uninterrupted hours that day).
2. Having *some* solo play is useful to attract more players both to help pay for the game and in the hope that once they learn the ropes they will become groupies. IMO you attract players from WoW and other current games by giving them a choice of playstyles not "group or log off".
3. Solo play should give less xp per minute and less coin and inferior gear. No one should choose solo play over group because it is more efficient or even *as* efficient. They should chose it because they cannot group that day or simply do not want to. Much of what I say is not necessarily the most common view here - this point three I believe is the clear consensus.
4. One obvious way to have solo play is to have some content built for it. Hypothetically a part of each landscape zone (not any dungeon) with mobs that one character can solo. Leading to some bosses that one player can solo. This is my first choice, this is what current MMOs have and this is what I think new recruits to Pantheon that are used to soloing will be comfortable with as they learn the ropes. Or even all the way to level-cap. I see this as harmless to the group-focus of the game since it will more or less be separate but inferior - not equal. No one that wants to group and can group will go there - it will not make it harder to form groups. It will allow our niche base to be a bit larger.
The common response is "let people that want this type of game play WoW" or "there are hundreds of games like this we don't need or want another." Poppycock!! Nonsense. Rot and balderdash.
WoW doesn't have very slow leveling. WoW doesn't have slow travel. WoW doesn't have a real death penalty. If Pantheon has 10 features that almost all of us like - do we really want VR to tell players that agree with every single one of those features that they do not belong here and should play games that have *none* of those features merely because they don't have time to group often or are not comfortable grouping. I say "no". I say our tent should be large enough to include people that share the great majority of our views but not every single one. As long as the solo aspect does not cannibalize the group aspect - it won't if it is separate but inferior not separate but equal.
5. A second way some people say we can have solo play is for some characters to go and defeat group content using feign death or other cheesy .....oops I mean emergent .... play. Saying we have solo play is nonsense if all it means is some classes can get by without a group using "emergent" ways to beat the system not play within it. That *is* 100% content designed for groups.
6 A third way some people say we can have solo play is saying we have solo play because a level 30 presumably can beat a level 20 group and get a tiny bit of xp and loot. But again that is 100% content designed for groups and people playing other MMOs but not convinced they want to group 24/7 will not be impressed by "Play Pantheon - after you are level 20 you can kill level 10 mobs by yourself".
@ Dorotea It's quite funny how you have a problem with number 6. I won't even get to how disingenious you are with number 5, but number 6 provides less exp than grouping obviously...soo that's one check, it will give you less money and inferior gear to your current level, that's another check, and it still is considered soloing, that's another check. The only problem you see is in the level gap. Somehow you will be happier if the mobs are the same level, but they would give you the same exp, and item inferiority as doing it the other way with the level gap. That to me is amusing. You do know this game isn't going to be group at lvl 1 to kill a lvl 1 rat that will beat you up and you need 5 others to do it right off the back. I assume you could solo 1-10 before you start getting into the beginnings of group dungeon content. By that threshold you could still solo what you have been soloing and gain some exp in your off time.
So you still haven't really provided anything other than OMG level GAP. For some reason you will feel better that the mobs are the same level as you and can solo even though it will only get you the same amount of exp as group content several levels back.
Edit: Horrible grammar :P
BeaverBiscuit said: @watemper I imagine not everyone wants do die all the time during their spare time, or have to twink themselves before soloing. Catered solo content would provide a simpler, far less deadly, means of spending idle time when you don't want to group, but do want to kill something and slightly progress your character, EVEN at higher levels. So long as the rewards honestly kind of suck, it won't violate the game's challenge/grouplove clauses enough to matter. As for wasting space..the world isn't made yet, so space can be added. As I said before VR might decide that adding it is too challenging or costly, but they definitely could, like say an area outside, or inside, some cities/towns/dungeons with a few things for players to log in and idly kill. I don't feel qualified to discuss the issue of cost and challenge on VRs part in adding this content, and like I said it wouldn't hurt the game itself significantly, so I remain neutral on whether VR implements it.
