f13.net

So I picked up this month's "Play" magazine because the D&D game on the cover caught my eye. (looks good too, different topic.)  While flipping through it last night I saw a preview interview for EQ2 and decided to read through it.

  Most of the information was old hat, talking about the tech and the smaller raids, and soloable content, etc.  But what I hadden't heard before was that EQ2 plans on making grouping > soloing in the same way as Shadowbane.  When you're grouped you get the same XP for a mob as when you're solo, regardless of the group size. For those who didn't play SB (which is the only MMO I can think of that does XP like this.) This means your XP rewards will be FAR superior in a group, at ALL levels.  You'll kill more mobs faster in a group than you ever could solo.

So now I'm puzzled.  Does this mean EQ2 is going to be less of a grind. That doesn't make sense, since it's entirely a PVE achievement game.  The grind *is* the game, for the most part. Unless the grind is balanced around having a 6-person group, rendering soloing worse than pointless, OR they're abandoning the "you must take x days to get to level y" mindset.  Anyone else have any thoughts?

Mobs that con blue will be near impossible to kill solo and will require 5 to 10 minutes of downtime between each kill. Druids and wizards will be able to quad kite them, but will still require lots of downtime.

No kiting.  Runspeed buffs are 'paused' or stripped while in combat (They're using locking like FFXI, so no turning off attack and running. If you disengage you get no XP). Plus, last I heard, while in combat you're not able to move at 'normal' runspeed.

I understand the cynicism though.

Actually sarcasm. I'm actually interested in EQ2. *shudder*

This is odd. One possibility might be you'll be able to solo with any class in EQ II (a la WoW). However, as a way of still semi-enforcing the "thou must group" vision of EQ they've added this huge group experience bonus.

Sure, you get just as much experience for killing that mob solo as you would if you killed it in a group.  What it's probably not saying is you can't kill anything worth a reasonable amount of experience in a reasonable amount of time solo.

I saw that as well frankly that was one of the best things about Shadowbane. There was no reason AT ALL to not invite everybody and their brother and have a full group.

In almost every other game even though they say there are bonuses it nearly always works out that grouping is only marginally faster than soloing if at all. Hell in coh if you have a full group you better be fighting deep purples and lots of them in high concentrations to make decent xp gains.


kaid

Fact is, without this mechanic, no one has ever designed a game where group xp advantages adequately compensate for the overhead of group organisation; except in cases of specific classes which cannot solo.

EQ2 has openly said it's planning the game solely around the group mechanic. Given that, it's be daft to do xp sharing.

Note that EQ is also sticking to the relatvely small group limit of 6 people.

btw, to answer a point in the original post, no this doesn't mean anything about the insanity level of EQ2 grinding.

XP requirements will be based around a 6 person group, and around how many mobs a 6 person balanced group can kill per hour.

As for soloing, they did mention they intend to set up missions etc so that you can solo, but you can only do so effectively for certain amount of time (the idea being long enough to lfg, but not to pl).

This was what I was getting at. The Xp requirements, being balanced around the 6-person group, might make it so that soloing isn't as effective as one might think.  I don't have a big problem with that, but others might. Soloing advancement will be an order of magnitude SLOWER than group advancement, which is a change.

Trippy, Yeah, all classes are supposed to be able to solo. They're even making specific areas where mobs are less concentrated to allow folks to be able to, which in and of itself is a big departure from EQ classic which seemed determined for a while there to eliminate any soloable places with mob concentration/ aggro radius.

Actually I think they will probably aim exp balancing to 4 man groups. This seems like the core they aim for one fighter, scout, mage, priest. This way if you get a full group you do level faster than normal as you should.

The other nice thing about it is one of the toughest things in eqlive is sitting waiting around shouting for groups. This way groups will be clammering for members to fill their party up.


kaid

I dont think this was Shadowbane's invention.

Its like stealing from the guy who robbed a bank.

Perhaps shadowbane did not invent the idea but I have not played another mmrpg that rewarded groups and full groups as much as shadowbane did.

In shadowbane it was super easy to get groups because there was no reason not to add other folks to the party.


Kaid

And then when the group hs earned enough you call in your guild buddies to wipe everyone else out. Ahh... memories.

I figgured there were other online games that did this. I knew of a few smaller MUDs that did, but nothing on an MMO scale.

Ha, or fade into a hide and rip off the guy who keeps picking off all the good items, then Backstab the priest while he was sitting, while they're still all grouped and getting you exp.

Good times.

To be fair exp does get lowered when you group in SB, but never to the point where its not beneficial to always have a full group no matter what the level spread is.