MoonRatt

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I don't know, are you even talking about soloability, here?

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Soloability and group play both.

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But I have to say either people just aren't getting it, or they aren't trying to get it.


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They aren't trying.

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Which wouldn't happen nearly so often, if CoH weren't advertised as that "Porche" in the first place. It's what attracted many of us, and we wouldn't be here to complain about the changes otherwise.

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Thing is, from my (admitedly subjective experiance,) it seems that I'm playing a very different game then some of the more vocal here are. I'm still seeing the thing that was advertised.

It may not be the colour I want, but it's certainly the car I expected. (How's that for streatching a metiphore? )

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To Statesman: If you want players to stick with the game, then make it fun to play. Make the goals (which we need many more of) reachable. Give us the opportunity and freedom to experience the game the way that WE want to experience it, and stop trying to force us into your "vision". Let us (all ATs) be heroes. This isn't a tabletop PnP roleplaying game. You're not a Dungeon Master.

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These posts always confuse me. It's like going to Volvo and saying; "You know, your cars are great and all, but unless you sell me one of these (describes a Porche Boxer) I'm going somewhere else!"

In fact he IS the 'Dungeon Master'.

This is the game he's building and he has certain goals in mind. IF it's not the game you want, then certainly making suggestions for things you'd like to see, within the framwork of what exsists, are valid, but to tell the guy he's built/building the wrong game is just, uhmm....wrong.

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I assume it's done this way for several reasons. For one, it keeps the server load to a minimum. Having a mission automatically create and keep track of hundreds of mobs as soon as you enter would cause the server to slow to a crawl. (Multiply that by 100's of missions and you have a problem with servers crashing constantly.) Another good (depending upon your point of view) reason would be to prevent single heroes from creating a 3 or 4 person team so that a mission spawned the appropriate number of mobs for that team, and then having the other players leave so that he/she could solo a much more difficult mission for more xp. (Hopefully the promised mission difficulty sliders will address this.)

(Devs: feel free to jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong.)

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Uhmm....interesting theory, I'm kind of curious about this too. Although I can think of better ways of keeping server load down without having to worry about spawn dynamics. I.E. seed the mission database with the spawn requirments when the mission is loaded but don't actually load the mobs till they're needed, similar to what you said, but each spawn point would still use the original seed numbers. *shrug*

While I'll concede the possiblilty that this was a bad example on my part, it still doesn't change the notion that a group of more than 4 people (on average) is going to be more efficiant at any given task then a group of 8 doing the same task.

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[quoteAnd why on Earth would you pay a monthly fee for a game that you could solo 100% of the content?

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Maybe because that is how some people like it? Everyone else isn't you, shocking as that may seem.

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Well, as much as I'm all for solo play, trust me, it's what I spend most of my time doing, I have to agree with Krunch about the need in a MMO for group only content. The difference between most MMO's and CoH is that there's a frame work in exsistance that can cater to both solo and group without gimping one or the other. It could use some tweaking, but as is, it works.

The bigger issue is that there are problems with group dynamics that have been introduced that need to be addressed.

I.E. if one AT can solo fine, 4 of them are going to rock a group, leaving the solo-poor AT out in the cold. It's this, at least IMHO, that the developers are trying to address.

The hows and whys have much to do with economics, balance and content. It's not just MMO's for that matter but even the traditional pen and paper rpg moves in that direction (group-centric,) rather quickly. In many ways it has to do with the risk/reward that the developers/writers/publishers are looking for in their product.

The only real challenge I see with trying to encourage bigger than 4 person groups is one of logistics.

For any group to be successfull there has to be some kind of sinergy. Four people, even strangers will either mesh or fall apart in a short period of time. Usually mesh unless you have that one square peg trying to fit a round hole. Given that, 4 person groups, reguardless of the challenge they face will adapt to each other quite quickly, in the game enviroment that means that they'll sort out quickly who is/should be doing what, and will fall into style/combo quickly.

