Group Oriented MMORPGs?

[Falconeer]

I know the answer to this, but I still felt like making a thread about it.

I have a group of close friends, some of the in RL, some of them online friends since the early 2000s, which I like to play all sorts of games with but mostly games where you have to cooperate. We didn't realize this because to us online gaming has always been about cooperation. Aside from the occasional Quake, we always played online games that were either team-based, or were MMORPGs, and as we all know in MMORPGs grouping has been somewhat mandatory since the beginnings. On top of that all, we love PvP, wether it's in a MMORPG or in Counterstrike or Smite, yet as you can see it's all about playing together for a common goal.

We all know what happened. Around 2004 World of Warcraft unlocked solo-play in multiplayer games, and everything slowly changed, players changed, and now we can't find a game that we want to play. We still play some arena-based games, like Smite, or Counterstrike, Arma3, Planetside, but what we miss is the old experience of playing in a shared world where you have to band together to progress and discover that world. And no, having to group just for dungeons is not enough.

Before you start screaming that forced grouping sucks, hear me out. I don't mind agreeing with you, this is not about what is good or bad game design or if my idea of fun is better than yours. Hell, I was more than happy to have a chance to play solo when my friends weren't online back in 2005 or so, and I appreciated the feature in lots of games in the past ten years. I just feel things went to the opposite extreme, so if I for whatever reason tonight want to order a different dish... I can't. Dying is very hard and uncommon in recent MMORPGs and when it happens it means absolutely nothing. As a result, you never feel like playing with your friends because the pacing is so quick that one of you is gonna slow down the others and since it's all 100% risk free you realize grouping is pointless and only bothersome.

So we tried going back, diggin up our favourite games from the past, and we found out that they have lost so many players that they have all been tuned to be 99% solo oriented. The only ones we haven't tried at this point are EQ1 and FF11, which could be interesting alternatives but daaaaaaammn.

So, not really a question thread and more like a rant thread, but recently we are very very bored and can't find anything we want to play together that sticks more than two days. Everything is either a MOBA of some sort, or meant to be played solo except for dungeons. From this perspective, the biggest disappointment was Final Fantasy 14. Even Left 4 Dead, amazing coop experience, doesn't have the same feel of a MMO and while it definitely gave us a couple good weeks, it died down after a while. Interestingly, Survivals like DayZ and Rust are probably the exception, but they are all in a goddamn Early Access state.

I made a thread about a year ago looking for something we could play in short sessions with my RL friends, and it didn't yield too many results. We tried D&D Online and it isn't bad, but the free-to-play advertising for purchaseable stuff and the bloaty UI were so obnoxious they wore us down quick. An year later, we got even less picky and at the same time we have even less options. It's depressing. I am sure it's us, and there would be no point for companies to craft the kind of game that people don't want to play these days, but I miss the feeling of having to conquer a zone and work your way to a dungeon while being afraid of dying, instead of just insta-porting to whatever instance you need to clear over and over.

I understand this is all backward in many ways, and I know that this all seems to say that Brad McQuaid is somewhat right (   ), but isn't there a hole in the market for PvE games that a group of friends can play together and feel that the grouping actually matters?

[Merusk]

Warframe is really fun in groups. So much so that I haven't bothered playing solo since I grouped with F13 folks 2 Sundays ago. Its just no good without other people now.

Other than that you're in the same spot as last year. Nobody is developing forced-grouping games anymore in the west. MMOs are dying and so the chances of that happening in the future are about nil. You're going to have to go back to the pre-2004 games to find what you're looking for.  Sorry.

[Malakili]

If you want cooperative play, MMORPGs just aren't the place to look anymore.  You identify this already, but these games are more like social media in a RPG wrapper than they are what we thought of as MMORPGs a decade+ ago.   I also have a group of friends that likes to play co-op games.

Here is a list of some games we play or have played over the past few years:

Diablo 3 (probably the most commonly played at this point).  Obviously you can solo here, but great fun to play and hang out on VOIP.

