Solo VS Group Play in MMO

[mossy siren]

I want this thread to function more as a discussion where people can provide their perspective.

I am curious as to what the appeal is in playing solo in an MMORPG. I am talking to the people who specifically seek out that type of gameplay. Doing quests while you grind or wait for your friends to log back on is something totally different. Over time it seems that devs (in general, not just ethyrial) have put an increasing amount of time and resources into balancing the gameplay between solo and group content. In my opinion, this has let to a gradual erosion of the fulfilling nature of MMOs.

I would argue that group play needs to take precedent over solo play in terms of rewards of end game systems and progression. This can manifest itself in so many ways from the most obvious things to much more nuanced systems. Obviously you have things like dungeons and raids that have rewards for grouping up with other players, but without additional systems implemented by developers thats where it can end. Systems like trading, pvp events(arena, bgs, guild wars), guild progression(with rewards), timed world events(helldivers 2) and more can make a huge difference. Give meaningful rewards for these events(gear, high end profession materials, gold, mounts, passive power related buffs). There are also more nuanced things that can promote group play, like class party buffs and profitable farms for groups to tackle.

1/2

This isn't to say that solo content shouldn't exist. Quests, reputations, professions, even some solo dungeons are a good idea. You shouldn't always need to be in a group to play the game. The problem lies with trying to balance these two types of gameplay in an MMO. A system that allows players to autoqueue for dungeons to find groups or even teleport you to the dungeon is an easy example. The conveniences that a system like this offers is antithetical to what an MMO should be. If you only have 2-3 hours to play a game a week, im sorry but I hope that this game wont cater to you. Everyone says they want mmos to be more social, but then advocate for more convenience to skip systems that make the game more social.

I do want the game to feel modern. I believe there are ways to hit that fine line by removing annoying and time wasting systems while still allowing players to be the solution. Sometimes there will need to compromise I am sure. For example, asking players to continually walk across the entire world every time they want to enter a dungeon would get tedious. Allow the players to be a part of the solution. Force at least 2 of the group to run to the dungeon before anyone can be summoned or teleport there. Or maybe continue to allow players to teleport using the existing system, but there really needs to be additional limitations on it.

To bring this full circle, I do want to hear from the perspective of solo players. Why do you choose to play an MMO as a solo player? What is appealing about the genre compared to playing a type of rpg that is more oriented towards the single player experience?

2/2

[uneven rampart]

Following - To explain why I solo in pvp games. Not only solo. But am much more open to it than in a more traditional mmorpg like WoW where I'd most likely play a tank or dedicated support. My favourite part about the group aspect of these games is making things flow as seamlessly as possible by micro'ing as much as I can to the peripheral of the group.

In regard to solo.

The only person responsible for my death is me. There is nothing anyone else could have done. It was entirely my decision making process that lead to the results.

Coupled with the fact I like to play challenging classes that are off meta and represent them within a competitive scene and certain games have communities where the solo game is strong in this regard

[mental bough]

Thanks for the question @mossy siren I'll share my perspective as a player and then the thoughts on the dev side:

Player:

Generally I play solo when there isn't a group activity going on/i'm waiting for a group to form, or it doesn't aid my progress.

On a random day, I'll progress my inherently solo activities like grinding mining/jc, trading / selling stuff on the AH, farming mounts or twink gear, grinding rep or titles, farming consumes, practicing my rotation, farming soul shards , or in the case of ethyrial doing MH tasks, among other things

This isn't to avoid group content, but during the period where group content is difficult to find or I'm waiting for the other people that I plan to play with to assemble

I raided in vanilla and classic - classic more recently, for ~ 5 years, every week

I grinded from 30-60 purely in SM -> ZF -> BRD -> LBRS to hit server 1st alliance warlock with a priest, a pally, a mage, and a warrior.

In archeage, we ran trade runs with 40-50 people deep across the Ocean in a huge Galleon. The system encouraged forming a group to have enough strength to avoid getting ganked solo.

Dev:

Given the above, the key from my perspective is to design group content that:

1. retains a 'classic' feel with no dungeon finder / mindless queue - this retains the strong feelings of adventure and comradery associated with grouping

2. is possible to pick up and complete with 3-5 people even if it takes longer to do, this lowers the barrier to entry without changing the difficulty - which increases the quantity of players participating in group content

3. Is critical for a portion of the 'BiS' gear loadout for any given class. This incentivizes significant participation in the content but solo-only players can simply acquire the gear through focusing on farming enough gold to buy it, if they choose.