Once they've done that, they'll be able to take on bigger challenges before they know it. This usually becomes apparent when a mistake is made but the resutling zerg of mobs on the group is still taken out succsefully. This is usually also a high point of the groups experiance. Not mechanical exp, but the subjective, emotional kind.

What happens when you start to try to put together larger groups is interpersonal dynamics will start to get in the way.

You can watch any 4 person group fly along in perfect harmony, even 4 strangers in a pickup group. Take a second group who's doing the same thing and combine them into what *should* be an 8 person supergroup and you'll see the dynamic fall apart. It could be a result of alpha personalities clashing, mixed or unclear goals emerging, or even just the sheer complexity of keeping 8 people moving in one direction.

I've seen this in the workplace. If I expect any group of people larger than 3 to actually get anything done, I'm going to make sure that there's at least 1 person nominally in charge. In a real world enviroment this can be a challenge, in a game world all but impossible.

There are players out there who quickly gain the repution of putting together good groups. Everyone wants to play under them. They're 'natural' leaders.

But....

They're also few and far between. Which means that the average group is going to be made up of 4+ people who all either have no goals in mind, or all want different goals. In a group of 4, that will usually shake itself out pretty quick. Greater than 4 and it usually shakes itself apart.

I've seen it in Taskforces. You are part of an 8 person team, by mission 3 you're down to 6, and my mission 5 it's somewhere between 2 and 5 people. But, that smaller group can usually take on the same challenge that the bigger group couldn't. We've all been in the group where a mission was taken with 8 people in the group, there was a wipeout and 3 leave, the mission is still set to having 8 players yet the smaller group of 5 manages the threat without a problem.

Does that mean that the three who left were crappy players? Absolutly not, they could have been the 3 best/most experianced ones in the group, but a smaller group will sort it's dynamics out faster.

My point? I suspect that there isn't a developer on the planet who can make a game where the risk/reward is balanced in such a way as to have groupings of greater than 4 people work together succesfully. It has nothing at all to do with the game and everything to do with how people work together within a given situation.

I'll get off my sociological-anthroplogicial texts now and see if I can find the soap box under all that stuff and give it a kick too!

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Or, is it just too easy for the very vocal 1% min/maxers that post on these forums?

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Heh, I'm no where near a min/max kind of player and with my lvl 31 DM/Regen scrapper I'm finding that street sweeping larger than apparently planned groups solo isn't all that hard. I'm getting pretty good at judging what my limits are. I know that 'cause for large fights my end bar completely runs out and toggles drop about the time I'm working on the last one or two minions that are left in the group.

I was doing this last night in Brickstown. I have a number of 5th street sweep missions coming up, which is fine 'cause I get a kick out of knocking them around, but at the same time I'm beating on Freaks, and Crey I run into as well if I can't find any 5th while running around.

And door missions? The first few times you run into a new mob type it's a little harry as you (er I mean I, me? ) have to figure out what the heck it is they do. But, Rikti? Owned me at first, now......I sometimes just round up close groups and take them on at once.

Of course I use powers that others seem to think are gimped.

Teleport Foe is one of my favorites.
I use Flurry as a filler while waiting for the 'power 3' that I have to recycle. I don't have the fitness line in this build but ya, I'm going to cave and add it in after a respec. *shrug* Some things are good to have.

I guess my point is, it does get easier at upper levels. Too easy. I love to solo, it's got nothing really to do with being anti social as it's a challenge. But....I do miss doing those 8 man team door missions where, one wrong move and all hell can break loose, but....if everyone focuses and with a lucky roll or two and a group can survive.

Blah, I'm blathering without a point I think. And it's time to go home.

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Kid Flash you're still so funny.

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And I thought *I* liked kicking that horse carcas.

The change/fix/nerf/backpeddle what ever Kid wants to call it in no way changes the game for him, he just doesn't want to admit it.

He also failes to recognize that most who asked for the change back to the old story line missions, also were suggesting ways to add content to them that would *encourage* grouping without forcing it. *shrug* What are ya going to do?

