Mindblowing suggestion (problem related solutions)

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ghoulavenger wrote:

I'm not against people groupping, and I believe there has to be some advantage to doing so, otherwise groupping would not be very lucrative. The only thing I found truly unfair about groupping is the map inequality. One map becomes six maps in a group, which means that if map drops are balanced around groups then solo players get shafted. Especially when GGG is trying to balance high level maps around them being luxury items.

That is exactly what I said too. ^^ This one map become 6 map thing is the main source of all problems. To deal with I suggested a xp penalty per player in a group so that in the end the same amount of maps would be needed for the same amount of xp. And like you I believe that there has to be an advantage for groups because otherwise no one would play in groups. Therefore I suggested +5% or +10% more loot for each additional member. :)

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666lol666 wrote:

And like you I believe that there has to be an advantage for groups because otherwise no one would play in groups.

I've seen this repeated so many times and it seems like a really strong assumption to be making.

The implication is that the only reason to play the game is to accrue in-game wealth or characters as fast as possible and all other reasons are discarded. Fun is discarded; being friendly is discarded.

Even if playing in a party was sub-optimal, party play is still a fun thing to do and people will do it solely for that reason.

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Specific remarks:

re: party map v solo map, the best suggestion I've seen is to have a button on the map device that regenerates the same map that was cleared but keeps the same number of portals. This means a solo player that uses one portal per map gets 6 maps per map; a duo gets 3 maps per map; a group of 6 gets 1 map per map. It also handsomely rewards not dying (and thus not losing portals) and it leaves the economic argument (number of portals tied to amount of loot you can possible haul back) alone. It still has its own problems (groups of 4 and 5 are biased against, exp tuning would either be broken in maps or in story), but it's a start.

re: exp gear, just remove it. Ideally remove mf as well because both are meta-gamey bullshit mods, but they're never going to do it. (At least IIR/IIQ was removed from the tree, the IIQ gem/gear IIQ was removed or nearly removed, and values of IIR have been heavily decreased over the last few years.)

re: auras, they should be self-affecting by default and people should have to go out of their way to make them affect allies, much like Conduit. Generosity should be inverted, basically. As for reservation in general, it would be fun to experiment with auras only ever reserving life or being some other "painful" trade, because giving up mana is fucking nothing. "Auras reserve off of max resists." :P

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pneuma wrote:

Specific remarks:

re: party map v solo map...

re: exp gear...

re: auras...

All your suggestions would be great solutions too! #ILikeIt

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pneuma wrote:

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666lol666 wrote:

And like you I believe that there has to be an advantage for groups because otherwise no one would play in groups.

I've seen this repeated so many times and it seems like a really strong assumption to be making.

The implication is that the only reason to play the game is to accrue in-game wealth or characters as fast as possible and all other reasons are discarded. Fun is discarded; being friendly is discarded.

Even if playing in a party was sub-optimal, party play is still a fun thing to do and people will do it solely for that reason.

There are a few reasons why people group. Such as playing with pals, boosting quantity on dom runs, sharing maps, sharing masters, etc. If you start removing bonuses to groups, then people that are primarily solo players like me, start ignoring them even more. There are some that would enjoy the group mechanic, and form parties around it anyway, this is true. But for people like me, without the group incentive I would find other peoples builds to be detracting from my own experience.

For example:
The archer that clears the screen before I have a chance to do anything -- what do I do now?
The summoner that makes it impossible to see what I'm attacking -- and I actually put up with this one.
The person that runs ahead and ignores the rest of the group -- why am I partying with this guy to begin with.
The person that runs a lag build such as mjolner -- my fps tanks.
The person using knockback -- dangerously annoying for close range builds like incinerate.

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silumit wrote:

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Why would a group get penalized for working together just because "solo" players don't like it?

Read carefully - that's not a penalty but a removal of over-the-top bonus.

A removal of a bonus = a penalty

no, a penalty is a penalty, a bonus is a bonus, a removal of a bonus is not a penalty (and a removal of a penalty is not a bonus also)

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pneuma wrote:

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666lol666 wrote:

And like you I believe that there has to be an advantage for groups because otherwise no one would play in groups.

I've seen this repeated so many times and it seems like a really strong assumption to be making.

