How to get players to group when they usually don't.

[fatherpirate]

I am sure that the developers have discussed this question more than once.
and they have put in a a few changes to encourage it.

so how do you do it?

It would really take 3 changes, one the developers might not like...or they might be ok with it.

1st (part that developers might not like) A F2P/Prem player willing to get into a
Que to launch as a group (pug only-not premade) should be allowed into dungeons he/she does
not own. ---- this is the 'bait'.

If a F2P player is willing to go with a pug and stay in it- they get access they don't
usually have. (they break group, they get kicked from dungeon automatically)

the rest is easy

Set up an auto group filler with a que line. It puts you in a que for a certain level (group of dungeons) (always enters on elite),
group fills and of they go into the random dungeon regardless if they are F2P etc.
> There is a level cap < to prevent runs from becoming cake walks. (a good guess, you can not que for a dungeon if you exceed it's normal level.)
no worries, you will have a full group. also no hirelings - no room for them anyways (pets are ok)

VIPs get a bonus if they use it.

Once the automated system has sent you 'pugging' into a particular dungeon it will
not send you into that same dungeon for a certain amount of time. (cool down)

Once you have pugged all the dungeons on a certain level, that Que level is closed until the cool down is past.
Prem. have a shorter cool down.
VIP have no cool down.

Allow players access to the que system via 'job boards' in the inns, or make an adventurer hiring 'office'.

LACK OF GROUPS FIXED

If F2P and Premium do not get access to dungeons they don't own, it will not work.
You HAVE to give them access, most players WILL NOT group with strangers unless you give them something in return.

BTW - this is generally how WOW and NWO do it.
Give them a bonus to que up.

A given - you can still solo dungeons or make your own groups like normal

[Cetus]

Having a constant buddy bonus, however small, will definitely encourage grouping. Make it 1-2% per player, and I think it will make people much more likely to post LFM's and invite groupmates.

[fatherpirate]

no need with the system I propose, just go to the adventurer hiring office and que up

[Letrii]

I think you highly overestimate the ease of coding your system into the spaghetti code of such an old game.

[Brutuscass]

I am sure that the developers have discussed this question more than once.
and they have put in a a few changes to encourage it.

so how do you do it?

It would really take 3 changes, one the developers might not like...or they might be ok with it.

1st (part that developers might not like) A F2P/Prem player willing to get into a
Que to launch as a group (pug only-not premade) should be allowed into dungeons he/she does
not own. ---- this is the 'bait'.

If a F2P player is willing to go with a pug and stay in it- they get access they don't
usually have. (they break group, they get kicked from dungeon automatically)

the rest is easy

Set up an auto group filler with a que line. It puts you in a que for a certain level (group of dungeons) (always enters on elite),
group fills and of they go into the random dungeon regardless if they are F2P etc.
> There is a level cap < to prevent runs from becoming cake walks. (a good guess, you can not que for a dungeon if you exceed it's normal level.)
no worries, you will have a full group. also no hirelings - no room for them anyways (pets are ok)

VIPs get a bonus if they use it.

Once the automated system has sent you 'pugging' into a particular dungeon it will
not send you into that same dungeon for a certain amount of time. (cool down)

Once you have pugged all the dungeons on a certain level, that Que level is closed until the cool down is past.
Prem. have a shorter cool down.
VIP have no cool down.

Allow players access to the que system via 'job boards' in the inns, or make an adventurer hiring 'office'.

LACK OF GROUPS FIXED

If F2P and Premium do not get access to dungeons they don't own, it will not work.
You HAVE to give them access, most players WILL NOT group with strangers unless you give them something in return.

BTW - this is generally how WOW and NWO do it.
Give them a bonus to que up.

A given - you can still solo dungeons or make your own groups like normal

Very nice consideration of the problem some are having, a form of raid planner could also be added to the social panel, where a planned raid could posted days in advance, stating a time window when the raid is planned for and allowing people to sign up and then log in, some more details might be needed to on this to avoid time waster and abuse, but that's just a quick thought off the top of my pounding head.... ahh the festive season:eek:

[fatherpirate]

hmm NOPE not biting on that.
Developers have recently stated that they can do almost ANYTHING (with in reason)
given a good enough reason to do it.
A dungeon Que is a STANDARD OPTION in most MMORPGs these days

Not going to accept the 'it is too hard' line.

[fatherpirate]

Very nice consideration of the problem some are having, a form of raid planner could also be added to the social panel, where a planned raid could posted days in advance, stating a time window when the raid is planned for and allowing people to sign up and then log in, some more details might be needed to on this to avoid time waster and abuse, but that's just a quick thought off the top of my pounding head.... ahh the festive season:eek:

thxs

[Brutuscass]

oh another, maybe a wish list of quests you want to run and group with option could be created, so instead of having to keep checking the LFM's on the social panel, an alter can flash up to inform you when someone post an LFM for something that you are wanting to run. :cool:


ADDED IN EDIT: To replace that silly thing coin that goes about the Head when they are standing in one spot while the rest just gallop past.

[Clemeit]

Queue systems are great, but only if the game natively supports them. It's my experience that in order for it to work effectively you need 1) great diversity in the player population and 2) lots of players.

How would the system work? Would it just throw the first 6 eligible players from the queue into a group? How would it decide on a difficulty? If it's always Elite, many players are going to pass unless the incentives are greater than that of Reaper. How would it balance the party? Would it select 1 healer, 1 CC, 1 tank, and 3 DPS? Or would it just go off of first-come first-serve basis in which you might be stuck in a party with no CC, or no DPS, or maybe no rogue in a quest that needs one? Maybe there aren't enough eligible players in your level range. Would you sit in the queue indefinitely, or would it allow for short-manning?

Unfortunately I don't believe a queue system would ever work for DDO. There are way too many variables. Incentives should instead be found elsewhere. Perhaps - as another poster suggested - a permanent buddy XP bonus. Or maybe designing content with highly lucrative optional objectives that require a full group to complete.

[Brutuscass]

And/Or: A general looking for players to group with selection could be added to the social panel.

Dwarf Barb lvl 6 with big chopper seeks like minded Adventurer for fun and frolics:p

Edit I know that you can already just post a blank LFM for the same thing, but I was thinking of a more permanent fixture, one that remains even when the player logs off, a sort of lonely adds, on login the player would get a reminder that they had an add up and a special you've got mail tab.

Player might have to make a little more effort to sell themselves but finding good running parties can be of great value.

Fixed running groups with open slots could also use this

[fatherpirate]

The basic idea would need refinement - of course
Some possible notes

The que system would not include reaper levels ... that would be a nightmare
to try and balance out. Reaper is strictly DIY

each que tier (group of similar difficulty heroic dungeons) would have a minimum
character level to join - to avoid power leveling or leeching. It would have a maximum
level for the same reason.

expansion dungeons would require the player to own that expansion (like sharn)
to join that que. You can save up coins and buy them in the store.

if a player in the pug goes Link dead for 5 minutes, or goes link dead 3 times...they are auto
dropped and other group members are free to replace them with a hireling if they have one handy.

There might be a raid version, but I am not familiar enough about raids to suggest how to do it.

my op is a LOOSE suggestion and the developers would likely make several changes to it.
I am very ok with this. They are the pros I am not.

my suggestion in a nut shell

Give F2P a reason (and the ability) to pug. (even content they do not own)
Make it easy to pug
= They will pug. A LOT.

