DDO questing: Solo'ing vs Grouping

[Kir1]

Given its an MMO, shouldnt the dungeon scaling be removed so that it is always at the 6 player level? Like the way Raids work?

Originally when there was no scaling quest difficulty was balanced for average 4 man group. It promoted full groups (6 people doing staff balanced for 4 means easier quest) and made harder to short-man. To solo Elite you did need to be really good, Elite was not "Default difficulty" as of now.

[Nestroy]

Certainly entitled to your opinion, however I completely disagree.

• Threat of losing that 10% (of the base) bonus destroys the incentive to group for some people, but certainly not everybody.

• There are plenty of first life Epic Elite viable toons/players out there. Multiple PLs are only required for two things: some specific builds, and people who need/want as much power as possible - I'm not saying either of those are bad or wrong, just that neither is a requirement to be viable in any content.

• It's been pointed out many times in many threads that making grouping more lucrative/efficient than soloing is not the same as encouraging/improving pugging. If grouping is incentivized over soloing, people who only group with guild/channel/friends won't suddenly start pugging. People who multibox still will, not start pugging. People who don't play well with others still won't. So while making group play more beneficial than soloing might help improve the pug scene, I doubt it would have a major impact.

Point 1: As soon as most players I coached find out that grouping or especially pugging has a bigger chance to destroy their 10% bonus, they start to solo. While this certainly does not hold for 100% of players, many at least I know do stop grouping - or only run in groups with well-hardened vets that know the game inside out. Pugging is dead as a dodo. Again, making the 10% XP bonus an individual award would go a long way. Communicating this thru all channels (and not hiding this behind some hollow words in the last line of an update description) would go the extra mile for the community.

Point 2: Yeah, I can build a Bladeforged Iconic too. Most viable EE builds I know except perhaps bladeforged monkchers or shiradi sorcs need at least the 32 points base, some past lifes and grinded gear items to survive EE. So they are not for the new player running the first toon into lv. 28. It´s easy to talk as vet player from high up. My bank is full of gear I might give to my new toons and make them survive in EE. I have 32 point builds too. How many new player have this?

Point 3: If grouping gives an incentive, I at least go looking for a group. If I do not have plenty of guildies / friends at hand in my level range at any given time, I might at least try to pug. Of course pugging will go up. About the amount of pugging to go up time would tell. I am no full-taught social engineer to correctly estimate a percentage. But I am absolutely sure grouping incentives will make more pugs available.

[Lanhelin]

Point 3: If grouping gives an incentive, I at least go looking for a group.

Agreed. But the OP's suggestion to apply the -10% on death to the player only who died is a good idea too.

Though then there should be a social bonus additionally too: +2% XP per player in party the whole time the quest takes from entering the dungeon the first time until completion. So a 6 man group without any deaths would be rewarded with +12% XP. If someone dies, she/he only - and not the other party members - gets the remaining social bonus of +2% (12% - 10% death), so there's a penalty for death, but still a bonus for grouping. Hires shouldn't count, only players. If there are less players in the group, then in case of the death of a player - and for this player only - the social bonus either equals the loss (5 man) or does nothing (4 or less). If one solos, certainly no social bonus at all is granted. If players join the party much later, when it already has entered the dungeon, then these players shouldn't contribute to social bonus too, to prevent hopping in for the last fight only to get the +12%. So there should be a certain time slot, say all players who enter the dungeon within 5 minutes after the first player has entered, contribute to social bonus. If players get kicked from a party, the party also loses the +2% of this player. So also a Newbie, even if she/he dies multiple times in a dungeon, still contributes +2% to all other players.

Something like this would still reward players who didn't die, penalize death individually and reward party playing. Pikers will occur, but Pikers who just pike without asking whether it's ok or not, will be identified pretty fast I guess.


Edit: another possibility could be to make death penalty scale down with the number of party members.

Solo: -10%
2 man: -8%
3 man: -6%
4 man: -4%
5 man: -2%
6 man: no penalty

[FalseFlag]

Scaling offsets this a bit.

No, it really doesn't, nor is it supposed to.

[Nestroy]

Agreed. But the OP's suggestion to apply the -10% on death to the player only who died is a good idea too.

