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Default What do you look for in a group encounter?

July 9th, 2011, 08:20
It's a very broad question. I intially had in mind boss encounters, but that is maybe too narrow, so any form of group engagement goes. You should maybe mention how many players would be involved, if your teammates should come from a guild or be open for all, if it should be instanced to a specific location or part of an open world, and the structure of any reward system that might be involved. If there are factions involved, maybe explain a bit which rules should govern them.
Last edited by hishadow; July 9th, 2011 at 08:33.
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July 10th, 2011, 00:37
That is a complex question which I don't have time to answer properly. A simple answer would be variety based on locations, enemy types, and level strengths. We get this with DDO, which is why our Guild plays nearly every day. Some enjoy pugging, others don't so we cater to most tastes!!
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July 10th, 2011, 07:40
I enjoy everyone having a role or job to do, and team work (fulfillment of the individual jobs in concert) being required to win the encounter. So far I think nothing has come as close as original EQ at making these types of encounters feel like team work and individual skills being needed together to win.

Pug groups can be very rewarding when a group of random players work together to figure out a encounter and win it…even if a few wipes are involved. EQ2 Shadow Oddy. expansion did a great job of creating these types of group encounters.

I'm not much for large groups/raids. It’s not so much the number of people involved (although personal relationships are diminished), but the egoist that every raid seems to attract up front or over time.

As far as rewards go EQ2's epic quests from Kunark expansions did a good job of have rewards and unique group encounters needed to advance. They used a model of both soloable and group required subquests required to finish the quest. Some quests were just named encounters in open zones, others were dungeon crawls, and the quest told an story as you went through it. The reward itself was useful to the player and had a unique class appearance.

I like locations to be varied. Factions should probably not factor in much for pug groups because it becomes a road block or conflict for some group members.

I have played other online games, but mostly I wind up soloing and don't do much if any group content. Also, if it matters to the topic, I dont like PVP with or without groups. I like Aion Online, but PvP always ends up being a game killer even with a group.
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July 10th, 2011, 10:36
LB, have you tried DDO? The TC group you used to play NWN with is still together but playing DDO now.
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July 10th, 2011, 17:29
To me the ideal size is 5-6 members, and encounters need to be appropriate for the group, needing every member to use their abilities. Problem nowadays is that groups pretty much behave as 5 or 6 people 'soloing together'.
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July 10th, 2011, 20:02
I played the DDO demo a long time ago. I'll see if I can get it running and give it a go when i'm done with Two Worlds 2.
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July 11th, 2011, 00:33
DDO is now free to play and has been updated massively in the last couple of years. Grab the latest version and take a look. We all play together on the Khyber server, but most of us have some toons on other se6rvers where we try out builds. Cannith is one such alternate server.
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July 11th, 2011, 07:35
Originally Posted by wolfing View Post
Problem nowadays is that groups pretty much behave as 5 or 6 people 'soloing together'.
I agree with you here. No one need pay anymore attention than they do to watch TV.
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July 11th, 2011, 07:53
Originally Posted by wolfing View Post
To me the ideal size is 5-6 members, and encounters need to be appropriate for the group, needing every member to use their abilities. Problem nowadays is that groups pretty much behave as 5 or 6 people 'soloing together'.
I've got to ask, what is the attraction of a healer class in an MMO? I understand the need for it in a party, but what poor schlob wants to do that when you can be a wizard or fighter and blast the enemies to bits? As a healer your role is to buff and heal the other players. Why is that fun?

