Vanguard: Round 1 - FIGHT!

[Der Helm]

"Unnacceptable.  My guildy leveled 2 levels in 8 hours and was disgusted and quit the game".

 Seriously.

What. The.  Fuck.  Is.  Wrong.  With.  These.  People?

I still think that this is just a big Internet Prank.

When this game is finally shut down, a website like SA will come out of the closet.

[Morat20]

As I have said many times, most MMOPRG players are passive-aggressive brats. It is one big competition for a lot of people. That's why they get upset at things like this.

Sigil is trying to focus on making things slow because their plan was always have fewer subs for longer. Problem is that entire strategy is flawed. WOW has a ton of subs and is still going strong. Vanguard has people getting fed up and quitting daily (from the boards I have been reading) and the sub numbers are a lot lower than they thought. It looks like they might not even have a quarter of the subs they were counting on.

If they wanted "fewer subs for longer" they should have gone virtual world. Virtual world junkies get attached to their characters. It takes a serious nut-smashing to get them to leave once they've settled in.

EVE and SWG both got one thing right -- allowing you to refocus your character without having to reroll it.

[shiznitz]

You have to buy the game. The Station pass saves you te monthly fee but no matter the game (EQ1, EQ2, Matrix Online, Vanguard) you still have to own a key to start playing.

Damm.

Well, I found an advertising on the station homepage that spoke of some kind of compliation. The ad said gave the impression that all Station games would be included, but I could not find it in the "store". Since I am mildly interested in the other games I am tempted to buy this. If I could find it.

There is a box that offers the software for all the Station Pass games, but VG isn't part of it yet.

[ajax34i]

"Unnacceptable.  My guildy leveled 2 levels in 8 hours and was disgusted and quit the game".

Seriously.

What. The.  Fuck.  Is.  Wrong.  With.  These.  People?

My theory is that they're trying to belong and be a part of the community, and they figure the only way to do that is to tout what they perceive to be the party mantra.

[Azazel]

I wasn't making threats. I was just issuing a general stfu because it's a tired old reply that every solo-oriented mmo player is more than tired of hearing trotted out.

You are aware, aren't you that I am a solo-oriented MMO player, aren't you? And that my most common "group" is duoing with my wife, followed by her + 2 other friends. At the same time, I don't mind the fact that there are areas of the game I need a group of some kind for. As I said before, I think a wider variety of tuned-instances would be great, as long as they don't go the tank-healer as the only option ftw route.

But then, to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, there's the problem of tuning somewhere so that it's equally challenging and hopefully fun for a Paladin vs a Warlock. Boss fights especially would only be able to be dps vs attrition. Not to mention the liklihood of Rogues and Druids (and now Mages) stealthing their way to the bosses (or past 90% of the trash at least), ganking the soloable-bosses, then rinsing and repeating every 10-15mins for a shard and/or loot bonanza.

As for Vanguard, it's just fucked both from a conceptual level through to pretty much all of the execution and the endless paniced-seeming hotfixes. Not to mention the Vanboi community.

 

[Venkman]

And that my most common "group" is duoing with my wife, followed by her + 2 other friends.

/jealous.

Oh, wait, you're talking about MMOs...

Most soloers accept some parts of the game are closed to them. The only real problem is balancing. How MUCH content is closed to soloers is one measure.

To Sky's point, in WoW, every single adventure instance is closed to a soloer of the appropriate level. Sure, you could solo Gnomeregan at 50 or Deadmines at 35, but why would you bother? The only good stuff is non-tradeable so not for a twink and the rest doesn't fit the time/cash ratio.

Sure, this was somewhat the case in EQ1, but that game was old and breakable, so people found ways to game it. Unfortunately, some thought exploiting EQ1 was the norm, the way things should be. There are things I loved about EQ1 that newer games tried to "fix", like the various forms of kiting, Bard song-twisting, and so on.

The industry doesn't though. Maybe this stuff is too hard to do well and keep balanced. Maybe it meant that some classes were just always going to be better than others. Maybe everyone just got lazy. Whatever it is, every MMO since EQ1 has gotten more contrived than the previous, to the point where the "massive" has been slowly written out of the experience, save bazaar/auction-houses and e-peen waving in general chat.

And modern players seem to like that.

[trias_e]

Alright, I know this is going to get me called a vantard.  But let me explain what I wanted with this game, because I think some of these concepts are getting bashed a little unfairly.