Though then there should be a social bonus additionally too: +2% XP per player in party the whole time the quest takes from entering the dungeon the first time until completion. So a 6 man group without any deaths would be rewarded with +12% XP. If someone dies, she/he only - and not the other party members - gets the remaining social bonus of +2% (12% - 10% death), so there's a penalty for death, but still a bonus for grouping. Hires shouldn't count, only players. If there are less players in the group, then in case of the death of a player - and for this player only - the social bonus either equals the loss (5 man) or does nothing (4 or less). If one solos, certainly no social bonus at all is granted. If players join the party much later, when it already has entered the dungeon, then these players shouldn't contribute to social bonus too, to prevent hopping in for the last fight only to get the +12%. So there should be a certain time slot, say all players who enter the dungeon within 5 minutes after the first player has entered, contribute to social bonus. If players get kicked from a party, the party also loses the +2% of this player. So also a Newbie, even if she/he dies multiple times in a dungeon, still contributes +2% to all other players.

Something like this would still reward players who didn't die, penalize death individually and reward party playing. Pikers will occur, but Pikers who just pike without asking whether it's ok or not, will be identified pretty fast I guess.


Edit: another possibility could be to make death penalty scale down with the number of party members.

Solo: -10%
2 man: -8%
3 man: -6%
4 man: -4%
5 man: -2%
6 man: no penalty

Actually, the timer already is implemented - with the Xp functon (getting only X % of XP because entering late). This just hav eto be adapted and here we go.

[kned225]

solo is easier and faster.

This is not just true in ddo, but in life

There's always a trade-off if you involve others in your entertainment. Like waiting for your date to get herself together before you "hit a movie"

If you don't get enough enjoyment out of grouping with others to outweigh the minor inconveniences, then you're better off soloing....if you know what i mean

[Nestroy]

This is not just true in ddo, but in life

There's always a trade-off if you involve others in your entertainment. Like waiting for your date to get herself together before you "hit a movie"

If you don't get enough enjoyment out of grouping with others to outweigh the minor inconveniences, then you're better off soloing....if you know what i mean

I think there is a little difference between socializing RL and socializing in DDO. Given the vast amount of RL options compared to the great but very limited options you have in DDO RL is much more interesting. Keep DDO a game. Especially when RL a date is involved ^^.

[Grecan]

Solution: remove dungeon scaling, allow teleport to quest if someone is inside it, give bonus xp for bigger party size, give -10% only to those who died in quest not whole group.

remove dungeon scaling:
if they remove it, they should remove the lower difficulties, not the higher ones
otherwise, the game would be even easier than it already is
and you might prefer to group then, if it changed this way


allow teleport to quest if someone is inside it:
i'm almost neutral on this, but don't like it much
sounds like a solution for people who are lazy, or don't have much knowledge about the location of quests, and for impatient people
those things shouldn't be rewarded imo
afaik, there's an existing teleport solution with the Bracelet of Friends which can be bought at the store


give bonus xp for bigger party size:
bigger party means usually easier completion
so this sounds like a bad idea to me - if the xp changed, it should probably be less, not more
combined with your dungeon scaling removal suggestion, this sounds even worse


give -10% only to those who died in quest not whole group:
this sounds kinda fair
or maybe give -10% to the dead player and only something like -3% to the party (-5% to the owner of dead hireling and -1% to party of dead hireling)
however, you don't get a penalty for deaths, you get a bonus for zero deaths - which is not exactly the same

[Chai]

Elite by design was originally not supposed to scale, and I think they need to return to that in order to encourage grouping for elite. Normal and hard can scale.

You are getting a bunus for grouping however. In most MMOs they divide the Xp among the number of players in the quest. This one does not. Your xp doesnt get cut in half because your friend stepped in.

[EnjoyTheMoment]

This thread again? Didn't this bad idea get caught in a spike trap yet, never to be resurrected?

Those running a number of MMOs figured out, at some point, that people like having the option to solo and so they revised their originally solo-unfriendly approaches to game design. Read "Massively Multiplayer Online" game as "has the option, but not the requirement, to group up", and you've described the current state of the industry. With so much revenue to be lost by taking another approach, this isn't going to change. Get over it already.

If those who make decisions at Turbine were ever stupid enough to listen to these occasional calls to remove dungeon scaling, then a larger percentage of new players would leave shortly after arrival and those currently here who enjoy soloing would take their gaming dollars elsewhere.

Solutions to support grouping have been made in abundance, solutions that don't "promote" grouping by making soloing less enjoyable. Those are the solutions that wouldn't be self destructive on the part of Turbine. Why not promote those instead?

[myliftkk_v2]

I have some time to play game, but i dont want to spend a lot time waiting and waiting and waiting.

