This really is a no brainer... 3-6 person dungeons!!!!
The more dungeons the better! below and above ground... large and small.
If i can spend 80 percent of my time in dungeons i will be a happy adventurer especially if i can move from dungeon to dungeon every few levels...
Lots of dungeons so if i choose to make another character i do not have to do the same ones over again!
So when I log in my first task is to do a LFG test and see how busy it is. If that doesnt work i look for an area i can solo or work on crafting. I do belive that having the option of actually being able to solo helps keep me interested. (Please do not include a group finder application)
I am not a huge fan of raiding size groups
Add another tally to the Group > Raid > Solo content preference.
I don't think any encounter content should be designed for solo play beyond level 5-10. Crafting, gathering, exploring, farming low level mobs for $$$ (not exp) and non-encounter questing are more than enough to occupy people's time while waiting for a group. I don't think any game can tout Panthron-like tenants if vertical progression is allowed to happen solo.
I do think you can make an exception to this though through a dedicated solo class if done well. FFXI did this well to cater to solo players. Think like a beastmaster who can temporarily tame mobs to fight other mobs or summoner who can summon mobs to tank. Progression should be slower and mucb more risky for these type of classes but possible for them to solo some group content by themselves. I would stipulate the following though:
* Class specific quest encounters / unlocks should still occasionally require a group
* The class is underpowered from a group / raid perspective because they don't bring to the table what other group oriented classes can.
While raid content in MMOs is the gel that keeps me playing week after week, I cannot deny that the hero moments of stepping up and doing something to save the day was most often found in group content. These were the best memories and social building blocks in the game in my experience.
Group > Raid > Solo
Group content. Raids turn fun guilds into businesses entirely too much. Log in at a specific time, get told what to do by your manager, go and do the exact same thing with probably the exact same people, build up points towards actually getting the loot you want, again and again.
No idea why people want to play games like their job unless they stream on twitch as their actual job.
Solo content is fun too but I agree that we should do as much as we can to keep the community tight nit. Even solo content is more fun if you know everyone else who is soloing with you or who you are selling your spoils to.
I generally agree with the Group > Raid > Solo crowd. I'd also like to see some raid zones that are designed for groups of 12-24. Maybe it takes a group of 24 to break a camp in that zone, but 12 people could hold the camp, or 6 daring players could take a camp if they're well geared and very careful.
I like the 5-6 person groups plus solo. This is because it can be hard for me to keep track of everyone in a larger group for me. Plus in chat when you have big groups with everyone talking it can be really confusing. I like to be social when I am doing solo stuff with talking in chat and getting to know others. That is the social aspect of a game I like. Plus when you have a good guild I like providing crafting materials and items for them. Great thread with all the comments
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
Raids, hands down. It is, to me, the only thing that makes you feel part of something larger than yourself, something that is greater in scope and scale. Raids are where an entire guild comes together for the betterment of everyone, where it is all for one and one for all. To be a complete nerd, I quote Mr. Spock: The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few or the one. Raids are the bigger picture.
I was a 9 year player of EVE Online and from those years the best memories weren't from small group fights, but were from the big events where hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of players fought each other over many hours where everyone put everything on the line. Thats what raids are to me in games like Pantheon: Putting everything on the line to win, to learn an encounter then beat it. The payoff is seeing guildmates upgrading armor and weapons so that we can then go kill bigger and badder monsters elsewhere.
That said, I recognize that not everything can be raids, so grouping is what you do for the day-to-day fun.
90% group content, 5% to each raid/ solo content.
By far, my favorite memories have come from group content. 4-6 people doing all kinds of things from exp grinding to quest completion. Also, all the crazy adventuring based on the wild ideas we all get :) This is were the good memories come from! It doesn't seem like a lost or wasted night of gaming when things don't go as planned, like they do when raids fail. It just seems like a fun adventure that didn't go well.
Raiding has always been a "necessary evil" to me, not an enjoyable time. For me, the enjoyment for time spent ratio is horrid compared to group content. A lot of standing around waiting for directions or logistic minutae you have when dealing with that many people. I don't really care about loot (I know most don't agree with me on this), so the major draw for raiding isn't there for me. The only reason I do it is to help my guildies.
Soloing was something I would do until I could find a group, or to complete quests, at least in the old days. I will say that I did enjoy learning how to competently solo as a Chanter (to the point where you could get as much exp or more than an average group), but it wasn't as fun as grouping. It is the standard of play nowadays... solo until you hit end game and start raiding. I believe this is one of the reasons why I am not a fan of most MMOs from the last 15 years. I am in agreement with many previous posters, in that I think soloing should come about organically; there is no need to design much content for it.
Uvaas Sa'Avu
3-6 player groups.
Every positive memorable social experience I've had in MMOs over the last 20 years or so has been in a small group/group setting. That size just lends itself better to conversation, camraderie and impact of personal contribution. Just like my memorable table top D&D sessions from decades ago would have sucked with 20+ people, so have raids. I tolerated it in EQ and other MMOs for way too many years because it was an integral part of progression, but here I am with a plethora of fond memories, stories and close friends born of a small group setting and a severe distaste for the impersonal time consuming chore of raiding. We beat bosses, had server firsts, raided like a job - it yielded tons of great loot I'm sure, but no loot that I joyfully remember as well as the great stories, experiences, memories or friends that I'd found in a smaller group setting. It was a lot of frustration in an impersonal setting in the name of loot. Ugh.