Happy Holidays

[J-2]

The only time I group is with my girlfriend, though they are more like tutor sessions as she is still somewhat new.
I don't mind picking up someone who wants to take it down a notch.
She don't mind it if she gets things to kill and gets to enjoy playing without feeling rushed.

We have on occasion let others into our group for whatever reason.
I put up an LFM as a relaxed thorough run (breakables, optionals, etc.)
When we pick up peeps, I send them a tell explaining all that and ask them to take it slow.
They usually zerg to the end anyway being done and out when we are halfway through.
They usually leave us with dungeon alert as well.

Now we really only group to farm ingredients out of devil assault.
Part of the problem with grouping is that players feel the need to be greedy a-holes.

[fatherpirate]

my suggestion would not replace that kind of grouping,
my suggestion is an additional optional way to do it.

[myliftkk_v2]

For the "too hard" crowd. How the system selects the 6 players to allow into an instance isn't really "the game". That's a gate process that acts as a precursor to the game execution itself. In other words, one can snap a component in front of the module of dungeon execution with relative ease compared to changing the entire game platform. It's helps to think of software systems as nothing but a series of interlocking modules, which have cleavage points you can exploit to do things like a queue which don't effectively change any dungeon play code. In effective software design, you leave these modules loosely coupled so you can swap them in/out as needs arise and change without overhauling everything.

Some thoughts on the suggestions thus far:

If I am VIP I should be able to take any properly level banded pugger into any dungeon with me regardless of his status as long as the player is my group. That's both consistent with the concept of VIP, in the real world, and encourages the continued purchase of VIP.

There should be additional XP bonuses that reinforce group play (there are just rough back of the envelope suggestions based on the competing disincentives) for Elite and below.

A group size bonus that grants incremental XP bonuses based on human player party size, say +10/15/25/35/50%

A scaling addition to conquest bonus based on party size. Add a +16/+24/+34/+48/+60% to the conquest bonus (so 80% bonus for conquest on full quest with an existing conquest bonus - essentially 4 x current conquest).

An adventure completionist bonus that kicks in at 50/75/100 of optional completions (+20/+30/+50%), if the quest has 4 optionals or more. Maybe a flat 10% bonus if they have < 4 opts. Setting up another conquest like bonus, but for opt completion.

All in all, a ~160% bonus on XP for the combined above would to a lot to offset loss of first time bonus, and encourage joining a group to rerun a dungeon you may have already run, and would encourage even vets to hop into a group.

The rewards for opening LFMs need to be a factor greater than the time spent doing so, or potentially waiting. The rewards for joining, similar. If new players get VIP-granted temp access to dungeons, and are leveling faster, then that's a win win for them. If vets level a factor faster as a result of hauling along puggers, its a win for them. As someone who has lead a ton of pugs, I don't need a queue system so much as I need a system of strong incentives for new players to join instead of the system of disincentives now.

One has to remember Reaper is a huge disincentive. The minute I flip an LFM to R1, I've just dug a ditch between myself and almost every new player. So now I'm having to choose between chasing any Reaper points or not, because XP bonuses are declining returns since the introduction of the Reaper hamster wheel and the fact that Reaper juices everything. First time Reaper bonus is 95%, so to drop back down to Elite one will need a serious bump above that 95% . If I as a player who's more than R1 capable at all level ranges can get a 50% increase in my hamster wheel speed by setting reaper aside, then that's a strong pull to put down Reaper and come back to elite for pug fun (because I can get faster racial/ED/TR gains). If it's less than that, then I wager it's going to get ignored. Putting aside the argument of whether Reaper is or isn't the right configuration, the choice has to be too good to pass up for a lot of VIPs who are not fully capped to reopen a strong pug scene (which is what you need to get the new players into the content they don't yet own, but that you want them to buy).

It should be pretty obvious to not allow these bonuses to apply to Reaper difficulties as that wouldn't solve anything.

[myliftkk_v2]

Having a constant buddy bonus, however small, will definitely encourage grouping. Make it 1-2% per player, and I think it will make people much more likely to post LFM's and invite groupmates.

1-2% is meaningless with the XP curves. It won't incentive behavior outsider the behavior already taking place.

If one wants to induce a different behavior pattern one has to provide a equaling compelling incentive. Offering a to speed up one of the now many hamster wheel to a much higher rate of speed is a strong incentive. It also has the side benefit of preparing more players for the slower wheels.

[lyrecono]

Make a public apology for screwing up the game and screwing over the player-base. Correct all the mistakes made the last few years.

make all play-styles equally viable, instead of turning the game into an insta death fps.

Also do something about all the cheats, tricks and work arounds, etc so the gap between those that know and don't know diminishes.

Delete all the reaper trees, make past lives only stack once or delete those too, let elite and reaper mode take away ship buffs, allow a max of 50% fort on light armor, 75% fort on medium armor only and 100% fort on heavy armor, remove all fort bypass on mobs and bosses.

Stop the stat inflation or slow it down.

allow mobs in reaper to do the same ranged damage as melee damage.

Make gear good for all play-styles again. aka, get someone else to do it.

Sack whoever has the x-bow fetish at ssg.

This would make a nice start.

[SkyJ89]

I am sure that the developers have discussed this question more than once.
and they have put in a a few changes to encourage it.

so how do you do it?

It would really take 3 changes, one the developers might not like...or they might be ok with it.

1st (part that developers might not like) A F2P/Prem player willing to get into a
Que to launch as a group (pug only-not premade) should be allowed into dungeons he/she does
not own. ---- this is the 'bait'.

If a F2P player is willing to go with a pug and stay in it- they get access they don't
usually have. (they break group, they get kicked from dungeon automatically)

the rest is easy

Set up an auto group filler with a que line. It puts you in a que for a certain level (group of dungeons) (always enters on elite),
group fills and of they go into the random dungeon regardless if they are F2P etc.
> There is a level cap < to prevent runs from becoming cake walks. (a good guess, you can not que for a dungeon if you exceed it's normal level.)
no worries, you will have a full group. also no hirelings - no room for them anyways (pets are ok)

VIPs get a bonus if they use it.

Once the automated system has sent you 'pugging' into a particular dungeon it will
not send you into that same dungeon for a certain amount of time. (cool down)

Once you have pugged all the dungeons on a certain level, that Que level is closed until the cool down is past.
Prem. have a shorter cool down.
VIP have no cool down.

Allow players access to the que system via 'job boards' in the inns, or make an adventurer hiring 'office'.

LACK OF GROUPS FIXED

If F2P and Premium do not get access to dungeons they don't own, it will not work.
You HAVE to give them access, most players WILL NOT group with strangers unless you give them something in return.

BTW - this is generally how WOW and NWO do it.
Give them a bonus to que up.

A given - you can still solo dungeons or make your own groups like normal

I think things are not that simple. There are tons of option in creating a group ranging from difficulty level to level range. All are subject to player preference. If those preference are all spread out there won't be any match pop up either. Ever seen those normal difficulty group that nobody join? or those group that's off level range or bravery bonus? Yeah queing does not solve anything. The person who set normal difficulty will still be playing alone as long as no one set their difficulty to normal in the que system. Only this time no one know there are normal difficulty group ongoing because it does not show. Even if it get a match, it is equivalent to seeing a group that match your preference on the current grouping menu. It does not make any diffidence with our current system. Its just a waste of time to code when it does the same thing.