The implication is that the only reason to play the game is to accrue in-game wealth or characters as fast as possible and all other reasons are discarded. Fun is discarded; being friendly is discarded.

Even if playing in a party was sub-optimal, party play is still a fun thing to do and people will do it solely for that reason.

Although I'm not really disagreeing with you, I feel you didn't take this to the next step. From a game design perspective, should this type of fun be paired with sub-optimal progression, equal progression, or optimal progession?

Well I'll just answer that: optimal. Without a doubt. As a game designer you want your players to have fun. Mechanically rewarding fun, as opposed to punishing it, is the hands-down correct choice.

A party of friends working together and having fun should out-progress solo. Period.

That said, you do not want this design subverted to encourage unfun play. For example, in many cases partying with total randoms is not fun; there's the whole random asshole factor, communications issues, general chaos, etc. I wouldn't go so far as saying random parties should be punished relative to solo - if you discourage people from random parties, how will they make friends? - but you don't want to give incentive to avoid graduating from reason parties to friend parties.

This is why suggestion #1 in the OP is by far the worst of the three. A coordinated group of friends is far more likely than a random party to have a synergistic set of auras. These types of benefits are precisely where parties should draw their strength, because they encourage that graduation from random party to friends-list party.

However, with added focus on build synergy, etc, raw buffs like party XP and map sustaiment should take a backseat. Again, I don't feel these should be worse than solo, but random partying should be like a blind date, hoping to find a match, not a reward in itself.

OP's ideas 2 and 3 aren't crazy. Overturned, perhaps.

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pneuma wrote:

re: party map v solo map, the best suggestion I've seen is to have a button on the map device that regenerates the same map that was cleared but keeps the same number of portals. This means a solo player that uses one portal per map gets 6 maps per map; a duo gets 3 maps per map; a group of 6 gets 1 map per map. It also handsomely rewards not dying (and thus not losing portals) and it leaves the economic argument (number of portals tied to amount of loot you can possible haul back) alone. It still has its own problems (groups of 4 and 5 are biased against, exp tuning would either be broken in maps or in story), but it's a start.

That is a nice idea, though maybe a bit too black&white. How about something a little more random?:
The last monster in a map gets an extra chance to drop a good (+- 1 level) map, based on the amount of portals left. Example: Each portal gives 15% chance, then a solo player who never left the map and fully cleared it gets an extra 75% chance to get a good map.
This would probably be easier to implement, too, as it needs a new mechanic only in one place.
Oh, and pls give us Toras monster compass once there are < 20 monsters left, else finding the last hidden mob will just be doubly frustrating.

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silumit wrote:

no, a penalty is a penalty, a bonus is a bonus, a removal of a bonus is not a penalty (and a removal of a penalty is not a bonus also)

Actually yes, a removal of a penalty would equate to a bonus, just as the removal of a bonus would be a penalty in itself.

It's simple math, man

The main implication is that speaking of penalties and bonuses there must be some baseline. Therefore a removal of a penalty that is put onto the baseline is no a bonus just a return to baseline. Vice versa of course for bonuses. Whether maps have this baseline I don't even speculate that far whether it exists or not. Seems like its either Group or not so they are not technically bonuses or penalties if there is no middle ground unless we consider soloing baseline and then there is only the bonus of mapping in groups and no "real" penalties from soloing.

As far as balance is concerned the baseline is always set against the worst possible scenario. The baseline would be groups of 6 in this case, not solo. Solo does have some advantages though:

1. Even though there are more drops in a party, the average drop per person is less, which means unless someone is running MF you're better off loot wise playing by yourself.
2. Players not in the same section of a map do not share xp, but still suffer from increased mob life/damage, which means if people run ahead you get more difficulty with less payout.
3. In a group you have to worry about allocation of drops, which you do not have to do solo -- don't have to be upset someone else got your andvarius, etc.
4. In a group you have to worry about people doing things that can break your build, such as running discipline on an RF char (more ES = more burn on self), so it is just more convenient.
5. Depending on the gateway the group has, it might be considerably more laggy to group with them. So if you want a more fluid experience play alone.

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666lol666 wrote:

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He might be the gem mule or something, so he needs that extra xp so they can get those empowers out quicker, etc.

That's no valid argument for me because it's just another unfair advantage of players playing in groups.

These people have friends!? THAT'S CHEATING