Community Thriving - Needing AND being able to play with other players
Community Dying - Boxing; ultra leet guilds preventing server from accessing content
I had recently returned to EQ on live. No question, tons of content there. There are mercenaries now which are good to use until around level 70 or so. I had no one to group with, but I was leveling so fast and exploring many areas I had missed so I didnt much care. In addition, I was floating the hope of just hitting 110-115 and falling in with everyone else, join a guild, etc.
I hit about 75 and found that me and my merc just couldnt cut it anymore. There was no one to group with in my level range, so I started a box. I had fun grinding my box up to 75 and then teamed them up with two mercs. This was a pretty darn functional group now. I am not a fan of managing many characters - I hate to box. It ruins my immersion, and the game feels like a really bad execution of Baulders Gate or Dungeon Siege lol. You know, games where you play multiple characters.
I got into my 90s and realized I needed a tank, and no one was in my level range, so i started another box. Now I'm 3 boxes with 3 mercs. So I get my crew (that i didnt really want) up to 110 and get into ToV, the latest expansion where I began to see other people outside of PoK. This was awesome, except for everyone was just a bunch of other box crews. I sometimes was able to join with others but not much LFG was going on. On a couple occasions me and a guy wanted to group, but we didnt want to drop our boxes because of the way task completion works so we just werent compatible.
Later I drop down to one box, join a guild, and learn about all i need to catch up on. Interest in the game came back. Lots of folks were very helpful. I got help with past progression from folks who would log in their 5 boxes and carry me through my grocery list of things to do. One day I decided not to log in because I realized as a single box all i can hope for is someone to log in their box crew and play the game for me.
I then wonder if maybe EQ's gameplay was a little different, boxing would be too difficult. Maybe if the client couldnt be hacked to tiny bits, there wouldnt be software which makes boxing so accessible. Maybe if players needed each other a little more, there would be value in a new player joining the server.
Young TLP servers play a bit differently. I am a very high playtime person who loves to min max and find best strategies, be active in the guild etc. The new TLP servers are not so spread out level wise, but inevitibly become top heavy. The most toxic i ever saw a community was on ragefire. people were boxing 6-30 mages totally scriped and raids were inaccessible unless you were in the #1 guild and willing to sit there waiting for many hours for a dragon spawn. When it did, 400 players just dump everything they have in a DPS race and there is not even strategy or fun. They instanced raid content and fixed this problem. I know Pantheon is not expected to have instancing; however, sitting for an 12 hour spawn window for naggy for him to die in 2 seconds without any need for strategy is hardly a glorious, fun, or engaging experience. I'm hoping the design works.
Wellspring said:Content
It doesn't matter how great the community is, if there is not enough content people will eventually get bored and quit playing. I.E. Vanguard
Content and Access.
The idea of going back to P99 and dealing with the access of raiding is a no go... Access. The idea of WoW raid funnels having to just run the same raid over and over for that 1% chance of loot... Content.
I quit P99 because it was just too much drama, infighting, toxic behavior and no mechanics/GM intervention when trying to be "high level". I quit Agnarr because it got old and I was already burnt out on EQ. I quit WoW Classic because the idea of having to run those raids, 3x a week, with that toxic community for the next few months/years just drained my soul. So that last one might not be the most accurate example, playing classic games where everyone knows everything is a different world.
What I know... I can put in 15-20 hours a week on Dark Souls 3 since 2016 because it's an intimate online experience that offers a new experience every invasion. If only they put out more areas, I'd be there even more frequently, but it isn't an MMO. It's a world where I can go and invade, be the monster, or summon and not be alone, or be summoned and be the hero.
Needing to interact with other players tends to make dynamic situations that seem different day-to-day. Grouping and interplay amongst classes and synergies is inherently a dynamic. No NPC content can ever feel as varied as what players cause in their own interactions with each other. So finding ways to emphasize that is important to keep up.
The more you support soloing, the more likely a soloer feels it's the "same ole". But some solo-oriented existence and progress is good as a fill-in for times when you can't find a group or dont' have time for one.
However, if you live by the group, you can die by the group ...
Spending time looking for a group can be frustrating and it is caused by
- less characters at your level range, because you are at a low-level and the game tends to be top-heavy
- you may be adventuring in a lesser-known, or uninteresting place perhaps for some quest you need
- groups take time to form, and then replacing people who need to leave can slow things down while you wait for a replacement, or even kill the group
I would definitely spend time thinking of game play reasons for characters to want or need to revisit old stomping grounds, or team with lower level players in some manner. Come up with ideas that help alleviate the list of cons I just gave above:
- mentoring/side-kicking/shrouding: some way to modify your effective level downward so you can help others who are lower-level
(don't wait until the population gets top-heavy 4 expansions from now, make it an integral part of the game design from the beginning to help you never lose players to begin with)
- unique rewards, factions, achievements or even whole quests that only show up and are possible to make progress on when you are mentored down to a lower level
- scaled XP and faction rewards while mentored down, such that it still helps your normal level in some way
- zones and dungeons that require a level range, such that you must mentor down to even enter it once you are too high (this also prevents high level players from dominating grey content, and to maintain a certain minimum difficulty to obtain, say, epic quest items located within a dungeon like this. Since mentoring down would be a ubiquitous option for anyone, this would never prevent anyone from entering a zone or dungeon so restricted; it merely makes you mentor down to enter it