Player Consequences: Getting back to Grouping

It's no secret that modern MMO design has changed drastically in the years following World of Warcraft. The secret of the game's success has been the topic of discussion for every gaming blog and review site for the past four years. Yet while everyone tends to focus on what World of Warcraft did right, there are a few areas where the game underperforms. In particular, the grouping and guild systems seem to encourage quid pro quo relationships between players as they are leveling or gearing up their characters. That's not to say that Blizzard was trying to discourage strong bonds between players, but more that they were concentrating on making one of the first solo friendly games in the genre. They eventually reached this goal by developing the questing system we now see emulated in almost every modern game. Unfortunately, this focus on solo questing has had some major unintended consequences for those who like leveling in groups.

As long as World of Warcraft remains the top performing MMO on the market most game developers are going to assume that only the minority of players actually prefer grouping. I've seen people compare the subscription numbers of World of Warcraft to games like EverQuest 2 to support this argument. It's obvious that most players would rather keep the solo friendly format then be forced back into the days of required grouping. However, the situation doesn't require that MMOs have to be designed to cater to just one style of gameplay. Some minor changes could be implemented in modern questing and leveling design, which would greatly encourage cooperative grouping. Most MMOs that are oriented on solo questing only discourage grouping by accident and not on purpose. Still some of these "accidents" tend to be very annoying to anyone trying to level with a group of friends.

Developers have been so enthusiastic towards making MMOs solo friendly that lately they have failed to provide any benefits for those wishing to group. Most games reflect this problem by having questing systems that discourage grouping except when having to face tougher foes. Nowhere is this more visible then when experience is divided between group members. Often individual players will get much less experience per mob when fighting in a group then when compared to soloing. To make matters worse most games only increase the group experience bonus to a decent level when it is full. This is fine when facing a challenge like a dungeon, but questing groups are often much smaller. Also since most areas have a limited amount of spawns, killing them at a faster rate doesn't really help with leveling and often contributes to a period of increased downtime.

Besides the unfriendly drop in experience, there is also the issue of actually completing a quest. Some quests like those that ask you escort a NPC usually become easier as the size of the group increases. The problem is that the most common type of quest seems to be the most unfriendly to larger groups. I'm talking about the annoying collection/kill quests which requires you to pick up ground spawns or get items from specific mobs. Developers seem to delight in putting particularly random loot tables for collection quests especially those involving animal parts. It's become a longstanding joke in the genre that a lot of animals seem to be missing livers and hearts. Also particularly annoying is when developers forget that a full group of players might all have the same quest requiring them to loot something off the ground. A four-minute respawn timer doesn't seem very long until you've had to wait for it five times in a row.

The biggest obstacle to forming groups in modern MMOs might be the overly complex looking-for-group tools. Often they seem purposely designed to prevent the average player from adopting it. In the early days of EverQuest, there was a simple looking-for-group tag, which could be turn on or off. Players could use basic text commands to search a range of levels for anyone who had the tag on. It was quick, efficient, and everyone in the game used the system. Compare this to the unpopular looking-for-group tool in World of Warcraft that forces players to list the objective of their group. No one really uses the tool since it limits players to only three objectives and uses drop-down boxes filled with the names of dungeons and raids. In general, it's much more efficient to simply shout for a group in the Shattrath general channel. A classic sign of a game with poor looking-for-group tools is the presence of acronyms like "LFG" and "LF1M" filling the chat channels.

Most players see that a lack of useful tools and bad game design have made grouping a much more troublesome task then it use to be. This becomes evident in most end game content, which requires a group of skilled teammates working together in harmony. In my experience, it seems to be much harder to achieve this in modern games when compared to older ones like EverQuest and Final Fantasy XI. In fact, the concept of the bad pick-up-group or "PUG" never really existed until modern MMOs made it possible to solo to the end game. Then all of sudden you had a lot of players who wanted to explore higher end dungeons and raid content, but lacked experience playing their class in a group setting. These players eventually learn how to work in a group though there were some growing pains. As I said before this wouldn't have been a problem if modern MMOs encouraged a mix of grouping and soloing as a player leveled up.

This seems to be what Warhammer Online is trying to achieve with some of its innovated game design. The game may be based around PvP combat, but an experienced group still holds a distinct advantage over an inexperienced one. Anyone who has tried an arena setting in a MMO will tell you that a group that works well together can often beat better-geared opponents. Warhammer Online certainly seems to want players to PvP in groups since many of the features the critics are gushing over encourage this behavior. The public quest system alone is a big boost to getting players used to working with other people. It also seems to give bonuses to players who learn the role of their class in a group. In particular, I've heard that healing classes receive influence and roll bonuses if they heal during public quest events. This is very different from other games where healers often receive little to no benefit for helping others.

Warhammer Online also has a nice looking-for-group tool that seems much easier for forming groups. Instead of requiring players to enter information and scroll through drop-down boxes, it simply places a player into any nearby groups with open spots. If a group only has one spot and they need a specific class type then they can simply close their group. Players have the option to close their groups to only guild members or people on their friends list. My experience in the recent preview weekend showed me that the system was easy to use and I actually spent more time in a group leveling then any game since classic EverQuest. The amazing thing was that I don't believe soloing would have gained me experience any faster, it just would have been less interesting.

	Gabriel Runfeldt has been following MMOs ever since he stumbled onto an EverQuest addiction by accident. He eventually managed to fight it off but caught a case of armchair designer syndrome in the process. Now once a week you can catch his mad ravings here at Player Consequences. You can even contact him with any questions at gabriel.runfeldt AT weblogsinc.com