Overall, the KPIs we want to look at are:

• Increasing participation in group content
• Increasing group formation attempts through a lower barrier to entry

PvP side note:

We already have BG maps, point-capture and team deathmatch logic, and even PvE type game mode capability that Gellyberry built but never fully finished. Arenas work except they can potentially wipe your hotbar or freeze your character in place on load. Once we fix these bugs, we can actually test this content quickly. (Provided we have enough interested players)

I played a ton of TBC arena and also a ton of 5v5s in ArcheAge to get the panther mount, so I definitely understand what we need to do to incentivize participation when the system is ready.

[mossy siren]

Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. I will try to be more specific so that I can better highlight the issue.

I am sure everyone plays solo to some extent. I am not advocating that mmos do not include any solo content. What is really want to discuss are 2 things that are involved in balancing solo vs group play. You have rewards for completing both types of content and you have the underlying systems of the game that promote both types of gameplay.

Group play should feel more rewarding to the point where if you are only playing solo for longer than a week, you will notice that you are playing less efficiently. You should be gaining xp slower. You should maybe not be growing your guild xp as fast and getting those rewards. You should be missing out of potential pvp rewards. All of these things should matter. This doesnt't mean you can't choose to still play solo and access most of the content, but it should be less rewarding.

Game design can also play a factor in rewarding players without giving them physical rewards. The current teleporting system for example makes the game super solo friendly in a couple different ways because you don't have to rely on anyone else for things. In a world where the teleports were on a 2hr CD, or where you were limited in what you can bring with you through the teleporter, you would need to rely on other people for items. With a CD, you would be forced to make a decision on where to farm items that made the most sense to you. You couldn't just pop all of the world and farm everything yourself. Some players might choose to farm an excess of one type of material and use that to trade and obtain whatever else they need. A design choice like this forces players to seek out and engage with other players to continue to progress.

[river bridge]

The appeal to playing solo is you can play whenever you want for however long you want. One of the things I hate the most about raids is how long they take, both to plan and to actually complete. You have to find a time everyone is okay with, and people are playing in different timezones. Your tank might not be free when you are, so you're forced to join at 11pm when you have to get up for work at 7. Any game where raids were a requirement for BiS stuff, I usually just got to level cap then quit because I cannot be bothered with that entire process. It feels more like a second job than a game to me.

To answer why I choose MMORPGs over other games, there are a few reasons. One answer is I like seeing other players in my concurrent world, even if I don't need to interact with them. It makes me feel less lonely. Plus over time I do end up making friends and talking to others, but I enjoy when I can do it at my own pace. Another reason is I enjoy competing with others while grinding levels/xp. And when you can directly see and interact with your competition it's a lot more incentive than if it's only on a leaderboard. It naturally introduces some social drama between guilds and top players which keeps things interesting too.

I just want to respond to the "you should be gaining xp slower" part of Misery's post. If that's how the game is meant to be designed, that's fine, but personally I would quit if that were the case. I'm not a fan of games that do that because you end up with a clique of people that are grinding way more efficiently than you, that you can never catch up to because it's a clique, of course. They aren't going to let you join lol. Every game that has that sort of mechanic, devolves into that.

[uneven rampart]

The porter changes, amongst a couple of other big qol changes were a bit of a deathknell for group oriented development.

[mossy siren]

I appreciate this because we are now starting to get into some of the core opinions. I want to specifically address your final paragraph. I agree that you will have cliques in mmos, but what is stopping you from forming your own? As you admit, it takes times to form a group and to form a group that is balanced. Players should be rewarded for that. This isnt meant to be hostile, but why do you (or anyone else) feel like its fair for you to farm at the same rate as groups, especially after just admitting that it takes more time and effort to put together a group?

I don't want you or anyone else to quit, but these are some fundamental concepts that all mmos used to share. There are many reasons why the mmo genre is dying and this is one of them. A game that caters to all types of players caters to none. There are a million types of games out there. I am just asking that the mmos cater to players who want to play with other players.

