Im pretty annoyed no one likes to group for general questing in this game.

[Moonraker]

With 12x XP nobody in their right mind would group, why should they?

[Rithoma]

That's the best part about soloing FP's...you can actually explore EVERYTHING without at least one bozo wanting to run through at turbo speed. I finally did a bonus series on one FP yesterday that I didn't even know existed until I took the time to solo it, lol.

 

Good point, I must admit. The first time I saw the bonus boss in Battle of Ilum was when I played it solo at level 55.

[Code_Airwolf]

spacebar

[Jumajin]

That was actually one of the things I thought was different from WoW, where no one ever wants to group for anything not a queue

 

Yes, quite different from WoW. Look, I love WoW, but one of the absolute most asinine design decisions they ever made was that you actually get XP nerfed in a group. There's no XP buff based on grouping, so the base XP is then divided.

 

So, the actual group content (dungeons and raids) is really the only place it's not a hindrance, since the XP is greater there.

 

Absolutely asinine. The wife and I suffered through that for years as a duo.

 

Again, I have to point back to City of Heroes and why it was the main game for me and the wife for its entire 8 year run. Instance missions that scaled to group size, with an additional, manual difficulty adjuster if desired. The bigger the group, the greater the XP buff. And since a majority of your main missions were instanced inside buildings, sewers, caves, and so forth, there was rarely an issue of fighting other players for MOB-tagging. Yeah, it had some outdoor street-sweeping missions, but they were a minority. All in all, it worked well. And CoH had a relatively healthy community until the end, even after the free-to-play option happened.

 

For a game released in 2004, CoH actually did a lot of things right. And I find it inexcusable that other MMOs never picked up on some of that. Even their Sidekick and Exemplar systems were better than what MMOs since then have attempted (if they do at all, SWTOR and WoW don't even bother). GW2 has a nice way of doing it as well.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Jumajin

[Code_Airwolf]

 

Absolutely asinine. The wife and I suffered through that for years as a duo.

 

Again, I have to point back to City of Heroes and why it was the main game for me and the wife for its entire 8 year run. Instance missions that scaled to group size, with an additional, manual difficulty adjuster if desired. The bigger the group, the greater the XP buff.

 

For a game released in 2004, CoH actually did a lot of things right. And I find it inexcusable that other MMOs never picked up on some of that.

 

Ditto the CoH scenario! Not only the scaled missions, but also a great system of allowing you to play together no matter what the level discrepancy. Throw in the mission builder / creator........greatest game way ahead of its time. We STILL miss that game...... (Justice Server)

Edited May 21, 2015 by Code_Airwolf

[Callaron]

Unless I'm playing with RL friends, I won't be involving anyone in my storylines.

When I play a character I want to play them a certain way, and I don't want the outcome of each story determined by some random diceroll.

 

So for me it's a strong "no way" on teaming with random people. Not to mention that the average MMO player only cares about how much XP per hour they can make, and would always want to rush through things, or skip entire storylines because they are no longer optimal XP.

[Jumajin]

Ditto the CoH scenario! Not only the scaled missions, but also a great system of allowing you to play together no matter what the level discrepancy. Throw in the mission builder / creator........greatest game way ahead of its time. We STILL miss that game...... (Justice Server)

 

 

Yes, I do miss that game. I know the folks in charge of City of Titans, and was happy to hear about their recent negotiations with NCSoft regarding City of Heroes and the final update to the game that was supposed to happen before the shutdown was decided upon instead. I'm hoping they can pull City of Titans off, to be honest. If the game manifests on the market the way it is behind the scenes, I'll be there with wallet in hand.

 

I actually worked (read: volunteered) as a department manager inside Missing Worlds Media for a few months (end of 2013 into 2014) before I had to step down because of my main career. I couldn't juggle both.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Jumajin

[HazardousMatt]

Yes, I do miss that game. I know the folks in charge of City of Titans (and their recent negotiations with NCSoft regarding City of Heroes and the final update to the game that was supposed to happen before the shutdown was decided upon instead). I'm hoping they can pull it off, to be honest. If the game manifests on the market the way it is behind the scenes, I'll be there with wallet in hand.

 

Yay for Paragon City refugees!

What I miss the most is the sidekick/exemplar system. Last night I wanted to group up with an RL friend. We enjoy just running around duo-ing stuff. Problem was, I only had one character that was reasonably within his level range. So I had to play that character, even though I really wanted to play another one. I suppose we could have done KDY and then either of us could have played anything, but neither of us was in the mood for it. And that would have involved getting 2 random people in the group, which can sometimes result in some less than memorable experiences (or all too memorable, depending on your point of view, lol).