I wanted Group-centered gameplay from the get-go.  This doesn't mean camping one spot for hours like in EQ1 necessarily.  This doesn't mean forming a group has to be a punitive experience where you need 4 specific classes just to get started.  This doesn't mean that soloing is impossible, just not as good as grouping.  But I really didn't want the quest driven solo gameplay as in WoW.  Becuase it's already in WoW.  When the guy said the game is too quest driven and Haemish flipped, I can understand why.  But honestly, the quest driven solo gameplay is one reason why vanguard has dissapointed me.  It's too much like WoW.  I didn't want to play another WoW.  I wanted to play a group-centered game.  I thought that was going to be this game's niche, but it didn't deliver that (at least at the first 16 levels, which in this game is a lot of time played).

You might ask why it matters.  But if the best risk-reward ratio is in solo questing to level up, no one will want to group, including people like myself.  And this might surprise everyone, but in vanguard right now, it is.  Check the boards, and you'll see this is the case even higher in level.  This is why people are pissed off when quest xp rewards go way up in value, because it mainly just makes soloing even better in risk-reward, which ruins the niche of the game, at least from many people's perspective.

Another reason it bothers me is that the hand-holding can ruin the metagame and exploration aspects.  If you are constantly told where to go and what to do, some of the wonder or appeal of a large world sort of wears off on me.  I know that I could just ignore the quests and level EQ style, but that would be a INSANELY slow experience in this game.  And part of the reason I don't like it is because the playerbase as a whole is less interactive because of it.

The game ended up too much like a more grindy WoW, when I wanted a less campfest/insane death penalty/new cooler EQ.  You might not believe me, but in my opinion right now the game's biggest failure is giving in to being like WoW.  Even bigger than being unfinished and buggy as hell.

If I wanted to play WoW, I'd go play WoW.  It's much better at being WoW than everything else.  Devs need to realize that the path to take is niche separation, not bad imitation.  And no one will out WoW-WoW.  Ain't gonna happen.

[Calantus]

That's definitely a much better spin than most VG players tend to use. I realise that me saying this is both arrogant and irrelevant but I see your reasoning to be quite a valid position to take, which is something I hadn't thought I'd say in regards to group-centric play. It's actually the same line I take on raiding, where if you want raiding in your game the rewards have to be better than anything else or you gut the raiding game, so I don't know why I missed it. Probably because most of the people bitching about this sort of thing aren't taking that line, and are actually pissed just because the solo experience isn't hardcore enough by their measurement. I still reserve the right to poke fun at those people.

To me you do not yet qualify as a Vantard. :P

[Venkman]

Yea, I don't see that as vantardation either.

Having a group centric game isn't about XP. It's about group-relevant rewards with group-based abilities. It's not just FFXI Renkai or old-EQ2 Heroic Opps, it's those PLUS rewards that a whole group can use right away, whether they're a PUG or a guild.

Problem is, so far games either focus on solo or consistent groups, which really means guilds. PUGs are sorta left in the dust, to argue about shared XP or untradeable collection quest drops. Guild rewards are good, solo rewards are good, everything else is X number of people helping one person get something knowing that person will be part of a later group helping someone else get something.

Ultimately, it's about solo objectives. Most quests are solo objectives. This sets up many of the issues. Where's the massive for me?

(rhetorical question: the massive for me is the long series of solo, PUG and guild opportunities that work together with the game server society and economy in a persistent world. You can't match this in any other genre except real life, and that's not as fun nor risk-free).

[Azazel]

I also have no problem with the concept as Trias and also Falconeer (overall) have described what they want from the game. The problem, as I see it anyway, is that Brad McQuaid and a small army of sycophants have created the thing and been his target market. Hence you have all of the mistakes and bad things from EQ1 (pre-removal of lots of the suck) coming to revisit you as well as poor-quality playtesting, QA and so on and so forth.

A game can be group-centric, have open exploration in a wide open world and all the rest, without also involving hitting your testicles with a ball-peen hammer.

 

[Nebu]

I think that some people, including myself, are searching for an MMOG that isn't WoW.  That's what got me to buy the VG box.  Sadly, I found quickly that VG wasn't the answer (for me).  So... back to DAoC I go until AoC or WAR release. 