[river bridge]

If you join at a date that's after launch, you will already have a much harder time catching up, even if you join with your own group of players. If you don't have a group, you're further penalized. It isn't that there's anything stopping you, it's that the task is so difficult that most people would give up, and you're left with a dead MMO.

I said nothing of it being fair or unfair, just that I wouldn't participate.

[mossy siren]

This will be the case regardless of anything we discussed no?

[uneven rampart]

There are two things to address in regard to your post and ryans.

Firstly, his comment that a player could attain "bis" through solo content, even if that took longer.

I dislike this approach greatly. Some of the most epic questlines require friends, many of them to complete. The fondest memories are found helping others achieve something great.

If you want to play solo, be prepared to not have as amazing stuff as others. Just as in any endeavour, achieving it alone is significantly harder than in a group.

Secondly to your point Angel.
I can empathise with the nature of wanting to play to your own time etc. However, at a point, an MMO has to have specific design systems that reward group play, or it defeats the purpose of the multi massive part.

However, this "catching up" is the real problem. It's the chase, and comparing oneself to another through utility that's measured by xp gain per hour, loot gain per hour, etc.

Simply, there are some people who play at the highest echelon, and others that don't. Trying to become a better player, I can 100% get behind. But I cannot get behind the philosophy of expecting to receive the same rewards because otherwise I have to "catch up".

If you want to play the game at your own pace, that is a decision you have made, and others shouldn't be kept to your standard rate because of it. That is the other side of the coin. It is a game for groups, otherwise it wouldn't be an mmo.

Why should I earn the same amount of xp in a group, that you can earn solo? That doesn't seem right.

To conclude my point. I think a modern folly of a lot of players is to try and play to somebody elses level, whilst not actually wanting to put the effort required in to getting to that level. And the compromise from developers manifests itself in low quality content to try and appease those players.

Enjoy your journey, for what it is. And if that means you get slightly less than others because of decisions you made, then so be it

[river bridge]

Do you mean the part about the task being so difficult that people would give up?

[mossy siren]

I just mean, if you start after launch you will be behind no matter

[uneven rampart]

Something this game was heavily built on was the opportunity cost of a decision. It was meant to influence you massively in every play session.

Currently, I feel beholden to nobody. I can port anywhere, and do pretty much anything outside of world bosses or world dungeons if I feel like it, the only limit is time.

I want massive parts of the game to be simply unaccessable unless I have buddies

[river bridge]

Right, but you said you should be further penalized for playing solo. So not only will you be behind, you will be penalized for being behind, because you're too low level to join up with the others. And what if there is nobody around your level to play with?

[mossy siren]

If you dont have anyone around your level to play with, I would say there are other issues with the game not related to my points. The game should always be able to attract new players and if its not there are some other core issues.

[river bridge]

I would disagree with that. Games are like mini civilizations, they rise and fall. If you try to control them to where they are always attracting new players, eventually you will be only attracting the kind of player that will lead to the demise of the game as you first knew it.

[uneven rampart]

Then it's a poorly designed MMO and the level stretch is too large.

A lot of MMOs it took weeks to level up at end game a single level. If you died a couple times, you lost an evenings progress. That was the point. People get to end game and quit of so many games now because they just want to get bis. And don't understand that they actually enjoyed levelling and socialising and not being beholden to raiding and end game systems.

So they roll an alt. Seen it time again.

And then they end up doing the same shit on their alt they didn't like on their main that they rolled their alt for.

So why not make levels hard to get, make them meaningful. This sort of design philosophy means there is always a lot of players at every level grouping

[mossy siren]

I think there is a balance you can strike. You can make your game new player friendly without hurting the veteran players. Things like continuing to update and polish your tutorials and intro experience. Providing bonuses for veterans to team up with new players.

[river bridge]

Sorry, I can't have two conversations at once. But the general sentiment I got from your post is that "it doesn't feel right" that I should receive the same rewards as those who put the time and effort to forming their group. Again, I never said anything about it being fair or unfair, just that it wouldn't be my type of game and I would not participate. I'm not sure where this sense of what is right is coming into play.

[mossy siren]

Sorry Zorg, I do see your msgs. I agree with some of your points. Im going to take a short break but ill make one last point first. I dont see mmos as a genre where players should be expected to display their gaming skills and dexterity. Its a genre where you mostly make progress through two things, time and game knowledge. Your knowledge can help you make all sorts of decisions that can influence your progression. The only other factor is time. Time is always going to limit your progress no matter when you start. There will always be someone with more time and they will progress faster than you. Surely noone would ask for timegates in the game to limit these people? I appreciate the conversation so far, hopefully others will pop in later.

