Folks seem to like talking about this, so lets give it a thread! I don't have anything to prime it with, though, except this.
Ryan has made it clear that he wants lots of meaningful human interaction and group play.
Players have pointed out that group play is not always feasible.
Yall take it from there.
Group Play is efficient when farming for killing achievements. It's not friendly for getting recipe's since they are borked atm when in a group. It's unfriendly to support role players that don't get achievements such as a dedicated healer. It's efficient for strip mining nodes and doing a split at the end for resources or dumping them all on to the dedicated crafter for the group.
Soloing is efficient when you need the killing blow to get the kill credit for an achievement unless you work that out with your group ahead of time. You get to fight what you want to fight.
Group Play is efficient when farming for killing achievements. It's not friendly for getting recipe's since they are borked atm when in a group. It's unfriendly to support role players that don't get achievements such as a dedicated healer. It's efficient for strip mining nodes and doing a split at the end for resources or dumping them all on to the dedicated crafter for the group.
Soloing is efficient when you need the killing blow to get the kill credit for an achievement unless you work that out with your group ahead of time. You get to fight what you want to fight.
The recipe thing will be fixed with the next patch, and the way the drop math works, it is actually more efficient to farm in a group, assuming players are willing to share or are working towards a common good.
As for the achievement bit, I think tech they are looking to employ in the future would allow parties to share kills. What I have read from various posts by Stephen is that he would like a system where, say, the top three aggro'ers on a kill get credit for that kill.
Cleric buffers- that definitely needs to be looked in to. Even after the new divine achievements go in to effect, Cleric healer/buffer types will be hard pressed to earn Divine achievement points. Or any achievement points, for that matter.
I'm interested to see how the new ranged changes will impact solo play. Right now I solo quite a bit because a) I'm just getting to know some people and I'm not currently part of a company, settlement, etc and b) sometimes that amount of time I have to play makes soloing seem like the only viable option. If I've only got 45 minutes on a given night, I go out and farm nodes and mobs hoping for some gear and recipes, then head back to a town for crafting before logging.
If solo play is going to be very difficult (by design) at some point, this could have a pretty significant impact on new players who aren't part of a company/settlement.
I'm also eager to see how the group stuff with shake out as settlements are created and vie for resources and whatever else the game has to offer as PvP/feud rewards, but I'm hoping that soloing will still be viable on some level to fill in the time between these larger scale interactions.
Goblin Squad Member
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There is no balancing of solo and group play because the game is not meant to be played solo. The whole point of the game is meaningful social interaction, and being a solo player is not meaningful or social.
Solo players are never going to be social. Many tried group games and hated it.
Making solo play totally impossible will just lose you players. It is not as if once you force them to party up they will suddenly realize the wonders of group play and say "OMG how awesome why I have never tried it before". If their personality/real life situation/timezone does not really suit group play they simply will not do it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's probably an important distinction that most people will do both to varying degrees.
There will be times when someone wants to run out to harvest resources, and isn't going to wait for a group to form up. Are they "solo" ? They are for the purposes of harvesting.
The will be other times ( Like defending a Tower - hopefully in a couple of weeks ) where it ( likely ) would be madness to try to perform solo.
Group mechanics for harvesting would probably come into play if someone hit a "gusher". Thats a particular mechanic of interest. GW has said that once you make a harvesting camp you start whats essentially a mini escalation. How's that planned to take place step by step? Would a solo harvester have time to group chat back to his settlement and call for re-enforcements before laying down the harvesting camp? Is there a danger of the node despawning before a camp can be setup?
At a minimum there needs to be some level of balance that lets players roam the map individually and harvest single resource nodes , I would think.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is no balancing of solo and group play because the game is not meant to be played solo. The whole point of the game is meaningful social interaction, and being a solo player is not meaningful or social.
Well I believe that sentiment simply is not true. I solo often and am quite social and meaningful. If I am in solo in the environment you share, then it is you instead who aren't sociable. I'm just not grouped with you and I don't have everyone's TS address and password. Only you and your clique have those, and just because you cannot be bothered with people outside your voice chat willing to tag along while you pretend to be Napoleon with your lackeys doesn't render me meaningless nor my playstyle unimportant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also you can solo play and still interact with others using various chat thingies like Mumble or Skype or whatever. Been times Kabal's [join Kabal if you aren't in a group yet - all the great kids do] crafters are in town and just talking about what they are working on and what they need while others are out farming and killing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How does one find groups? when I am on and not at TK, that is where groups are. When I get to TK the next day, the group is several hexes away. \
"Global" is useless.
"local"is silent (even when attacked by useless PvP ( no loot, no gain, but just for fun),
My advice would be to check for fellow members of your settlement first, then allies or neighbors. There's value in building relationships, even in Alpha, with people you might be working with or at least dealing with in EE.
Anyone living in the SE, for example, in one of the Everbloom Alliance towns, should not hesitate to check with other towns, to see if they're doing something or have a group run going on. I imagine other budding alliances and nations will work the same way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anyone living in the SE, for example, in one of the Everbloom Alliance towns, should not hesitate to check with other towns, to see if they're doing something or have a group run going on.
Indeed! T7V's TeamSpeak (server: atl01.mainvoice.net:7183) is open to anyone interested in hanging out, and there are usually several folks on. Drake and Carbon seem to have made it their second home, and we're glad of it. Although, you might have to listen to some technical discussions about WikiData or other projects we're working on :)
I'm pretty sure TEO's Mumble server is at least as active.
yaImean if people are gathering solo, I don't see why they can't farm solo.