Who is waiting? Let me explain how this works:

1. You put up lfm.
2. You grab buffs.
3. You start quest.

Where's the dependency on others? There isn't unless you choose it.

I don't wait except in rare circumstances. But, the flipside side of that is I usually run chains, and say so on the lfm panel up front, so while people might be late getting to the first one, they're generally ready for starting all the subsequent ones. The fact that I don't want to wait, because I don't have endless game time, doesn't impede pugging at all. Since the vast majority of content doesn't have "party gather" requirements, it's easy enough to avoid involuntary waiting if you choose to avoid that.

Now, if you can't handle soloing the first 1/4 to 3/4 of a heroic quest on elite with 5 members who may not have entered the quest yet, that's not my problem. That is a worst case scenario.

[Chai]

This thread again? Didn't this bad idea get caught in a spike trap yet, never to be resurrected?

Those running a number of MMOs figured out, at some point, that people like having the option to solo and so they revised their originally solo-unfriendly approaches to game design. Read "Massively Multiplayer Online" game as "has the option, but not the requirement, to group up", and you've described the current state of the industry. With so much revenue to be lost by taking another approach, this isn't going to change. Get over it already.

If those who make decisions at Turbine were ever stupid enough to listen to these occasional calls to remove dungeon scaling, then a larger percentage of new players would leave shortly after arrival and those currently here who enjoy soloing would take their gaming dollars elsewhere.

Solutions to support grouping have been made in abundance, solutions that don't "promote" grouping by making soloing less enjoyable. Those are the solutions that wouldn't be self destructive on the part of Turbine. Why not promote those instead?

Nope, because no one is asking for the entire game to be required to group. They are asking for one of the four difficulties encouraging grouping, and the other three difficulties can still be solo friendly. No one would leave if both options existed, and its not as absolute as you claim where either the game has to be solo friendly or its not. DDO can, and at one time did, have both, when elite didnt scale.

I also note that many forums in the MMO industry have just as many people complaining that MMOs have become a single player game. The only difference between many MMOs and skyrim, is that there are other players in the world playing the same single player game. Single player games is already a genre, so there is no need to turn MMOs into single player games. If Turbine wanted to develop a single player game, they can do so at far less costs due to not needing to maintain PW servers where thousands of people can log into the same instanced universe.

[PermaBanned]

Once again, critical miss, sir.
But its ok, PUGing make me patient enough to explain again and again. Its not about "different expectations". It is about _waiting_ more time (see points 1-7 in first post) then actually doing quest itself. I have some time to play game, but i dont want to spend a lot time waiting and waiting and waiting.



As you've said it yourself: bad design is when fastest, easiest and most efficient path for many (_many_, MANY, "many" means "not all but majority" <- pay attention here please) quests is just to solo them.

Ok, so you want to skip/ignore the examples I gave where group can complete a quest faster than a soloist - it's not true for every quest, but then neither is your statement that a soloist can complete faster; fine we'll ignore that.

How is it a game design flaw that you don't want to wait to fill a group before starting? Many (_many_, MANY, "many" means "not all but majority" <- pay attention here please) of us just start a quest we want to pug with "IP" in the LFM notes & problem solved! Quest started, no waiting to fill, and now you already have a group (or at least part of one) for the next one.

Not wanting to wait to fill is not a game design flaw. Running a quest in as short a time as possible by invising past mobs that "don't need to be killed" is a playstyle choice - not everyone plays that way.

[EnjoyTheMoment]

Nope, because no one is asking for the entire game to be required to group. They are asking for one of the four difficulties encouraging grouping, and the other three difficulties can still be solo friendly.

Removing dungeon scaling was called for in the OP. The OP's suggestion wasn't restricted to elite difficulty and it would make the game much less solo-friendly.

There's another oversimplification in the OP in suggesting to reduce only the XP bonus of a character that dies, as that means teammates are more likely to want to sacrifice their teammates, instead of putting their own characters at risk.

No one would leave if both options existed, and its not as absolute as you claim where either the game has to be solo friendly or its not. DDO can, and at one time did, have both, when elite didnt scale.

I also note that many forums in the MMO industry have just as many people complaining that MMOs have become a single player game. The only difference between many MMOs and skyrim, is that there are other players in the world playing the same single player game. Single player games is already a genre, so there is no need to turn MMOs into single player games. If Turbine wanted to develop a single player game, they can do so at far less costs due to not needing to maintain PW servers where thousands of people can log into the same instanced universe.

