Six always felt right to me.
Any more than 6 feels like herding cats, any less than 6 is limiting because it encourages very strict setups. Six gives you some wiggle room outside of the core (Tank, Heals, CC) to form a wider spectrum of group setups than you otherwise might. This is particularly true for more challenging game content.
The same can be said of raids. Any more than 20-24 people in a raid has wayyyyyy too much going on for me. Any less than that and you have to be extremely picky about your setup.
I tend to like the 6 man group as opposed to 8, same goes for raids, liked the smaller raid size of 15-25 than the bigger 40+ style
with 15-25 it was still Fun and people still could chat and discuss things and have fun where the bigger groups you just shut your mouth and played your smaller part.
If I had to go with a number, 6 is probably more practical, but I like the sound of 8 man content.
The truth is though, I don't really like the idea of everything to be designed under strict conventions where an exact number of players or an exact composition of classes is necessary (whether its in group content, or raid). There is something about that absolute, formulaic approach that just seems contrary to what we experienced in EQ. The world and its inhabitants had an unpredictable quality that made everything seem a little more exciting, mysterious and dangerous. There were areas you could easily do with 4 of-the-level players, while other "group content" was really hard for only 6 people. The same with raiding. Most probably designed for 30-40, but some mobs could be downed with as few as 3 groups. Other took twice as many as the norm.
Obviously, there has to be some level of consistency within certain areas or maybe wings of a dungeon, but otherwise I don't really think that sort of rigidness should exist. Maybe you do a dungeon with 8 people, or maybe you have a more complementary group of 6. I think having the option is better.
6 is the perfect group size in my opinion. It allows for more roles, provided the content requires it, which i'm hoping it does. I'm really not a fan of the most recent trend of 4-man group sizes. I'll never understand allocating a tank and healer to only 2 dps. It just doesn't make sense to me. You'd think with the overwhelming number of players that play as dps, devs would increase the group size to account for that.
Aldie said:6 is the perfect group size in my opinion. It allows for more roles, provided the content requires it, which i'm hoping it does. I'm really not a fan of the most recent trend of 4-man group sizes. I'll never understand allocating a tank and healer to only 2 dps. It just doesn't make sense to me. You'd think with the overwhelming number of players that play as dps, devs would increase the group size to account for that.
In a lot of horrible modern games, CC is irrelevant so instead of opening more group slots to DPS, they just cut the group slots down.
I think the logic is to encourage people to play more tanks/healers. The more openings a group has for DPS probably influences the total population's preference for class in these types of games too. If the group size was limited to 4, I might feel more inclined to roll a tank than to roll a DPS. On the flip side, I'd feel more inclined to roll DPS if group sizes were 6-8 and I knew that there would almost always be an open slot for me. The downside to the latter being that suddenly everyone is DPS and grouping is impossible because there's no tanks and heals.
Liav said:Aldie said:6 is the perfect group size in my opinion. It allows for more roles, provided the content requires it, which i'm hoping it does. I'm really not a fan of the most recent trend of 4-man group sizes. I'll never understand allocating a tank and healer to only 2 dps. It just doesn't make sense to me. You'd think with the overwhelming number of players that play as dps, devs would increase the group size to account for that.
In a lot of horrible modern games, CC is irrelevant so instead of opening more group slots to DPS, they just cut the group slots down.
I think the logic is to encourage people to play more tanks/healers. The more openings a group has for DPS probably influences the total population's preference for class in these types of games too. If the group size was limited to 4, I might feel more inclined to roll a tank than to roll a DPS. On the flip side, I'd feel more inclined to roll DPS if group sizes were 6-8 and I knew that there would almost always be an open slot for me. The downside to the latter being that suddenly everyone is DPS and grouping is impossible because there's no tanks and heals.
Liav,
I really hope it is a play what you enjoy/prefer > what is needed. Generally it seems no matter what game you're stuck pretty much playing what is needed or you are stricken to boredeom. I am excited to see how this plays out none the less. I really hope all classes are feesible.
Warlored said:Liav,
I really hope it is a play what you enjoy/prefer > what is needed. Generally it seems no matter what game you're stuck pretty much playing what is needed or you are stricken to boredeom. I am excited to see how this plays out none the less. I really hope all classes are feesible.
I hope so too, it just happens to be that a lot of people are biased towards playing DPS. In literally every game I've played, tanks/healers are in demand and DPS are not.
I'm sure all classes will be feasible and I hope that they are. The issues I'm talking about seem to be the most prevalent in games with smaller populations. Project 1999 has roughly 2k players on around prime time and it is trivially easy to find groups regardless of level range. I'm not too worried about it.
Shouldn't have anything to do with auto attack. DPS to me always implied that you make the mobs die much faster than other roles.
DPS literally means "damage per second", as in, "your damage per second is higher than classes that are not considered DPS classes". When I'm playing a Rogue, I wouldn't mind some utility things, but overall I want my job to just be wrecking every other player in the game on the parse.
