I Do Not Understand Z/B Thinking On Solo/Group Progression

Innocente · June 2014

So, all through the normal game, and even into VR levels, Z/B has pretty much made a Solo targeted game. Indeed, they seem to have gone out of their way to actually discourage grouping with the phasing and solo instances.

Then, all of a sudden, you are supposed to be grouping with your friends for the content! Huh? What friends? When are people supposed to have developed those sorts of relationships along the way? Why would they?

And find dedicated 12 man teams for timed content? Don't make me laugh. Sure, a few guilds will have the foresight to have put that sort of community together, but very few.

Load gun.
Aim at foot.
Pull trigger.

Thulsola · June 2014

Innocente wrote: »

Load gun.
Aim at foot.
Pull trigger.

While I understand your point, I do think your post clearly demonstrates the issue this community has. Before Craglorn many were clamoring for a more traditional MMO experience. Now that they have given at least some aspect of this to the community - everyone who likes the solo nature of the game is whinging that they can't solo the content.

Zenimax only really has two choices here - they can try to have some content that for the solo traditional ES player and some content for the more traditional MMO player, or they can make the game single focused and kiss an entire group of subscribers goodbye.

I think Zenimax is scrambling to figure out this balance right now - while also trying to fix a ton of bugs, character balance, and hacking issues they weren't prepared to handle. But if this game is going to be a commercial success - and therefore around long enough for us to enjoy in the long term - we are going to have to accept that not everyone games the way we do, and that some content will be less enjoyable or harder for our game play style than other content.

drogon1 · June 2014

Thulsola wrote: »

Innocente wrote: »

Load gun.
Aim at foot.
Pull trigger.

While I understand your point, I do think your post clearly demonstrates the issue this community has. Before Craglorn many were clamoring for a more traditional MMO experience. Now that they have given at least some aspect of this to the community - everyone who likes the solo nature of the game is whinging that they can't solo the content.

Zenimax only really has two choices here - they can try to have some content that for the solo traditional ES player and some content for the more traditional MMO player, or they can make the game single focused and kiss an entire group of subscribers goodbye.

I think Zenimax is scrambling to figure out this balance right now - while also trying to fix a ton of bugs, character balance, and hacking issues they weren't prepared to handle. But if this game is going to be a commercial success - and therefore around long enough for us to enjoy in the long term - we are going to have to accept that not everyone games the way we do, and that some content will be less enjoyable or harder for our game play style than other content.

I think this is a good summary. ESO caters to two niche groups of players - solo RPG questers, and realm pvp'ers - that have almost nothing in common. The pvp'ers fall more into the traditonal MMO player group, and they do their best to rifle through the pve content (typically just grinding mobs and skipping quests) to get to max level in order to pvp.

A triple-A MMO like ESO needs to have much broader appeal to support its development. They would do well to ask themselves why most players play MMOs (hint: it's not to primarily quest).

c1r3gamerb16_ESO · June 2014

Personally I think Zenimax missed the boat regarding group gameplay because they made the traditional game guilds into glorified member only stores. Since launch the vast majority of guild recruiting has been along the lines of "Looking for a large trading guild - join us because we have 500 plus members and guild store!" Consequently people have joined those "guilds" merely to trade and as many posts here testify most are failing because people aren't talking or bonding as a "community".

In traditional MMO's the guild structure was a well defined group of players with a similar game style and mind set: PvP guilds, PvE guilds, RP guilds and those that were a mixture of all three.

The traditional guild structure allowed players to quest solo or in groups, and generally organised themselves into trained fighting units complete with tactics to battle end bosses etc.

If ESO was only a solo game then there would be little need for a proper guild mentality, but it seems Zenimax can't make up its mind and therefore we now have group targets where a public group isn't going to cut it.

However I am sure that in time people will realise trading guilds will need to focus more on the game rather than high membership numbers for trading leading eventually to groups of friends battling together to win through.