Kilsin said:If you could choose between having more solo content, 3-6 person dungeons or 24+ person raids in an MMORPG, what would it be and why? #PRF
I would prefer 3-6 man dungeons. I do not play MMO's to play by myself so we need group content. I do enjoy solo content as well as 24+. I do miss MC in vanilla. Things were different then...
Anyway I dont want another job either and raiding can take up 18+ hours a week easily. I still want to see all content but small preferably.
Group > Raid > Solo.
Once you get past level 5, "Designed for Solo" is not something I want to see in this game. I always see the argument, "If I only have 45 min to play, I don't want to waste that time looking for a group."
If you only have 45 minutes to play, then do something that fits your time restraints. Crafting, gathering, selling, bank organizing, chatting up with friends, transit, planning for a more extended play session. Designing solo content because you can only play 45 minutes will just water down the entire game.
The vast majority of content should be design for 2-6 people. The rest should be for Raids. I'd target a raid size of 36, but have no hard mechanics to enforce that number.
If people can solo content designed for a group, more power to 'em. But don't design content that is meant to be soloed.
In general my favorite content has been small to mid sized group content (4-10 ppl.) When I am not doing group content I like duoing (rather than soloing) stuff that usually needs 3 to 5 ppl as I like playing healers which makes this easier than soloing.
If you had some half raid content (2 groups) as well as some full raid content, then I would want to do the half raid stuff. I am not sure that you have a way to make this viable though, as it is not one of the listed options.
Small group content that is almost impossibly hard would make me very happy. The sense of achievement you get from doing something that most others cannot is awesome. There should be enough of a reward to tempt people to go into this content, but it should be really rare as well as really hard to get it so it has more replayability.
I hope in some areas the more people that are around the more social the mobs are (bigger bring a friend radius, more links, etc.) This could affect how many groups can use different areas and encourage people to spread out more.
3-6 person dungeons....
Pantheon being group oriented is the only reason I am looking forward to the game. I want to recapture Classic EQ style play. Logging i and getting grouped with a few friends and going hunting. Thats all I want to do. Every once in a while it might be fun to take down a dragon or some such, but I wouldn't want to be doing that more than once a week or two. Any more than a handful or raid bosses in the world would turn the focus to end game raiding. Thats not the game I want.
I want end game to be group content. Even if it is HARD group content. I'd rather have a handful or really difficult high level dungeons than raid content any day. Grouping with a small adventuring band is closer to a D&D group, which is what I want. A group of friends that know how to work with one another seeking adventure. I do not want to be part of the faceless mob zerging some raid boss day in and day out. It's just not fun.
I think they should be VERY close in content but with Group > Solo > Raid.
Group: 5 to 6 man groups should be pushing hard into dungeons for gear that allows strong items for your level. Having a set of strong pieces makes the next dungeon easier and faster to clear. Some might argue they dont want easy but if you were able to farm all that gear you earned it to level faster (speculation dont know how gear will be scaling)
Solo: Not exactly sure how craft will exactly work so please bear that in mind. I feel like crafting mats for gear for BASIC gear should be able to be soloed so you can progress your character solo for crafting. I am not saying everything should be solo for crafting but just the basic crafting stuff like Regular health pots, basic gear/swords. Rare and powerful gear should be in dungeons or raids depending on the quality of the item. Solo is important as
Group play in my honest opinion due to if you make your game COMPLETELY group central with zero solo, people who log in random hours here and there won't be able to do anything therefore will deter them from logging in. I believe having crafting and gathering basic materials should be solo.
Raid: I think raids should be in 100% but not to the point where you have to FEEL like you have to raid everyday. Raids should be between 24-40. Anything higher and it will just be terrible unless its a server event or something but thats even pushing it. Managing 40+ people will lead to poaching members. Always happens.
Sorry I really don't like to type essays. Just straight to the point.
I'd definitely say that more full group and raid content should be the primary focus of Pantheon. Content should be tougher if you don't have a full group. One of the challenges is to deliberately go in with a smaller company of adventurers and "do more with less". I'm definitely not in favour of encounters that adjust downwards based on group size. On the other hand, if you want to scale up if too many people are trying to take down a raid boss, that's totally OK.
One of the problems that I have with small group content is that it tends to encourage people to "box". I'm hoping that game mechanics will make it impractical for anyone to box more than a couple of characters, thus pushing everyone to reach out and make social contact with other players to do 4+ player content. I have nothing against people who want to box, provided it doesn't lead to scenarios where people are farming and monopolizing content with their "group-in-a-box". If you can play two characters well and join our group, all the more power to you.
