Why do so many in mmo's now hate grouping?

[Perringaiden]

SWTOR cannot be soloed in it's entirety. It's simply not possible. You can level solo, if you want, yes, but there is a lot of group content you are required to group to complete. Just because it's optional does not mean it does not exist. Further, there are benefits to grouping while leveling such as faster completion of quests and better XP gain. Granted drops get split, but that's minor when compared to the increased kill speed.

 

My second character to 50 was my "time-out" character. I never did a single Heroic at the right level, and never grouped for any Flashpoints. Its "simply possible" to level solo, and honestly people who do that as a preferred model shouldn't be punished or 'forced' into groups.

 

Will they miss out on content? Yes. And they should miss out on the group content, and Ops, and Heroics at the higher end of the levels, because an MMO is about multiplayer play.

 

Should they be FORCED to group, or punished with more than missing out on content if they choose not to group? No. That's when games go south. The casual player who logs in to have some fun is where the money is. If 'fun' for them is levelling another toon solo, or running old Heroics for Custom gear solo, that's not something you punish.

 

Ask Dungeons and Dragons Online how successful the "You must be in a party to do anything" model works.

[Vyradder]

Probably because everyone that plays these games has now had years of experience with grouping...and many times it sucks.

 

The problem with grouping from my point of view is that once you group up, you are stuck doing that, and people like me will try to make it work even if there are problems. Life's too damned short to suffer bad groups in a game, you know? I've just got better things to do with my free time. You just get sick of sticking out your neck after a while.

 

This kind of thinking leads to group avoidance eventually.

 

After a while of feeling that way about things, you start getting bitter that all the progression in these games comes from forced grouping. All the endgame crafting mats for example.....you hit 50, max out your crafting skills and see the couple of purple items you can craft, and you get excited because it's a quest of sorts when you thought you'd run out of those, but then realize that one of the components only drops in operations...well so much for that character.

 

What we need are endgame options that don't require grouping.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Vyradder

[Elysith]

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

you must gather your party before venturing forth.

you must gather your party before venturing forth.

you must gather your party before venturing forth.

you must gather your party before venturing forth.

 

^ That was the old time

 

While I level up a character, I don't want to waste time trying to find nice players to group with. So unless in the rare occasions where I'm already in party or have an interested friend nearby, I skip the Heroics.

 

It's always possible to come back to do the Heroics solo at bigger level if you really care about not missing the story content of them.

[CeruleanNite]

For me it is a couple of different reasons why I dont like to group.

 

First, my years of MMOs and grouping have led to some very bad times. Even forming groups within your guild can turn into scream fests. So this has helped burn me out on grouping.

 

Second, I volunteered to help in a group in a guild I was in in another game because one of the regulars was missing. I was already burnt out on grouping, but thought hey I will help my guild out. From that point on I was hasseled each time I logged in to join their group. Even though I wanted to do other things in game, I was pressured and guilted by the guild. I left that guild that night and still was bombarded with requests from them that I had to place all of them on ignore and put myself into annon mode to get away from it.

 

So for me bad experiences have caused me to not want to group up. I have found what seems like a good guild in SWTOR and I might try grouping but past experiences have me leary of it.

[DieAlteHexe]

i think it is more likely because after years of horrible pugs people would rather just play alone then have to deal with people..

 

nothing like trying to get a group together then after a half hour the tank or healer goes afk for awhile causing the rest of the group to disband rather then waiting.

 

or after taking forever you get the group going and the healer things he is the tank and runs face first into the mobs

 

and my personal favorite that i see on this game finding a bounty hunter that is running around in willpower/endurance light Armor cause he wants to wear a robe instead of armor.

 

This.

 

THe old expression "once burnt, twice shy"?

 

Try dozens upon dozens of times. I just got tired of it. Now, we have a small guild of people that have common courtesy, are civil, can speak without lapsing into incomprehensible babble, who are willing to learn and/or teach, who have patience and who are gaming to have FUN.

