How to win friends and influence people

[Xyndaris]

I just don't think you have to destroy soloing to encourage grouping.

Some people need to solo, and would like to group when they can.

If you hurt soloing, you will hurt some players, and the playerbase will decline as they won't have any fun or will to play the game.

With a low playerbase, you will have less grouping.

Hurting soloing = hurting grouping.

[Flesh]

Lets make the whole ethos of the mud geared towards players becoming all powerful and not needing groups, or an economy, or a social network, or anything, but themselves and their possessions in their account. Oh wait we did that, and its been in place for some time now...

And as the Dyehead model (that he described so well) has emerged we are left asking ourselves how we can encourage more grouping? Only to find all the sensible suggestions point towards the fact we just need to undo a lot of the things that have been done.

But why would we do that? This is the "Mortal Kombat of MUD's" as Pappy put it the other day.

I think we should just continue on our current path of homogenization. Who cares that we don't group and the economy is fucked, and the game is buggier then its ever been. Those don't impede us from being super powerful virtual beings...

-Flesh

[layweed]

I just don't think you have to destroy soloing to encourage grouping.

Some people need to solo, and would like to group when they can.

If you hurt soloing, you will hurt some players, and the playerbase will decline as they won't have any fun or will to play the game.

With a low playerbase, you will have less grouping.

Hurting soloing = hurting grouping.

Nod. There will always be people who want to solo, regardless of how much more xp they can get in a group. And as someone who played on a MUD where grouping was pretty much the only way you could continue past a certain level, being able to survive in Sneezy from 1-50 without ever having to group is fantastic.

If you want to encourage grouping by tweaking xp code or creating areas that are geared towards groups, that would be fantastic. But you shouldn't have to sacrifice the ability for people to solo. That's why I don't think disallowing gear transfers or potion loads is the way to go. Nor do I think NPC hirelings would help much since you're trying to get players to group with each other. The same reason I would be against multiplaying. I know from experience it's not that hard to open a bunch of zMUD windows, set up triggers and aliases and run a  one man four character group. I suppose if you limited it to two people it might be okay, but still, the emphasis should be on having players group with each other, not "everyone bring 2 alts".

[Pappy]

Just want to point out when I used the analogy of Mortal Kombat, I was referring to theme/style not to balance or mechanics.

Also I take issue with the 'bugginess' comment.  We've fixed more long-standing bugs (esp crashing bugs) in the last year than in the previous 5 years combined.

carry on.

[Cronus]

Oh, I know how to win friends, XXP for sneezy birthday!

Happy birthdayyyy toooo sneeezyyyyyyyyyyyy
Haapppy birthdayyy tooo sneeezzyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Haapppy biiiiirrrthhdaayyy deeaar sneeeeeeeeeezyyyyyyyyyyyyy
happppy biirrrttthday toooo youuoououuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

[Xyndaris]

Nope no xxp for sneezy'd birthday, no cake either!
You get pie, if you really want a cake, with will be a cake of soap.

(see happy mayday thread in general for proof)

[axiom]

Basic game theory... if you want to promote grouping by rewarding the groupers, you have to nerf soloers, or else the entire game gets easier (I think the leveling process should be much harder btw).   Some have argued that nerfing soloers would hurt the playerbase because everyone likes to solo right now - but I think the idea in question is that grouping is way more fun overall, so if the strategy is to encourage grouping, the game will be more fun, and the playerbase should grow because of the ++fun.  I mean really, can the playerbase get much worse than right now and still be a playerbase??

Disclaimer: I never group these days b/c I like to play 5 min here/ 10 min there and grouping is way too much responsibilty, and zero extra added fun for the effort.  I can replicate most group functions through potions and whatnot.  Maybe if grouping was fun again I'd stay and play more and group more...? 

Get rid of potions and I'd have to bring a mage and a healer along?

Anyway, I am way in favor of making the tanks be tanks and the healers be healers.

Oh yeah and wtf does my monk get confused from disarms all the time now.

[Xyndaris]

Most people play here because they can solo.
5 mins or 30 mins at a time.
If I HAVE to group I would go back to Everquest and raid.

How can you say the idea here is grouping is more fun, AND we have to eliminate soloers....
No... telling everyone vanilla is better than chocolate and we have to eliminate chocolate to make vanilla better, will piss of lots of chicks!

You can make grouping more fun without affecting soloers, not be forcing people to group, but by offering groups things soloers don't benefit from...
Class skills with group affects, +hit +damage, more exp when grouped etc.... this will add to the group, and not affect someone soloing....

BTW Define grouped as more than 1 person grouped AND IN THE SAME ROOM.
(so people can't group and leave someone at the inn while they go activate skills or get exp...  it's only active if x# people are grouped in the room)
(grouping already knows when people are out of the room they don't show up in the group command group list)

[Karla]

somehow set it up that the more people you have in a group, the better chance a load on death will happen.. = makes groups happier with more gear = soloers that won't to solo those high level people will stop and start getting big groups to kill the mobs they kill. No clue how this would be coded but sounds brilliant to me.

[liquidu]

somehow set it up that the more people you have in a group, the better chance a load on death will happen..

^ this sounds fun

[Pappy]

LootPerMinute = LoadRate * KillsPerMinute

KillsPerMinute = (MobHitpoints / GroupDamagePerMin) + GroupOverheadPerMin + GroupDownTimePerMin

GroupDamagePerMin  - goes up with more people
GroupDownTimePerMin - goes down with more people
GroupOverheadPerMin - goes up with more people

Therefore, if you can keep overhead down (i.e. work as a team) you will get more loot per minute played then solo.  I think you'll see that if you follow any decent group around for 5 minutes.