I don't want to penalize people who don't want to group with other players, but I don't think the focus of Pantheon should be scaled downwards away from full group encounters.
The devs have made the supposition that the player community will largely self-police and that if you're consistently a pain in the butt, no one will group with you. Presumably, you will be forced to modify your behaviour. With the addition of significant solo or small group content, it makes it easier for the ostricized player to just ignore the community - especially if they are going to be boxing - and be self-sufficient. The more players feel they can live as outlaws outside the community, the more we're going to have to rely on VR GMs to deal with problem players. There has to be consequence for actions, whether they are faction hits with NPCs or with the player community.
So keep the focus on community and that means maximizing the opportunities to play with others while minimizing the cases where people feel they "have to box" in order to play.
I love to solo most of the time but when that gets boring it’s nice to be able to group up for exp and or items. When it comes to raids, I hope they don’t put a limit on the members that can Be on the raid. I don’t really care if it’s zerged or not because that requires a mass of people to possibley come together, listen and do their job, and defeat the raid mob. That also doesn’t leave anyone out of the raid and experience because there is some magical barrier that prevents more than X amount of people to enter an area. I think that is silly. In a truely open world, it shouldn’t matter if you have 25 people or 100 people going against a particular mob.
Sounds like you had a couple tough rodeos if that's how you would summarize raiding Vjek. I always enjoyed the social aspect of raiding way more than the loot implications. The situation you describe sounds like an inherent flaw for a specific game, and one that I have never had to deal with. I hope Pantheon can evolve raiding enough to help change your mind.
shasta said:I love to solo most of the time but when that gets boring it’s nice to be able to group up for exp and or items. When it comes to raids, I hope they don’t put a limit on the members that can Be on the raid. I don’t really care if it’s zerged or not because that requires a mass of people to possibley come together, listen and do their job, and defeat the raid mob. That also doesn’t leave anyone out of the raid and experience because there is some magical barrier that prevents more than X amount of people to enter an area. I think that is silly. In a truely open world, it shouldn’t matter if you have 25 people or 100 people going against a particular mob.
Raids almost have to be capped on size for tuning reasons. Plus, zerging isn't a strategy, and doesn't do anything bu dillute the reason to raid.
If you can't find a raiding guild that can do the content within a set size, then I guess you don't get the same gear/reward as those that put in the time and effort. After all, the rule is "Risk vs Reward" and saying 100 people vs 25 people should be same is silly.
As a side note, I raided in EQ when raids required 100+ folks and if I never have to endure that kind of cluster f* again, I'm good!
vjek said:Group. At least then I'll have a chance at getting an upgrade. (with 1999 static, competitive loot)
Raiding is just hurry up and wait, bid once a month to lose a chance at an upgrade. No thanks. The less of that, the better, imo.
6 targets (T2-T3 EoK) in 3hrs last night, not much sitting and waitng! That said, I do know the type of situation mean, poorly run raids suck. Spending 2 or 3 hours and winning 1 event (new content excluded) will get old quick.
Solo - group - raid
25 - 60 - 15
That's the breakdown I would like to see. I know a lot of you are going to complain that the 15% doesn't seem like a lot but you need to remember that raid content is designed for a lot of people whereas solo is designed for 1.
Personally, I would like to see raids no larger than 12 players, with rare exceptions to 18. Some would complain and say that this is too small a number. I don't think so. Raids are often designed based on the num,ber of players., not the other way around. The more people you feed into the raid machine the nastier it gets. Could you imagine what a 48 man Djinn Master raid would be like? NO THANKS. Now if your hoping to get a raid where you have 48 men and you zerg-rush a single target? No thanks again. There is no skill associated with that nonsense. I want raids that take some time, effort, and skill from the whole raid. I would rather have the feeling of genuine accomplishment than to know that the only reason I completed a raid was due to me being pulled through or being a part of a zerg rush.
I WOULD like to see a multiplayer evetn though that DID involve 48 players chargingo a battlefront of say hundreds of targets. My feeling is that if WE can zerg rush, then why can't they? But agian, this should be a special event, require no actualy raid groups, just a free and easy Public Event.
But back to the content break-down: I say 25% for solo. Solo content is designed for the solo player. If you apply the 25% to soloers than you come with an issue most folks don't realize. Solo content is easily and quickly outgrown. It won't take players long to leave that content behind. Some folks only hit solo content because they can't find a group or because they have a quest. Which means if that almost everyone will have to do some solo. But not everyone will raid. I do hope that everyone will group though - more of that than anything else.
I'm definitely on the Group--Raid--Solo content bandwagon. If I wanted to spend time playing a fantasy type game solo I'd keep playing Skyrim or one of the other new ones.