[Falconeer]

My rushed review has been lost in the deepest of the F13 dungeons but it's not that bad when you can get an Anti-Review that explains Why Vanguard Sets a Bad Precedent for MMOGs

Vanguard - The Anti-Review
Elysium – Thu, 02/22/2007 – 7:38pm
Perspectives
"We will have a lot of work to do post-launch and the first couple of months post-launch will be just as busy as beta 5 with lots of patches, bug fixes, new feathres[sic], etc." – Brad McQuaid on beta concerns for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes performance

Honestly, you've got to respect the man's candor. Many criticisms may be laid at the feet of former Everquest Vision™ junkee and current Sigil Games Vision™ proselytizer Brad McQuaid but indirectness is not one of them. To be fair, I've poached a single sentence from one of a million forum posts by the guy, taken it out of context and placed it in italics to give it a weight beyond the scope of the original statement, so let's not pretend that this is some kind of mission statement on releasing the game. The thing is, having played Vanguard: Saga of Heroes whenever I could muster the fortitude over the past two weeks, Brad's post is a pretty salient commentary on the state of the game's release.

When in early February, a Vanguard review key wandered into my grasp I, as something of a Massively Multiplayer gaming addict, set out immediately with the intent of investing dozens of hours into its three-tiered gameplay structure to construct a fair and well-informed review of the title. I even joined with a colleague in what we termed a "blood oath" to achieve at the very least level 20 so that we had a clear impression of both the solo and grouping content of the game. What happened instead is that I kept finding excuses not to play a game that was mediocre at its best and flatly annoying most of the rest of the time.

My goal was to inform myself to a complete enough degree to write a review. This is not that review. That review will never exist, because I am simply not willing to force myself to play long enough to construct a fully realized impression of Norrath. No, wait. Norrath was Everquest. What's this place called again? Let me look it up, and I'll get back to you …

… Telon! Right, that's the place I've been avoiding.

Now, I'm going to stop fans of Vanguard right here, because I don't care about your vehement and impassioned emails. I honestly don't. First of all, as I mentioned this isn't a review, and I'm not pawning this off as a complete examination of the entire game, but more importantly I'm under no obligation to like Vanguard, and I'm not going to trot out the tired old conventions of picking out small and often insignificant things that don't suck to balance out against the overwhelming majority of things that do suck.

So, what's wrong with Vanguard? How long you got?

The engine seems tailor made for a Sony Online game – despite Sigil's years of work with Microsoft only to be unceremoniously, and maybe not mysteriously, dumped in 2006 – in that it:

1) Makes everything appear to be made of shiny plastic and,

2) Doesn't work

The landscapes feel lifeless, designed either as great open spaces where oddly shaped creatures wait to be slaughtered and harvested at the whim of the local constabulary, or equally often as tightly confined valleys between vertical cliffs of ridiculous proportions that look exactly like what I'd make with Maya if I wanted to try my hand at cliff making. Also, between these cliffs of insanity, are the same oddly shaped creatures, the slaughtering, and lazy constables. The quests come verbatim from The Big Book of MMOG Quests, and every phase of character development feels awkward. On any given swing of a sword a character might gain familiar skill increases for usual offensive and defensive attributes, but along with those one might receive upgrades in tactic recognition, spell recognition, perception, detection, light fandango tripping and smoothie making. Every conflict fills my chat bar with information that I don't really understand, and ultimately don't care about.

Much of Vanguard seems intentionally obtuse and as counter-intuitive as possible while at the same time wrapping itself in tired trappings that have been done far better. Judging an enemy's relative difficulty is itself a multi-layered exploration in cryptography. For example, a level 5 – 2 dot creature is actually less difficult than a level 4 – 3 dot creature. Do you know what that means? Well neither did I for about nine levels, and let me tell you it makes more than a marginal difference! Would it surprise you to know that, where at level 1 you hit creatures for the traditional handful of hit points, by level 6 you might have a critical hit for several hundred damage? Would it further surprise you to find that those hundreds of points of damage against a newbie mob won't do much serious damage, you know unless it's a level 6 – 1 dot. Obviously I'm talking about a level 4 – 4 dot or level 5 – 3 dot, which are clearly far more difficult that some 6-1!