 

Just yesterday I randomly grouped up with a fellow to help him on a boss mob. Turned out to be a very nice person. That's one in...oh, I'd say 2 dozen since I started playing SWTOR.

 

Just got tired of the nonsense. Shame really.

[maradigamer]

The same reason some people don't like to

 

Be forced to pvp

Be forced to watch people from the opposite faction stroll past without consequence

Have to meet high requirements for gear

See gear given out for free to everyone

Craft

Have crafting be worthless

use a LFG tool

form groups without LFG tools

 

And so on. Entertainment is subjective. Some people enjoy grouping. Others prefer to avoid the encumberance of others. It's not about hardcore versus softcore. Plenty of people played Diablo 2 hardcore, and that was perfectly soloable. It's just about play styles.

 

Some people are terrified of being "forced to pvp." Other people find carebear coddling intolerable. There are many such dichotomies in MMOs because you have a single gaming environment that is trying to accommodate the desires of multiple types of gamers at once.

 

Can't say it better than this.

 

 

I will add though that I was more willing to group in the past before MMO communities in general grew larger while declining in quality.

[RocNessMonster]

FFXI forced you to group for everything you didnt massively out leveled and that game had a terrible community and all i could think about was why the hell cant i kill tiny crab by myself? or explore without fear of getting owned by silly bats or snails ? Forcing groups is not the answer as i said ff11 community was terrible even though grouping was no only forced at end level but was the only way to level.

 

You can't use FFXI as a standard. Japanese can be an extremely hostile xenophobic culture and this was directly exhibited in the online world. Japanese treated Americans like noobs and most refused to interact with NA players. Hell they even shunned the weeaboos using romanji, by my observations, were regarded even worse for being sycophants on top of being noobs.

 

Remember there are always the stories told by their grandfathers about how we dropped the bomb on them.

Edited March 13, 2012 by RocNessMonster

[SNEAKYSIX]

On my server I jotted down some user stats to try and find good times to create a new alt.

 

 

Midweek Peak times 7pm to 12am GMT (average over 3 weeks)

Starter world 21 players

Fleet Ship 33 players

Coruscant 35 players

Taris 26 players

 

Weekend All day play (average over 12 hrs)

Starter world 29 players

Fleet Ship 39 players

Coruscant 48 players

Taris 31 players

 

So, I only ever ask twice in general chat and then leave my LFG marker in the menu. Not until Taris did I get a group for HERO 4 Locust. My jedi had not even completed the basic social badge quest as nobody grouped with me early on...... SINGLE PLAYER???????? tired of it... Agropphobic Grindfiends...

[Emencie]

Probably because everyone that plays these games has now had years of experience with grouping...and many times it sucks.

 

The problem with grouping from my point of view is that once you group up, you are stuck doing that, and people like me will try to make it work even if there are problems. Life's too damned short to suffer bad groups in a game, you know? I've just got better things to do with my free time. You just get sick of sticking out your neck after a while.

 

This kind of thinking leads to group avoidance eventually.

 

To take this a step further I would say that "years" of experience has even more meaning to this question.

 

10-15 years ago when the genre was taking off the average age of the players was teens to young adults. We were all in Middle school up to college and had nothing but time on our hands Spending 2 hours to get a group was not hard to do when your only care in the word is the homework you were going to do 5 min before class.

 

Now we are all a lot older. According to the ESA the average age of gamers is 37... thirty Seven! (sorta makes you feel old ) We have families and work full time sometimes overtime. and when we get home we just want to play for the few hours we have before we need to sleep.

 

taking 2 hours to find a group would mean we don't get to do anything. This is also why the game trend has been going more and more casual. We just cannot spend 40+ hours a week in game anymore. Though a lot of us try to catch up to that 40 hours on the weekends

[ArtMonster]

...Ive even noticed that players are starting to skip heroics also. .....

 

starting? lol.

 

I skipped every single one while leveling. I went back to them a couple levels later and solo'd them....at my own pace.