 

Less barriers to who you group with would definitely be a good thing.

[ImmortalLowlife]

I pay my sub, I enjoy playing solo, guess what I'm gonna do 95% of the time? (Hint...it's NOT group up)

 

See....I'm one of those people who are ONLY here because I wanted to play kotor 3-10. I'm a die hard console gamer. I don't play mmo's I don't run OP's, HM's, or NiM. I couldn't care less about prefect rotations, keybinds, or optimal gear stats. And at any given moment, I'll be playing with two 3yr olds sitting in my lap.

 

Does that answer your questions?

[MbaxterBeau]

The social aspect in mmos is dead. There will likely be minimal social interaction in future mmos and you can thank all of the nasty players that fill mmos and hide behind internet anonymity that destroy any sense of community while the devs ignore it.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

I did have one character devoted to questing with a friend I've known for years, but he stopped playing. General leveling with strangers? No thanks, its too hard to find one that likes to play at your same pace, let alone just generally compatible. Besides, the solo missions are already pretty easy, it just becomes too steamrolly with more than you and a companion.

[WorldSmasher]

Guild Wars 2 solved this issue. Most content is open to the world. Just showing up to the location automatically offers you the quest. If someone is already there doing it, just join in and help. You don't have to formally group for most content, and you don't have to worry about someone ninja-ing your loot. Everyone gets their own loot.

[RoboArthurDayne]

I play this game solo for the most part because I like messing around with companions, quests, solo flashpoints, and story stuff on my own. Swapping Legacy bound gear setups and trying them on alts is amusing for me too. I subscribe for everything this game has to offer EXCEPT the social aspect, because I don't care about grouping.

 

I could care less about group stuff and group operations or flashpoints and just want to enjoy what this game offers with AI companions and AI Super Droid and purposely turn off general chat so I don't have to read crap written by other players.

 

I prefer the freedom and options this game offers and if you want to do group stuff, go ahead, nobody stopping you. Just because this is an MMO doesn't mean I have or you should have to team up and high five each other.

[RoboArthurDayne]

Guild Wars 2 solved this issue. Most content is open to the world. Just showing up to the location automatically offers you the quest. If someone is already there doing it, just join in and help. You don't have to formally group for most content, and you don't have to worry about someone ninja-ing your loot. Everyone gets their own loot.

 

Also, I love GW2. Mobs don't get tagged in the game so you can freely attack whatever you want and all players get credit for the kill.

 

The only gripe I have with that game is that with areas which are empty (a lot of zones), some of the bigger events don't scale down to say 1 to 3 players so are impossible to do.

[Kalabakk]

I think what many people lose sight of is that MMOs have changed over the years to where the common model now is to be able to solo the main part of the game, and only require grouping for the harder missions. The argument that "this is a multi-player game, you have to group up" may have applied back in the old-school games like EverQuest, but it just doesn't hold water anymore. Game companies want to capture the casual player market, so this was the compromise they made in their game play. I happen to think it is a good mix.

 

I don't think it's being anti-social or ignoring the 2nd "M" in "MMO" if you want to solo. That's how games are built to be played nowadays. I personally do like grouping up with guildmates for regular missions, but it's nice to have the option to solo content if desired. The game play gives you the choice to play whichever method you prefer for normal content.

[branmakmuffin]

Inq/sage - "Wheeeeee! Let me knockback all those things your trying to fight together!"

This is a real killer. Doing Gree Heroic with randoms on the groups of 3 and someone uses an AoE knockback on the whole lot of them, that's a a real "What the [he]ck are you doing?" moment. It's not that big a deal because because the quest is pretty easy, but it makes wonder do these players do that all the time?

[RGMetal]

With the 12x going, grouping makes everything twice as long. Either you're waiting outside for someone to finish their instance, or you're in spectator mode.

[branmakmuffin]

The social aspect in mmos is dead. There will likely be minimal social interaction in future mmos and you can thank all of the nasty players that fill mmos and hide behind internet anonymity that destroy any sense of community while the devs ignore it.

Your post is an unrealistic, rose-colored glasses-tainted "Back in my day, people had manners." I suppose it was an act of extraordinarily social politeness to PK in UO.

[Pietrastor]

I always inv to group when I see multiple people going for the same low-respawn node/mob. Tons of people decline and just seem to prefer to wait instead. Puzzling

[Introspective]

I'm sure it's already been said, but this game doesn't cater well to strangers grouping outside of instances.