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Not trying to be difficult, but... what if I have one of these forced group missions and a TV mission and I am only LVL 22? Since it is impossible to go to TV at 22, we are still forced to choose the forced group mission. TV missions really shouldn't be given out till 23.


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I got cought with that the first time too. I think a /bug would be a good idea. I don't think the missions are supposed to be given to you before you can do them.

And....it's a single level, I eventually just sucked it up and did some street hunting. Then discovered how much of a hazard the zone was and avoided TV missions until a friend was on and or just leveled to where I could get it done.

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strictly soloers are ******* who don't want to help people or get help to do stuff.

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Nice.

Maybe that ****** soloer just likes the additional challenge and reward of completing a mission or story arc on their own.

Sometimes people climb the mountain because it's there, not because they're trying to hide from the guy next door.

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Well the Hollows mission givers are prepping you for the trial so the group missions make sense storywise.

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Oh ya I get that. It's a great way to set this up too. That's why I'd like to see more. It's not that I'm agains grouping or group specific content. The more the better. I've always supported that, it was the way it was initially implemented into exsisting content that it kind of messed things up.

But it's all good now.

These Developers are still the gods of MMO's and I should really get back to work.

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The av can be soloed it you are above it and are real lucky. Luck insps and rage and a good solo build and luck pure luck.

AVs are not meant to be soloed even con but if they are red or orange they can be taken out solo.

But most solo players don't mind getting one more or two more to do the AV even con.

With the changes to AVs regarding cons and pets they can be duoed.

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Ya while I solo lots (most of the time because of real life/timing/I like it,) the AV boss missions are the ones I'll usually, (not always) leave qued up for when one or two other friends are online. Unless of course I've out-leveled the mission in which case, "It's Clobberin' Time!" to quote a certain orange tanker.

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I suppose that this was the best way to resolve things... and I'll second the group contact mission concept.

I'm going to miss it a little, though

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Check out the contact in The Hollows. While the first couple (few?) missions of his don't 'requre' a group, in that area at level 5 while possible to finish a mission it's would be a 1000 times easier with a group.

Later on in his thread he starts giving missions that *requre* a min number of people per group.

But, given that he's setting up missions in a hazard zone, and even the lower missions are prefaced with a 'Should you choose to accept this mission.' warning in the desription of what's needed, there shouldn't be any of the solo crowd complaining.

If they do, they're just wankers.

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A question: If we are ever presented with TWO one-off forced-group missions by the same contact (i.e., cannot progress with that contact except by taking a group mission), & the contact's confidence bar is not full (i.e., additional missions are still there to be done), will this be treated as a bug?

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As I understand it, unless you've cleared up all your previous contacts missions, you could always do one of their missions instead and once it's done the 'stuck' contact should now have genereated a new pair of missions as well.

At least this is the way it seems to work.

It really shouldn't happen all that often except at lower levels where you have few contacts and they have fewer missions. Once you're in the mid teens there are lots of contacts and you'll recive more long before you should be down to the last few missions of exsisting contacts.

Worst case you'd have to street farm to get to the level where your contacts are offering the "talk to the security dude in area XXX" mission.

Once you've done that for one contact the rest will start giving you 'real' contacts.

I'm not saying it won't happen, but I don't think it's going to be as big a stumbling block as one would imagine.

Heh, and that's all we (er the pro-solo story arc "whiners" ) were asking for. WHOOT!

Now, the additional content in random missions is certainly welcome. Give us more!

I'm not going to go back to the earlier thread, but I made mention of how the Cop (still can't remember his name) in The Hollows gives out group oriented missions.

I think this is a fantastic concept. In essence a TF or Trial that can be worked on as time permits. So....if this is working out, are we likely to see more of these kinds of contacts in the other Hazard Zones?

Would it be possible to add these type of contact in, without having to build it in to current contact. Kind of like the Lvl 30 NPC stores where once you're of the right level they'll send you on a mission and then sell crap to you. In the case of the hazard zones, of course once you're in it's assumed you're of the right level so.....a contact in the 'safe' area who has group missions would be a click away.

Thanks for listening.