[uneven rampart]

no need to apologise, I feel like I'm going off topic slightly and don't want to sidetrack the conversation either.
I'll leave it to you and Angel to finish off

[river bridge]

I do agree that there should be a balance, but that implies that new players need some help. Why do you feel it's right to help out new players and not old players? That doesn't seem right.

Anyways, sorry for being facetitious. But I think I already answered a lot of the stuff with my initial msg. I like to make friends at my own pace. Creating your own clique/guild/group, whatever you want to call it, takes a certain level of social sophistication that I don't have. If it start to feel like I'm being penalized for not having social skills, well, it feels bad and I'm more likely to quit. Which is fine, it just means it's not my kind of game. I never enjoyed those games with 50v50 PvP type raids where there's a general ordering his troops. Like New World for example, that's the most recent one I can think of. I loved the profession grinding, hated the faction v faction play. Eventually I'll find a game that's perfect for me that I can play for a while, if Ethyrial is not meant to be that game then so be it

I already am penalized for not having social sophistication in real life, and I prefer the games I play to be some form of escapism, you know?

[mossy siren]

Thats completely fair and I am sure there are others out there that feel similarly. I think there are quite a few of us still trying to figure out what kind of game this will be.

[river bridge]

Also to introduce more substance to the discussion, something I thought about that Ethyrial already does for encouraging vets to party with new players is the mammoth world boss. New players can help with the fight by throwing spears, so it's actually optimal for the vets to invite new players to speed up the fight. Then it acts as a catch up mechanic for the new players because of the great XP and gold gains just for showing up. Things like that are perfect. There might be objections because in a way the new players are getting XP+gold for less effort than the vets had to put in. But ultimately you need to have a healthy base of new players for the game to survive, so there will have to be some sacrifices like that where the vets might feel a bit peeved. Luckily the vets in Ethyrial are all really chill about helping out new players in my experience!

[mossy siren]

I also think that example is good content. The way it can turn bad is if veterans are forced to bring in new players, but i don't think that would happen. Even then, it still promotes group play which is my ultimate hope.

[river bridge]

(also I know I'm contradicting the whole games = mini civilizations argument I had earlier, but bare with me because I suck at making logical arguments)

[uneven rampart]

Stick with it Angel. Having this presented for the devs is invaluable

[uneven rampart]

One of my favourite systems to address this was in EQ2 and it was essentially a buddy system.

A high level player could buddy up with another player, and it'd scale them down to their other players level. They'd get to keep their entire kit etc and would be able to explore with their friends. Old players could go back to areas they hadn't done (think each tier has 2-3 quest zones minimum), and explore parts of the game they had missed without creating an alt which some people don't like - in EQ2 levelling was so insanely hard early that an alt was anathema for all but the most sweat

There are pros and cons, but in terms of keeping the game fresh for old and new, it's a great way to do it.

[river bridge]

I think that could be kind of incorporated in with the relic system. Not in its current implementation but with some adjustments to it. Right now if you equip a relic it sets your profession of that class to 30 and gives you all of the combat skills right away. I proposed to Ryan that it should set you as level 1 in the class and make you go through the entire 1-30 process again to regain your skills. Then if you put your old class relic on you can return to your previous level and equip all your old gear.

It accomplishes a few things:

1. Puts vets at a lower level so they will be more likely to party with new players
2. Populates low level areas so the game doesn't feel dead
3. Creates a market for low level epics or things that make the low level experience easier, rather than those being rare but useless items for most of the playerbase

I'm usually a fan of making alts in MMOs but currently, I don't think Ethyrial has a good framework in place for making leveling an alt fun. Level 1-20 is annoying without a mount and all the fog of war on the map. Your professions all reset and you can only use copper tools again. It's just too much of a hassle for me to bother with. But I'd def reroll every single class in the game if I got to keep my mount and professions haha

Also another suggestion, make two-seater mounts so vets can give new players a ride places

[uneven rampart]

Without wanting to go too off topic. The original intent of the game was that you could only have one character. Hence the choices matter thing being so heavily focused on.
That was to address your point of rerolling an alt feeling so bad with the systems in place. Nobody wants to relevel professions, really...

