Groups of 8 vs 6

[LaRaj]

Grouping and looting currently as most people seem to agree is a mess. I for one would love to see a change in group sizes from 6 to 8. Filling a group with 6 people is very limiting especially for members within a guild. A group of 8 would still allow you to restrict groups and loot abuse while leave group sizes more manageable for raids and quests.

[Citan]

But a group of six already steamrolls existing content. So I've been thinking smaller, not larger. How the heck would I make content for 8 people that's engaging and interesting when I haven't managed it reliably with 6 yet?!

This seems like a "we can be more inclusive while we steamroll through content, yay" thing. I'm not interested in that. The point of group dungeons is to provide interesting adventures, and I need to reach that goal of being interesting and compelling.

But don't worry, we will find other ways and places for large groups (like guilds) to have fun together later. (That's, frankly, pretty easy compared to getting small-group difficulty right.)

[drivendawn]

Completely agree Citan, I would love for it to be 4 or 5 to make them more dangerous and challenging.

[ShieldBreaker]

This idea just popped into my head, something like Dungeons have areas where group limit changes size. At the start of a dungeon the group limit is really small, like 1-3. Then at some safe room, bottleneck point the limit increases to 5 or 6, At another point the limit increase to maybe 8-10. Maybe the hallway leading to a boss encounter splits, and the group size to go to one boss is back down to 1-3, maybe the other hall is also 1-3 or maybe it is more. Maybe the reasoning is one group is going for the boss, the other is going for a guard post, control room, Treasure Room, Armoury. I see this idea working with dungeons that have more than one entry point. I'm not sure, but if the limit also weighed the power of the player in the group and said that one really powerful player was an army of one and could group with no one in the next section of the dungeon, that would certainly change things.

Just rambling, what if there was a cursed cave and there where four items that had to be carried, one by each person. If all four carried an item equipped in the group, then no negative effect would happen. But for each person in the group over that limit, or any person outside the group would be hit with an debuff or damage over time. An undersized group would get hit with a fragment of the negative effect. So soloing would be an extreme challenge, running with an oversized group would be an extreme challenge. Running with the right group or slightly off group would be doable. The Items reappear at the start of dungeon, when a group completes or is wiped out. Those people outside the group would get hit with the whole effect and maybe the effect ramps up based on the number of people over the four, past the entrance area of the cave.

[Arundel]

With the massive difference between a geared and coordinated party with massive mitigation sharing there is such a massive gap between an average group and a prepared group that I am positive you can't balance it without having particular dungeons that are for good groups only. The difference between these groups is like having twice as many players if not more. This balance issue makes me agree with Laraj that it is fine to make all regular dungeons a fun and casual experience that allows a large group to explore a dungeon. I will be emailing you a large amount of data on "balance and power level" soonish but the short version is you actually can't balance the dungeons right now to offer challenge with any disparity in gear level as mod and buff stacking for prepared players spins out of control too quickly. I am not against but you will need to focus on separating content somewhat to manage the issue.

[Khaylara]

Six seems an okay compromise to me. I mean six people with top gear and max lvl in combat skills (max for a certain dungeon that is) might find some content too easy but on the other hand not everyone is max level or in top gear so an average geared group might find the same content more challenging.

[Silvonis]

I'm in agreement with Citan. Dungeons should have lower party sizes. These are dungeons, not raids. You're approaching 'raid' sized groups with an increase.

Dungeons are intended to be difficult and there is a certain progression to them. You might have to work to better your self before going from one dungeon to the next. Simply looking at it from a skill level is not adequate when determing a characters ability. There's that of course but also player skill, gear, food, and other enhancements come into play.

It's pretty common to see dungeon groups limited to 4 or 5 people, which I think is the 'sweet spot'.

[Arundel]

I'm in agreement with Citan. Dungeons should have lower party sizes. These are dungeons, not raids. You're approaching 'raid' sized groups with an increase.