Not everyone is being catered to with this game BeaverBiscuit, that is the point. The idea that the game is being made for "everyone" is one of the design concepts that this game is avoiding as in reality, you can not make a game for everyone without forcing everyone to the lowest common denominator. What you may think is reasonable, someone else will most certainly push further past your position. The solution is you make a game for a specific focus and base, then... let people decide if they like it or not.
So it doesn't matter waht "everyone" wants, in fact.. the only thing that matters is the vision of VR. If VR was trying to make this game mainstream, it would not have many of the goals it has stated. It is not, so not everyone is going to be catered to, not everyone is going to be happy.
Let me put it this way, if they make this game for "Everyone", much of the people who initially supported it or have been following it with intent over the years would likely not play it to any real extent. In fact, if I had been one who spent 100's, or even 1000's of dollars to support this game and they all of a sudden started supporting mainstream "try to appeal to everyone" as a business model, I would be absolutely livid.
Just make it like EQ was = Perfect. I dislike modern Mmos that cater to players. I want an unforgiving gameworld without 100dreds of artificial rules in game that disallows or specially allows you to do stuff that would be fun/not fun. When i first saw thoose special solo player mobs in a MMORPG game world it was a major letdown to me.
In EQ you been able to solo almost everything beside raid bosses. But you had to have the right class / and or the right gear or lvl to do it. Some deep down dungeon stuff was pretty much just groupable cause of too many troubles to get there solo.
I even soloed some of the group Boss mobs in Planes of Powers that summoned you once noone was in range of them with charm as an enchanter. It was the most fun i had in a long time but it was risky. And enchanter was the only class that could do that. (And it did need a few tries to successfully pull it off at times still the reward was neat cause you didn have to roll for the loot at the end and it was by no means an efficient way to gain xps).
I once dual boxxed with my shaman and warrior that had an earthcleaver and soloed like all the mobs i could pull togheter 100 at once with its ae proc that could proc once per enemy and an AA ability that made you attack all things in range.It was fun and gave like 2.5 Aas if you got it off Aas = Alternateadvancement points. But then again it wasnt worth to keep at it way too much troubles :). Wasnt exactly sooing cause of 2 chars but just an example for all the interesting stuff that was there undertherightcircumstances.
In therms of modern Mmorpgs in EQ you had undertherightcirmumstancessoloablegroupmobs. In modern Mmorpgs you have solomobs = piece of cake and super strong groupmobs = undoable solo unless you are much much higher lvl. There was plenty of stuff to do without a group if Pantheon is going to be like that we dont need solo mobs. Cause you already have them.
Tanix - thanks for the entertaining comment its good that we not all be serious all of the time in these threads.
Having some solo content that is inferior in almost all respects to group content isn't exactly a mainstream view out there. As to other positions I have taken recently. Prevent zerging boss encounters at almost any cost even if it means a handful of instances or encounter locking - make sure leveling is very slow so it takes a year or two to get to level-cap at anywhere near normal speed - have a stiff death penalty so dying "hurts* - have boss drops mostly no-trade so that crafters have a more significant role - keep traveling slow and cumbersome so the world feels larger - yes obviously the views of a dedicated WoW player here to torment the faithful with apostasy. Maybe we will wind up on different servers with different rulesets and we will both be happy in Pantheon.
Watemper - if I was disengenuous it wasn't intended - I thought I was fairly direct. I want some content that is designed for solo play at or near level and do not consider the ability to solo group content using special abilities like feign death as sufficient. Or the ability to solo group content once one gains enough levels. All in landscape I do not now and never have advocated so much as one soloable mob in any dungeon in the game.
You are precisely correct that soloing a group of much lower level mobs may give the same level of experience and loot that I am asking for in solo content. Depending on the experience curve, of course, maybe killing a mob 5 levels lower will give no experience we don't know the curve yet. You are precisely correct that I am asking for solo content at-level because I think it will be a lot more attractive to most of us than having to kill badly out-leveled mobs when we aren't grouping.