Death is a fact of life for the early adventurer, and not just the kind of death that comes from hyper-fast respawns and wandering creatures several levels higher than you, but the really annoying death that can only be achieved by not understanding what the holy hell is going on. Fortunately characters are not "eligible" for death penalty for the first few levels. I put eligible in quotes because I was always struck on my many young deaths by not being eligible to be penalized by a game. I wondered if there were people at level 5 running around anxiously anticipating that glorious day when they, like their fathers before them, would be "eligible" for in-game punishment.

But, of course, adventuring, such as it's called, is only one of the spheres of Vanguard's three-sphere gameplay model. There is also Crafting and Diplomacy in which, theoretically, one could invest themselves entirely without paying much attention to improving their Bleeding From Puncture Wounds skill. Of the two spheres, Diplomacy most intrigued me with its collectible card style play.

In Diplomacy parleys you and your mob opponent both start with a pool of points. The first person to get rid of all their points wins the conversation. There is a marker that is moved by playing cards, and at the end of each turn whichever side of the board the marker is on gets rid of one of their points. If you, as the player, remove a point from your own pool then the conversation progresses.

Here are the problems:

1) Despite having names like Forceful Demand, Complimentary Comment or Obfuscating And Slightly Suggestive Imperative, the cards themselves do nothing to altar the static flow of conversations. Even as you play Angry Non-Sequiter, your side of the conversation may end up being conciliatory and diplomatic.

2) Card Gameplay gets redundant. It's one thing to hit the millionth local bandit with a sword, but grinding a card game is a whole new level of hardcore that I'm just not prepared to explore.

3) Vanguard doesn't do a great job of drawing you into the stories. Names of places and people seem so equally unfamiliar as to be interchangeable, and proper nouns suffer from more apostrophes than an all-night marathon viewing of Conjunction Junction. I can only care for so long that the Jaa'bba'lly of F'za'nnnjj province want Kwagzatz of the Hoohanie dead, which is why they are hiring Zv'ii'tz of the K's'tt''ll clan to concoct a slow acting poison to be applied to Kwagzatz's F'oo'd', and it's your job to convince nine different people to give you the nine different components of the poison.

4) There's no real sense of advancement. Occasionally you get a new card, or some new piece of diplomatic clothing that grants you an extra green dot at the beginning of each parlay, but who cares?

Diplomacy is a clever idea that's not nearly engaging enough at lower levels to encourage the player to move forward. The Diplomacy game lacks the levels of nuance and strategy that make CCG games so addicting, and the actions of parley seems only barely related to what's transpiring in the game. It would be like giving your character all kinds of interesting combat skills, but every time you activate those skills you just swing your sword the same way.

But, so what? Right? Tired and redundant gameplay, barely interesting story, artificial environments populated with lame quests and an over population of sword fodder; I could be talking about any MMO on the market. The whole damn genre has run off the rails and become a parody of itself. Click the button and a gamer-treat rolls occasionally down the little pipe activating neurotransmitters in the brain that beg endlessly for more tiny little gamer-treats. So why pick on the little guy?

Fine, you want to know what really pisses me off about Vanguard; what voices me with the attitude that Sigil stole my lunch money? Vanguard sets a bad precedent for development and product release. In the months to launch Brad McQuaid made it very clear that regardless of whether Vanguard was actually ready for launch Sony, which had saved the game from cancellation following Microsoft's parting of ways, had set a firm timetable for retail, and come hell or high water the game only had enough money and time to reach that date. So, now that the game has released in its incomplete state, in a state that McQuaid himself describes as requiring patches, bug fixes and new feature implementation on par with a beta product, Sigil essentially comes to the consumer as the third investor in the process of the development cycle, and that is not just a terrible way of doing business, but an irresponsible step in the wrong direction for complicit consumers.

Let me put it bluntly, if a game is not ready for retail when the money runs out find another investor or shut the doors. We are customers, and the retail end of the industry is bad enough about not supporting incomplete or inoperable products without developers and publishers assuming we are investors in the development process. Your job as the industry is to create product, and then, and only then, we buy it.

So, what to say in capping off my thoughts on Vanguard. First, to you Vanguard faithful who, even now, are anxious to point out all the little things that make Vanguard great on which I completely missed the boat possibly because I'm just some World of Warcraft lamer who can't handle a man's MMO, go suck a sock. I don't care about the stuff I missed because the larger picture, the game itself that's supposed to facilitate my giving a crap about the exploration was barely functional, obtuse and uninspiring. To the guys who made Vanguard and for whatever reason maybe put themselves through reading this, I'm sorry to kick your baby down the stairs, but too many game writers these days are so busy tap dancing around offending someone in the industry that they've lost sight of telling consumers not to buy mediocre games. And, finally, to the reader who is wondering if Vanguard is worth playing, had I to do it all over again I sure wouldn't, and my copy was free.

