The things Statesman says sometimes.
By
AdHoc,
Posted on: 2004-12-15 19:11 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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Sure Statesman, but your change to bosses has had many more affects than soloing characters. Please respond to those posts in the numerous other threads.
Here's a link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#1905613
w00t Radio
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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Bosses spawn more common then cotton in a cotton field. Does that mean I need to group to even street sweep? Cause last time I checked, most basic street spawns had a boss.
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Hmm you may want to check again, while bosses are not really rare, they are in NO WAY the "most basic street" spawn. The hazzard zones have more, of course, but the hazzard zones are zone created FOR GROUPS in the first place. And besides, who says you have to fight every spawn when patrolling? Skip any you can't/don't want to take, and move on. When you come back, the will have respawned somethign else.
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Whether or not defeating Dr. V is the objective of the mission is irrelevant. The point is you suddenly find yourself faced with your first chance to fight an AV, and you are not forewarned about it. I am curious how many people made the assumption that since they were able to solo all of their mission to that point, made the mistake of trying to solo Dr. V?
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The same people who didn't read about "con-ing" opponents during the Outbreak tutorial and just went "Yeah, yeah... click click. I'm a pro." Oops.
@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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All well and good. In fact, I agree with you. Bosses(just by the name should be an indication) ought to be tough. At the same time, then, they ought to be rare. Nevermind Archvillains. If bosses aren't supposed to be soloable except by very skilled players with the right inspirations and/or builds, then perhaps there ought to be less of them.
Not every player is skillful enough. Or has the right inspirations and/or builds. More to the point, many players don't WANT optimum builds. Some players want to play The Punisher and not Silver Surfer all the time.
Which is okay. But who is this game designed for? When setting the challenge level of this game, unfortunately, you might have to choose between a large and open audience, or a smaller elite one. It's a tough decision.
I will not rest until we have in-game throwable pies!
That's the situation now..taking out bosses requires inspirations and strategy.
With the changes made for Issue 3, that is out, the ONLY option for most players is get others. And that kills the fun of the game for those who spend a lot of time soloing.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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Strategy?
Step one : Pop defense inspiration
Step three: Collect experiance.
There is no strategy. Just blast/punch away until it dies before you.
Pop a few Luck and Damage insps, and you can solo everything short of an AV in the game... regardless of your AT.
Does the game force you towards grouping at times? Yes. Is it a console game? No... it's a FRIGGIN' MMO... GEE, I WONDER WHY THEY PROMOTE GROUPING?!?
Man... some people confuse the hell out of me. It's almost as though they'd be happier if City of Heroes had been released on the GBA rather than PC. THE NATURE OF THE GAME IS COMMUNITY...
If you really abhore grouping so much, maybe you should go buy City of Vigilantes... oh wait... it doesn't exist.
Why dont you stop and think clearly about what Statesman is saying for half a second instead of having a little tantrum on the forums?
City of Heroes is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. Thats "Massively Multiplayer". You should consider yourself lucky that you can solo at all, considering many MMORPGs do not allow soloing at the higher stages of the games period and have enemies so powerful in such large mobs you must form parties, since you need every classes special abilities to defeat the mobs at those later stages of the game.
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. They designed the mission system, which is really an evolved quest system, so that you can have other players help you complete your quests and they still get rewards as well (big exp/influence boost at completion and badge awarding). They also made it so the "items" gained here are automatically awarded to party members, so there is no argueing or attempts to "loot".
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. Your interaction with other people is the foundation of the game structure, whether its something as simple as online checkers or as complex as CoH is, the point is to play it with other players.
Now you have already answered your own question when you asked why they have bosses you struggle to defeat solo in all spawned mobs. You know the answer is that they do not really want to encourage soloing because it reduces other players opportunity to find party members. 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.
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. Also, I'd rather not see a repeat of Necromancers like in EQ, who could solo hunt and solo PvP against multiple people because of how over-powered they were originally. If you travel in teams in a game like CoH, you'll be a great deal safer from the solo pker I think even if your somewhat lower lv, since you have numbers and I doubt your gonna see teams of people roaming around searching to PvP lower-lvs for the sheer reason people ditch teams when nothing happens in the first 5min as is; do you think they are gonna stick with a team for the 10min it could take to find people weak enough to successfully kill when they could be out lving?
I doubt it.
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That's the situation now..taking out bosses requires inspirations and strategy.
