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City of Heroes is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. Thats "Massively Multiplayer".
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This is a complete red herring and I'm sick of seeing it. Massively Multiplayer != Group-only game play. I can be chatting with 10 other members of my supergroup while I solo a mission. That's still a "multiplayer" experience. So don't pretend that "multiplayer" = "group-based missions" because it does NOT. They are not synonymous.
And I say this as someone who doesn't actually like soloing. In fact I think the solo game is boring. After 25th level or so, the missions are too easy, they are all copies of earlier missions you've seen before with different enemy names but the same goals. The stories are not enough to hold the game up in the solo experience at all, at least not to me. The only reason I keep subscribing to this game is the FRIENDS that I have in it and the multiplayer experience of being in a good supergroup. However, even though that is my preferred playstyle, I still recognize that you can have a "multiplayer" experience without doing grouped missions.
Additionally, arguments about what other MMOs allow or don't allow are silly. I can name MMOs that make soloing possible from start to finish, also. That doesn't make it right, or wrong. Each MMO has its own design philosophy.
If Cryptic's design philosophy is supposed to be that some missions are soloable and some are not, that's fine. It's their philosophy. But neither they, nor you, nor anyone else, should use "this is an MMO" as an excuse to make a mission be un-soloable. It's not a viable excuse. LOTS of other things can give you a multiplayer experience that have nothing to do with missions, and soloable or non-soloable missions do not make a game an "MMO." In fact I submit that a set of "grouped" players who silently go through a mission together, without saying a word other than, "pull", "wait", "ready" and never chat with each other, are having a much LESS multiplayer experience than the guy who is chattering non-stop over broadcast or the SG channel while he solo tanks things in Talos Island or Dark Astoria or something.
Don't confuse all the characters being in the same place at the same time (or not) as having anything to do with a "multiplayer" experience, because they don't. Heck with global chat coming I can chatter away with people not even on my server, thereby having a multiplayer experience without ever seeing anyone else's toon. I don't judge this an "inferior" multiplayer experience to one where everyone is grouped in the same mission, and in fact, in many ways, it can be a superior one if the people in the mission are not sociable.
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Now, the devs here have made great attempts to make sure that the players have enough missions to do so they dont have to do "hunting", which here is called "street sweeping". You dont have to mindlessly kill enemies for hours on end with no clear agenda in this game.
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Actually, at various points in you character's lifespan, you do. Level 33.5, my contacts all 100% dried up. Not even random "throwaway" missions were left. My new set wasn't available until 35th level. This represetned roughly 30 hours of game play that consisted of nothing but 'street grinding' (usually with a friend of mine -- see? Multiplayer -- who was in the same predicament). It took me forever to get to 35 because I could only stomach mindless street grinding in short bursts. The same thing happened at level 39 or so (a full level with no contacts), and given that at 41.5 I have already finished all but one contact's story arcs I expect it to happen again by level 43 or so before hitting the final set of contacts at 45. So it's untrue that you don't have to street sweep. You do have to.
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You think this is done so you can solo your way through the game? I dont get why you'd even want to, the entire point of playing an online game is to play with other people.
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Actually the point of playing an online game is to be able to socialize with other people. That may, or may not, including actually going through missions with them ("playing" with them), but that's a sub-set of the more general purpose, which is to be able to "hang" with other players -- which can be easily accomplished via broadcast, SG chat, and the like, without running missions together. Again I prefer running missions with my friends, but I also recognize that this is not the only means of Multiplayer experience offered by an MMO.
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Your interaction with other people is the foundation of the game structure
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Yes notice you said INTERACTION, here. Interacting and running missions are not exact synonyms. There are lots of ways to interact with other players outside the auspices of running a mission. I can trade an enhancement that I don't need to you. I can send you a tell. I can talk to you in broadcast or over SG chat. We're not in the same mission but we are interacting. That at its heart is an MMO experience.
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Think clearly about this; if you designed a game which fundementally is based around the fact the majority who play online games do so because they want to interact with other real live players, you do not want to make it as beneficial to solo as it is to interact with those other players. If you did, then you'd be encouraging people to not interact with other players and you would have a game world which does not provide the player to player interaction which is desired.
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You've just contradicted yourself. If you're right and "majority who play online games do so because they want to interact with other real live players", then why do they need any mechanism at all to encourage grouping? Won't it automatically happen since by your claim most of the players want it in the first place? It's not clear why the devs should need to reward a behavior "the majority" wants to engage in... they just... will. Won't they?