- Elysium

[slog]

Let me put it bluntly, if a game is not ready for retail when the money runs out find another investor or shut the doors.

Kids.  They think this isn't about the money.  Grow up little boy.

[Raguel]

But, so what? Right? Tired and redundant gameplay, barely interesting story, artificial environments populated with lame quests and an over population of sword fodder; I could be talking about any MMO on the market.

He's not jaded or anything. 


As far as the money bit, I think it's past time consumers stop rewarding game companies for mediocrity. They'll keep putting out inferior/buggy products if we keep buying them.

[Nebu]

As far as the money bit, I think it's past time consumers stop rewarding game companies for mediocrity. They'll keep putting out inferior/buggy products if we keep buying them.

Name a single industry that this isn't the case for.  Have you looked at the games on the console shelf, the number of shitty movies, or even the crap being released as music? 

It's a ubiquitous phenomenon. 

[Sky]

But if the best risk-reward ratio is in solo questing to level up, no one will want to group, including people like myself.

I won't call you a vantard. A grouptard? Yes.

If you like grouping, why don't you group? Why do the rewards have to dictate how you play the game?

I say you indeed don't like grouping, or you'd do it even if the game wasn't designed with a group-bias. I solo in group-biased games because I actually enjoy (and circumstances dictate) soloing.

[trias_e]

Hypocritical much?  Why don't you like running dungeons 20 levels below you solo in WoW again?

Plus, it's damn hard to find a group in the first place when it's not particularly encouraged by the risk-reward system.  Another very big difference between grouping and solo.  If you don't encourage grouping amongst the playerbase, it's going to be very hard to find a group.  On the other hand, you could solo to your heart's content in any MMORPG out there if you don't care about your rewards.

[Sky]

Groups can do 'solo' content, but group content is excluded to solo players. So it's not hypocritical whatsoever. The reason I don't do dungeons 20 levels lower is clearly laid out by Darniaq. With the good stuff BoP and 20 levels beneath my character, why would I bother? Meanwhile a group can tear through level-appropriate, even far over-level solo content.

If people won't group without it being the best 'risk vs reward' system (and I've already challenged that particular nonsense), I would posit people don't like grouping. They only do it when it's necessary.

[Valmorian]

Groups can do 'solo' content, but group content is excluded to solo players. So it's not hypocritical whatsoever. The reason I don't do dungeons 20 levels lower is clearly laid out by Darniaq. With the good stuff BoP and 20 levels beneath my character, why would I bother? Meanwhile a group can tear through level-appropriate, even far over-level solo content.

Um, they probably don't WANT to "tear through" it.  I think the whole point of group content is that it is a challenge for a group.

[Raguel]

As far as the money bit, I think it's past time consumers stop rewarding game companies for mediocrity. They'll keep putting out inferior/buggy products if we keep buying them.

Name a single industry that this isn't the case for.  Have you looked at the games on the console shelf, the number of shitty movies, or even the crap being released as music? 

It's a ubiquitous phenomenon. 

Well, I do my best not to award Hollywood for mediocre films either :), but we were talking about games though, so I didn't mention it. It works for anything, really. "Vote with your wallet" is a phrase I agree with.

[trias_e]

With the good stuff BoP and 20 levels beneath my character, why would I bother?

By your logic, you obviously don't really like to solo then.

Grouping in vanguard is much more difficult than soloing, takes longer to get together, and produces less reward than soloing.  It's basically a big waste of time from a reward standpoint.

You don't like to solo low level dungeons because you don't get any reward.  I don't group in vanguard because I get less reward and it's more time consuming and possibly hazardous than soloing.  I don't see a difference, as both of these preferences are obviously directly tied into risk/reward/timespent ratios.

 I like grouping because it's more challenging and interesting to me.  I'm not going to wait an hour to get a group that has a good chance of failing that also nets me less xp than soloing does.  Another thing I want to do would be to progress my character, like everyone does in these games.  And in vanguard especially, it's a pretty big deal given the xp rate.  I want my new abilities and would rather not wait a week to get them.