 

 

and 'that' is just how I like it.

 

;

Edited March 13, 2012 by ArtMonster

[SNEAKYSIX]

Guild Wars started out the same, at the start every spam in chat was help , or group wanted.

 

Then someone found an exploit called running.. Paid runs to run your player through the shiverpeaks to lions arch, then from there to the next area. Suddenly questing was dead as gamers found a new way to level up..

 

Then COMPANIONS were introduced in Nightfall. Up to 3 can join you, no need to ever party again unless its a really tough bit... I can see SWTOR becoming more companion based and an increase of how many can group with you at any one instance. This way it elimantes the problem of groups at the cost of human interaction.

 

THATS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF PEOPLE DONT JOIN TOGETHER

 

 

(last night was the 1st day Ive not logged onto servers to play in 3.5weeks, only 5days to go on sub)

Edited March 13, 2012 by SNEAKYSIX

[ArtMonster]

...elimantes the problem of groups at the cost of human interaction. ...

 

I don't really see that as a bad thing as the player interations are predictably less than desirable anyway.

 

.

[Kendakon]

I see so many posts now how ppl hate being in guilds and being forced to group to do some of the things in game.

 

Why in the heck are these ppl playing an mmo? If these ppl had their way we would be playing a single player game ( which at this point we are not far from ) but they are only making it worse.

 

What has happened to the mmo gaming world? It used to be great ppl wanted to group and all that stuff now it seems ppl have become very antisocial.

 

I love to group, I hate being FORCED to group with whiney ******s.

 

Why do people whine at any hint of solo play? There are group zones, go do them. If you can't find a group because people aren't FORCED to group with you that tells me more about you than it does about the game.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Kendakon

[SNEAKYSIX]

I don't really see that as a bad thing as the player interations are predictably less than desirable anyway.

 

.

 

Now that Ive thought about it, yep prob would be a good thing lol....

[MrSchmo]

 

Just yesterday I randomly grouped up with a fellow to help him on a boss mob. Turned out to be a very nice person. That's one in...oh, I'd say 2 dozen since I started playing SWTOR.

 

Just got tired of the nonsense. Shame really.

 

I wish this was me. I tired for hours to get someone to come help be defeat a boss on ilum. No one would even reply. I finally get to the point where I have to group to complete something and I can't find some help. I just need few mins of someone's time. If someone asked for help I'd be more then happy to lend a hand.

[Yozbick]

Over time, anyone in a good guild grows accustomed to grouping with good players. PUGs become more and more difficult to deal with.

 

I have no issues grouping. But PUGs are tough when it comes to people both knowing what they are doing and putting in 100 percent effort... either in PVE or PVP.

 

In my experience it's been even worse in SWTOR, probably because of a combination of the fact that it's more single-person game than MMO and it's attracted a lot of single-person game players.

 

I get an invite without a tell. I accept and say "hi." The other person says nothing and just wanders around killing random things. To me, it makes no sense to group if you're not going to even work together, but that's been my experience here.

[Reviled]

i think it is more likely because after years of horrible pugs people would rather just play alone then have to deal with people..

 

nothing like trying to get a group together then after a half hour the tank or healer goes afk for awhile causing the rest of the group to disband rather then waiting.

 

or after taking forever you get the group going and the healer things he is the tank and runs face first into the mobs

 

 

 

Dead on....forget pugs, I'll never forget what a nightmare it was trying to orginize 20-40 man raids... WITH a guild....I'd rather slam my Pe_ k_er in a door jamb than pug. Frankly, its kind of nice not being all stressed out because it's getting close to raid time East Coast time and I know every 13 year old and his sister is about to make my life a living hell for 3 hours.

[Trolltar]

Something to consider.

 

The first cohort of MMO players is in their 30's. They have different time constraints, social considerations, and responsibilities now than when they were in college.

 

MMO's are going to have to face a choice in regard to the aging MMO population. Either incorporate the older player's new requirements and risk alienating the younger player or vice versa. Or I guess they could find a happy middleground somewhere, but the middle is rarely a happy place.