Payday 2 - GREAT co-op game.  My friend and I only play stealth missions and have a great time with it. Have not played it a lot lately, but we were playing it a ton for a while.

Elite: Dangerous - The grouping mechanics are still a little wonky and can be frustrating.  Playing on the open server is a bit MMO-like, but you can play in a private game with friends, which is what about five of us do.

Tom Clancy's Vegas 2 - A fun co-op cover shooter, old at this point, but you can pick up for dirt cheap.

Minecraft - an obvious one.  Played a billion hours when it was newer, but we still go back from time to time.

The Repopulation - Ok, here's an MMO in early access.  This is very similar to SWG, but it is very rough still.  I'm worried about the long term viability of this one, but we have gotten a decent amount of fun out of this.

[apocrypha]

I'd say Malakili's absolutely right here. MMORPGs aren't where the best group play is any more.

I'd add Arma3 to his list - takes a fair amount of planning and preparation to make a good multiplayer experience but when you get it all going well it can be fantastic with a group of like-minded friends.

[Falconeer]

I am seriously considering going back to EverQuest 2, although the combat was bad in 2004 and it's atrocious now.

[Merusk]

I dunno, he doesn't seem to be asking for Co-Op play as much as "we must work together or die" which are two subtly different things.  Co-Op you can still get that one guy who can carry the bad players. When you're citing EQ1 everyone had a specific role you had to execute or you'd all die. Tank, Heal, CC, DPSx2. You could lose a DPS, but lose any of the others and everyone was corpse-walking.

Is that what you're after, Falc, or just Co-op play?

[Lantyssa]

FF11 will require a dedicated group.

If you're wanting any ability to drop in and out and have short play sessions, you really need to consider something like Minecraft, or (for the club-building aspect) Trove, or some kind of cooperative gave along the lines of Rust, 7 days, or whatnot.

[Falconeer]

I dunno, he doesn't seem to be asking for Co-Op play as much as "we must work together or die" which are two subtly different things.  Co-Op you can still get that one guy who can carry the bad players. When you're citing EQ1 everyone had a specific role you had to execute or you'd all die. Tank, Heal, CC, DPSx2. You could lose a DPS, but lose any of the others and everyone was corpse-walking.

Is that what you're after, Falc, or just Co-op play?

Yes, exactly that. There are lots of co-op games these days, whether PvP or PvE but they just have a different scope, size, pace. Haha, I guess I miss the Holy Trinity! And I am not even saying "oh I'd play the hell out of some EverQuest 3 if they did it that way!", no I'd probably hate it after a while. No way of knowing. I just miss that there's apparently nothing that fills that hole. Final Fantasy XIV was the big disappointment in this regard. EverQuest 1 and Final Fantasy XI could really be the only ones left of that kind, but boy it would be hard to stomach those UIs and combat these days.

[Malakili]

I mean, WoW still exists.  Aren't WoW 5 man dungeons pretty much exactly what you're after? Or are you just done with that content?  Or are you literally looking for a game that just doesn't let you walk around the game world without a balanced group?  Because yeah, I think we all know that ship has sailed.

[Zetor]

I mean, WoW still exists.  Aren't WoW 5 man dungeons pretty much exactly what you're after? Or are you just done with that content?  Or are you literally looking for a game that just doesn't let you walk around the game world without a balanced group?  Because yeah, I think we all know that ship has sailed.

Yeah, WOW dungeons (specifically challenge mode dungeons) are decently challenging and fun with a static 5-man group... it has a leaderboard too if you want to be competitive and stuff. The thing about CMs is that there's no gear grind (all gear is scaled to a low ilevel) and the difficulty is much higher than doing some normal-mode raids (which give better gear rewards), so most of the playerbase doesn't bother with them. NB: if you're considering WOW, I'd probably wait until June/July -- 6.2 is going to bring out two new kinds of 5-man instances (timewalkers, mythic dungeons) that may or may not be in line with what you're looking for.