I only ask this because you said that 5 or 6 people soloing together like it was a bad thing and that brought to mind healers. Soloing together doesn't sound so bad to me. The only reason I like DDO is that I can solo in that game a lot easier than I can in others. I wouldn't mind "soloing" together with a group.
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July 11th, 2011, 08:18
You can solo the early parts of DDO, but later you need to have at least a cleric hireling. When you get to the more challenging places, a small group is a must. Some quests cannot be completed solo. At times, our group has one or two people who might run off 'solo' they usually get into trouble quickly, especially at the higher levels like Elite. Usually, we try to plan a group approach to a quest using the various character skills to maximum effect. Our rogue will check for traps and disable them; a caster might throw up a firewall, or dancing sphere to disable part of the mob, while the fighter can mop up what's left. The healer tries to keep us all alive and that is a vital skill which brings its own satisfaction. Aside from the bonus for no deaths, the healer is very much appreciated by everyone else. We all play various types of characters from time to time and we get a different sort of satisfaction within the group from each one. Play with us sometime and see how it works.
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July 11th, 2011, 08:36
Originally Posted by skavenhorde View Post
I've got to ask, what is the attraction of a healer class in an MMO? I understand the need for it in a party, but what poor schlob wants to do that when you can be a wizard or fighter and blast the enemies to bits? As a healer your role is to buff and heal the other players. Why is that fun?
The players that enjoy healing are usually outnumbered by the sheer number of people who only want to deal damage. This usually leads to people being forced to play the role of healer, which I suspect your comment is about. Healing can be very fun in a small party, especialy when things go south. In raids it can become a little boring as a result of addons which automate pratically everything, and you can't play without them either because encounters are tuned with them in mind.

Like Lord_Brownie I also enjoy when there are clearly defined roles, like main tanks, off-tanks, direct healers, hot healers, in-fight buffers, unique crowd control skills per each class, ranged dps, melee dps, etc. I also think it's important that each class has unique abilities that might influence tactics. One thing I absolutely hate is zerging which nullify all all those roles.
Last edited by hishadow; July 11th, 2011 at 09:24.
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July 11th, 2011, 11:10
Originally Posted by skavenhorde View Post
I've got to ask, what is the attraction of a healer class in an MMO? I understand the need for it in a party, but what poor schlob wants to do that when you can be a wizard or fighter and blast the enemies to bits? As a healer your role is to buff and heal the other players. Why is that fun?

I only ask this because you said that 5 or 6 people soloing together like it was a bad thing and that brought to mind healers. Soloing together doesn't sound so bad to me. The only reason I like DDO is that I can solo in that game a lot easier than I can in others. I wouldn't mind "soloing" together with a group.
I never played a healer but I know quite few who likes to heal. They like the support role.

Also you make it sounds as though less people want to play healers compared to tanks and dps. When I left wow, the class distribution was, dps, healers then tanks. The dungeon finder queues times for tanks were lot shorter than healers.
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July 11th, 2011, 11:53
Thanks guys. Still don't see the attraction in running around and healing, but some people must enjoy it. Plus, Hishadow said a whole bunch of terms that I haven't a clue about. Hot healer….off-tanks… Man MMOs have their own language

And lostforever I did mean it exactly the way it sounded because I haven't a clue as to why anyone would want to just heal people instead of using different tactics to take down an opponent. To me it sounds about as much fun as watching paint dry. You must take into account that I have never played in a party and my only real experience is with DDO and a bit of WAR. I only like DDO because I can solo in it easily.

@Corwin I've attempted to get my character up a bunch of levels before I asked to join one of your adventures, but IIRC you guys meet in the morning/noon (our time) and I don't do mornings unless I'm getting paid to from my job. Now joining up with you guys sometime at night wouldn't be so bad
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July 11th, 2011, 12:03
Originally Posted by skavenhorde View Post
Thanks guys. Still don't see the attraction in running around and healing, but some people must enjoy it. Plus, Hishadow said a whole bunch of terms that I haven't a clue about. Hot healer….off-tanks… Man MMOs have their own language
Don't worry, I played for almost a year as a hunter doing nothing but ranged dps and crowd control, completely oblivious to what other people did. The roles actually became more apparent to me as Warcraft got simplified with expansions. It's usually just the people who organize and lead raids in large dungeons that need to think about these issues since by now the smaller dungeons are tuned for roles of tank, healer, and dps (in the broad sense).
Last edited by hishadow; July 11th, 2011 at 16:23.
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July 11th, 2011, 12:29
Originally Posted by skavenhorde View Post