The only positive point I see about queing is that player does not need to keep looking at the grouping menu. But that's only just to press "O" and its not hard. Create such a complex coding for that convenience is not worth the time in my opinion.

Also, your system has more restriction than the generic one. I don't think its gonna be popular among the players. It also wont be popular among the developers too since it ruin their business model by making all the guest pass useless. I don't mean to gives such negative feedback but that how I see it.

[fatherpirate]

The restrictions I stated were added to help reduce the possibility of exploiting the system.
Those restrictions could be left out if the dungeon auto-leveled to match the group...that would be harder to code in.
or
The game temp changed the level of the players in the que to match the dungeon level ...even harder to code in.

Just restricting which dungeon levels you could que up for would be the easiest way to ensure the party is the proper level to make the dungeon a challenge
and not a cake walk or death trap. (reapers excluded)

also remember, this does not replace anything...it is just a new way to group up and pug.
totally optional

[Peter_Stauffenberg]

I think it would be nice if you could get something like Buddy tokens from each quest you complete. These tokens should be given independenty of difficulty, vip status and so on. However, they should be increased by the number of optionals you complete within a quest. So zerging through quests should yield less tokens than if you do optionals.

You could e. g. get the same number of tokens as the square of the number of players in the group. 3 players = 9 tokens. 6 players = 36 tokens. For raids you divide the number of players by 2 before making the square. 6 players = (6/2) * (6/2) = 9 tokens.

Buddy tokens could be used to purchase benefits from a vendor.

E. g. a chest drop bonus where you bump the drop chance of loot from that chest. You can have one benefit for regular chests and another for raid chests (raid chests more expensive). If you want to make it work for all players then you introduce something similar to chest blessing, but with the added effect of increasing the drop chance of named loot too.

Buddy tokens should be able to be traded in for e. g. comms of valor, comms of heroism, tokens of the twelve and so on. This gives alternate ways for players to farm for TR hearts.

You could even introduce some augments only available for purchase via buddy tokens. Maybe you can use buddy tokens to purchase items like horse feathers, horseshoes, sentient xp gems and so on as well.

The point is to give an easy way for everybody to get those bonuses where the actual playing time in a group gives you the bonus and not the game difficulty you're running on. That's good for new players because they have the same chance getting such bonuses for the time invested. They might like buying chest bonuses to get a better chance for loot because they might not be strong enough to run on elite or reaper.

Maybe buddy tokens can be used to purchase extra spins on the daily dice as well (gold and silver with different token prices).

The point is to make these tokens easy to obtain and with benefits both new players and veterans would want to have.

[SkyJ89]

The restrictions I stated were added to help reduce the possibility of exploiting the system.
Those restrictions could be left out if the dungeon auto-leveled to match the group...that would be harder to code in.
or
The game temp changed the level of the players in the que to match the dungeon level ...even harder to code in.

Just restricting which dungeon levels you could que up for would be the easiest way to ensure the party is the proper level to make the dungeon a challenge
and not a cake walk or death trap. (reapers excluded)

also remember, this does not replace anything...it is just a new way to group up and pug.
totally optional

Yes but from a player perspective, why even bother to use the system when it is more restrictive than the current one? When no one gonna use it, its a waste of time to code. Developer might as well place their resources on something more productive.

[Fenrisulven7]

Set up an auto group filler with a que line. It puts you in a que for a certain level (group of dungeons) (always enters on elite), group fills and of they go into the random dungeon regardless if they are F2P etc.

Good idea. Mechwarrior Online does this and it works well (although be careful if coordinating with Piranha Games - they are corrupt)

...

One issue that gave me grouping problems when I came back was the "anonymous" nature of LFMs. You can't see how filled they are or what classes they already have unless your "Who" tab has been opened.

As a returning player, I did not know this, and it was a big disincentive to ping a group because I couldn't see what I was getting in to. Is it 5 players ready to step off or just 1 who's been waiting forever?

My current understanding is that the devs did this on purpose to dampen lag it was causing.

So, if possible, maybe change the Social Panel so that the first time you click on a group it auto-populates the Who tab so you can see LFMs

[Fenrisulven7]

Make a public apology for screwing up the game and screwing over the player-base

Please don't fall for this. It will just put blood in the water for a cabal of disgruntled players holding a grudge because they didn't get their way.

They will be demanding a new apology for some new slight 3 times a week.

[Kutalp]

By bringing all race, class and multiclass combinations to a place where it feels, the builds are worth to play.

Players should need to feel they are actually playing their role and not running behind or not carried by the team.


May require a work such as;


Physical Frontliners: double to triple durability, avoidance, speed compared to all non warrior classes (including rogue, ranger, artificer and more) including the specialist classes. Very well balanced offensive and defensive trees instead of best specialities scattered across the trees. Also short term slow, debuff trip, knockdown efects diving through monsters. Better die hard mechanics. Such as much more uncons hp and npcs leaving the PC.

Aggressive shock Casters more avoidance and aoe effects but britelly. They shouldnt serve as frontliners anytime. They may have meatbag/not tough, summons only available when soloing (or when the entire team is wiped off), to block the way and to be resummned when the summon dies as SLA.

Passive agressive CC caster types should have viable abjuration-like cast and wait strong aoe effects that deal scaling damage and CC at the same time. But much weaker dc for instant kill or dot effects. These casters should have better durability (hp, saves, avoidance) compared to agressive shock casters to draw their spell runes at walls or floor etc and to have more chance to survive the encounters doing so. Similar summons only avalable when soloing.

Healers more avoidance , more durability and economic healing. Guaranteed close to mid ranged aoe daze and knock effects (to make time and fast escape if attacked when healing others) achieved free and scaling with healer level. Pact spell earlier.


When we speak about these we speak about the entire game (1-20 included...Better quality for 1-20) without the second part which is level 25+. Forcing player base to zerg at 20s and stuck between 20 and 30 would not be a constructive way to keep the virtual society alive.


https://images2.alphacoders.com/159/thumb-350-159110.jpg

[SkyJ89]

I have to agree. Most of the time I see player prefer solo is that the game no longer have the fun for teamplay. With the introduction of "one man show" classes and tree that one shot everything, there are simply no fun anymore for people that want to see their build be put to work. People only join in group these days when they feel like they wanted to be carried. Eventually they will lose interest in the game since it feels more like a single player than MMO. Taking away elements of teamplay from MMO is a bad idea.

[myliftkk_v2]

Good idea. Mechwarrior Online does this and it works well (although be careful if coordinating with Piranha Games - they are corrupt)

...

One issue that gave me grouping problems when I came back was the "anonymous" nature of LFMs. You can't see how filled they are or what classes they already have unless your "Who" tab has been opened.

As a returning player, I did not know this, and it was a big disincentive to ping a group because I couldn't see what I was getting in to. Is it 5 players ready to step off or just 1 who's been waiting forever?

My current understanding is that the devs did this on purpose to dampen lag it was causing.

So, if possible, maybe change the Social Panel so that the first time you click on a group it auto-populates the Who tab so you can see LFMs
Agreed that they should fix the Who tab click requirements.