I was going to recommend FFXIV before you said you were disappointed with it, as FFXIV endgame is all grouping, all the time (in fact, having a static group is pretty much a requirement to get decent enjoyment out of the game once you're done with the main story). Too bad the basic gameplay feels so sluggish!

[Ginaz]

You can always donate money to Brad McQuaid to pay for his drugs support his latest "vision".

[Falconeer]

WoW seems to be all solo play except for dungeons. That's the same in every other MMORPG out there even now, so no I was more looking for a game with lots of group-oriented content outside of dungeons, and not relegated to a corner of the map. Also, potential unexpected add and an actual chance to die which you ideally would want to avoid. Yes, ship sailed and sunk.

Ginaz: HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Trippy]

Well TERA does have BAMs outside of dungeons that will grind you into paste if you aren't careful but that's still probably not groupy enough for you.

[Malakili]

WoW seems to be all solo play except for dungeons. That's the same in every other MMORPG out there even now, so no I was more looking for a game with lots of group-oriented content outside of dungeons, and not relegated to a corner of the map. Also, potential unexpected add and an actual chance to die which you ideally would want to avoid. Yes, ship sailed and sunk.

Ginaz: HAHAHAHAHAHA

The last game I played that made me want to walk around the game world with a group was, shamefully, Darkfall.

[Nonentity]

Yeah, I just don't think the financial incentive is there for a game in anything close to the AAA space to have anything close to "forced grouping" (I can't think of a more succinct way to put it).

Maybe something will come out of the smaller dev houses or some eastern bloc dev house with something closer, but with how popular 'survival' games (ala dayz) have become, it seems inevitable that at least some people in the market will hit on something close to that spot. How long that will take is anyone's guess.

[Falconeer]

I played TERA a whole lot. Got to 60, and kept playing for a couple of months after that. Loved it, but I am done with it as PvP turned out to be a bit of a joke and high level instances weren't that great for my tastes. Still, great game. But if I think about the road from 1 to 60, it was solo all the way.

[Viin]

What about something like DayZ?

[Falconeer]

Well I have DayZ, I think it's the best thing of the last few years (and that's why literally everyone is copying it) and almost the spiritual successor of pre-Trammel Ultima Online, but it's Early Access and it feels like it. We have played a lot of it two years ago and now we are on self-imposed abstinence while waiting for it to become a full fleshed game.

I mentioned it in my first post, and while I am all over it it's still not exactly what I had in mind. But yeah, DayZ and survival games are the closest thing we have to that these days.

- Strongly suggested grouping: check!
- Actual danger of dying: check!
- Consequences for dying: check!
- Large open areas shared with other players: check!
- Lack of fast travel: check!

[WayAbvPar]

While not an RPG, World of Tanks is SO much better with a platoon of competent teammates it is unreal. Even when things go sideways, having people on comms to bitch to and commiserate with makes it a lot more palatable. PVP-only with a steep learning curve, so would be better to play with experienced players and learn the ropes before diving in with a group of tyros.

[Kail]

While not an RPG, World of Tanks is SO much better with a platoon of competent teammates it is unreal.

There's also a bunch of non-mmo games like that.  Anything in the League of Legends / Dota genre for starters.  The only problem is that if you don't have exactly 5 friends (no more, no less) then you're going to have complications.

edit: ...which he already said he didn't want to play, so never mind! 

[Lantyssa]

SWG emu?

[veredus]

Even though haven't played in quite awhile, I'll second World of Tanks. WoT really is a ton of fun with friends.

[Draegan]

There really isn't any game out there fi you're looking for a fully group oriented game. Most games have pieces you have to group for, but not the bulk of it.