With the changes made for Issue 3, that is out, the ONLY option for most players is get others. And that kills the fun of the game for those who spend a lot of time soloing.
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I agree.
My Scrapper can take out a +1 boss in my mission but my controler/Defender and maybe my blaster (have not tried him on test yet) could not. Not even with Insperations. THey just hit too hard and dont drop fast enough.
Projection
I dunno about you but I have used startegy numerous times in missions. Sure these were grouped missions but I've used the bottleneck technique...
(Where 1-2 tankers/scrappers stand in a doorway while the other characters stand behind them, these 2 characters create an impassible barrier so that the enemies cannot charge through to reach melee range with the other characters, though they can use ranged attacks this offers further protection to the squishies who can step to the right or left and be out of LOS of enemies...)
I've also seen snipe-pulling...
We've done the "send in the tank to get their attention everyone assist nuke the boss first then stay on a cycle to minimize possible damage..." maneuver
I've seen "Let the tank draw a bunch of them off from the main group so that the rest of us can clear the stragglers..."
And let us not forget all the fun things you can do with teleport foe..
Why is it everyone is so focused on soloing?
This affects large groups just as much if not more so. Has anyone tried the respec trial on the test server? Only one groups actually reported they've been able to beat it. Others have gone in 4, 5, 6, 7 times all experienced players many who play well together all the time and they CAN'T BEAT IT beacuse of the boss change.
There is a LOT more being affected than soloing. Stop focusing on the solo and look at the bigger picture.
Missions scale up, some missions scale up to the point where there are 3, 4, or more bosses tightly packed into a small area, agroing one group without getting them all sometimes is nearly impossible to do. Especially if a controller has pets.
The TV Trial has 4 bosses in the average group. At one point a team that I was on was doing fair until the waves started in the reactor core, then becuase of the boss change we could not defeat the bosses quick enough and we ended up with 15 to 20 Freakshow Tanks attacking us and the core. Of course that immediately caused mission failure since it was hard enough for our team of six to stay alive with the increased damage from 2 tanks, let alone 15 or 20.
w00t Radio
I'd just like to make it known, with inspirations and strategy, I'm able to solo even the "Elite bosses" (atta and frostfire). So I don't really see how most people could have extreme issues trying to solo normal bosses. It is my opinion that bosses and their ilk are a bit too easy as it currently stands. AVs are generally push overs too, with the exception of maliase and black swan(if she's the AV that does siphon speed and phases in and out all the time, can't remember for sure at the moment). Tyrant especially is a sissy IMO since he's supposed to be the duplicate of statesman himself he should be tremendously hard. I think it would be nice if the AV's would require some sort of strategy to beat them instead of getting two friends and just whoopin them down head on. I am in a group that's working on taking hami down and I love the fact that he is the most strategicaly(sp?) based mob in the game. Sheer numbers wont take him down you simply have to know what you're trying to do and be smart about it. There needs to be more of that in the game as i see it, I enjoy having to use my brain over just mindlessly clicking buttons! That's what is going to make PvP so great, the brain behind the thing I'm trying to defeat isn't as predictable as the computer.
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This is something I've had numerous discussions about before. Here we go again... 
Something is seriously messed up with the difficulty in this game. My tanker doesn't fight his way through missions anymore, he just herds everything into a room and slowly whittles it down. That's not fun, that's plain boring. No risk, no fun. Only reason I do my missions is because I'm a big fan of the stories and the game world setting. There's never any sense of danger. Only time I died in recent times, is when I ran into my first Rikti mezzer and he chain-stunned me while on soldier whittled away my health. Not the epitome of excitement.
BUT, make a new character. Solo the missions through the first 10-20 levels. That can get challanging. That gets downright near-impossible at times. The first time you run into a Bonedaddy and he shadowmauls you to death? The first time you run into one of the Damned and he fries your a**? That can be frikking hard.
My hardest and most memorable fight, was with a Fire/Dev blaster I made for Issue 2. He ran the Hollow arc missions solo. Fighting Bedrock (boss in the second Outcast Base) was frikking intense! I was chucking web grenades at him, running around, eating Inspirations, raining fire down on him, getting held, allmost dying, running out of end. I won with a sliver of life left and knew I was pretty damn Hardcore for doing it.