The issue is clear - does VR go to the extra effort to have some content designed for solo play even though a soloer can kill mobs 5 or 10 levels lower without a group? I say yes because killing badly outleveled mobs doesn't *feel* nearly the same whether it gives the same xp or not. I say yes because that is what people are used to in current games, people that we want to attract and keep and it doesn't hurt any of us to give it to them as long as it doesn't lure people who would otherwise group away. I say yes because if I am level 15 grouping at-level as the game intends I don't want 10 bored level 25 soloers running around killing the same mobs. You say no for many reasons which seem good to you and many of which I agree with. I just conclude that a 100% group focused game is not as good for us and not as good for the game as a mostly group-focused game.
I think the underlying explanation is that I see Pantheon as a game that has many wonderful features, and also focuses a lot on grouping. I see the focus on grouping as one of many good things here but not the only one and not the sine qua non - so I am *very* comfortable watering it down a bit if that increases the chance of a successful game.
Others of us *do* see grouping as *the* important way that Pantheon will differ from current MMOs. They see the slow leveling, death penalty, slow travel and the like all as *nice* but the emphasis on grouping as the heart and soul of the game.
If I viewed Pantheon that way I would emphatically disagree with almost every comment I have made in this thread.
Tanix said:BeaverBiscuit said: @watemper I imagine not everyone wants do die all the time during their spare time, or have to twink themselves before soloing. Catered solo content would provide a simpler, far less deadly, means of spending idle time when you don't want to group, but do want to kill something and slightly progress your character, EVEN at higher levels. So long as the rewards honestly kind of suck, it won't violate the game's challenge/grouplove clauses enough to matter. As for wasting space..the world isn't made yet, so space can be added. As I said before VR might decide that adding it is too challenging or costly, but they definitely could, like say an area outside, or inside, some cities/towns/dungeons with a few things for players to log in and idly kill. I don't feel qualified to discuss the issue of cost and challenge on VRs part in adding this content, and like I said it wouldn't hurt the game itself significantly, so I remain neutral on whether VR implements it.
Not everyone is being catered to with this game BeaverBiscuit, that is the point. The idea that the game is being made for "everyone" is one of the design concepts that this game is avoiding as in reality, you can not make a game for everyone without forcing everyone to the lowest common denominator. What you may think is reasonable, someone else will most certainly push further past your position. The solution is you make a game for a specific focus and base, then... let people decide if they like it or not.
So it doesn't matter waht "everyone" wants, in fact.. the only thing that matters is the vision of VR. If VR was trying to make this game mainstream, it would not have many of the goals it has stated. It is not, so not everyone is going to be catered to, not everyone is going to be happy.
Let me put it this way, if they make this game for "Everyone", much of the people who initially supported it or have been following it with intent over the years would likely not play it to any real extent. In fact, if I had been one who spent 100's, or even 1000's of dollars to support this game and they all of a sudden started supporting mainstream "try to appeal to everyone" as a business model, I would be absolutely livid.
I 100% agree with you at least on this point :) . VR has a vision have stated it for many years . And unless they stay true to that vision they will lose far more then they might gain .
dorotea said:Tanix - thanks for the entertaining comment its good that we not all be serious all of the time in these threads.
Having some solo content that is inferior in almost all respects to group content isn't exactly a mainstream view out there. As to other positions I have taken recently. Prevent zerging boss encounters at almost any cost even if it means a handful of instances or encounter locking - make sure leveling is very slow so it takes a year or two to get to level-cap at anywhere near normal speed - have a stiff death penalty so dying "hurts* - have boss drops mostly no-trade so that crafters have a more significant role - keep traveling slow and cumbersome so the world feels larger - yes obviously the views of a dedicated WoW player here to torment the faithful with apostasy. Maybe we will wind up on different servers with different rulesets and we will both be happy in Pantheon.
Watemper - if I was disengenuous it wasn't intended - I thought I was fairly direct. I want some content that is designed for solo play at or near level and do not consider the ability to solo group content using special abilities like feign death as sufficient. Or the ability to solo group content once one gains enough levels. All in landscape I do not now and never have advocated so much as one soloable mob in any dungeon in the game.