Here there's a false dichotomy about "turning MMOs into single player games", which you set forth after claiming things are not so "absolute" as to be either solo friendly or not.

As for no scaling for elite, that takes an already large jump in difficulty (EH to EE, for example) and magnifies that difference even further. Where you might want to see a smooth progression in mission difficulty so that a step up in difficulty is a fun challenge, instead mission difficulty would go straight up to "slog" or "slaughter" for most players. Do you really believe that's a good player retention plan?

As for the larger trend and the complaint about soloing in MMOs, gaming companies are still learning how to balance providing incentives for group and solo play. It will take time for them to figure that out.

[Seikojin]

Elite by design was originally not supposed to scale, and I think they need to return to that in order to encourage grouping for elite. Normal and hard can scale.

You are getting a bunus for grouping however. In most MMOs they divide the Xp among the number of players in the quest. This one does not. Your xp doesnt get cut in half because your friend stepped in.

I dunno what MMO's you be playin, but none that I played divided. Pen and Paper is that way though

However, that is a good point. But the 13 encounters to level isn't in ddo either. And neither is proper cr - exp ratios. I think what the incentive idea is meaning; Turbine should put something in place to make us want to group.

That is actually pretty simple. Scaling bonuses. Since we have a ton already, why not add more!

For each player beyond the first, add a cumulative 2%. Maybe people wouldn't 5 man pug or 6 man for 10-12%, but you never know. They could always double it. Or tie it to streaks, so your streak gives less bonus depending on group size (full streak elite giving 5% solo, 50% in a full party/raid)...I mean, it isn't like you can't get your capping done without farming every quest a dozen times.

[PermaBanned]

Since you keep saying "pay attention to points 1-7 in my OP" and claiming bad game design is the source of your woes, I'll address them individually:

Even so, OK some players join:
1) i will have to wait them before they get to quest - usualy some running in needed to quest entrance thru tangleroot gorge area

You could step in & start the quest, letting them catch up as they can - game design does not mandate the group gather before entry.

2) some will take time to buff up and re-stock

Then they miss out on the first quest do to unpreparedness - game design is not the cause of players joining LFMs before they're ready to go questing.

3) when they join chances are they wont have invis and we will have to either deal with DA or to kill mobs, much slowing quest completion

Game design doesn't mandate invising past mobs. Some players actually like to kill & break everything, maximizing XP/quest over XP/min - are you contending that choice in how to play is bad game design?

4) chances that some die (-10%), i dont care for this but some do

This I'll agree, it would be nice if that were an individual penalty; though I suspect it's there to encourage "looking out for eachother" vs "every man for himself" - Grats! An actual game design issue! (though weather it's good or bad is entirely perspective based)

5) mobs gets buffed up, it wouldnt be problem since i skip most of them anyway but since (see 3) now we will have to kill them - it will slower quest

Groups (generally) kill mobs faster than soloers (not counting insta-kill effects, obviously), and again Game design doesn't mandate invising past mobs, some players actually don't want/like to do that.

6) you will probably have to explain some how to get to quest and when they get to you, after you waiting, suddenly they are f2p players and cant join

and this is bad game design... How? If you're bothered by this, when someone says "how do I get there?" start with "do you own the pack?" Or if you don't feel like giving such explanations, put something like "know how to get there" in the LFM notes, then you're totally justified booting those who don't. Still not seeing how this is bad game design...

7) and possibly someone will DC's/afk/pike

Ok, in at least some cases, like Big Top for example, the DC issue is bad game design; but the afk/pike thing? Yeah, totally Turbines fault! (sarcasm, if you couldn't tell )

So addressing your points 1-7, I see a lot more people/playstlye(invisozerg) issues than I do examples of "bad game design." Feel free to tell me how wrong, this is fun

[SilentTooLong]

Nope, because no one is asking for the entire game to be required to group. They are asking for one of the four difficulties encouraging grouping, and the other three difficulties can still be solo friendly. No one would leave if both options existed, and its not as absolute as you claim where either the game has to be solo friendly or its not. DDO can, and at one time did, have both, when elite didnt scale.

I also note that many forums in the MMO industry have just as many people complaining that MMOs have become a single player game. The only difference between many MMOs and skyrim, is that there are other players in the world playing the same single player game. Single player games is already a genre, so there is no need to turn MMOs into single player games. If Turbine wanted to develop a single player game, they can do so at far less costs due to not needing to maintain PW servers where thousands of people can log into the same instanced universe.