[Alkiera]

Groups can do 'solo' content, but group content is excluded to solo players. So it's not hypocritical whatsoever. The reason I don't do dungeons 20 levels lower is clearly laid out by Darniaq. With the good stuff BoP and 20 levels beneath my character, why would I bother? Meanwhile a group can tear through level-appropriate, even far over-level solo content.

Um, they probably don't WANT to "tear through" it.  I think the whole point of group content is that it is a challenge for a group.

He wasn't speaking of group content.  He was talking about groups tearing through solo content; which is true.  If you have content designed for a single player and send 5 at it, it won't last long.

Hrm.  I wonder if it would be possible to design 'alternate' dungeons, heck, make it the same dungeon, with different mobs for solo players, maybe even based on class, so that you can fudge some things that will work better against some classes than others, including adding mobs that see through stealth in instances provided for rogues, druids, mages so they can't stealth the instance to kill just the bosses without some difficulty.  Provide mobs tuned to both the strengths and weaknesses of each class in their instance.

If you scaled the difficulty to be similar to a group of appropriate level, but for a single person, you could probably use the same drops, even.  It might not be as fast, as a single person won't be able to take advantage of class synergies (warrior+priest, for example).  You might also run into issues where drops just aren't usable more often, as loot tables were designed for 8 classes, not one.

Speaking of which, it'd be nice if they could tune loot tables to just not provide cloth loot if you are duoing an instance with 2 leather-wearing classes.  IE if it's BoP and not usable by anyone, it won't drop.  Re-Roll the loot.  Heck, use this as part of the 'tuning' for classes above.  If you solo an instance, you're more likely to get the rare drops you want, but it will be slow.  Go at it with a group, you'll get through it faster, but drops will be distributed through the group... Thus exp/time and loot/time should work out similarly; tune as neccesary.  Thus groups and soloers should be equally rewarded.

--
Alkiera

[Sky]

Has anyone here even played CoH/V? Scaling content is nothing new.

I don't see a difference, as both of these preferences are obviously directly tied into risk/reward/timespent ratios.

Again, I don't see grouping as higher risk. I would say trying to do it without a healer or a mezzer or tank is tougher than having the luxury of all of those.

From the rewards aspect, I understand groups don't want to 'tear through' solo content. But they can, and gain good rewards for doing so with low risk. Maybe not as fun, but it can be done. However, as a solo player, I can't hit a dungeon until it's ridiculously below my level, it's still very risky, and the rewards are nil.

The time aspect is one of the most critical for me. I don't have a lot of time to play, it's rarely the same time every day, and I often have to leave unexpectedly. I think making gameplay group-oriented is unrealistic. And as I said above, I think most people prefer to solo, since they'll only group if they need to.

All that said, I think it's great to have a few games that are very group-oriented. People who are into that should have their slice of the pie, no doubt. My problem lies with games that are very solo-friendly, but then tack on a punitive group-only system that cuts off the best content (named spawns, dungeons). Sure, dragons and gods should be group only. But the orc outside Freeport? Please.

[trias_e]

Whether grouping is higher risk or not really depends on the game.  In WoW, maybe it's not.  I still think it is, as I would would never die with my mage solo, while in groups all the time.  I would waste lots of time grouping in WoW, which I consider risk.  In Vanguard it definitely is.  With an actual death penalty that is made much more significant if you can't get to your corpse (ala deep in a dungeon, something that never happens in solo play), along side fairly challenging group play the risk is much higher.  Again, I rarely die solo in Vanguard.  I know myself, and I know what I can do.  If I have an hour to play, I can solo quest and reliably progress.  An hour in a group is pretty hit and miss.  As far as adventurous gameplay, taking on really difficult things...again, I think grouping is more risk than solo, even here.  The difficult group challenges usually take a long time to get to, are in the bottom of a dungeon, while diffiucult solo content is usually pretty easy to access.

I don't really understand your argument when it comes to risk vs. reward.  A group could tear through solo content, but in terms of progression and items, they would be behind a single soloer taking on that content because of group overhead times and content exhaustion.  In terms of just clearing content, yes, they can do it, but in terms of character progress (xp and items), not a good equation.  And in terms of fun gameplay, even worse.

