(MMOs) Join the Party
Poking around DDO actually got me thinking about groups in MMOs and how they handle it. So a little comparison of those I'm familiar with:
WoW: You can group up to five. Few world quests require it, but most at-level dungeons expect it - usually including one healer and one tank. Up to eight groups can be joined into a raid of 40 people. Raid instances used to be calibrated that high, but now expect 10- or 25-man raids. Being in a raid makes you unable to complete most normal quests - so people don't just steamroll everything.
Five is a pretty good number, really, though there are naturally awkward times when you have three or eight friends around.
GW: Guild Wars is a little psychotic. It's theoretically geared toward a full group of eight. One the up side, there are NPC heroes (from expansions, giving limited control) and henchmen (fully AI controlled) available to round out a party even for a solo player. But then, earlier zones inexplicably have group limits of four or six. There are a few, rare solo quests/missions thrown in here and there.
This has worked okay in my experience. Almost always, NPC healers will be used to fill up a couple slots in the roster. Healing just seems much easier to leave to the AI. It's kind of annoying, though, to be doing early quests when you have more than four/six active guild members online. And I worry that a full group of eight PCs without NPC healers might actually be disadvantaged.
DDO: Group size goes up to six. There are some dungeons geared toward raids of 12. NPC henchmen appear to be purchasable in-game. Most quests/dungeons appear to scale - there are multiple difficulties including "solo" and I've read indications that things may have more HP the more players there are. I didn't notice any major difference in the ones I did solo versus with another player, though.
I haven't done much group play, so it's hard to say, but this seems pretty flexible with the difficulty scale. Again, it would be annoying to have more than six friends who want to do something together, though.
I'm not sure what I'd call the "sweet spot" here. I wonder what SW:tOR is planning. Both GW and WoW have been frustrating at different times for their group limitations. Conclusion? Inconclusive!
WoW: You can group up to five. Few world quests require it, but most at-level dungeons expect it - usually including one healer and one tank. Up to eight groups can be joined into a raid of 40 people. Raid instances used to be calibrated that high, but now expect 10- or 25-man raids. Being in a raid makes you unable to complete most normal quests - so people don't just steamroll everything.
Five is a pretty good number, really, though there are naturally awkward times when you have three or eight friends around.
GW: Guild Wars is a little psychotic. It's theoretically geared toward a full group of eight. One the up side, there are NPC heroes (from expansions, giving limited control) and henchmen (fully AI controlled) available to round out a party even for a solo player. But then, earlier zones inexplicably have group limits of four or six. There are a few, rare solo quests/missions thrown in here and there.
This has worked okay in my experience. Almost always, NPC healers will be used to fill up a couple slots in the roster. Healing just seems much easier to leave to the AI. It's kind of annoying, though, to be doing early quests when you have more than four/six active guild members online. And I worry that a full group of eight PCs without NPC healers might actually be disadvantaged.
DDO: Group size goes up to six. There are some dungeons geared toward raids of 12. NPC henchmen appear to be purchasable in-game. Most quests/dungeons appear to scale - there are multiple difficulties including "solo" and I've read indications that things may have more HP the more players there are. I didn't notice any major difference in the ones I did solo versus with another player, though.
I haven't done much group play, so it's hard to say, but this seems pretty flexible with the difficulty scale. Again, it would be annoying to have more than six friends who want to do something together, though.
I'm not sure what I'd call the "sweet spot" here. I wonder what SW:tOR is planning. Both GW and WoW have been frustrating at different times for their group limitations. Conclusion? Inconclusive!
I have yet to say definitively how Champions Online does it in the end-game, but some quests are what I would call G2 or G3 in WoW (that is, made for a group of 2 or 3). The interesting thing in CO is if you do regular 'soloable' quests in a group, some of the mobs will actually run off and bring adds back. It was a little shocking to see at first. There's henchmen (lackeys) and villains (tougher lackeys) and the villains would say something like "Dangnabit! These heroes are too much! Ima gonna git some help!" and then he runs off, grabs a bunch more henchmen from nearby, and runs back. I don't think it makes the encounter that much more difficult, but it does increase it from trivial difficulty.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I was hoping you'd chime in with a little info on that game. :) No idea about max party sizes, though?
ReplyDeleteI've read that the max team size (what they call groups, because 'group' can refer to a super group - otherwise known as a 'guild') is 5. Don't know as anything is set in stone though. I would imagine that linked teams could form a raid in the future - nothing yet though. Unlike WoW, where every normal instance difficulty is normalized to a party of 5 with 1 tank 1 healer and 3 dps, I haven't seen much in CO that falls so rigidly in that structure. There are power-sets that have healing, but self-healing is also pretty prevalent. Since you're not required to niche yourself into a class you can do pretty much anything. For example, my celestial character has regeneration and my powered armor character has heal-bots from gadgeteering. Self-healing powers are very useful when soloing. Also, I didn't mention it here but there's a concept of 'sidekicking' in CO (think I mentioned this in another post of mine). With sidekicking, a lower level character can join a group with a higher level character. Then the lower level character chooses 'begin sidekicking' from a menu on their character stats frame. At that point, their level is temporarily raised up to the higher level character's. So if I were 16 and joined a level 21... my level would go up to 21. I would get increased health, do more damage, effectively BE that level - but I wouldn't get extra powers or talents or other things that usually accompany leveling up. Now I don't get completely owned by level 21 mobs, and can go along with my higher-level friend. I can't do the quests, but I can tag along, get XP, and be a useful member of the team - albeit with a lower number of available abilities. When I'm done sidekicking, my temporary level bonus goes away and I keep all the XP I earned.
ReplyDelete*nods* City of Heroes put in something similar to the sidekicking a while back. I don't recall all the details, but it amounted to a temporary adjustments to level/stats in order to match up with someone higher and/or lower (I think it might have worked in both directions, but again I don't remember for sure). I have yet to decide my feelings on breaking the "holy trinity" of roles. If everyone can do everything (in general terms anyway), that certainly allows a lot more flexibility in play. That's good. And yet, I really like the group dynamics in WoW, too. I wouldn't call it "perfect," but I still like that group composition means something. I'm quite proud of being a tank, even when we inconveniently have more than we need. ... Maybe that's some stubborn psychology (or simple familiarity) in play. >.>
ReplyDeleteWell, City of Heroes and Champions Online were made by the same people. And you're still going to have healers and tanks and heavy hitters and ranged specialists, mostly by how people choose to buy their powers. Someone who buys ALL the healer set powers will be amazing to have around, and if not entirely necessary they're still damn valuable. Someone with a lot of defensive powerups gets a lot of agro generation along with that, so...
ReplyDeleteThis is correct. I perhaps incorrectly suggested that there were no such roles. There are. I just haven't seen where anything but a 'well-rounded' character is needed. But the Might powerset has defensive and aggro-generating powers, some powersets are totally built around offense (you can't tank with an electricity person, at least not effectively), etc.
ReplyDelete