One can determine the progress state (in/out) so long as the quester has updated the LFM. I would much prefer it though if the LFM quest could be autopopulated with the correct quest you are in when one is in it. One of the most annoying things is having to remember to update that particular item it when running a cycle of quests. The game knows what quest one is in, it knows if one wants a team, so for god's sake update the quest without me having to do it.

[myliftkk_v2]

By bringing all race, class and multiclass combinations to a place where it feels, the builds are worth to play.

Players should need to feel they are actually playing their role and not running behind or not carried by the team.

Trying to create equal outcomes with as much flexibility as is granted during the process of creating the outcome is drinking an elephant through a straw.

A better option is to accept that unequal outcomes are always going to be possible, and that globally one can mitigate that fact by speeding most of the hamster wheels (Heroic/ED XP curves) such that new attempts at new outcomes are possible faster and more frequently. Then let them grind in Reaper for RXP and Reaper Bonus loot.

Fundmentally balancing DDO outcome would require an entire rethinking of the allocation of stats and effects on every possible outcome combination in game. Clearly they are not running an Impala big data layer and so the ability to crunch numbers effectively to do what you suggest is somewhere right around zero. You'd have to first simply all of the systems affecting stats and effects, which is to say, remove them from the game. At that point the only variability will be the naming of the character and the choices they make.

DnD isn't balanced, and most playing any variation on it accept that. That's different than expecting someone who makes a potential mistake in selecting an outcome unduly penalized for it which is what currently happens.

[Kutalp]

Trying to create equal outcomes with as much flexibility as is granted during the process of creating the outcome is drinking an elephant through a straw.

A better option is to accept that unequal outcomes are always going to be possible, and that globally one can mitigate that fact by speeding most of the hamster wheels (Heroic/ED XP curves) such that new attempts at new outcomes are possible faster and more frequently. Then let them grind in Reaper for RXP and Reaper Bonus loot.

Fundmentally balancing DDO outcome would require an entire rethinking of the allocation of stats and effects on every possible outcome combination in game. Clearly they are not running an Impala big data layer and so the ability to crunch numbers effectively to do what you suggest is somewhere right around zero. You'd have to first simply all of the systems affecting stats and effects, which is to say, remove them from the game. At that point the only variability will be the naming of the character and the choices they make.

DnD isn't balanced, and most playing any variation on it accept that. That's different than expecting someone who makes a potential mistake in selecting an outcome unduly penalized for it which is what currently happens.








Many years ago (Here since 2012 with breaks-This ones a newer forum account) classes were more balanced and much more playable. It was not only a couple of builds. There was hundreds of builds. This let the players solo slowly and carefully up to a hardness setting. Meanwhile harder settings still required team work.


Things were not the same. So I am not randomly throwing suggestions.

[myliftkk_v2]

Many years ago (Here since 2012 with breaks-This ones a newer forum account) classes were more balanced and much more playable. It was not only a couple of builds. There was hundreds of builds. This let the players solo slowly and carefully up to a hardness setting. Meanwhile harder settings still required team work.


Things were not the same. So I am not randomly throwing suggestions.
I'm very familiar with play in the 20 cap days, both solo and team.

Some builds absolutely weren't viable or really contributed much on harder settings (Epic) without multiple past lives. This balance issue, though perhaps not the same scale, has existed since even before diversification into Epic levels, trees, etc.

If one f-ed a build in the 20 days, it was pretty f-ed altogether (before the cheap reset-able enhancement tree interface). The harder LFMs in those days were also very specific about what people wanted. I remember spending one entire pug Shroud listening to some random player berate my Wizard (first character I ever rolled) almost the entire raid from the join point until he got dinged by Arratrekios (sic) in the arena, because I happened to be a far better twitch player at circle strafing than most. The reality was the player complaint wasn't actually far off the truth, if I'd not been a great platformer (I attribute that to my honed Jumpman skills).

There were problems back in the 'old days' too. There's new problems now, so just trading new problem for old problems isn't the solution. Adding the newer hamster wheels without trivializing the old one more has essentially invalidated the N/H settings on content from being played (in addition to gear stat inflation). Thus, it's created even more push towards needing peak performance toons to even play the same game as someone with gear and experience.

Soloing slowly is fine if the rewards are commensurate with it. They absolutely are not anymore and a proposal to undo everything isn't really a serious proposal. If you want to trivialize the older wheels, you can just ratchet up the speed they spin and compensate for them with much less work.

[Kutalp]

I'm very familiar with play in the 20 cap days, both solo and team.

Some builds absolutely weren't viable or really contributed much on harder settings (Epic) without multiple past lives. This balance issue, though perhaps not the same scale, has existed since even before diversification into Epic levels, trees, etc.

If one f-ed a build in the 20 days, it was pretty f-ed altogether (before the cheap reset-able enhancement tree interface). The harder LFMs in those days were also very specific about what people wanted. I remember spending one entire pug Shroud listening to some random player berate my Wizard (first character I ever rolled) almost the entire raid from the join point until he got dinged by Arratrekios (sic) in the arena, because I happened to be a far better twitch player at circle strafing than most. The reality was the player complaint wasn't actually far off the truth, if I'd not been a great platformer (I attribute that to my honed Jumpman skills).

There were problems back in the 'old days' too. There's new problems now, so just trading new problem for old problems isn't the solution. Adding the newer hamster wheels without trivializing the old one more has essentially invalidated the N/H settings on content from being played (in addition to gear stat inflation). Thus, it's created even more push towards needing peak performance toons to even play the same game as someone with gear and experience.

Soloing slowly is fine if the rewards are commensurate with it. They absolutely are not anymore and a proposal to undo everything isn't really a serious proposal. If you want to trivialize the older wheels, you can just ratchet up the speed they spin and compensate for them with much less work.







I agree with you at some of those points.


Additionally I believe there should still be roles and how to twist around them for survival and completition; instead of degrading all other builds and roles in to a handful of builds.


Example: An arcane caster casts Holds a group of enemies and then casts Fireball from far away under displacement and elemntal resistance spell. A Fighter (should be) deflect arrows, evades aoe spell effects and (should) roll over specialites to resist certain spell effects and hacks and slashes or fires arrows upon the hostile npcs.

Both aim reaching the same goal anyhow they both have (should have) suitable specialities to avoid/roll certain harmfull effects to complete their mission.

They should both have their own strengths and ways to reach to the destination.

As you can see there is no right or wrong choices becasue both classes are built (inbuilt specialities not items or outer buffs from items) to survive and complete the task when classes are balanced.


It is about giving the class the right tools when developing it. Not overpowering one when degrading or ignoring the other.

People play the game to have fun with their 'dream builds' afterall. No reason to 'Shoo!' them away ; forcing them to play only 'That' style when they choose not to.

[Enoach]

These are interesting ideas but I don't think it covers the reason(s) why people don't usually group.

It does cover the "I don't want to put up an LFM, but still want a group" reason.

There are however, many reasons people don't group up that I don't believe can be solved with "game engineering". Some of these range from social interaction such as the chronic anti-social to those that are simply not comfortable socializing. Others will range with preferred questing behavior - from the "flower sniffer/search every corner type" to the "Entered Quest...{ short moments later}… Voices}, all loot is worthless why waste time".

The problem with the queueing system is that it would need to be established with complex criteria to be able to match people up.