Dungeons are intended to be difficult and there is a certain progression to them. You might have to work to better your self before going from one dungeon to the next. Simply looking at it from a skill level is not adequate when determing a characters ability. There's that of course but also player skill, gear, food, and other enhancements come into play.

It's pretty common to see dungeon groups limited to 4 or 5 people, which I think is the 'sweet spot'.

The point I was making earlier in the thread is just that its not possible to "balance" dungeons to where they offer a challenge to the majority of players. If you make a more difficult dungeon like Gazluk Keep, the average or new players will have trouble and find the dungeon to be at this level of challenge. However the decently geared/coordinated that share buffs and stack mitigation will dominate these dungeons without any challenge, as they are right now. As soon as people figure some basic stuff out with buffs and how to mitigate damage, these dungeons will no longer hold any challenge. I'd argue that we need to have some harder content that requires coordinated play, maybe not "heroic" dungeons, but separate dungeons which are balanced around the top end of gear and coordination. Then we could have a more casual approach for the average player. I really don't mind if the dungeon is 6 player max for a group, but a lot of guilds feel bad leaving so many players out when they do a dungeon run for a guild quest or otherwise. If we're arguing that the dungeon should be challenging, wait until people have a slight clue about how to gear and you'll see that they are not going to challenge for long.

[Celler]

I kind of feel that how it plays now is far removed from how it maybe later.
A balanced lvl 70 group all geared out will probably not exist when the lvl cap moves upward .
Currently many get to current max lvl and farm and spec up there gear, later when lvl 80 and 90 are available folks may well just plod on by, I imagine it will be folks with higher lvl skills but perhaps less quality gear that frequent it.

I've enjoyed my time in the newer Dungeon though to be honest I feel its beyond me and I draw too heavily on my group for my liking, but I'm not really into farming gear these days and spend little time re modding stuff so its hardly surprising.

When the later folk come they may well play it much different, as they will have everything available at once and will not have long periods of grind/down time whilst there chosen skillset is being developed.

I can still have plenty of fun in Yeti,DC and Nexus with groups even though my lvl has well gone beyond those places recommended lvl.

I honestly don't think 6 man groups of lvl 50 are running Nexus and DC.

[kazeandi]

As a new player (1 month in), I feel I need to reply, because the thread seems to be replied to mainly by veterans.

I've yet to run a dungeon on level, with other new characters. Appropriate levels, appropriate gear, same level of inexperience, same lack of general skills necessary to run something properly.

When I was in the Serb crypt, I ran on cheese I looted from mice. I ran with whatever gear I could get my hands on, so no optimized mods for my build. No extra skills learned from the trainers, because the favor system was arcane to me at that point and I lacked vital boni from things like Anatomy, Gourmand etc, which give you quite a boost.

The lack of a regular resurrection spell, and cooldowns on every ability, in combinations with no auto attacks means that grouping is kind of rough. You lose a group member, you might have to backtrack to pick them up because a) they might not find the way due to a lack of minimaps in dungeons and b) respawn might make it impossible to regroup. Monsters add through walls, some even nuke through walls.

This game is anything but "easy" for a character the content was designed for. It's of course a piece of cake for a veteran leveling their 20th combat skill to max. Guild groups of course make a difference, coordination and maybe voice chat help smoothing out runs. All this makes dungeons look easier than they really are.

In a random group of strangers attempting a boss, you get a wild mix of classes, sometimes with no synergies or them going to waste, because of no coordination and bad communication. Raw power of mobs needs to take things like this into account.

I don't know, but when I look at how hard I've been working on getting really anywhere on this character and a developer writes that people "faceroll" the content, I wonder if they're actually playing their own game with the same handicaps new players have. It's discouraging to read old players with all their support skills at max complaining how easy everything is.

Of course it's easy when you have a valid build, the items for it, the complementary skills at their required level, fed with high regen foods, double the hitpoints a "real" character at that level would have. That's like turning on godmode in GTA and complaining that it's too easy.