[Sage]

LootPerMinute = LoadRate * KillsPerMinute

LootPerMinute = LoadRate * KillsPerMinute / GroupSize

[Pappy]

good point if you're calculating for a single groupmember.  The formula curve stays the same though; minimize overhead and maximize per-player contrib to lowering downtime and raising damage and you get out ahead.

Currently some classes can probably do better soloing than grouped because the additional player may cost overhead without decreasing downtime or raising damage enough to compensate.

[Pappy]

Just to recap your ideas (+people liked, -people didnt like):

**More class synergy, requirement for endgame: +4 -1
Make some classes more required in endgame, such as tank for tanking, damage class for damage, healer for healing.  Specific requirements for endgame encounters (like a thief for someplace).  Nerf some off-class solo capability (example was clerics tanking endgame mobs).  My thoughts: yup.

**Bonus XP for grouping (contributing): +3 -1
Essentially give some extra XP for making a kill in a group, so that there is an incentive to work together.  Hopefully without handing out free XP to deadbeats.  My thoughts: hard to do right, but its pretty common now in MMOs.  Is XP good enough to encourage grouping though?

**Lower the death penalty: +2
My thoughts: Unsure how this will help encourage grouping, except that it will allow you to group with more mistake-prone players.

**Buff melee endgame: +2
Obviously, allow melee to do damage in endgame (thanks <coder> for making this nearly impossible without nerfs). My thoughts: yes we have plans for this although its a bunch of work to get right.

**Better Loot Endgame: +1
My thoughts: Unclear how this will encourage grouping, without ensuring that the encounter is only groupable.

**Make casual/short grouping experiences easier/fun: +1
No proposal made, but the idea is that there would be encounters which are startable and completable in just a few minutes at the spur of the moment. My thoughts: I'd love to see more detail.  I have an idea how I'd do this but once agian requires work.

**Faster regen time: +1
My thoughts: Unclear how this will encourage grouping

**Nerf scrolls/pots: +1 -3
My thoughts: This is probably a good idea but difficult politically.  Much of our content isnt balanced for 16-spell buffed characters, which has become somewhat of a requirement to play now.


FYI I'm pleased with how you guys managed this in a respectful and thoughtful manner.

[rohan]

In regards to the Bonus XP for grouping question, I would say that it can be a useful supplement to your strategy to encourage grouping, but the influence of XP would be minimal unless it was an unbalanced bonus.
But a small bonus could be a useful positive influence in achieving grouping.
 
In regards to Nerf scrolls/pots, I would quibble about the number of people that favored the idea, I think it's higher, but is debatable and not really important.  But I would argue that this category should be under the More class synergy item rather than a separate bullet item.  Like you said in that item, "a tank for tanking, damage class for damage, healer for healing."  A tank with healing potions (or atomize scrolls) doesn't follow that line of thought. 

As for the political difficulty, it may not be popular, but as a friend of mine liked to say it's "The Right Thing to Do (TM)".   Historically, I would say this has been done and I would encourage this to continue.  As an example, the admins did a player wipe due to the unbalanced multiclass characters.  I wasn't happy about the wipe as I loved my warrior/thief/cleric combo, but I understood that multiclasses weren't balanced (I would argue that they could have been balanced, but that's another discussion).  Back then, player wipes were the norm and expectations were set that radical changes could and would be made to fix game play.  My point is that sometimes change is hard, but it may be the best change for the game.  Player input is valuable and should be taken into consideration, but in the end the admins have to make the call.

Just to recap your ideas (+people liked, -people didnt like):

**More class synergy, requirement for endgame: +4 -1
Make some classes more required in endgame, such as tank for tanking, damage class for damage, healer for healing.  Specific requirements for endgame encounters (like a thief for someplace).  Nerf some off-class solo capability (example was clerics tanking endgame mobs).  My thoughts: yup.

**Bonus XP for grouping (contributing): +3 -1
Essentially give some extra XP for making a kill in a group, so that there is an incentive to work together.  Hopefully without handing out free XP to deadbeats.  My thoughts: hard to do right, but its pretty common now in MMOs.  Is XP good enough to encourage grouping though?

**Lower the death penalty: +2
My thoughts: Unsure how this will help encourage grouping, except that it will allow you to group with more mistake-prone players.

**Buff melee endgame: +2
Obviously, allow melee to do damage in endgame (thanks <coder> for making this nearly impossible without nerfs). My thoughts: yes we have plans for this although its a bunch of work to get right.

**Better Loot Endgame: +1
My thoughts: Unclear how this will encourage grouping, without ensuring that the encounter is only groupable.

**Make casual/short grouping experiences easier/fun: +1
No proposal made, but the idea is that there would be encounters which are startable and completable in just a few minutes at the spur of the moment. My thoughts: I'd love to see more detail.  I have an idea how I'd do this but once agian requires work.

**Faster regen time: +1
My thoughts: Unclear how this will encourage grouping

**Nerf scrolls/pots: +1 -3
My thoughts: This is probably a good idea but difficult politically.  Much of our content isnt balanced for 16-spell buffed characters, which has become somewhat of a requirement to play now.


FYI I'm pleased with how you guys managed this in a respectful and thoughtful manner.