The other aspect is Group size - Generally speaking DDO created quests with the 4 party member criteria but allowed for up to 6 for quests. But it should be up to the players to decide if they are good with less then 6 members.

----
In my opinion the better approach would be to improve the LFM/LFG system.

Put a Level range filter on the Adventure compendium with a check box next to each quest to allow a user to check those quests they are interested in running.

When an LFM for those quests is opened send a notification in chat window to the player that has the Quest/Chosen difficulty and allow them to click a Join option which will add them to the Request to Join list.

Now the "Buddy bonus" events have shown that there is a sizable group of people that are drawn back to grouping because the XP makes it worth the "risk" of joining a possible group that is not "fun" for them. So I think a bonus like this could give people an incentive to group that would group if they feel they can earn more XP that way over not grouping.

As for letting people into content they do not have available, I think that just might be hitting the pocketbook of the game (keep in mind this grants favor and every 100 is 25 DDO points). Unless there is a way this could increase revenue to offset I would think this would be a hard sell.

[Gniewomir]

Not signed. Do not force players to group please. Do not support grouping in any way. Right now i'm starting my 3rd hour of alone hosting on cannith necro 4 r1 streak friendly lfm and i'm having so much fun here...

[Kutalp]

Not signed. Do not force players to group please. Do not support grouping in any way. Right now i'm starting my 3rd hour of alone hosting on cannith necro 4 r1 streak friendly lfm and i'm having so much fun here...






I solo alot aswell. Thanks to real life and afks.

It is also not a mystery that Necro I quest requires four players to complete. Someone can only run it with a much higher level wiz to turn the ghouls in to stone; or umd/scroll/wiz/rng hopes to scrolls work (not sure about Medusa cookies)


As I knew the build I choose to play at that specific time period (since I dont play the same class/build forever) is fully supported and wont be Hjeal bait or backstage runner, I would surely join team up more often than I do now.

I have some good memories of raid teams running and laughing at funny things happening during a long quests or a raid and people giving smoke breaks once a while. Some good memories from team up, by a now solo playing afk old gamer.


https://s2.n4g.com/news/2074168_0.jpg

Yeah...Ok...Not that old...

[Sharktopus]

Having a constant buddy bonus, however small, will definitely encourage grouping. Make it 1-2% per player, and I think it will make people much more likely to post LFM's and invite groupmates.

This would do it for me. Something in the neighborhood of 15-20% for a full party would make me throw out more lfms. No need to reinvent the wheel.

[janave]

Game balance > Forced coop systems

Challenge + Reward > Grinds

DDO is missing the Reward portion and Grinds are the Challenge.

[Wizard1406]

The rewards for opening LFMs need to be a factor greater than the time spent doing so, or potentially waiting. The rewards for joining, similar. If new players get VIP-granted temp access to dungeons, and are leveling faster, then that's a win win for them. If vets level a factor faster as a result of hauling along puggers, its a win for them. As someone who has lead a ton of pugs, I don't need a queue system so much as I need a system of strong incentives for new players to join instead of the system of disincentives now.



I agree. Allowing F2P to join VIPs for any dungeon, improves grouping options a lot. Also there needs to be an incentive, to make more soloers / low man groups consider opening their group to the public. The already mentioned things are good ideas: Xp bonus, bonus tokens redeemable for various rewards (can get solo, as to not "force" grouping, but faster in group), more xp for objectives like conquest, when in group


About posting LFMs: When making a LFM I get annoyed by having to fill out the quest tab, especially since the sorting is weird. Please make it like filling a form, i.e. auto-suggestion and fill once you entered the first few letters. Add an option to automatically fill quest when entering.

Open group isn't the best alternative as the level range is wrong, 1 level too high for bravery so you have to correct it manually all the time.


About joining LFMs:

I usually don't join groups in a quest deep within an explorer zone. Worst case could be: they rush me to come, but finish the quest anyway while I'm still in the wilderness and then dissolve immediately. Great, I just traveled for nothing. Optional teleport to quest instance could be helpful, because I think a lot of people don't want to bother travelling through bigger zone to join someone.

Likewise I I'm a bit hestistant to join groups in progress for a chain, unless it's a friend/guildmate or all the individual parts are worth good xp / loot. If you redbox a quest you don't get credit for chain progress at all. Sometimes I rather start myself from part 1, even if I have to step down difficulty.


Other things that put people off joining LFMS:
- some quests cannot be redboxed
- they already did the quest: most quests are only worth doing if you have ALL of: first time, bravery, daily
- difficulty way off compared to your combat power...... if the game had a power level rating, instead of relying on character level only for xp purposed, more people could group up. Hard to balance though.

[Xgya]

Like many others in this thread, I'd rather encourage people that don't group to group up. Whether it be by giving a permanent smaller buddy bonus or some other mechanic. This encourages people that don't feel incentivized to group up to do so.

Your idea does not.

Grouping-specific cosmetic rewards aren't entirely off the table here. If at all possible, make those cosmetics disappear or stop working after a certain period, meaning you consistently need to earn them, at a rate faster than the current Halloween candies, but using the same type of mechanic.

[droid327]

I reject the idea that soloists need to be coerced or cajoled into grouping. Grouping is like PvP - the reason to do it should be because you like it, and if you don't like it, then you're not going to be what people want in their group anyway.

Improvements for grouping should be targeted at making it easier for people that want to group to do so. Auto teleport to quest (bracelet of friends) would be an easy first step. Being able to "save" your place in a solo quest and jump into a group run would be an effective second step.

[Brutuscass]

I think it would be nice if you could get something like Buddy tokens from each quest you complete. These tokens should be given independenty of difficulty, vip status and so on. However, they should be increased by the number of optionals you complete within a quest. So zerging through quests should yield less tokens than if you do optionals.

You could e. g. get the same number of tokens as the square of the number of players in the group. 3 players = 9 tokens. 6 players = 36 tokens. For raids you divide the number of players by 2 before making the square. 6 players = (6/2) * (6/2) = 9 tokens.

Buddy tokens could be used to purchase benefits from a vendor.

E. g. a chest drop bonus where you bump the drop chance of loot from that chest. You can have one benefit for regular chests and another for raid chests (raid chests more expensive). If you want to make it work for all players then you introduce something similar to chest blessing, but with the added effect of increasing the drop chance of named loot too.

Buddy tokens should be able to be traded in for e. g. comms of valor, comms of heroism, tokens of the twelve and so on. This gives alternate ways for players to farm for TR hearts.

You could even introduce some augments only available for purchase via buddy tokens. Maybe you can use buddy tokens to purchase items like horse feathers, horseshoes, sentient xp gems and so on as well.

The point is to give an easy way for everybody to get those bonuses where the actual playing time in a group gives you the bonus and not the game difficulty you're running on. That's good for new players because they have the same chance getting such bonuses for the time invested. They might like buying chest bonuses to get a better chance for loot because they might not be strong enough to run on elite or reaper.

Maybe buddy tokens can be used to purchase extra spins on the daily dice as well (gold and silver with different token prices).

The point is to make these tokens easy to obtain and with benefits both new players and veterans would want to have.

Very nice idea, I do like it, however I see an opening for exploration, for players who have multiple alt accounts, who could park there alts at the beginning and run the quest, I suppose a check point system could be added but that would make what is a relatively easy system to implement far to costly.

That said I like the way you are thinking here.