As for raiding, I definitely prefer a mid to large size (say max 72). I don't want to see what I've seen on Agnarr with guilds doing a mass zerg of pets and calling it a successful kill. That to me is not raiding.
Completely respect everyones opinions on this so hopefully no hates mine too much :)
1. I'd love to see a pure focus on 3-6 Player Content. Even to the extent that I would love to see the Exp Gained from Grouping be the same or higher than the Exp Gained from Solo play. Why? Well I'd like the only benefit for you to go out and solo is to maybe earn more gold pre kill or grind out mats for crafting lower level items. Even in camps of mobs I'd like the Mobs to be tough to pull without pulling multiple so that soloing is tough. Overall even if its just 2-3 players I'd like to see a focus on getting us players to play together nightly vs just every so often.
2. I love the idea of 24+ man raids, but the amount of work that goes into putting this together is tough. I don't want to have to be apart of a "mega guild" to do most of the content in the game, or even to do the content that "matters". Meaning I don't want only the best gear to drop in 24+ man raids. Instead I would prefer to see 24+ raids be limited to one or two mobs pre encounter. Say a world boss or even a single Mob in a Cave. A truely epic encounter that is extremely challenging, but not something you need to gather 24 people for each night. Instead it should be something you do every week or two, and I'd perfer materials for crafting be dropped off the mobs over items. IE - Have an Epic Dragon drop a scale that is used to make Dragon Scale Armor
3. Solo, well I agree with some and you shouldn't plain for solo play it should just happen. Gathering mats, grinding lower level mobs, and fishing are great solo activities, but overall the game should encourage you to aleast bring a battle buddy along for safety.
I guess I would like log on each night and play with a core group of friends, and never run out of challenging content when playing with those friends.
Castwell said:shasta said:I love to solo most of the time but when that gets boring it’s nice to be able to group up for exp and or items. When it comes to raids, I hope they don’t put a limit on the members that can Be on the raid. I don’t really care if it’s zerged or not because that requires a mass of people to possibley come together, listen and do their job, and defeat the raid mob. That also doesn’t leave anyone out of the raid and experience because there is some magical barrier that prevents more than X amount of people to enter an area. I think that is silly. In a truely open world, it shouldn’t matter if you have 25 people or 100 people going against a particular mob.
Raids almost have to be capped on size for tuning reasons. Plus, zerging isn't a strategy, and doesn't do anything bu dillute the reason to raid.
If you can't find a raiding guild that can do the content within a set size, then I guess you don't get the same gear/reward as those that put in the time and effort. After all, the rule is "Risk vs Reward" and saying 100 people vs 25 people should be same is silly.
As a side note, I raided in EQ when raids required 100+ folks and if I never have to endure that kind of cluster f* again, I'm good!
so you are saying 100+ was a cluster? Meaning hard? zerging doesn’t dilute when that many people are possiblyrequired to defeat the encounter. It requires mature people that can actually listen and follow directions. And like I said in an open world, there should be no imaginary player limit. This isn’t WoW.
Enough solo to enable characters to get decent gear (not the best by any means), enough coin to get by, crafting materials, and enough experience to level-up steadily (not as fast as spending the same time in a good group). All the way to level-cap please, not lots of solo levels 1-10 and no way to get from level 40 to level 50 even slowly without constantly grouping.
I think dungeons should be pure group (not even close to being soloable by any class at or near level) or raid. I think landscape quests and exploration should be mostly soloable with the group content not absolutely mandatory to be able to get to the next zone, get crafting materials, or gain levels sufficiently to move to new content.
When I say mostly soloable this does not mean I feel that most of the game should be soloable. I think dungeons should be very important and take a large portion of the typical player's time and effort (but, again, not mandatory to be able to get crafting materials, move on to the next area or gain sufficient levels to be able to survive in the next area).
As to raids, I think there should be raids at various levels not just level-cap. I think raids should be different sizes and rewards shouldn't necessarily scale with size. Clearing a 6 person dungeon with 6 people isn't necessarily easier than clearing a 2 group dungeon with 2 groups or a 4 group dungeon with 4 groups. In fact it may be harder at smaller sizes.
I would prefer not prioritizing in the sense of saying group>solo> raid and I hope that my answer is responsive to the question.
In my opinion (I rarely say IMHO as I don't have many humble opinions) the game critically needs a robust group content. This is, of course, self-evident given the basic objectives VR has set forth. But for success with more than just we hardcore pledgers it also needs a self-sufficient solo capability meaning slower and less rewarding but entirely sufficient with more time spent to support crafting and getting to level cap. And since many people consider raids important (I personally do not but this isn't about me it is about making the game a success) the game critically needs to attract and keep players that consider raids important.