What would be the way to make gathering group play? Unless it was just groups that were farming and stopped to gether. I think there will be a lot more solo than people think because every mechanic, at the moment, is solo based except for farming.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What would be the way to make gathering group play?
Vanguard had a great system for this. Basically, everyone in a group could harvest the same node. With a full group, you could get something like three times the amount of resources you'd have gotten solo.
I know the Gushers are going to be a big deal, but I kinda wished they'd done this for the regular nodes, too.
My advice would be to check for fellow members of your settlement first, then allies or neighbors. There's value in building relationships, even in Alpha, with people you might be working with or at least dealing with in EE.
Anyone living in the SE, for example, in one of the Everbloom Alliance towns, should not hesitate to check with other towns, to see if they're doing something or have a group run going on. I imagine other budding alliances and nations will work the same way.
Right now there's no mechanism in game for communication of this sort. Maybe it's coming with settlements and I'm just not aware of it.
You also have to think about new players. When I joined alpha, I literally knew no one. I didn't belong to a settlement, a company or have anyone else that I knew playing. Now, that's not an issue if the game can be played solo, meaning gathering and/or grinding mobs. If those things can't be done solo when the game is released, then that's going to be a serious deterrent to brand new people.
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Its not in the least bit absurd, all MMO's have plenty of things to do solo.
Even games like Eve.
What would be the way to make gathering group play?Vanguard had a great system for this. Basically, everyone in a group could harvest the same node. With a full group, you could get something like three times the amount of resources you'd have gotten solo.
I know the Gushers are going to be a big deal, but I kinda wished they'd done this for the regular nodes, too.
yeah, I was thinking the same idea. Or allow nodes to have a cap on what they give but also cap over a time. So, say a node could drop 20 true iron, but you'd only get a portion of that and then be barred from harvesting for say 5 minutes.
I think if there was some type of group harvest simultaneous skill that would be fun, too.
I do think there needs to be some reason to gather in groups other than protection. If this game is so group based.
Right now, it only seems like carrying and harvesting. Of course, the game isn't gonna really open up until we get pack animals...
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Goblin Squad Member
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What would be the way to make gathering group play?Vanguard had a great system for this. Basically, everyone in a group could harvest the same node. With a full group, you could get something like three times the amount of resources you'd have gotten solo.
I know the Gushers are going to be a big deal, but I kinda wished they'd done this for the regular nodes, too.
yeah, I was thinking the same idea. Or allow nodes to have a cap on what they give but also cap over a time. So, say a node could drop 20 true iron, but you'd only get a portion of that and then be barred from harvesting for say 5 minutes.
I think if there was some type of group harvest simultaneous skill that would be fun, too.
I do think there needs to be some reason to gather in groups other than protection. If this game is so group based.
Right now, it only seems like carrying and harvesting. Of course, the game isn't gonna really open up until we get pack animals...
In EVE the mining fleets get benefits in a group but only if there is an Orca mining ship present or the fleet leader has trained mining foremen or some such.
That sort of makes sense. More of you hitting the same rock "gives more stuff" really does not make sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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More of you hitting the same rock "gives more stuff" really does not make sense.
Actually, it does, as long as the mechanic is designed that way. Something like, more people get a slightly higher output divided between them, with some of it being lower quality (heavier) and it also depletes the hex faster, reducing the quality in some nearby nodes. It could also leave some of the harvesters with nothing useful "You spend time on the resource, but are unable to find anything useful." or the infamous "It was of low quality and broke."
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Goblin Squad Member
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What would be the way to make gathering group play?Vanguard had a great system for this. Basically, everyone in a group could harvest the same node. With a full group, you could get something like three times the amount of resources you'd have gotten solo.
I know the Gushers are going to be a big deal, but I kinda wished they'd done this for the regular nodes, too.
SO more than one person can harvest at a same time? I have avoided harvesting when others are on a node.
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Goblin Squad Member
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More of you hitting the same rock "gives more stuff" really does not make sense.Actually, it does, as long as the mechanic is designed that way. Something like, more people get a slightly higher output divided between them, with some of it being lower quality (heavier) and it also depletes the hex faster, reducing the quality in some nearby nodes. It could also leave some of the harvesters with nothing useful "You spend time on the resource, but are unable to find anything useful." or the infamous "It was of low quality and broke."
It still would be better if you required someone in the party to take a feat with a name like "forestry foreman" or "mining gang leader" rather than just hand people bonuses because they have friends.
Bonuses for group play are a good thing, I just do not think they should be automatic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In most games I play solo only because I get tired of having to listen to overly elitist / bossy players. The kind of people who map out every encounter in most MMO's and know step by step how to cheat through it just to finish it. If the people in this MMO roleplay then it will make anyone who likes pathfinder gravitate to groups. If they concentrate on stats and items etc then groups will become tactical and more like eve and you will see alot of solo crafters. The way players act about the game decides the level of interaction between strangers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In most games I play solo only because I get tired of having to listen to overly elitist / bossy players. The kind of people who map out every encounter in most MMO's and know step by step how to cheat through it just to finish it. If the people in this MMO roleplay then it will make anyone who likes pathfinder gravitate to groups. If they concentrate on stats and items etc then groups will become tactical and more like eve and you will see a lot of solo crafters. The way players act about the game decides the level of interaction between strangers.
We will certainly have both kinds of players, but my sincere hope is that the balance will come out (strongly) in favor of the role players. When it goes the other way it tends to cascade, driving out the role players and leaving behind only the Others.