[Brutuscass]

I solo alot aswell. Thanks to real life and afks.

It is also not a mystery that Necro I quest requires four players to complete. Someone can only run it with a much higher level wiz to turn the ghouls in to stone; or umd/scroll/wiz/rng hopes to scrolls work (not sure about Medusa cookies)


As I knew the build I choose to play at that specific time period (since I dont play the same class/build forever) is fully supported and wont be Hjeal bait or backstage runner, I would surely join team up more often than I do now.

I have some good memories of raid teams running and laughing at funny things happening during a long quests or a raid and people giving smoke breaks once a while. Some good memories from team up, by a now solo playing afk old gamer.


https://s2.n4g.com/news/2074168_0.jpg

Yeah...Ok...Not that old...

:) ahh it's like there is an echo in the room, with a couple of small differences,
1, I have a couple or so toons of different builds
2, I think I might be that old

[cdbd3rd]

The only time I group is with my girlfriend, though they are more like tutor sessions as she is still somewhat new.....

https://media1.giphy.com/media/l3q2NSmNMJZisnB7O/source.gif



:D

[myliftkk_v2]

I solo alot aswell. Thanks to real life and afks.

It is also not a mystery that Necro I quest requires four players to complete. Someone can only run it with a much higher level wiz to turn the ghouls in to stone; or umd/scroll/wiz/rng hopes to scrolls work (not sure about Medusa cookies)

There's actually multiple ways to get past those gates:

First an people may not realize, but killing a ghoul on the plate triggers it with the dead body (not just stoned):

1. Pop one vendor hire, kills 2 ghouls.
2. Pop one vendor hire, pop 1 gold seal hire, kill 1 ghoul.
3. Pop one vendor hire, pop 2 gold seal hire, kill no ghouls.
4. Kill 3 ghouls.
5. Do any combination of the above with < 4 players in party.

All of the above can be done at level, and assuming you've gained DDO Points during favor runs prior, for "free" as well (if you're not depending on saving your DDO points from favor during a TR).

[Xgya]

There's actually multiple ways to get past those gates:

First an people may not realize, but killing a ghoul on the plate triggers it with the dead body (not just stoned):

1. Pop one vendor hire, kills 2 ghouls.
2. Pop one vendor hire, pop 1 gold seal hire, kill 1 ghoul.
3. Pop one vendor hire, pop 2 gold seal hire, kill no ghouls.
4. Kill 3 ghouls.
5. Do any combination of the above with < 4 players in party.

All of the above can be done at level, and assuming you've gained DDO Points during favor runs prior, for "free" as well (if you're not depending on saving your DDO points from favor during a TR).

The bodies disappear pretty fast, so you have to be quick on your feet for that one.
Summoned monsters work, but you have to be even faster and move before the summon follows. (Artificers have the bestest summon for that using Flame Turret, that simply doesn't move.

[myliftkk_v2]

I reject the idea that soloists need to be coerced or cajoled into grouping. Grouping is like PvP - the reason to do it should be because you like it, and if you don't like it, then you're not going to be what people want in their group anyway.

Improvements for grouping should be targeted at making it easier for people that want to group to do so. Auto teleport to quest (bracelet of friends) would be an easy first step. Being able to "save" your place in a solo quest and jump into a group run would be an effective second step.
That's why the most effective suggestion for grouping is to remove the Reaper game from consideration and use XP acceleration to incentivise it in the non-Reaper game. Doing that doesn't change the solo game in a negative fashion, it doesn't change the Reaper challenge (except allowing new players to access it faster).

Most of the grouping tools change are trivial improvements. Doesn't matter how good the tools are when there's 150 people on concurrently.

Accelerating the hamster wheels in non-reaper gives vets who are experienced, but not capped a choice they don't have now. Run non-reaper wheels much faster and with new players or uncapped vets along, or run reaper for challenge and reaper wheels.

I've lead nonstop play sessions of pugs when grouping tools were exactly the same that they are now without a guild. Now, it's difficult to even gather a guild-less pug and I can lead almost any content in game.

The incentives have to be changed, and that change has to be non-trivial.

[myliftkk_v2]

The bodies disappear pretty fast, so you have to be quick on your feet for that one.
Summoned monsters work, but you have to be even faster and move before the summon follows. (Artificers have the bestest summon for that using Flame Turret, that simply doesn't move.
Yeah, I've used summons in the past, but too unpredictable.

I've had no issue with bodies in the past, and since you can automatically bring a single hire (unless one is philosophically opposed to them), at worst you're talking 2 bodies tops. No worse than killing any random linked pair in DDO.

[myliftkk_v2]

I agree with you at some of those points.


Additionally I believe there should still be roles and how to twist around them for survival and completition; instead of degrading all other builds and roles in to a handful of builds.


Example: An arcane caster casts Holds a group of enemies and then casts Fireball from far away under displacement and elemntal resistance spell. A Fighter (should be) deflect arrows, evades aoe spell effects and (should) roll over specialites to resist certain spell effects and hacks and slashes or fires arrows upon the hostile npcs.

Both aim reaching the same goal anyhow they both have (should have) suitable specialities to avoid/roll certain harmfull effects to complete their mission.

They should both have their own strengths and ways to reach to the destination.

As you can see there is no right or wrong choices becasue both classes are built (inbuilt specialities not items or outer buffs from items) to survive and complete the task when classes are balanced.


It is about giving the class the right tools when developing it. Not overpowering one when degrading or ignoring the other.

People play the game to have fun with their 'dream builds' afterall. No reason to 'Shoo!' them away ; forcing them to play only 'That' style when they choose not to.

I agree, and can be seen in my older posts, that the game physics should support a multiplicity of playstyles consistently at most levels. This is not the same as "all" playstyles, but the number shouldn't be static or written in stone either.

As a theoretical matter, one is very hard pressed in any system to balance for perfectly equal outcomes. How to compensate for most unequal outcomes that is through the safety net of cheap respec, or fast advancement and reincarnation.

At the challenge end game, I accept that the number of viable playstyles may narrow given the increased difficulty. Asking that such narrowing never happen is akin to expecting a .25 mile weekender race car to compete and win at Le Mans. Totally different game. I still think multiple major playstyles should be viable there, but I do expect a narrowing.

[myliftkk_v2]

I agree. Allowing F2P to join VIPs for any dungeon, improves grouping options a lot. Also there needs to be an incentive, to make more soloers / low man groups consider opening their group to the public. The already mentioned things are good ideas: Xp bonus, bonus tokens redeemable for various rewards (can get solo, as to not "force" grouping, but faster in group), more xp for objectives like conquest, when in group


About posting LFMs: When making a LFM I get annoyed by having to fill out the quest tab, especially since the sorting is weird. Please make it like filling a form, i.e. auto-suggestion and fill once you entered the first few letters. Add an option to automatically fill quest when entering.

Open group isn't the best alternative as the level range is wrong, 1 level too high for bravery so you have to correct it manually all the time.


About joining LFMs:

I usually don't join groups in a quest deep within an explorer zone. Worst case could be: they rush me to come, but finish the quest anyway while I'm still in the wilderness and then dissolve immediately. Great, I just traveled for nothing. Optional teleport to quest instance could be helpful, because I think a lot of people don't want to bother travelling through bigger zone to join someone.