It seems to me that the necessity of forced or even encouraged grouping gives the lie to your claim that the majority of players want to hang with other players. In fact they very well may want to be on a multiplayer game... but just not run missions with them. As an example I was in a guild for a while in SWG where one of the players who joind characterized himself as a "soloist." Why then did he join a guild? Well he wanted people to hang with when he wasn't out running missions/taking down lairs. He wanted a group of friendly merchants to sell items to him at decent prices and who he would be sure wouldn't "rip him off." He wanted people to chat with in guild chat when he was bored waiting for a planetary transport shuttle to pick him up at the space port. So even though he did "soloist" activities, he still had a multiplayer experience, and HE sought the guild out (not vice-versa) for that very reason.
Again I ask, if the "majority" want to do group activities, why does it need to be pushed by the devs at all? Won't what the majority want to do just happen naturally? And if it isn't happening naturally, and has to be 'forced' (as it were), then can you really make the claim that the majority wants it?
Again note: I am a roleplayer, a socializer, and I love grouping up. But I don't see the 'grouped mission' as the only way to engage in social/multiplayer activities.
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This will become even more important when PvP is introduced. Wandering around solo in a PvP enviroment will probally be a very bad idea when you run into a team of people who all can PvP you.
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And if they make the game a free-for-all PVP environment they will lose me and probably 3/4ths of their customers. Which means they probably won't do that -- they will make it consent-based PVP (in fact they have already pretty much said they will in some way). Which means this is totally irrelevent, since a soloist just won't (a) turn on his PVP flag, (b) go into the PVP zone, or (c) join a PVP server -- whichever means they chose in the end for making it be consentual.
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If you travel in teams in a game like CoH, you'll be a great deal safer from the solo pker
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And if we have to form posses to get from point A to point B just to avoid PKer-griefers, it will signal the end of this game, almost assuredly. Unrestricted PVP does not work and almost nobody wants unrestricted PVP except the small knot of hardcore griefers who like making people miserable. I can almost guarantee the devs will not (delibrately, at least, though maybe there will be holes/bugs/exploits) allow people to grief each other like that. So your premise -- "you need groups to avoid griefing" -- doesn't hold much water. We have to assume that griefing will not be allowed and will be prevented by some means like having PVP+ and PVP- zones or whatnot. You can avoid the zone to avoid the griefing. Etc.
Fundamentally the problem with "group only missions" is this: missions can't be "given up" or aborted (unless timed), and you can only have 3 at a time. If they didn't do that... if they'd let you "give back" a mission and try something else for the time being, I'd not mind it. I'd have no problem with "saving" my group-only missions for when my friends are online, and doing my 'soloable' ones when I get up at 5 AM and can't sleep, and no one else is on (no this usually doesn't happen since I don't get up at 5, but just as an example). The problem is you can have all 3 of your missions on your board be AV missions that you can't solo, and none of your friends are on and so... now what? If you could abort them or trade them back to the contact (postpone them) to get something different, then I'd have no problem with it. But since you can't always tell before taking them that they are group-based, if you are in the mood to just do a little soloing before work... why shouldn't you be able to? And should you HAVE to street hunt as the only means of doing that? This doesn't mean you never group up... but maybe once in a while you feel like soloing. Why can't you?
As it stands now what potentially stops you is that missions, once given, cannot be given up... and you can only have 3 at a time. If they just gave you say a "solo contact" or something, so you'd know ahead of time, then I'd have no problem with how the missions work. I don't mind that I can't solo an AV. What I mind is being forced to street hunt when none of my friends are on, because all my missions have an AV in them and I can't get new missions because you can't delete the old ones.
You may say, "Well find a random group." If you want to do that go ahead. I do not. I am a roleplayer. I want to group with other roleplayers when I group. Not random strangers who talk in leetspeak or what have you. The chances of finding a roleplayer doing an LFG are so small that it is not worth it.
The main problem is that COH doesn't encourage grouping... it encourages grouping with random people. And a lot of folks who want to group, may not necessarily want to do random pickup gruops. Many members of my SG will group ONLY with other members of the SG due to bad pickup group experiences. And yet, if your SG-mates are not on and you have a bunch of AV missions what choice do you have but a pickup group -- which may be decidedly non-fun for you. So even though you want a group experience, you may not necessarily enjoy a pickup group experience. Shouldn't that me MY choice, not Cryptics?
The reality is this, despite your claims of what the "majority" want: I am on a roleplay-oriented SG with about 18 members, all of whom prefer grouping and like being sociable, but, all of whom sometimes are in the mood to solo and want to be able to do that if they feel like it. And again that some missions are not solo-able is not the problem -- but rather, that you can have all 3 of your "mission slots" filled with un-solo-able missions on a day when you just feel like soloing today. And THAT is the problem. If players could choose or trade missions back in or something, it would be a LOT less of an issue.
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That post....is a thing of beauty. Thank you Fraktal, for being so eloquent...now if they will just listen...
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), check his info. IIRC it's a Doctor Who reference to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart 