And the reason why they cant make even one dif setting cater to an extremely small segment of the population( hard core group players) is because of FAVOR! Favor is not merely a new addition tied to TP gain, its been here for a long time and tied to things that people see as SOP to get. like access to the house patron shops for things like house D ranged ammo. If favor was divorced from everything except TP gain, perhaps the varying degrees of difficulty could be used as a tool to segment the playerbase as some seem to think is a goal rather then a obstacle to avoid at all costs. However as long as any basic in game perk is tied to favor, people will see it as something they are meant to be earning in full measure. Not just going back and grinding out with a capped toon after massively out leveling it.

[SilentTooLong]

Nope, because no one is asking for the entire game to be required to group. They are asking for one of the four difficulties encouraging grouping, and the other three difficulties can still be solo friendly. No one would leave if both options existed, and its not as absolute as you claim where either the game has to be solo friendly or its not. DDO can, and at one time did, have both, when elite didnt scale.

I also note that many forums in the MMO industry have just as many people complaining that MMOs have become a single player game. The only difference between many MMOs and skyrim, is that there are other players in the world playing the same single player game. Single player games is already a genre, so there is no need to turn MMOs into single player games. If Turbine wanted to develop a single player game, they can do so at far less costs due to not needing to maintain PW servers where thousands of people can log into the same instanced universe.

Sweety where you here back in 06? Because I was. Want to know what DDO was like back then? Most people spent their hours online each day either trying to do things alone, or wait endlessly for a healer for their groups because those who wanted to group wanted a perfect team. And guess what people wanting to, let alone being willing to suffer through the role of pure healer where incredibly rare. While mana sponge barbs where incredibly common and commonly the first and weakest link in a party to snap and place the burden on the rest.

The vast majority of people who came to and chose to stick with the game for any length usually had the shared interest in the games active combat system, a system some here rightfully can lay blame at driving off a good number of actual PnP players who did not grow up mastering the art of the original super mario brothers on nintendo in the early 80s.

I can recall many a day where Id sit trying to build a group and as always the last spot left open would be saved for a healer because most of the group would be barbarians demanding a healer to carry them through, and occasionally in some content demanding a trap monkey, and very very often seeing that same trap monkey be verbally abused and driven to quit the group after taking out the traps so that the spot could then be filled by another dps barby doll mana sponge. This was even worse in chains where the last part might be light to no traps, and a leader without saying a word of reason would kick the poor trappist on route to the last part to make room for a DPS dealing RL friend so they could get in on the end chests loot drops. This kind of behavior still was common in the last year on the rare occasions Id log on and pug.

MMO do not need to cater to groupists, they need to cater to puggist, a very different kind of social gamer, one who enjoys CONSTANTLY meeting new people and exploring new things with them, or taking them under their wing for a time to pass on knowledge before moving on to another. Guildist are one of the great banes of DDO and MMOs in general as they breed xenophobic isolated cliques who are intolerant of new comers or changes to their idea of an ideal system.

[Chai]

I dunno what MMO's you be playin, but none that I played divided. Pen and Paper is that way though

However, that is a good point. But the 13 encounters to level isn't in ddo either. And neither is proper cr - exp ratios. I think what the incentive idea is meaning; Turbine should put something in place to make us want to group.

That is actually pretty simple. Scaling bonuses. Since we have a ton already, why not add more!

For each player beyond the first, add a cumulative 2%. Maybe people wouldn't 5 man pug or 6 man for 10-12%, but you never know. They could always double it. Or tie it to streaks, so your streak gives less bonus depending on group size (full streak elite giving 5% solo, 50% in a full party/raid)...I mean, it isn't like you can't get your capping done without farming every quest a dozen times.

Log onto WOW and do solo quests. When killing mobs note the XP gained. Invie a full group. Kill the same mobs, note the XP gained. Most of the MMOs where Xp isnt awarded at the end of a quest chain divide the Xp between # of party members.

[Funny_looking_mole]

I dunno what MMO's you be playin, but none that I played divided. Pen and Paper is that way though

Obviously we all play different games, but a quick off the top of my head rundown of MMO's I have played had 12 that split the xp, and 2 that gave full xp, both of the full xp games are quite recent (GW2, FFXIV). Also most of the shared xp games also had static loot, so if you could solo a boss, you got twice the loot compared to duoing it (or 6 times the loot compared to a group).