 

Some people prefer to rush through all dialogue, others prefer to take their time. Some people like to do all bonus objectives, some people would rather not spend time on them. And nobody ever really feels like they need much help with anything because we all have entire crews of NPC companions.

 

I enjoy taking my time and I like seeing what other people do in scenes I've already watched a thousand times, but even I hesitate when a stranger wants to group up. They may not want to go at a pace that's compatible with mine. They may not like to explore like I do.

 

Or maybe they enjoy all the same things I do, but they're playing the same class I am (1 in 4 chance of that), and doing class story missions together just became very awkward.

 

The only real "group leveling" content outside of instances comes in the form of heroic quests. Even these, I'm reluctant to do with strangers unless I'm playing one of my healers (to be fair, healers are all I really like to play), because a bad group simply won't be able to do them. And now with 12xp... there's just no reason to bother.

 

Now, I -like- playing with other people. That's one of the main reasons I like MMOs. I like meeting people, chatting with people, playing with people, seeing how they like to go through their stories. But I don't do it very often because this game just makes it kind of a huge pain. If I, as an older MMO player who fondly remembers the days of doing practically everything in a group, am reluctant to group up with strangers, imagine how much more reluctant the current crop of "solo all the things" MMO players are.

[Jumajin]

Also, I love GW2. Mobs don't get tagged in the game so you can freely attack whatever you want and all players get credit for the kill.

 

The only gripe I have with that game is that with areas which are empty (a lot of zones), some of the bigger events don't scale down to say 1 to 3 players so are impossible to do.

 

Yep. With City of Heroes long gone, Guild Wars 2 has been my main game for over two years now.

 

Though I do have to say I see a lot of the zones fairly hopping with people since they ran the 75% off sale a month or so back, and apparently brought in some new folks. GW2 also showed growth on the Q1 2015 report, which is always a good thing.

 

I have a special geek fondness for GW2 as well, since Jeff Grubb works at ArenaNet, and he designed the tabletop role-playing system that first got me into the hobby in 1987: the old Marvel Super Heroes RPG from TSR (commonly called: FASERIP, for the attribute letters). Which my group and I just started playing again for our weekly, Friday night tabletop gaming. I still have all the books and box sets from the 1980s and early 1990s.

 

Yay for Paragon City refugees!

 

Always, brother. Wear that patch with pride.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Jumajin

[mmmbuddah]

So far on ebon hawk everyone wants to solo, I don't understand this mentaility. Its an mmorpg which usually means a social grouping rpg type of game, i'm fine with people soloing but really if I wanted to solo all the time id stick to deeper single player games.

 

Do people group in this for general questing? Maybe its just my server.

 

When I start a new character I usually ask if anyone wants to, I levelled my commando with another commando buddy from 1-46, much more fun, and different dialogue sometimes as well.

[branmakmuffin]

I'm sure it's already been said, but this game doesn't cater well to strangers grouping outside of instances

 

I enjoy taking my time and I like seeing what other people do in scenes I've already watched a thousand times, but even I hesitate when a stranger wants to group up. They may not want to go at a pace that's compatible with mine. They may not like to explore like I do.

That is not unique to TOR. DDO's equivalent of GF is great. It does not auto-match you with a bunch of random strangers, all of whom might want to do the quest differently. It allows you to advertise LFM or LFG for a particular quest, with a note like "Zerg run," "All optionals." "No optionals," "RP run," etc. There is almost nothing social about random grouping in TOR or any game. Most times the only chat is "Howdy" at the beginning and "Thanks, y'all" at the end. Sometimes no chat whatsoever.

 

If I, as an older MMO player who fondly remembers the days of doing practically everything in a group

You probably only did that because you had to.

[Jumajin]

You probably only did that because you had to.

 

Which, I feel, is the real reason for that behavior in the "olden days."

 

Yep, I was there in EQ1 as well as of 1999. When games like WoW and CoH came along, which were much more casual friendly, and allowed much more choice as to: solo or group, I was gone in less than an eye blink.

[Psychopyro]

Honestly, I don't even like grouping with my wife to level up anymore. The reasons:

 

1) We never stay the same level, one of us always shoots ahead, and depending on classes, could be a 3 to 4 level difference, which then starts screwing with XP gains for mobs. I hate playing the waiting game, and so does she.

 

2) We always end up having to split up at class quest spots because they are not in the same place, or we don't want to see the other person's story for the umteenth time.

 

3) It takes longer to do a quest because one is always waiting for another....

 

Now granted I have a powerleveller mentality. If someone is slowing me down, I will ditch them. You can only go thru the same content so many times before you want to gouge your eyes out, so you want to finish it as quick as possible.