What a cute little mansplain there about "DPS". Forgive little old me, that I didn't make it clear what I did or didn't understand. In the context of group size, the debate about ratio of DPS to "necessary members" is legitimate given the heritage of this game and the historical context provided by other trinity-esque games currently being played by these forum posters. Instead of explaining the marginal utility of DPS-only class design in a model of combat mechanics based on resource-managed hit-point attrition... How about this:
If your role "could" be replaced by upping DD* on cc, tank, and heal (bloodmage #want) powers as well as upping tank auto-attack damage, then its merely a compensation for deficiencies of "needed" classes.
* DD literally means "direct damage", as in, "damage that is applied all at once directly as opposed to over time". ;) See what I did there?
All teasing aside, I'm not advocating for having no such thing as damage focused classes. I want you to parse high and feel good about playing your class well. I just don't want to pass you up because "any dps will do". Or worse yet, "we're doing enough dps, lets go with 7 instead of 8" leaving open group slots on the table.
That's always how DPS has been, though. You could almost always be successful in EQ without DPS. You could bring 5 tanks and a healer and manage just fine. The only exception being enrage mechanics, or situations where adds needs to be burned down in a small timeframe.
Killing things quickly is almost purely a convenience. I could make this argument for any other class in the game. Why do healers exist when all they do is heal, and their role "could" be replaced by giving tanks all the heals they need to survive in addition to their tanking abilities?
Overall, DPS is a relatively solidified part of the trinity already and people pretty much unanimously enjoy being in a group where things die fast. You won't pass me up because "any dps will do", and I won't be excluded from the 8th slot in groups. There is no benefit to be had in runnling less than the maximum group size allowed.
I lol'd pretty hard at "we're doing enough dps". No amount of DPS is enough DPS. More is literally always better.
Liav said:That's always how DPS has been, though. You could almost always be successful in EQ without DPS. You could bring 5 tanks and a healer and manage just fine. The only exception being enrage mechanics, or situations where adds needs to be burned down in a small timeframe.
Killing things quickly is almost purely a convenience. I could make this argument for any other class in the game. Why do healers exist when all they do is heal, and their role "could" be replaced by giving tanks all the heals they need to survive in addition to their tanking abilities?
Overall, DPS is a relatively solidified part of the trinity already and people pretty much unanimously enjoy being in a group where things die fast. You won't pass me up because "any dps will do", and I won't be excluded from the 8th slot in groups. There is no benefit to be had in runnling less than the maximum group size allowed.
I lol'd pretty hard at "we're doing enough dps". No amount of DPS is enough DPS. More is literally always better.
Indeed raids are more likely to remove a healer then a dps and most healers will agree to it, i don't know of a single healer who dislikes the feeling of solo healing a raid/group.
then again that might just be me and im werid.
I'm happy with 5 or 6. I don't want to see 7 or 8 becuase that point it's just a group XP slaughter. Of if they make 8 man content challenging you may need 2 support or 2 healers then the content is probably crazy and more like a mini-raid. If you do just 4 people, then you have to design around possibly no healers, support, or maybe no tanks and only support etc.
I want groups big enough to have one person of each roll, and a couple extra folks, and that's it. Again, Liav nailed it.
Liav said:Six always felt right to me.
Any more than 6 feels like herding cats, any less than 6 is limiting because it encourages very strict setups. Six gives you some wiggle room outside of the core (Tank, Heals, CC) to form a wider spectrum of group setups than you otherwise might. This is particularly true for more challenging game content.
The same can be said of raids. Any more than 20-24 people in a raid has wayyyyyy too much going on for me. Any less than that and you have to be extremely picky about your setup.
I agree, 6 seems right. The numbers work for group class play. (*read on)
Unfortuneately a "raid" is a generic term anymore. Some might require more people than others. And Brad doesn't design games with planned amounts of Player vs Content. As players themselve's should figure out how many of us it takes to defeat a monster. Realistically 15 to 100 people, can be a "raid".
I like smaller knit dungeons too, ones that are really tough logistically, where a small smart guild of 20 can up the ante. But don't artifically limit the game to a set amount of players per raid, etc. Heck, this game is going to eventually have Guild castles & keeps.. think big! (200?)
*I am hoping for a dynamic system, that might somehow penalizes groups who dynamicly adopt a 7th, or 8th group member, etc. (Like the group consumes more food& drink, or drains stamina faster.. etc) Such a mechic for short term groupage ,makes sense and also adds a roleplaying element.
We are not bound by old ideas anymore... VRi has a 64bit tapestry.
Hieromonk said:And Brad doesn't design games with planned amounts of Player vs Content.
Vanguard was very much designed with a specific number of people in mind. While you could get away with a few less once you out geared the content, it was still very much designed for a raid force with a hardcap on the number of participants. A low one at that, iirc it was 20 or 24.
Hieromonk said:Unfortuneately a "raid" is a generic term anymore. Some might require more people than others. And Brad doesn't design games with planned amounts of Player vs Content. As players themselve's should figure out how many of us it takes to defeat a monster. Realistically 15 to 100 people, can be a "raid".
I like smaller knit dungeons too, ones that are really tough logistically, where a small smart guild of 20 can up the ante. But don't artifically limit the game to a set amount of players per raid, etc. Heck, this game is going to eventually have Guild castles & keeps.. think big! (200?)