THAT is what is missing in later levels. And it's what they are trying to achieve. At level30, if you run a solo mission, it's going to be hard. You'll need your wits about you to survive. If you meet a boss, you better have some Inspirations to to use, or he will very probably have your [censored]. That's challange. That's fun.
See, you can take on big groups of enemies and totally dominate them and know you're way superior to them. They are known as GREY cons. How much exp do you think Wolverine gets for fighting a bunch of thugs with baseball bats?
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I agree. The beginning is more difficult, and you progress faster. Wanna make it harder? Fine, up the exp appropriately. The changes on test just slow down exp and force grouping. Oh wait. We can make scrappers. ZZZZZZ... Could someone please let me know when the drinking bird thats tapping the claw button runs out of water?
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I call it just part of the game - and a good thing I have friends in it.
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And if you dont, its not like its hard to get help or to find friends.
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Actually, it is. Infinity... down to 500 players or so when I'm on, under 50 post 40.... Makes AV fights fun fun fun. Guess I should go to perez and recruit a tank to get one shotted....
They should merge the servers, since their numebrs are dwindling. Their player base may be constant, but people certainly arent logging on as frequently.
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Statesman on forced grouping/solo'ing
Statesman on solo'ing, solo'ing missoins, and the difference of various AT's ability to solo.
Statesman on making the game harder, and why.
Statesman saying he still wants people to be able to solo, and other stuff.
Statesman explains again about making the game harder.
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Darn that pesky research proving your conspiracy theory wrong!
Forced grouping would mean I was back in EQ, where it could take 1min to 3hrs to find a group. Having to find a group, or 1 or 2 other people out of every couple missions to help take down a boss isn't forced grouping. Besides, go to your local contact, stock up on lucks and you shouldn't have much problem anyway.
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Too bad they dont appropriately adjust exp. If the change was intended to lengthen the grind, grats. Corporate office will be pleased.
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There would be NO complaining from me if a contact would warn me BEFORE I accept a mission that I will not be able to do it alone. THAT is the beef I have with the current state of this game. Accepting a mission and THEN find out I'll need a team just plain stinks of FORCED GROUPING.
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It has been stated previously by the DEV's that contacts should let you know when a group will be necessary for a mission. If you get on a mission where it does not it is a bug and should be reported as such. It is not an attempt at force grouping just something slipping through the cracks.
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What you're thinking of are missions where you have to deactivate glowies simultaneously. The post you're replying to implies that the relative difficulty of the mission should be stated before taking the mission, so they know not to take missions they can't solo (not ones where simply an extra body is required.) The easiest solution to this, obviously, is to allow the intentional failing of missions to remove them from your list. At least there is the hope (before level 45 or so) that you can street hunt until you outlevel the mission and can easily solo it - but then you outlevel the arc and miss a ton of storyline, taking us back to needing manual mission failure.
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It has been stated previously by the DEV's that contacts should let you know when a group will be necessary for a mission.
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Oh, but they DID let me know. AFTER I accepted the mission. That's NOT a bug.
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Not to mention that the first AV you come in contact with in a story arc (Dr. V) has no mention of his precense in the mission he is placed in. The mission is about ending the Vahz threat, but there is no suggestion in the mission text that you will be facing an Arch Villian or that you should bring some help. And this one has been around since when? Launch?
Have fun 
!
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Actually, I did this mission set recently, a few day sago. It DID say "Becareful Dr. Vahz knows of your meddeling and might be there to get ridof you himself." Or something just like that. So YES< it did tell me.
I dont think contacts should tell you flat out "Oh yeah this mission is to kill Mr. Vahz. There is SOME RPG to this game. Even if you do not yourself.
Missions and Story Arcs ARE story lines. The Story unfolds as you go along. More and more info becomes clear.
I agree - timed and "forced group" mission SHOULD have maybe a disclaimer on them or something that lets you know how long you have, and how many people (number figure) you will need.
But as for missions and contacts just "telling you flat blankly and with no story what you will be doing" that would suck. Why not then instead just have one mission pop up after another.
Still, I think the "Refuse Mission" button is much beter then complaining .hehe
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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A second reply to it. As you say, some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
If you set the game so those builds that are the best at taking out bosses, you making it so that any other build cannot defeat a boss. So you MUST be uber to play the game.
In the interviews you were proud that City of Heroes was attracting more casual players. What happened to that pride, because all the changes made since Issue 1 have been to push those casual players away?