[Dayln]

The root of the problem is that people don’t actually know what the letters in MMORPG mean.

 

They want a solo game, they don’t want to be around people that role play, etc etc etc

 

The problem developers have, is to be successful, they have to try and cater to everyone, at once. Even the ones that don’t really belong in an MMOPRPG game

Edited March 13, 2012 by Dayln

[DieAlteHexe]

^^^ This is also a very good point. In EQ2 and Rift people had done the dungeons/content so many times that they would rush through it as fast as they could.

 

The last time I grouped for a dungeon in EQ2 I was criticized because I had never done it before and I hadn't studied the strategies online so I wouldn't slow down their group

 

Now I group with my wife and so far no critism (related to the game anyway )

 

Hehe, yup. I did an instance in Rift a couple months back with my guild over there. I STILL don't know what happened. They charged through that like a bunch of mad elephants on crack. It was literally a blur.

 

My husband plays occasionally (he picked up a new hobby recently and has taken a break from gaming) and when he does, he and I duo and do just fine.

 

In EQ I had a lovely guild, we started it with a small group of likeminded people. Unfortunately it became "infected" with raiders. In the end, the original people who formed the guild got tired of the whole militaristic scheduling, testing, etc. and we ended up leaving. I handed the guild over to the bossiest guy and thought: Hope they enjoy!

 

That was an end to the whole mentality of a game being so serious. Nope. Not for us. Too much serious business in RL, don't need it in a pastime/game.

 

Sorry to all those who disagree.

[DieAlteHexe]

I wish this was me. I tired for hours to get someone to come help be defeat a boss on ilum. No one would even reply. I finally get to the point where I have to group to complete something and I can't find some help. I just need few mins of someone's time. If someone asked for help I'd be more then happy to lend a hand.

 

Awww, I wish too but I'm still just a "pup" (highest is only 41 and the char. I was playing was only 20).

 

I keep an eye on /1 and if someone is using full words, is civil, doesn't spam I am more likely to help. I've gotten burnt a couple times (when I get there, they are done or decided to do something else etc.) but it's simple...be nice, be polite and chances with me improve exponentially.

 

Hope you find more decent folks soon.

[Charliff]

The root of the problem is that people don’t actually know what the letters in MMORPG mean.

 

They want a solo game, they don’t want to be around people that role play, etc etc etc

 

The problem developers have, is to be successful, they have to try and cater to everyone, at once. Even the ones that don’t really belong in an MMOPRPG game

 

Multi-player isn't equal to must be a group player. Not grouping doesn't mean not being social towards other players. I chat a lot with others but rarely group with non-friends, this game makes that possible. Without solo-players this game would be empty.

 

Also it's not your place to decide who is allowed to play an mmorpg and who not.

[Dayln]

I didn’t away allowed

 

You are free to stand in a tennis court with a racket in your had and scream at the top of your lungs about that annoying guy that keeps hitting balls at you.

 

But no one will be impressed

[DieAlteHexe]

The root of the problem is that people don’t actually know what the letters in MMORPG mean.

 

They want a solo game, they don’t want to be around people that role play, etc etc etc

 

The problem developers have, is to be successful, they have to try and cater to everyone, at once. Even the ones that don’t really belong in an MMOPRPG game

 

Stuff and nonsense.

 

Been playing MMOs since there were MMos.

 

If I want a solo game, I have scads of 'em. I like MMOs and that might be because I don't mistake Massively Multiplayer Online for FORCED GROUPING.

 

So, belay that "don't really belong..." blather. We belong just as much as those who can't seem to move a step without company.

[Yozbick]

The first cohort of MMO players is in their 30's. They have different time constraints, social considerations, and responsibilities now than when they were in college.

 

Heh. I'm 50 and I'm not even the oldest person in my guild. The first cohort started with MUDs in the 80s and MMOs with UO/EQ in the late 90s.