Comments on: Grouping as the Better Option

By: Chosen at Level 10 at Kill Ten Rats

Chosen at Level 10 at Kill Ten Rats — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:02:58 +0000

[...] like the team support effect of auras. I tend to go with Toughness in RvR: more damage resistance for us and less for [...]

By: Shaman at 10 at Kill Ten Rats

Shaman at 10 at Kill Ten Rats — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:03:59 +0000

[...] and there are buffs. The resistance buff is what I asked for: instant-cast, whole-group, and it lasts an hour with negligible cooldown. I can toss it [...]

By: gattsuru

gattsuru — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:17:09 +0000

One interesting part about City Of Heroes/City of Villains is that it provides unusual incentives toward large groups. While you can easily play the game in small groups or solo, and experience most of the same content, there are rewards for groups unrelated to content, money, or experience. A solo scrapper can almost certainly run through the various Rikti War Zone arcs, but going in a large group instead means he or she will get Zoo Keeper and more of the Rikti-beating medals for costume pieces. They may also do better on the Damage Taken badges. A solo defender can run through the Clockwork King story arcs, but going in a group does the force multiplication thing and gets the gear-killing badge and helps toward other badges.

By: Yeebo

Yeebo — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:46:52 +0000

@Ravious

Wow, I didn’t know WAR did that with all of their quests. That’s pretty much exactly what I was suggesting. If only I had the PC to run it well.

By: Openedge1

Openedge1 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:48:29 +0000

@Thallian
As Sente said. GW does not “require” Grouping. But, if you wish to group, you are not stuck waiting hours on end for a “Healbot” or “Warrior” as you can just add a henchie or hero if they are not available.
LFG for hours like I remember doing in EQ2, WoW, LOTRO is not needed in GW.
I still remember needing one boss in GW, and my group makeup was not working. I needed Necros. Lo, and behold. One shout is all it took to find the exact other player with a match.
It seems to promote quicker groups actually.
Weird.

I like it…a lot.

By: Thallian

Thallian — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:01:59 +0000

couldn’t agreee more Zubon. @Sente, that can work but some people hate pets.

By: Sente

Sente — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:20:39 +0000

Another approach that is used is the Guild Wars way - all content is group oriented, but not all members of the group need to be real players.
This approach is neither encourage nor enforce, at least since most content is scaled so that you can complete it with only one real player in the group - at least PvE. PvP is a very different matter of course.

While not directly encouraging grouping I think the Guild Wars leveling approach is pretty nice for content that does not scale - reaching max level is pretty much at the point when you are done with the extended newbie content.
The vast majority of the content is all at the same level, so sidekicking is pretty much a non-issue and everyone can group with everyone without trivializing the content.
If you do not have 8 people for you group, add some NPC group members to fill the remaining slots. Or don’t, if you think you can handle the content with fewer group members.

By: webrunner

webrunner — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:02:24 +0000

There are things in CoH that do have interesting synergy: For example, Demolitionists. Three demolitionists can wipe a party of three even if one demolitonist is no trouble for one, due to their amazingly good AoEs.

Generally, in CoH, the wqay it scales it makes exp gain faster in parties then if the two people did it solo: but not enough to make soloing worthless. There IS the issue with archetypes.. Dominators and Defenders don’t solo well and there’s the fact that a Stalker can solo virtually any non-kill-all mission in approximately five minutes, but that’s different.