And lostforever I did mean it exactly the way it sounded because I haven't a clue as to why anyone would want to just heal people instead of using different tactics to take down an opponent. To me it sounds about as much fun as watching paint dry. You must take into account that I have never played in a party and my only real experience is with DDO and a bit of WAR. I only like DDO because I can solo in it easily.
Sorry for misunderstanding I never understood the appeal of healing but I know in games like Everquest 2, good healers can save the day. Before EQ2 got dump down, healers and tend to stick with the tanks they knew best. The reason for it is that, they need to know what kind of damage a tank can take and what kind of damage a mob does. The reason for that is, healers can't just spam a heal button, they need to worry lot about mana management. Also the heals are all different, like the healer needs to know when to use a "ward", "reactive", "hot" etc. So they need to know when to use the right type of heal etc.
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July 11th, 2011, 17:41
I'm having a surprisingly good time with my healbot in DDO. Although all my other toons are Disciples of the Pointy Stick of one type or another, it's actually fairly fun to hang in the back and pick your spots. Plus, clerics can manage OK in melee, so you've got the option to swing the Stick when the situation allows. Being the healer just exercises different muscles, so to speak. Instead of watching the enemies, you're watching the party to keep them out of trouble. It can be just as frantic. The sense of failure from letting a party member die is just as strong as if your barbarian takes a dirt nap. You can be a little more tactical with attacks, too. You can decide when it's appropriate to drop a blade barrier (keeping in mind that doing so will get you all the enemy aggro) or sit the mob down with a greater command, and when it's wiser to save spell points and let the party take care of business on their own. Sitting in the back is a little more like being the general, with the good and bad that it entails. I don't know that I'd want to do it all the time, but it's certainly not the tedium you might think.

Besides, it's a license to be bossy. "Group up for a healing burst." "You're blocked, so come to me or you're going to die." "Wait for buff spells." "You're soloing again, so I can't heal you if you get in trouble." And they actually have to listen!!!
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July 12th, 2011, 01:34
Originally Posted by skavenhorde View Post
I've got to ask, what is the attraction of a healer class in an MMO? I understand the need for it in a party, but what poor schlob wants to do that when you can be a wizard or fighter and blast the enemies to bits? As a healer your role is to buff and heal the other players. Why is that fun?

I only ask this because you said that 5 or 6 people soloing together like it was a bad thing and that brought to mind healers. Soloing together doesn't sound so bad to me. The only reason I like DDO is that I can solo in that game a lot easier than I can in others. I wouldn't mind "soloing" together with a group.
Funny you say that, as healer is my favorite thing to play. To me being the healer is much more exciting than anything else. Having to watch each member's health, deciding which spell to use and when… Big heal and the monster turns on you. Heal too fast and the monster turns on you. Wait too long and someone dies. Use faster smaller heals or slower big heals. Use cheaper to cast HoTs or more expensive but less dangerous instant heals. Manage your remaining mana. Two or more injured and need to decide who gets the next heal… So many things to do. All the other classes pale in comparison as to what they can do. A wizard just nukes in different colors, a tank just stands there spamming taunts. DPS just cycle their attacks. I find them boring really.
Of course, this is assuming the game takes those things I mentioned in consideration, like in Everquest. Some other games you can just pretty much spam heals and not worry about the monsters touching you or running out of mana. In that case yes, I see how that can be boring.
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July 12th, 2011, 09:01
Originally Posted by skavenhorde View Post

@Corwin I've attempted to get my character up a bunch of levels before I asked to join one of your adventures, but IIRC you guys meet in the morning/noon (our time) and I don't do mornings unless I'm getting paid to from my job. Now joining up with you guys sometime at night wouldn't be so bad
Some of us play at various times, so either use Skype to call us, join the Guild so we know when you're online, or any combination thereof. Peter plays at 3am his time just for the fun of joining in with us. I play mornings and afternoons my time and the US based players usuall play in the evening and sometimes late into the night.
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July 12th, 2011, 12:07
I generally don't enjoy trial-and-error encounters - which seems to be 99% of WoW raiding content, for instance.

I like it when characters are given roles through their classes or "function" - and then I like it when players are pushed to the max of that role.

If you want to "spice it up" - do it in fair ways that don't require pre-planning or special potions to grind for. Just give fair warning and explain what's required through cutscenes, speech, the environment - or whatever. But DON'T let it be about knowing the encounter beforehand. I hate that kind of thing, because it's not about a challenge - but about repetition.

In fact, I tend to despise raiding at length - because I find it's invariably about coordinating a team and making each individual understand the encounter. If you're invested in the game, you will know your role - and then you just have to wait patiently until everyone gets to that point. In between, you'll have to listen to the raid leader whine endlessy about incompetence or some participant who didn't get his loot.

I invest in the game because I enjoy that, but it's NEVER anything but a game to me.

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