Likewise I I'm a bit hestistant to join groups in progress for a chain, unless it's a friend/guildmate or all the individual parts are worth good xp / loot. If you redbox a quest you don't get credit for chain progress at all. Sometimes I rather start myself from part 1, even if I have to step down difficulty.


Other things that put people off joining LFMS:
- some quests cannot be redboxed
- they already did the quest: most quests are only worth doing if you have ALL of: first time, bravery, daily
- difficulty way off compared to your combat power...... if the game had a power level rating, instead of relying on character level only for xp purposed, more people could group up. Hard to balance though.
LFM posting could be more intuitive, I wholly agree.

Most of those things you mention would be made a lot more palatable if the XP was juiced during group play. This is why the reward for grouping needs to be not just commensurate with the risk, but noticeably greater than the risk. If it's noticeably greater, then even the few times we do lose out, it doesn't hurt as much.

Juice the XP and even people who might not wait for you to get there to finish a quest will wait. People who might not run out to the quest will reconsider. People will grab optionals and optimize their non-Reaper play for a group style. But, the juice has to matter. It can't be $19.99 versus $20.00.

[fatherpirate]

above all, no matter what system (if any) is adopted....NEVER force players to group.
always...optional.

That should be like a golden rule...right next to Any Lag is bad Lag.

[Brutuscass]

above all, no matter what system (if any) is adopted....NEVER force players to group.
always...optional.

That should be like a golden rule...right next to Any Lag is bad Lag.

Ahh, but were does that leave the players of of the blame game?

[acemonkey]

There's actually multiple ways to get past those gates:

First an people may not realize, but killing a ghoul on the plate triggers it with the dead body (not just stoned):

1. Pop one vendor hire, kills 2 ghouls.
2. Pop one vendor hire, pop 1 gold seal hire, kill 1 ghoul.
3. Pop one vendor hire, pop 2 gold seal hire, kill no ghouls.
4. Kill 3 ghouls.
5. Do any combination of the above with < 4 players in party.

All of the above can be done at level, and assuming you've gained DDO Points during favor runs prior, for "free" as well (if you're not depending on saving your DDO points from favor during a TR).

+arti/druid pet

[Wizard1406]

above all, no matter what system (if any) is adopted....NEVER force players to group.
always...optional.

That should be like a golden rule...right next to Any Lag is bad Lag.

Yes, that's why scaling, self-healing and mostly broken but occasionally useful hirelings exist and should stay :-) And thankfully they have abandoned the quest design that requires several people to step on plates, hit switches for newer quests. Retroactively changing the quests where it remains would be a good idea too (messing with hirelings is annoying, they sometimes refuse to take orders etc.)


However some people have been arguing permanent buddy bonus is "forcing" people to group *eyeroll* They oppose of any changes hat make solo / low man no longer the most optimal play style.

[Seph1roth5]

Man I think half the replies on this thread are just people *****ing about stuff unrelated to the OP (reaper, lag, classes, etc.). Getting back on track here...

All my friends are pretty antisocial and don't like to pug. Even buddy bonus doesn't really affect their playstyle lol. One of my friends will pug it up if it's just dailies, but that's it. I'm not sure if the suggested system will affect people that just don't want to play with strangers. Named items (from raids) doesn't make them PUG, buddy bonuses, they don't care about cosmetics, so...yeah not sure how to incentivize people like that. Unless it's something crazy like 50% bonus xp.

Maybe a good buddy boost (~10% per) but only for a certain level spread, like lv 1-5. And have that change every week?

I like the idea of people getting into quests they don't own somehow, but that's more helping newbies than grouping in general (though that's a good idea). I think what would be much less complicated is if they just made a different adventure pack free each weekend. Then, people can try it out before they buy, and you'd probably see more LFGs of people wanting to learn the quests.

I'm not a coder so I don't know about how hard any of that would be to implement, but it certainly seems complicated. I know I sometimes hit the "I'm looking for a group" button and that is a pain in the ass lol. Been playing for years and still can't seem to turn that off right heh. I don't think the lfg system is bad, they just need to fix uh...that it's broken on login.

I play on Orien and the LFG panel is fairly populated at what seems to be good Pacific times. I tend to level with my friends and then run random epics in pugs. I used to have guys I leveled 1-20 but I don't like to solo (anti anti social!) so that takes a while to PUG heh.

[fatherpirate]

Now if folks wanted the heavy D+D PnP ... flavor

Create an indoor building instance that is the local adventurer hiring office.

If you go in your automatically flagged as LFG

and go from there.

Not my choice, but a choice never the less

[GramercyRiff]

People like playing games solo. The game is already very beneficial and encourages grouping for lots of reasons already. Raids alone prove that this game is for grouping. The soloist can't get most of the raid gear in this game. I think that's a terrible design but that's just my opinion.

For most of the solo players you probably won't entice them to group. They enjoy their way of doing things.

[myliftkk_v2]

People like playing games solo. The game is already very beneficial and encourages grouping for lots of reasons already. Raids alone prove that this game is for grouping. The soloist can't get most of the raid gear in this game. I think that's a terrible design but that's just my opinion.

For most of the solo players you probably won't entice them to group. They enjoy their way of doing things.
Raids are a tiny fraction of the game. And the end game raids don't even have a measurable grouping impact because only the end game player has a decent shot at completion in them. To also say nothing of the raids aren't ever even run any longer. (Titan anyone?)

The game absolutely discourages grouping. It's lost population and spread the remaining population over more and more content and hamster wheels. Akin to spreading the same size pat of butter over a larger and larger piece of toast. It's less tasty for the person who enjoys butter, than the individual who enjoys bread.

The playerbase does not neatly cleave between soloers and non-soloers. There are many shades in between as evidence by reasons why some don't group that has nothing to do with their level of social interactivity. I agree that the die hiard solo-er for whatever reason isn't going to change their stripes, nor would I ask them to. But, a non-trivial contingent of us don't fall anywhere near that category. We are instead lashed to our diverging hamster wheels not that much different from the Black Mirror episode with the bikes. Enhancement which encouraged individuals who want to to step off some of the wheels, like Reaper, to play with other and spin a different wheel much faster would benefit from being legitimate choice we can make individually. If a solo-er doesn't make that choice, they lose nothing,because nothing about their game changes. Right now we can't even make that choice because they've managed to lash all wheels to Reaper.

For those of us who lean towards grouping as the primary benefit of online play at all (I've played every solo DnD digital incarnation since the Gold Box days), the game has held less and less appeal each year. If I can't lead a pug or find one to join quickly, then I'd rather be in any number of Souls-like games soloing in a far richer visual environment. The number of times I've gone into the game and no one has even bothered hitting an LFM I put up (because having an LFM, is not the same as filling a party) has become the norm, not the exception that it used to be.

[myliftkk_v2]

Man I think half the replies on this thread are just people *****ing about stuff unrelated to the OP (reaper, lag, classes, etc.). Getting back on track here...

All my friends are pretty antisocial and don't like to pug. Even buddy bonus doesn't really affect their playstyle lol. One of my friends will pug it up if it's just dailies, but that's it. I'm not sure if the suggested system will affect people that just don't want to play with strangers. Named items (from raids) doesn't make them PUG, buddy bonuses, they don't care about cosmetics, so...yeah not sure how to incentivize people like that. Unless it's something crazy like 50% bonus xp.