If the game were to have a relic system, I would hope that it would incorporate your suggestions. I don't like the system myself, but see those as positive steps toward making it a better system

[mossy siren]

I would need to think more about your solution but I agree with the problem. I also think new alts need a way to keep your professions.

[uneven rampart]

I'll bugger off again, feel like I'm hi-jacking. I want to leave one thought before I do.
Whales vs Plankton. Both are essential for a healthy ecosystem.

Whales in a non pay to win setting = group oriented players that push boundaries

Plankton = solo players/group players that are content chilling

Creating feedback loops between both of those groups is essential for a healthy social system in an mmo.
If you haven't read it, have a look at the suggestions I made in screenshot in regard to writs and faction. I believe this is a great way for Whales to set up player initiatives for plankton to fulfil.

If the system is bug free, and feels good to utilise, this creates less work for the devs, as it is all player constructed gameplay, and for that reason, also feels great as a community because plankton feel like they are contributing to something greater than themselves, and it is a way to have the whales greater wealth due to the nature of their gameplay flow back down to the plankton

[river bridge]

Tbh I started reading it but lost focus after a few sentences. I need it in audiobook form so I can play it while I mindlessly grind in Ethryial

I have faith in your idea though

[uneven rampart]

dangerous game

[weary idol]

my two cents on one small aspect is to agree in the fear of cliques and such. i feel like having different groups besides just one guild is the way to go. i fear the “rich get richer” problem as it pertains to powerful groups. i always favors systems like recruit a friend or scaling down tech to help lower levels with some benefit for yourself. it’s just a more positive atmosphere then the domination of an elite group getting even more rewards when they already have it all. (and trust me i grind hard now that i am a more experienced player so i am talking about me in the past, not now. but that’s something that’s happened to me as a wee noob in games)

[gilded finch]

I like both but as i've gotten older (mid 30s now) I've got less time and energy to get a group together. What's tough is I don't believe that "group" play has to mean raids, dungeons, etc. It can mean more but unfortunately is always minimized to "you have to group to get BiS X" which I can't (don't want) dedicate myself to.

Often times in games like Aion/FFXIV whenever we got groups together we'd spend longer getting people together than we would playing the content. Then if someone has to do anything it can leave people stranded and, depending on the content, waste time. When I was in college, sure lets do 4 hours of raiding, no issues. It's just not feasible for me any longer.

This isn't to say I dislike group content; my mentality has just shifted away to enjoy organic interactions, consistent planned content, or smaller group play. For example, BDO has nodewars (guild vs guild) every night. I can plan around that 1 hour slot to group up with the homies and do some pvp. It's consistent and easy to get into. Meanwhile the solo content I have the ability to hop in and out at my own pace. I'm able to progress in nearly every aspect of the game without needing to dedicate hours to group content.

As for why MMOs though - I enjoy the interactions with other players. Shared experiences, shit talking on reddit/forums, getting pk'd, pking, consistent goals, community, etc. All my best gaming memories come from MMOs from player interactions, with not a single one being "raid" centric.

[mental bough]

As far as Group Content having the best gear, does this apply to all item slots, or do you feel that some item slots should also be obtainable through solo methods?

And what is your opinion on purchasing items that were obtained through group content from the auction house?

@mossy siren

[lyric cairn]

I feel like the reason some folks are saying the games to easy/fast as well is because there is alot that u can solo and do on your OWN time.

how many times have i logged on in the middle of the night(because my brains screwed) and just grinded mobs... TO many to count honestly and i feel that needs to be there. I can agree that group content needs to exist but as archaya was saying BDO having that 1 hour slot in there can be super fun/exciting for some.

[mossy siren]

Having a few equivilent items obtainable through solo means makes sense. Typically games will have some similarly bis jewlry/trinkets obtainable through rep or pvp or even quests. Could have a high end resource needed for crafting as a reward from a really long quest chain. Stuff like that is fine. Im more concerned about the repeatable gameplay loops being group play focused and incentivized.

Theres a few different systems that will be impacted if you allow dungeon/raid loot to be tradable. One slip of your economy can mean fill bis for any one player if it falls their way and it wont be anything they did wrong necessarily.