Group oriented gameplay is feasible with those with time they can commit to the game.  Not so feasible for those with families or careers where things can unexpectedly come up.  It's mainly for the high school/college/post-college kids, like me, with good chunks of disposable time where I'm not going to be bothered.  I think that there are less players that fit this mold than those that fit the solo mode, but for those that do, it can really be alot of fun.  As I said, I truly find grouping a more interesting experience.  And, even if it's a 1/4 / 3/4 split (which is what I'd guess), that still justifies a groupcentric niche.

I think it's best for games to focus on their niche, and totally agree with you.  I disliked WoW's bait and switch at 60 from a solo game to group/raid only.  I didn't mind the grouping along the way because I enjoy it, but raiding not so much.  Vanguard interested me in part because the grind is so long that I could have had group centric gameplay for a long long time, before the end game reared it's ugly head.

[Valmorian]

From the rewards aspect, I understand groups don't want to 'tear through' solo content. But they can, and gain good rewards for doing so with low risk. Maybe not as fun, but it can be done. However, as a solo player, I can't hit a dungeon until it's ridiculously below my level, it's still very risky, and the rewards are nil.

That's kind of the mathematical reality there, though.  If a given encounter is to be challenging for a group, it has to be virtually out of the soloer's league. 

[Surlyboi]

Yes, but in this age of instanced everything, there's absolutely no reason not to scale the stuff down to soloers as well.

Don't make the rewards quite as lucrative as those you'd pull out of the group instances, but dammit, let the dungeons, etc at least be accessible.

Oh, and ding, 1000, bitches.

[Sky]

Why shouldn't the rewards be as lucrative, too? You get yours by grouping as you like to play, I can get mine from soloing as I like to play. Outside of the vantards who feel cheated because they saw others level at a faster pace.

Again, I don't expect to solo Nagafen. But I should be able to solo Crush and get the same drop as a group would, imo. Ideally in an instance where I wouldn't be intruding on some guild's group night or some other solo player just looking for a heroic gaming experience.

And again, Valmorian, CoH/V. Scaled content (they even scale in the public zones to a degree iirc)

[palmer_eldritch]

I think this is partly a world vs game debate. It seems obvious to me that something which takes a team of six to take down is probably going to be carrying a more powerful magic doodah than something which one person can take down. But only if you expect some small level of consistency in the world.

If a group of people say they killed a boss monster and got a particular item and I say, yeah, I did the same thing solo and got the same item because the server automatically made the mob easier for me, even I would find that odd (and I would do it too - when you *can* do something solo it's always easier, even if it's a hard fight. It's easier because you don't have to worry about other people). I still like the idea of being able to pretend that stuff that exists in a game world actually exists - if there's a big tough orc in a cave then it doesn't turn into a smaller, weaker orc (but with the same treasure chest) when someone goes in the cave alone. I guess if you give up on any idea of virtual worlds then it makes more sense.

One of the things I liked about Eve was the knowledge that there were these great wars raging on 0.0 space, even though I wasn't a part of them. I couldn't go into these sectors myself as I was not part of a 0.0 corp and didn't want to be, and unless you are part of a corp which owns the sector you are very likely indeed to get blown out of the sky. But I actually liked the idea that different people were doing different things because they played the game in different ways far more than I would like the idea of the game server creating little instances for me to do everything in my own way. That's just my personal take.

By the way, I'm not sure anyone really disagrees with the idea of solo dungeons. It's the idea that the same dungeon should be both solo and group depending on who goes in that I have trouble getting my head around.

[Surlyboi]

Because, it's not just the Vantards that'll feel cheated. It's pretty much all the people that think the first "M" in MMO means you have to play with them to get everything you want too.

[trias_e]

If you want the exact same reward for grouping and soloing, you still would need to take into account group overhead/organizational difficulty.  Due to that, groups would get more per content clearance than soloers would, because soloers could clear it faster with less problems.

I just don't see how soloing can be at the same difficulty level as grouping however.  Sometimes grouping may well be easier, sometimes much harder, but it's fundamentally different gameplay and different challenges to be overcome.  This disparity will lead to inbalance no matter what it seems like to me.  Balancing a perfect risk/reward ratio would be very difficult in many cases, and impossible in any non-instanced/scaling world (which I'm personally interested in).  I agree with palmer that much of this might be world vs. game debate.  I am certainly more inclined to want some world-like features, like no instancing and non-scaling features.  I like the world because it introduces challenges to the playerbase in a way that a 'game' does not.  I guess it introduces metagaming, which I really think is a draw for these games.  I like dealing with the world, not the world dealing with me.