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
I dunno, most bosses can be taken out with a simple to get 6 luck, 2 enrage, 2 insight combination. I don't really consider that much strategy.
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You should consider yourself lucky that you can solo at all, considering many MMORPGs do not allow soloing at the higher stages of the games period
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Um, sorry, no. See, there's a deal here-Cryptic makes a game that lives up to what they said it would be like, with soloing for the most part being a viable playstyle (this was a huge factor in it's success to date), and we pay them every month. I shouldn't feel "lucky" that I get what I was told I was paying for. And what other games do has nothing to do with COH.
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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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So? Who says you are supposed to "get" other people's motivations in playing this game? I doubt anyone cares if you "get" it. Let's try this again-Cryptic made a very big deal about the fact that you could supposeldy solo a great deal of this game, if that was your preference.
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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If that's supposed to be the case, why is it that bosses litter door missions and the streets? Why is an enemy that's supposed to be overpowering for a single character thrown against heroes every time they take a mission?
Lets think about comic books here. The marvel universe, for example. You have the solo comics like wolverine or spiderman and the group comics like fantastic four or x-men.
There are different classes of villians in these comics. Spiderman might have to face the green goblin or venom. The green goblin and venom are tough, but spider-man usually beats them by the end of the comic. Wolverine might have to face say lady deathstryke or omega red, and he might have a serious fight on his hands, but he beats them by the end of the comic. I generally consider these villians to be in the 'boss' class.
A step up from that there are villians like the joker or sabretooth. These are villians that are still faced by solo heroes, but the hero usually is outmatched and either doesn't win decisively or needs help or some kind of special circumstances to finally beat the enemy. I generally think of these as elite bosses.
Then you have villians like Magneto and Doctor doom. These villians have lots of henchmen, and generally a group like the fantastic four or x-men is needed to fight them effectively. I think of these villians as arch-villians.
Finally you have the ubervillians. Villians like apocalypse, dark pheonix, galactus, thanos, doomsday, etc. I think of these as raid monsters, it might take 20 heroes in the comic books to actually take one down.
Now, what you're saying is that bosses are more like sabretooth or the joker, elites are like dr. doom or magneto, and archvillians are more like galactus or apocalypse.
Which is fine. But wolverine doesn't fight sabretooth in every comic. Batman doesn't fight the joker every time he walks out of the batcave. Direct encounters with these characters are usually reserved for the ends of story arcs, special anniversery issues, etc.
Now the X-men and the justice league do regularly fight enemies like sabretooth or the joker in every comic. That's fine, because people expect the x-men to be able to deal with more than wolverine or batman would be able to deal with alone.
So why are there bosses literally littering the streets in COH? Why do av type enemies pop up regularly post-40? Shouldn't these encounters be reserved for special occasions or missions directly marked as group? Why can't there be a tab for group missions and solo missions when you talk to a contact?
Or why not just have a section in the difficulty slider for solo? There could be a notch below default marked "Hero usually works alone." Picking this notch would let you not get missions with AVs, not get missions with multiple time bombs, and make any bosses in the mission even or -1.
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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This is very reassuring.
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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A second reply to it. As you say, some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
If you set the game so those builds that are the best at taking out bosses, you making it so that any other build cannot defeat a boss. So you MUST be uber to play the game.
In the interviews you were proud that City of Heroes was attracting more casual players. What happened to that pride, because all the changes made since Issue 1 have been to push those casual players away?
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Yeah... because making the 'find' window so easy and convenient to use, allowing you to find someone near your level, anywhere on the server... made casual grouping so hard.
Also, introducing global chat... and adding low-level content, storys, unique missions, trials, and a lowbie zone... those pushed new and casual players right out the door.
Oh, let's not forget about all the monthly charge increases, and the cost of these expansions... the price these guys make us pay... wow... I almost quit.
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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.
F
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"For the most part, everyone will be able to solo in some situations. Some builds and ATs more than others. But there are some mobs that can be a challenge - bosses, elite bosses, AV's and monsters - where you'll probably want help. Or not."
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EXACTLY. Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy. Hence, the Help text & tutorial indicate that a player "probably" should get other friends to take out a boss.
Some builds are clearly better than others at taking out bosses.
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Bosses spawn more common then cotton in a cotton field. Does that mean I need to group to even street sweep? Cause last time I checked, most basic street spawns had a boss.