[Lucas]

Arma 3 (bought it during the free weekend, it's fantastic, so much better than the 2nd chapter. You should all buy it so we can LARP together), and engage in full military LARPing mode  

Create your own missions with the editor, or, with your group, engage in some of those sandbox mods:

- Arma 3: Life
- Altis Life
- Breaking Point
- Epoch
- Wasteland

[Falconeer]

Thanks Lucas, those are really cool and we tried some of them. They are good, although content is all in the hands of the players like in DayZ. I have nothing against this, but it tends to feel a lot like a permanent beta (which it is). Still, they are always installed in our computers, they just lack some of that "sense of progression" where you conquer portions of the game that you couldn't access earlier.

For anything WoT-like we have MechWarrior. Same game, with 'mechs instead of tanks. We play that a lot, but as I said, we were looking for something more RPG-ish. The games that started it all, are now completely extinct. I guess I am next.

[palmer_eldritch]

I've been messing around in Rift with some friends after a years away and it still has group content. Eg rifts which you can't do alone, five-man dungeons which are easy to drop in to (we are a group of 4 and the dungeon finder gets a fifth person for us reliably - though the missing slot is DPS) and also "adventures" which are pick-up casual raids you can teleport to with your friends.

It all seems a bit easy at this stage. I'm currently level 36. But there's plenty for groups to do.

If you've not played EQ2 for years, you should check it out. At higher levels its all about the dungeons which are six man and hard. And there's a pretty good community of people who'll be lfg (or there was six months ago when I last played anyway). The levelling process is super dumbed-down though, but with a group of you and a merc or two to fill in the gaps if needed you'll tear through that if you want to and see a load of content. (I still love EQ2).

I never got very far in FF XIV, what's wrong with that one?

[Falconeer]

FF 14 is 100% solo friendly as everything else out there right now, except for dungeons of course.

[Yegolev]

Other than exploration of an open world, Falc is looking for Destiny.

[Paelos]

Other than exploration of an open world, Falc is looking for Destiny.

That made me chuckle.

[Nebu]

Even though haven't played in quite awhile, I'll second World of Tanks. WoT really is a ton of fun with friends.

You have to play with Aba and Way... for the "colorful language"

[Falconeer]

Destiny doesn't sound like a terrible idea for a group of friends! Too bad we don't have enough ps4 or desire to play a shooter without the mouse.

[Xanthippe]

Minecraft is very conducive to playing with a group of people, but it's more of a set-your-own-goals/sandbox than slash-n-loot. People are adding mods all the time to make it more goal-oriented. It requires a server, though, and someone to take on that responsibility of maintenance and updates.

Diablo 3 doesn't require a group, but the benefits from playing in a group make that the preferred way to play for most people.

[Yegolev]

Destiny doesn't sound like a terrible idea for a group of friends! Too bad we don't have enough ps4 or desire to play a shooter without the mouse.

Without getting into any sort of religious discussion, the shooting in Destiny is far, far better than any other console shooter that I've played.  The MP aspect is very fun for my group; we are pretty casual PvEers who almost always play just among our small group of friends, but if you're interested then we'd be available.

[Falconeer]

Thanks a lot for the offer. I passed on Destiny due to controller aiming and lack of friends, and always hoped it could just land on the PC one day. Anyway, I doubt our game times would ever match due to 6 to 9 hours difference, but this is the kind of things that can make almost any game interesting.

In the meantime, we seriously rebooted EverQuest 2 as a group (we only play if everyone is online) and......

..... it is SO different (for lots of reasons) from recent MMORPGs that while definitely not "new" in any way, at least it is not summoning the "instant burnout" feeling that it so easy to experience these days.

[Lucas]

Everquest 2 has the best feature ever when it comes to experience gain: it's up to you to decide if you want to turn off monster and/or quest XP (is this still true nowadays?).

It's a win/win situation for everyone: for the MMOG fan-atics who are developing their character n.93593, and for those, like me, who are casual players, simply HATE to overlevel and rarely reach max. level on any toon in any MMOG  and want to play at their own pace instead of being forced to stay away whole weekends from a game because the Dev Team decided that XP boost weekends are a good thing for the entire playerbase (I'm looking at you, SWTOR).