You are precisely correct that soloing a group of much lower level mobs may give the same level of experience and loot that I am asking for in solo content. Depending on the experience curve, of course, maybe killing a mob 5 levels lower will give no experience we don't know the curve yet. You are precisely correct that I am asking for solo content at-level because I think it will be a lot more attractive to most of us than having to kill badly out-leveled mobs when we aren't grouping.
The issue is clear - does VR go to the extra effort to have some content designed for solo play even though a soloer can kill mobs 5 or 10 levels lower without a group? I say yes because killing badly outleveled mobs doesn't *feel* nearly the same whether it gives the same xp or not. I say yes because that is what people are used to in current games, people that we want to attract and keep and it doesn't hurt any of us to give it to them as long as it doesn't lure people who would otherwise group away. I say yes because if I am level 15 grouping at-level as the game intends I don't want 10 bored level 25 soloers running around killing the same mobs. You say no for many reasons which seem good to you and many of which I agree with. I just conclude that a 100% group focused game is not as good for us and not as good for the game as a mostly group-focused game.
I think the underlying explanation is that I see Pantheon as a game that has many wonderful features, and also focuses a lot on grouping. I see the focus on grouping as one of many good things here but not the only one and not the sine qua non - so I am *very* comfortable watering it down a bit if that increases the chance of a successful game.
Others of us *do* see grouping as *the* important way that Pantheon will differ from current MMOs. They see the slow leveling, death penalty, slow travel and the like all as *nice* but the emphasis on grouping as the heart and soul of the game.
If I viewed Pantheon that way I would emphatically disagree with almost every comment I have made in this thread.
I really don't think soloing lower group made mobs is "less exciting", because if you've done them in a party you should know they are a challenge and overcoming them is a challenge by itself.
And I really, really don't think different mobs of the same level should show a dispredancy in challenge, or the level would reflect nothing in the accomplishment.
To answer Kilsin's original question, I would generally rather play as part of a group, though being able to solo in certain instances is very important to me as well.
To put my two copper into the larger conversation that this has evolved into, I'll say (as I have before) that my personal preference would be to have enemies scale in power at the same rate as a player character -- i.e. a level 20 enemy is roughly equal to a level 20 character and a level 50 enemy is roughly equal to a level 50 character. This would allow for some very limited soloing, if, say, the player happened across a named mob of his/her level and wanted to try to kill it without having to wait for reinforcements. Killing an enemy of your same level would not be easy, and would likely severely deplete the character's hp pool and require a lengthy rest, but would still be doable. In my opinion, the challenge (and the need to group in most cases) should come not from every single enemy being stronger than a player of the same level, but from enemies being plentiful enough that in most areas pulling a lone baddie is very difficult or impossible, and the downtime involved would make grouping far more efficient as well as safer. But the savvy player should still be able to find certain places where they could pull off a bit of soloing if they wanted to. This was how it worked in EQOA, and it made soloing possible (though far, far inferior to grouping) while still keeping the danger and challenge of the world intact.
All that said, it may not be possible to do such a thing in Pantheon because of the larger group size and the fact that CC is such an important part of combat. Perhaps things like this make it unfeasible to tune mobs the way EQOA did, and each enemy needs to be more powerful than a player of the same level in order to keep combat balanced, resulting in a need to largely relegate soloing to special areas designed specifically for it. I would prefer that not be the case, but only VR can make the call on that, and I know they know what they're doing.
((I really don't think soloing lower group made mobs is "less exciting", because if you've done them in a party you should know they are a challenge and overcoming them is a challenge by itself.))
If you disagree too maybe I am just wrong - and should go back to pushing for some solo play but not worry about just what form it takes.
@Kilsin Groups. Plenty of online and offline solo games. I'm here for teamwork/social.. other than PvP; why else would you play a mmo vs the full range of specifically made solo games out there?
Personally my PvP days are over (mainly first person shooters) -- not because I suck; but because I'm bored of deathmatches/rounds. I need something more stimulating that just clickclick bangbang they're dead or your dead -- wow, amazing someone died..again.. for the 10millionth time. /yawn