I like the idea of a zone banding together to take down a rare spawn epic named that may require the help of a greater number of people - when it's a special unplanned event/surprise. That should surely be part of existing in a fantasy world. But when it's boiled down to a cold, calculated laundry list of which classes you need for whichever boss timer is predictably up on a daily basis, that's just tedium - that's the opposite of an adventure. That's not a social setting I personally want to spend time in. However, in many games once there are enough targets available to do it daily, and if that's where the best loot is from, that becomes the new norm, that's the social scenario you ultimately find yourself in day in and day out, checking MMO websites for any hint of a game on the horizon that provides that classic old school charm with out the end game trap of the monstrosity raids have become. Very hopeful that Pantheon handles this carefully.
Edit: I suppose the only path I can think of offhand that would keep raids from being a necessary evil that eventually darkens the end of my adventure path would be if they provided more of the same loot the hardest dungeons provide. If the single group dungeon boss could drop 1 of an item, the raid version could drop 5-6, depending on raid size. That way guilds that wanted to do the raid version would find themselves gearing up more quickly, still maintaining whatever it is about the large group experience they enjoy (unless they really only like it because they've been trained to associate it with the best loot), and I could happily ignore it knowing that I have a shot at the same loot in an environment I enjoy, it just might take longer.
Mostly prefer group content, but I think raids should exist both in open world and instanced zones. Instanced zones allow for more mechanically intense fight, and allow guilds to schedule when they want to get together and play, and still accomplish something.
Another thing I'd like to see is something close to Isle of Dread from EQOA. A large contested zone, with the ability to accommodate huge amount of people of varying size. Sort of a hybrid between a group and raid zone, where "trash" mobs can be handled by a compotent and cautious single group. While named, and certain type of mobs require a larger group of people to even attempt.
Without question, 3 to 6 player group content... > all else
I would absolutely love to see Terminus set a record for the amount of dungeons put into an MMO! Have dungeons big enough to house different areas / sections that range substantially in level to create areas players can revisit throughout their game lives.
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
3-6 person dungeons and content all the way!
why not solo: there are plenty of games MMOs and RPGs that are buillt around great solo content, there is absolutely no need to enter that niche.
also solo content is an anathema to the pantheon vision of social group play.
why not 24+ raids: because herding cats is not fun,
it is very difficult to organize 24 people for a raid at the same time, to gear them up, teach them the mechanics and provide the logistics, and then just when everybody are ready the main tank has power outage due to huricane, the healers cat jumped out of the window and it has to be taken to vet, and some of DPS have to run to bombshelter due to mortar shelling from "neigboring authority" (all of these happened in my personal experience as a raid leader). so the rest of the 20 people are kinda feel shafted....
also, most of the population never do raiding, so emphasizing that content is counterproductive to the game as a whole.
why to do 3 to 6 content:
because I have 2 to 5 real life friends who will probably play this game with me.
because it is easier to find two other likeminded people to do 3 man content than 23 more people to do raiding.... if I have 1.5 hours at night after the kids went to sleep and before my wife will pull the plug on me.
Vandraad said: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
Raids, hands down. It is, to me, the only thing that makes you feel part of something larger than yourself, something that is greater in scope and scale. Raids are where an entire guild comes together for the betterment of everyone, where it is all for one and one for all. To be a complete nerd, I quote Mr. Spock: The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few or the one. Raids are the bigger picture.
I was a 9 year player of EVE Online and from those years the best memories weren't from small group fights, but were from the big events where hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of players fought each other over many hours where everyone put everything on the line. Thats what raids are to me in games like Pantheon: Putting everything on the line to win, to learn an encounter then beat it. The payoff is seeing guildmates upgrading armor and weapons so that we can then go kill bigger and badder monsters elsewhere.
That said, I recognize that not everything can be raids, so grouping is what you do for the day-to-day fun.
I would like to change my stance and piggy back off of your message. Rather than answering Kilsin's question in a general sense (what do I want in an MMORPG) I'd like this to be my answer for what I would want from Pantheon. I already know that Pantheon will be a mostly group-centric game. It's been said countless times that raids will only be a fraction of the content. With all that said, I would love to see raids earn a bigger piece of the pie. I don't know what the goal is as far as percentages go, but I feel there should definitely be more raid content than solo content. Playing with my guild, leaving no man behind, all for one and one for all ... that's the pinnacle of MMO gaming for me.
5% solo (If I want to solo I will hit offline-games, otherwise solo play is left for crafting, farming, organizing stuff, … ).
75% group (5-6 person - not smaller, because Pantheon being group oriented)
20% raid (capped on size: 24 peeps = 4 groups of 6, zerging isn’t a strategy)
I don't think solo content diserve a lot of space in that game and i'll explain why.