I won't say 1/3 1/3 1/3 in importance. I *will* say that the game should rest upon a tripod of grouping, soloable content and raids, and while the legs of the tripod need not be identical in importance each should be robust enough that the weight of the game is supported.
Band > Orchestra > Solo == maximize fun per time invested.
Small groups of close family / friends form quickly and thus enjoy their chosen entertainment of the day efficiently.
Massive raids (48+ please) are thrilling when a success, but even well run ones take great effort, may involve clashes of egos, and have more wasted time (*48+).
Performing by oneself is great for brief bits to practice scales or work on fingering, but a bard needs an audience.
I agree with you Shasta. At the end of the day, I would prefer uncapped raids ... if people attempt to zerg content or whatever, call in the reinforcements. Give mobs a super buff. Have a powerful demi-god descend upon the planet and punish people for trying to trivialize content. The idea of imaginary player limits being imposed while people are busy trying to slay a dragon is absurd. The most common statement I have seen regarding epic scale raiding is that it just devolves into zerging. Sorry, but EQ1 was made almost 20 years ago. We have come a long way in regards to what kind of encounter mechanics we can implement. I have heard so many stories about Sleeper, the supposedly unkillable mob ... how was it killed? Zerging, right? My guess is that the connection between epic scale raids and zerging has a lot to do with the notoriety of that encounter and how it was ultimately toppled. EQOA had uncapped raids and I don't remember zerging being a viable strategy for anything. That game was made on a console and was only a few years newer than original EQ ... imagine what we can do today.
I really like having a good amount of solo content in any game for times when you log in and it is an effort to find a group. Also much of the time these days many people simply do not have the time to group of for a few hours and do something, I personally feel like a jerk if I join a group for only 15 to 45 minutes for example then say hey guys got to go even though we just got underway.
However, in the case of Pantheon I would prefer to see more small group content. Here are my preferences in order with reasons and estimates for the percentage for content.
- 2-4 Person group content (Much easier to find a partner or a couple of friends wanting to do things for a short while) - 30% to 35%
- solo content (Life is amazingly busy these days for many people, it is nice to log on and participate in your favorite game) - 25% to 30%
- 5-6 Person group content (Great for pulling in guildies and other folks you can randomly come across for longer sessions, I find groups of 4 or less is too small a group to effectively do full/larger dungeons/areas without leaving a number of people waiting on the sidelines) - 25% to 30%
- 24+ Person raids (Not sure if this group raid size is the way to go anymore I would almost say go with either 10 or 12 man groups for most raids and maybe have only the "end" raids be for larger groups of 20/24. Either way, it takes a lot of effort, time and organization to get a competent raid group together. Raids can be extremely fun but I know for myself and others we simply don't have the time in life anymore to raid 3-4 times a week for multiple hours at a time.) - 10% to 15%
The above breakdown still maintains the majority of content as group content split mainly between small groups (For tougher zones, shallow dungeons, etc) and full groups (for deeper dungeon delves), almost like it was in the originally EQ. But it still provides a decently amount of solo content for players looking to relax and enjoy what free time they have. Raids are something to strive and work towards with guilds and longtime friends.
I remember some of my more enjoyable memories from forming a small group of 2 to 4 members in EQ to go play the starting content, yard trash, in Unrest or Crushbone. As friends and guild members would log in some would notice that, "hey they are in this zone doing stuff lets go join them and then we can work our way in even farther." In more recent MMOs it has become more, "hey we need a full group, who want to go do X, aww we are missing 1 or 2 people oh well so much for that." In my opinion, EQ had a much more organic way in which groups formed up, it also helps guilds meet new people, you could take a buddy or two go farms some mobs while you waited to fill up a group in the given zone/area.
Whole other topic though so I will stop there.
Cheers,
shasta said:
so you are saying 100+ was a cluster? Meaning hard? zerging doesn’t dilute when that many people are possiblyrequired to defeat the encounter. It requires mature people that can actually listen and follow directions. And like I said in an open world, there should be no imaginary player limit. This isn’t WoW.
I mean trying manage 100+ folks, trying to get 100+ people to pay attention, move, listen, anything, is a nightmare when it involves having to use a real strategy. Like I said, throwing a hundred bodies at a 50 man mob is not a strategy.
Not having a cap is things ended up requiring 100 people. Average raid size stated out at 36ish, but the next group needed 46, then 72, all the way to 102 and as new content got designed, it got designed around those numbers.
You don't have like caps, but time has proven they needed.