[uneven rampart]

I realise you've asked Mis here but would you mind if I gave you an example of an item I believe is at a perfect threshold for solo obtainability but still useful in raids

[mental bough]

So the design will be different from WoW, in the sense that there won't be guaranteed drops every run of a dungeon and/or raid

so the values of items will be controlled through scarcity, meaning the best weapon may cost 25k gold, and the best farming method might be 500g/hr

[mental bough]

Of course, always down to hear about good design implementation examples

[uneven rampart]

Hah. I'm not sure it's "good".
Anyway. https://www.wowhead.com/classic/item=21180/earthstrike. The entire quest line, and method to achieving this can be done solo. I did it mostly solo. It was not easy.

However, in shorter fights, I considered it bis if we were reck pumping with mighty ragers etc

[lyric cairn]

yea thats just a dolenar equivalent or less of one even.

90% of the bis items are already group

[mossy siren]

I get that, and thats where it can get dangerous. In a perfect world, theres never any issues but that rarely happens, especially on the launch of a new server. Usually there are a handful of players who have a massive amount of a resource stockpiled and the market shifts because of something new discovered or needed to clear the new content. The price of that stockpiled resource goes through the roof and that player is rich over night. The price of any BIS items on the market will not inflate if only 2-3 players were able to take advantage of the market shift and now those players who as farmers never cleared a single dungeon have some of the best gear in the game.

[uneven rampart]

the problem is trying to draw equivalence of gold per hour to item value as a currency factor.

The value of the item is how difficult it was to obtain, and the memories made

[mental bough]

Makes sense - so the choice comes down to locking gear behind group content completely, or allowing free trade w scarcity

Just thinking out loud, rich folks can buy boosts to avoid participating in group content to obtain their items

good example would be Lost Ark boosting or WoW carries

Is it possible to fully avoid solo players achieving their goals without interacting with others?

[mental bough]

I think that's a bit of a shallow view of the system

I might run group content in OSRS (theatre of blood) 500 times without seeing a scythe

in that time, I've accumulated enough gold to buy it through non-rare drops

I still made memories - arguably more of them than a single quest chain

am I off base?

[uneven rampart]

Yeah. Being able to buy everything is shallow

[mental bough]

Everything was tradeable from day dot in this game

design flaw of the original team maybe from your perspective?

[uneven rampart]

Hold on. That's slightly obfuscating what it actually was.

Items would be able to be dropped

not traded

that's a massive massive massive difference

[mental bough]

Which items 🤔

[uneven rampart]

bags are one example. Their intent from my understanding was that their would be items in the game that were obtainable, and that would drop upon player death, and that was how they would be spread throughout the world. but they could not be sold

because they weren't in the game isn't a good argument imo, heaps of stuff wasn't in the game

[mental bough]

Maybe that was before launch, i've never seen that implementation

[uneven rampart]

you can't drop the stuff from the well can you?

or trade it?

[mental bough]

No, but do those carry value other than what we've added? (spoiler secrets 👀)

[uneven rampart]

I would sincerely hope that any item you have in your game carries value

smh

[mental bough]

The other untradeables are cloaks, which incentivize running group content

[uneven rampart]

ok, so theres stuff that can't be traded.

That stuff shouldn't be able to be bought

[mental bough]

We've added value to items that originally had none but haven't gotten to them all just yet

[uneven rampart]

thats my point, it's a non argument

[mental bough]

We align there, that's why we made the cloaks untradeable

[mossy siren]

Open market is the best system, i just wanted to discuss some things that can happen. There are some things you can do to mitigate the risk of one player progressing super far in a profession by playing solo. You can place larger quantities of resources in dungeons, WL, or other group content areas. You can create specialized profession choices that require an attunement of some kind. You can add certain timegates on end game crafts to limit the amount of end game resources being crafted early on. You can push certain crafting items to world bosses or other elite type mobs.

[lyric cairn]

thats how raid logging was made xD

make time limits people can do anything about

force them into NOT playing ur game

[mossy siren]

I dont feel like putting a CD on an end game craft is going to make people logout and play something else while they wait for a CD

If thats the only content left for them, theres other issues

[lyric cairn]

iv just seen that happen in more then a few diff games. Doesnt seem to matter what it is once people set a goal.