This is not exactly true, Brad did design raids in VG to be 20 people, 4 groups of 5. To me, this is not a raid but an expedition. I would like to see raids designed around 30-42 people (5-7 groups of 6). I also want a good mix of instanced raid content or at least, semi instanced like APW, and overland open world raids (like the Dresla and the Giant dude forget his name). This way either casual guilds or smaller guilds can still raid and hardcore raiders can still get more loot in a week than a casual guild.
The overland bosses should be contestable, either old school style who ever does the most DMG, or take a book from rifts events and whatever raid does the highest contribution (counts which tank tanked the longest, which raid healed the most etc) and the winning raid gets loot rights.
Dreconic said:This is not exactly true, Brad did design raids in VG to be 20 people, 4 groups of 5. To me, this is not a raid but an expedition. I would like to see raids designed around 30-42 people (5-7 groups of 6). I also want a good mix of instanced raid content or at least, semi instanced like APW, and overland open world raids (like the Dresla and the Giant dude forget his name). This way either casual guilds or smaller guilds can still raid and hardcore raiders can still get more loot in a week than a casual guild.
The overland bosses should be contestable, either old school style who ever does the most DMG, or take a book from rifts events and whatever raid does the highest contribution (counts which tank tanked the longest, which raid healed the most etc) and the winning raid gets loot rights.
I don't really like the contested idea or the idea of huge (>24 player) raids.
With the contested idea, the best guild on the server will just come in and **** all over any casual guilds trying to get a kill. Unfortunate truth. Even a casual guild won't manage half the DPS that a well coordinated raid will.
I also see no point in having raids over the 24 size. 24 is a pretty substantial number of people, and casual guilds should be more than able to band together to form alliances to go kill things. Actually, I would argue that having raid sizes allow for more people will actually make things harder on casuals. Getting 24 people to work together is hard enough, let alone 30-40+ PUG raids. The mobs will have to be scaled up in difficulty to facilitate the larger raids, which will just make disorganized guilds have a harder time.
I'm also of the opinion that any more than 20-24 players in one coordinated effort leads to a breakdown in personal investment and/or interaction. A 20-24 man guild roster can usually have a pretty tight knit community, but having the 50-60+ accounts required to have replacement members for a 30-40+ man raid force will make it so that it is more difficult to form personal relationships. At that point, your guild becomes a glorified chat channel than a band of players with purpose.
Liav the biggest problem I have with a 20 man raid is that we have 15 classes and that is not counting the Bard, necro, etc that people really want to see in game (later expansions) So with 20 people you will be telling a person "Sorry we already got our one summoner" or "Sorry we already have 3 mDPS" then that person is left out. With 30 people you at least have room for 2 of every class and 6 of every role (Tank, Healer, mDPS, rDPS, CC). 42 you get 3 of every class and 7 of each role.
Being a tank in WoW sucked. If you got a MT role in a top guild you did not leave it. Trying to find a new raid as a tank when they only needed 2 regardless of 10, 20 or 40 man sucked. By having larger raids you actually allow more people into the raid many of which wouldn't meet a 20 man cut off but because there are 41 other people to pick up their slack they are able to come.
Liav said:Hieromonk said:And Brad doesn't design games with planned amounts of Player vs Content.Vanguard was very much designed with a specific number of people in mind. While you could get away with a few less once you out geared the content, it was still very much designed for a raid force with a hardcap on the number of participants. A low one at that, iirc it was 20 or 24.
Vanguard had 6 person groups, 12 person hard group content and 24 person raids, in the early days it was locked at 18 (3x6 person groups) and the 4th group were subs/buffers but locked out of combat, including healing etc. but after a while the raid difficulty increased and they allowed the 4th group of 6 to join in, which was the case for at least the last 3-4 years, building raids for 24 man content was very balanced and actually gave us a lot of room to interchange classes and guildies to get the job done and allow many people to get updates/drops that needed it.
I would personally like to see something similar in Pantheon with the possibility of bigger more open world events/raids with unlimited numbers for community engagement but I think the 6 group structure works very well and is nice for the devs to balance content against tank, healer, cc and dps +2 of anything to fill the group out.
Kilsin said:Vanguard had 6 person groups, 12 person hard group content and 24 person raids, in the early days it was locked at 18 (3x6 person groups) and the 4th group were subs/buffers but locked out of combat, including healing etc. but after a while the raid difficulty increased and they allowed the 4th group of 6 to join in, which was the case for at least the last 3-4 years, building raids for 24 man content was very balanced and actually gave us a lot of room to interchange classes and guildies to get the job done and allow many people to get updates/drops that needed it.
I would personally like to see something similar in Pantheon with the possibility of bigger more open world events/raids with unlimited numbers for community engagement but I think the 6 group structure works very well and is nice for the devs to balance content against tank, healer, cc and dps +2 of anything to fill the group out.
Good point. I wasn't there in the very early days so I didn't know that.
I like the idea of unlimited participation world events, but like I said, I'm of the opinion that the 6-12-24 format works best for "progression" content. Basically the same thing you said.