On a more ontopic note, some numbers posted on silky venom make it look like vanguard has over 100k active accounts.  Better than I thought.

[Ixxit]

One thing I really liked about Dungeons and Dragons Online (and to as lesser extent Anarchy online)  was the patched  in option to spawn a solo instance  for most dungeons as well as the different challenge selections for groups.  I really wish that WoW, and EQ II would do this as well.

As well, I don't think you would have to limit solo rewards in terms of money or gear, if you offered some other  reward like a symbolic  ranked ladder  for "Dungeon Points" for group play  (something along those lines) which the 'achiever mind set' would  go for, that would give them no other advantage in game save e peen bragging rights.

I think what game developers need to realize is that favouring group play  and having play exclusive to groups alone will not keep players  on the montly payment treadmill. Choice is far more powerful.

It has already been proven that people will play instances over and over and over to get that elusive drop.   Who really cares if its a full blown Molten Core run or a solo run in the same instance with just a 'really mean Murloc' at the end.  Bottom line is that the players will do them over and over again or whatever game mechanic is there to keep the carrot dangling  out in front.

[ajax34i]

It seems obvious to me that something which takes a team of six to take down is probably going to be carrying a more powerful magic doodah than something which one person can take down. But only if you expect some small level of consistency in the world.

I think that the something which takes a team of 6 to defeat should carry 6 doodah's of the same power as the 1 doodah that the solo something would carry.  Why should the team of 6 be forced to roll, forced to do the encounter 6 times, why should the reward for that encounter be awarded to only 1 person in that group?

I think that starting with this premise, it becomes a lot easier to make encounters automatically scale to the number of players attempting them.

[Murgos]

I like that thinking.  Maybe make the chance for a drop slightly less in the solo instance.  Not debilitatingly less, just enough so that you would rather group and be sure to go get the thingie the first time while in the comparative safety of a well rounded group but that you can, if you want, take a little more risk and a little more time and do it on your own, if need be.

The lack of rez's alone would stop most people from doing the dungeon as a solo instance just from a time lost getting back to your corpse PoV.

[Nebu]

I think Sky (and others) have also made some very good suggestions about improving solo play.  Something to the effect of making at least 1-2 classes that are solo only and/or have altered abilities upon grouping.  I think that it's all fine to reward grouping, but many mmog's are missing out on a good revenue source by alienating the solo crowd.  There are many of us that like to log on and solo when time is limited and then play another toon to group when more time is available. 

[Alkiera]

If you want the exact same reward for grouping and soloing, you still would need to take into account group overhead/organizational difficulty.  Due to that, groups would get more per content clearance than soloers would, because soloers could clear it faster with less problems.

I disagree.  IMO, a group should be able to get through the actual content faster than a solo player.  A solo player won't have much room for error, assuming the content is difficult enough to yield good rewards.  With a group, if the difficulty is balanced properly, even if the mobs are more difficult, they can be killed faster, with less downtime.  A solo fighter has to bandage or sit and eat after every fight, where if you have a priest, mage, hunter and druid with you, even if the mobs are tougher, even if there are more of them, there are efficiencies such that they should be able to clear through the same space in the dungeon faster than a solo person.

The solo person gains at the front end, as he can log on and immediately start.  However, once started, it'll take him longer to get through the content (because he's by himself, has to eat/drink/rest) than it takes a group of 5 people.  The inefficiencies of a group are all at the front end, of getting all the people necessary.  As mentioned, CoH does this better than any other MMO, as the power level of various classes is fairly well balanced; a group of 3 blasters, or 3 scrappers, or 3 defenders, may go about things slightly differently, but all are about as useful as a group with one of each.  But once they've got a group, and made sure everyone knows what they're doing, the actual fight process should go much faster than the solo player... less resting, less time spent making sure absolutely everything is clear before the boss is pulled, etc, because with 5 people you have much greater room for error.

Ideally, to me, the time to get a group+run the dungeon should be less than the time to run the dungeon once solo, unless there's just no one willing to group.  I'd think that ideally, the most effective way to get the loot you want would be to group it a few times, and then solo it (to limit the drops to stuff you can use) for the last few pieces of the set you need, or the rare-drop that you've not been lucky enough on yet.

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Alkiera