[mental bough]

• I agree open market is best, we are shooting for that
• We currently do have more mats weighted toward WL, but it just takes a lot of time to do the environment design, so it'll take a bit to continue filling things out
• Profession choices we can look at eventually - the goal is to make most/all items require a crafter to complete
• CDs on crafts, we need to build systems out for this but it has been done a bit with the transmute stone upgrades
• Tundrath actually has the lump drops which are mandatory to craft the Chromatic Band, we are aligned there as well

Generally, good comments and ideas and I think we align more than people expect because we just haven't communicated our thoughts in depth

[mossy siren]

Happy to read that.

[uneven rampart]

There's one thing I want to touch on here that I missed.

I don't think things should be locked behind great big epic quest chains like Everquest. Despite my enjoyment of them.

The problem with big great epic quest chains is keeping everyone on the same page. And as somebody alluded to earlier, you spend more time organising people to do them, than actually doing them. That feels like bad content

[lyric cairn]

👆

[lyric cairn]

those systems in those games where such a different time in gaming i will always miss those things. I accept it will never be the same as that tho along with i just dont have the motivation/time to do those big of things anymore =/ possible im old/outdated even at my young age

[mossy siren]

Lol theres no way you can convince me you dont have the time with your playtime in the game rn

[lyric cairn]

and the few games iv seen try to be like these older games we enjoyed so much just flop hard

[lyric cairn]

tbh

im here ALOT

and not at all

im a stay at home dad with 3 young kids

im here because i can do things here i cant anywhere else

wether it be combat being to fast for the 30% attention i can pay towards it, or it takes way to much time all at once

just alot of reasons i suppose

[uneven rampart]

I think the best organic content is groups of mobs that can be farmed. Which ethyrial has pushed in abundance, which is great. That's the lifeblood of social pve. It's not for everyone, but I think in a grinder situation, people are chill to spend 2-3 hours killing the same mob.

From that, items that can be found that have a direct interaction with an npc, and maybe a couple of follow up steps to check with another npc exactly what it is, or imbue it or some such, are where you can really build the system to make crafting feel relevant and special for players that don't get the drops from dungeons.

They may not be the "same", and they may not be "quite" as good, but they'll be relevant enough that if a player has a higher skill ceiling, they'll be able to compete. Further, they've taken the time to craft it themselves and thus it holds a higher value than an item than they could've bought off the AH. Lets say the total value of gold spent to finish the quests is 25k. And theoretically the item from the dungeon that can't be traded, would've been worth 25k.

The value of 25k doesn't change, but I know where I'd be spending my money in terms of gameplay value.

To take the crafting thing, and give it a simple example

Graveyards around Irumesa spawn skeletons at night.
Those skeletons drop alchemy reagents in the form of Skeleton Bones, which can be ground into dust and mixed with other herbs. Some of which can be farmed in the graveyards etc.

Skeletons are naturally resistant to pierce, which I'd assume most assassins would be building according to trope.

So you can build a dynamic whereby, really high level skeletons, are kinda actually tough to farm as an assassin. A new assassin to the area will struggle without a friend, a geared one will be fine, but it's not going to be like farming say, humans.

This gives your priests and whatnot a place to come in and farm up assassin reagents and then trade for them etc. Thus creating a loop whereby solo players can

fulfil their crafts, get somewhat equivalent gear, and also have that interplay of players without having massive amounts of quests.

still have big ol fuck off class epic quests which bob jones has to piss his guild off to go complete, those are important too. But they're aids on a grand scale. EQ2 is a testament to that, despite my love for the game.

Camps need to be much harder to pull though imo, and I'd love to see Crowd control actually matter in a massive way

The art of pulling is all but lost

[mental bough]

This all makes sense, and I believe is another reminder of our not having communicated the full vision for the game yet

To illustrate, here's a screenshot of a test ghost used to make sure the resists are all working as intended, this is why we put resists and weaknesses into the mouseover tooltips and monsterdex (which originally had resistance support)

all mobs have resists applied even at early game (they're just low like 5-10%)

and this scales up to 30-75% depending on the type of content at late game, incentivizing usage of different gear, classes, or strategies

[uneven rampart]

https://tenor.com/view/well-waiting-caddyshack-gif-5385414

I'm excited to see this roadmap, genuinely. It'll be interesting to see what's been cooking