Maybe a good buddy boost (~10% per) but only for a certain level spread, like lv 1-5. And have that change every week?

I like the idea of people getting into quests they don't own somehow, but that's more helping newbies than grouping in general (though that's a good idea). I think what would be much less complicated is if they just made a different adventure pack free each weekend. Then, people can try it out before they buy, and you'd probably see more LFGs of people wanting to learn the quests.

I'm not a coder so I don't know about how hard any of that would be to implement, but it certainly seems complicated. I know I sometimes hit the "I'm looking for a group" button and that is a pain in the ass lol. Been playing for years and still can't seem to turn that off right heh. I don't think the lfg system is bad, they just need to fix uh...that it's broken on login.

I play on Orien and the LFG panel is fairly populated at what seems to be good Pacific times. I tend to level with my friends and then run random epics in pugs. I used to have guys I leveled 1-20 but I don't like to solo (anti anti social!) so that takes a while to PUG heh.

I don't think the question is how to make anti-social types be social. The question is how to quit discouraging the more social types from even logging in, and instead encourage them to play together. Right now, every design choice except the fact that raids exist, penalizes that type of player.

[fatherpirate]

correct...the dedicated solo players will always be...solo
this is not for them.

[myliftkk_v2]

Yes, that's why scaling, self-healing and mostly broken but occasionally useful hirelings exist and should stay :-) And thankfully they have abandoned the quest design that requires several people to step on plates, hit switches for newer quests. Retroactively changing the quests where it remains would be a good idea too (messing with hirelings is annoying, they sometimes refuse to take orders etc.)


However some people have been arguing permanent buddy bonus is "forcing" people to group *eyeroll* They oppose of any changes hat make solo / low man no longer the most optimal play style.

The solo argument on whether their particular playstyle must be most optional should not even be a consideration in the mind of the truly solo player. The true solo-er doesn't care about their neighbors, whether they play with them or not. It should only matters whether their progression in their own isolation is enough to keep them happy.

Soloing should be a viable choice for players who want that, and who want to dip into it. I also don't mind soloing being a viable strategy in the Reaper game. In non-Reaper heroics and Epic though, group play should offer a level of advancement faster because it accelerates the gaining to new players into the higher power reaches, and provides smaller benefits to the vet who aren't capped (who can then be more successful at Reaper later).

[Ilindith]

Did not read the all the posts so if this is a duplicate idea, sorry.

I would personally post more groups if PUGs could simply teleport in the quest that is currently being run.

Teleporting them to the zone in spot would be fair.

I always start things solo and put an LFM up for other to join in. I never wait to fill a group. Sometimes I feel like it's pointless since you can wait longer for people to get there than it takes to complete quest.

I never bother putting up an LFM for Eveningstar Chain 1 and 2, Bargain of Blood, etc.

There is also the case of people not knowing where the quest is. If it's in "town" some can manage with indications, but throw that out the window for explorers. Leaves a sour taste to new players I'm sure.

[Fenrisulven7]

There are however, many reasons people don't group up that I don't believe can be solved with "game engineering"

Agreed. I find grouping to be a pain because everything's a zerg. I have to be in the mood for it, have smoke and drink at the ready, bio done. Kinda like women are with sex? :cool:

It's just that you can't really take a break in a zerg group, even stopping to reclick a remnant that didn't pick up puts you 2 steps behind the group.

[fatherpirate]

agreed, zerg = zero fun
zerg is work

at least pause to pick up loot, pop a heal...whatever

[droid327]

agreed, zerg = zero fun
zerg is work

at least pause to pick up loot, pop a heal...whatever

Maybe what we need is what hirelings have - the ability to teleport to another party member within a quest :)

That way players could stop to do a thing, and not spend the rest of the quest just chasing the others. I get the feeling zerging becomes self-sustaining at a point...you zerg because you know everyone else is going to zerg and you dont want to get left behind, but everyone else is zerging because YOU'RE zerging and they dont want to get left behind.

[capsela]

I've been begging the devs for permanent group bonus for years.

[Forzah]

Permanent buddy bonus, go go go!

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

As long as I must fear negative reactions because I'm not top geared etc. , I won't group much.

In my case, it's rather the behaviour of the player base that keeps me from grouping.

[Kutalp]

There's actually multiple ways to get past those gates:

First an people may not realize, but killing a ghoul on the plate triggers it with the dead body (not just stoned):

1. Pop one vendor hire, kills 2 ghouls.
2. Pop one vendor hire, pop 1 gold seal hire, kill 1 ghoul.
3. Pop one vendor hire, pop 2 gold seal hire, kill no ghouls.
4. Kill 3 ghouls.
5. Do any combination of the above with < 4 players in party.

All of the above can be done at level, and assuming you've gained DDO Points during favor runs prior, for "free" as well (if you're not depending on saving your DDO points from favor during a TR).






Hi myliftkk, Yeah. The method you mention is for players who buy and use many gold hirelings at the same time. (Favor run and free play and Premium and VIP. What does have to do with Tomb of the Burning heart?.Also if a player buys Necro I seires, he becomes Premium)


So, no. That doesnt work for ordinary players mate. Gold hirelings are not cheap for regular players you know. I am speaking of fellow DDO players and a regular person who start sthe game and enters the tomb. The player can summon Catacombs gold hireling Thistledown and ordinary vendor hireling aswell. Still it is not a viable method.


Someone can form a virtual party by multiboxing and summoning alot of gold hirelings (they can be summoned as a full party) at the same time. Same for Xoriat.


Solo play the tomb with ordinary player:

Alas, I am speaking about a regular player. You can add vendor hireling top of that aswell. But the ghouls killed remaining on pressure plates without turned to stone is not % accurate.

An ordinary wizard or sorcerer player with flesh to stone just finger points a ghoul while standing nearby the plate (ghoul keeps attacking) and turn the ghoul to stone forever/easy. This is the cheapest and surest way for any normal, regular player.



I prefer running the tomb with a flesh to stone caster; anyhow that quest is not required to access to Necro II and further (shrugs). The point here is the to group with fellow players (especially fresh players; or not)



The other obvious way is players who do multiboxing (many alts logged in at the same instance). Not sure many players do this other than muling.


Anyhow, at my main toon guilds. I shout out for Necro I runs and ask new players wish to join/ I wish those type of quests were f2p aswell. I cant afford to buy guest passes for each player each run you know. Not many freshmates who know about Necro or login regularly lately, sadly.


Happy new year to you. :)

[Kutalp]

The bodies disappear pretty fast, so you have to be quick on your feet for that one.
Summoned monsters work, but you have to be even faster and move before the summon follows. (Artificers have the bestest summon for that using Flame Turret, that simply doesn't move.





Yeah ordinary hireling and summon does not work. I still believe for ordinary soloer Wiz/Sorc is the real deal. For any other class it is wasting points on gold hirelings on a quest which is not even required to complete the chain and follow up with other Necros (shrugs).

The lower level non caster class abilities which can be used to pull ghouls and kill on plate is Sap feat, Knockout of Occult slayer, Trip feat assuming these wont kill the ghouls fast and at arong spot (has to be right top of pressure plate).

Some one may try with a paralyze weapon aswell but those weapon come at higher levels compared to the quests and not sure how well it works on ghouls there. Most probaby kills faster than required.