I am an experienced MMO player. Discovered MMOs with DaoC back in the early 2000s in "cyber café".. Played a couple hours on a friends account, i was hooked. I then discovered RuneScape classic and later, i was beta testing wow vanilla. As i was still a teenager at that time and i only could play on the family computer, i was not playing as much as i'd wanted to but i was still able to keep it up with my friends and after a while, we entered our first raid. Ho boi, ready we were not. My friends and I were baffled by all those people, coordinating with each other in order to get the big bad boss down. Everyone working hands in hands, needing each and relying on each other : that's what an MMORPG is to me.
I kept playing MMOs since that time. Went back a couple of times on WoW : it's not as it used to be. It's meant to catter to a different kind of people from back then. I also tried a lot of others MMO. Some of them were more action, pvpish, like BnS. Not really my thing. Some of them looked good at first, and the more people were playing, the more it turned to solo casual shite (yes i'm talking about you FFXIV).
I don't want Pantheon to follow that trend, where you can do most of the stuff solo and if you have to group up, it's ok if you don't talk to people and simply count them as bots. Because that's what most MMOs seems to me today. What's the point of grouping up with people if you don't need to exchange with them ? Just put NPCs in there to fill up and sell it as a solo game.
I really look forward to 3-6 people party stuff and raids. Solo should be there only for gathering/crafting. All the info i had from this game since first stream of CohCarnage are aiming at party gameplay. That's what is interesting me. I want to enjoy this game. Please don't turn it into solo online crap.
PS: sorry for any mistake or nonsense, english is not my primary language.
Group content, EQ had great dungeons you could spend hours or days in. I hate modern mmo dungeons with linear progression where you quickly race through them, get all the loot, kill all the mobs then just as quick your group of players who hardly communicate are gone. Dungeons and content in general have to bring people together and facilitate real teamwork and socialising, some of the fun in EQ was just the journey to your destination in a zone or dungeon area, also helping people get bits for their big quests or spending time locating a lost corpse. Challenge in mob difficulty and dungeon navigation along with trains played a key part in making dungeons fun and rewarding, always knowing mobs can respawn or behave unpredictably adds to the fun and danger and encourages people to work together with time to bond and socialise.
6 person group content > raid > solo
afaik this was the goal for Pantheon and this was the reason why I joined the community a long time ago.
I do not know what you mean by "3-6 person group". Dungeons or parts of a dungeon should be designed for specific levels. A level 30 dungeon should be designed for a full group (6 people) of lvl 30s and still be at least a little bit challenging, very challenging if you are 2-5 levels below that level and very easy if you are 5 levels above it. Only then you should be able to go there with 4 or less people.
There should also be enough challenging content for 24+ people. The lack thereof was imho the reason most MMOs failed, so please keep those raids coming. Don't make them too easy and also not impossible hard :) An average guild should at least wipe a couple of times bevore finally defeating the boss :)
at last: Solo content. I also want to be alone sometimes but I do not necessarily need to kill mobs. For me solo content should be designed to fill the gaps between raids and/or group contents. I usually raise my harvest/crafting/diplomacy skills (in various games) or revisit old dungeons, farm some minor items with unique spells or effects or simply do some collection stuff (shinies in EQ2). Solo content was never the focus for Pantheon - another reason why I signed up - but it will be needed once the majority of the playerbase is in the raiding sphere.
To me it really depends on what the game currently has available, I would preffer more casual raids if there was a lot of casual dungeons available and more casual dungeons if there was a lot of casual raids available, options are always nice.
Now if we're talking about hard dungeons vs hard raids, I would undoubtedly preffer more harder raids, raids always fell more epic to me.
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
This question is not easy to answer...
For Crafting i would choose more solo then group based content, so you can fill time with something when your friends arent here.
For Adventuring i would choose 24+ person raids, because its the meat at the MMORPG-Bone.
I personally think such 6 Player groupcontent ist made for average players with average gear. If you are good geared it was always no problem to go with 3-4 players in a 6 Player Dungeon and beat it. Success more or less guaranteed. So if you go raiding, the group content gets trivial at some point, then it feels like a grind. In the past (EQ/VG) the most challenge and most fun i had was raiding. For my taste in VG APW was best content in the game (Raid after raid without moving a lot around like overland raids), in EQ i had most fun with the Gates of Discord expansion, progressing from zone to zone.
Well in a game that I was sold as being group centric I expect group content
Go designing solo content and thats exactly what you are going to have....people soloing
Really not liking some of the "just general internet questions meant for fun" and "We have ideas for tools to bring people together, that may seem to be counter intuitive to our tennants but trust us we arent doing things we said we wouldnt do" post that keep popping up. Sadly I must say I am having bad feelings about where this game is heading
Sevens said:Well in a game that I was sold as being group centric I expect group content
Go designing solo content and thats exactly what you are going to have....people soloing
Really not liking some of the "just general internet questions meant for fun" and "We have ideas for tools to bring people together, that may seem to be counter intuitive to our tennants but trust us we arent doing things we said we wouldnt do" post that keep popping up. Sadly I must say I am having bad feelings about where this game is heading