Groups of 8 vs 6

[Khaylara]

Side note, 2 of the posters aren't vets, myself and Celler are the casual type of vet. Just to clarify things, I am in max gear and with maxed skills (after 3 years, I'm sure you can imagine my leveling experience was similar to yours). Many other players, who are less casual do "faceroll" dungeons in a group of 3-4. I think I went in GK level 2 with only 3 or 4 people several times.So the dev and the group size have to cater to the average player who will not be able to run GK in 3-4 but in 6 it's fairly okay. Citan is perfectly aware that some of us are effectively level 90 instead of 70 due to various skills synergies and indepth knowledge of skillsets+good gear. If he was to adress that type of player he would've made a group of 3, instead it's 6 precisely because he considered the average player.

Take into consideration that by the time you reach level 70 you will have things figured out, res skill, high level endurance and first aid (providing you're not exclusively focused on combat skills). But you do get there by running crypt, goblin dungeon or soloing non-elite mobs, like you are doing and like all the vets did at some point. You are not supposed to have high lvl anatomy, gourmand etc while running crypt at low level, that's precisely why you are there I don't see how a group of 8 would change that tbh, it would mean less mobs for a group member to autopsy, butcher or loot.

[Citan]

First, I want to clarify that I'm talking about the three "group dungeons". (Dark chapel, minotaur dungeon, and Gazluk Keep.) There's also lots of work to be done with the other content in the game -- especially low level content. But that's somewhat tangential here. Someone mentioned the Serbule Crypt -- that's probably the weirdest of the game's dungeons because it's literally 5 years old. It's the only dungeon from "pre-alpha 0" to still exist. It's been the testing bed for all sorts of things, so it has small group encounters, large group encounters, solo areas, quest NPCs, and a ridiculously large level spread of 25 levels (level 5 monsters in the front door and level 30 bosses at the very bottom). It's been the place we figured out how the game works. And as we understand how the game works better, I plan to redo all of the dungeon's content during beta. It'll have a much more specific level range -- maybe levels 15-20, something like that.

So if you're concerned about low-level content -- that's completely understandable. And we would love feedback on the existing content! (Not in this thread, though, please.) We're working on a bunch of new low-level content that will be added to South Serbule soon, including several large dungeons. So even if we don't immediately change the existing content, we're taking lessons from that content as we move forward.

---

So about these group dungeons -- I don't mean to say that reducing group size is a magical fix for grouping. It's definitely something I'm considering, but it's just one of a LONG list of steps I'm considering. (Beta will be chock full of changes in this area.) My point is mainly that INCREASING the group size would be steering us in the wrong direction.

What sort of changes will we see here eventually? I'm not sure of all the steps yet. But we'll definitely see a lot of ability and treasure rebalancing. The sheer number of offensive mods a player can have right now makes the "large group of glass cannons" approach always viable, and that makes it hard to support other combat roles -- without REQUIRING those roles. (The last support skill, Priest, is waiting in the wings, because right now there's not enough "room" in groups for pure healers -- and Priests lack the offensive versatility of the other support skills like Druid.) I'd like for players to have less DPS overall, and for group monsters to hit harder and have more weird powers -- and give players more ways to counter those powers. But obviously that will require a lot of balancing.

For related reasons, I'm considering rewriting how buffs work. Originally I expected all group content to be 3-man groups, and although that's changed, buffs are still balanced around 3-man groups! In a six-person group, most buffs are literally twice as good as I expect them to be.

So I'm thinking about other ways to implement buffs. Instead of "everybody in the group gets 25% melee evasion", maybe it's "the first X people that are attacked get melee evasion" or something like that. I need a system that scales better, from solo up to the largest group size. I don't know what the answer is yet though.

A lot of the steps we need to take aren't fully obvious yet because there's not enough players doing group dungeons. The group dungeons require higher-level players, and there just aren't a lot of those in the same level range at the same time. I do get some very valuable anecdotal info, but that only lets me make changes a few times. Without a constant stream of people running a dungeon -- dozens of groups every day -- it'll be impossible to keep them in sync with the rest of the game's changes. (This is also true for much of the game's economy: "needs more people".)

That's why we're working as hard as possible to get the game ready for Steam ASAP. (Of course, the presentation needs to be the best we can manage before we put it up on Steam -- but we're working very hard to get there.) When the game is on Steam, with the new GUI in place, we'll consider the game in "beta", and that's when all the fun balancing work can REALLY begin in earnest.

For now, these are just pain points we'll have to deal with. But it will get better. Content difficulty won't ever be as tight as it is in some games, because we're so free-form that it's impossible to predict a group's exact capabilities. But it will be BETTER than it is now. Both for soloing and for grouping!

(Also: often when I post more than once in a thread, it kills discussion. That sucks. I don't mean to dissuade people from posting here! I wanted to weigh in, but I'd love to hear more feedback.)

[Niph]

It seems to me that the OP did not say "we're too weak with 6 people in group, make it 8" but rather "we're a group of 8 friends that want to play together more often than being just 6, and having to split in two groups is a mess". So perhaps it's not a balancing issue, but a social one.

With the current state of the game, when 7+ people want to play together, they must
. Split in multiple groups.
. Create an ad-hoc chat, because they may not be in the same guild, or don't want to pollute guild chat, nor nearby chat.
. Pay attention to which mobs belongs to their group and which doesn't. These mobs also cannot be specifically selected.
. Loot all bodies until they find one that doesn't say "not yet".
. Pay attention to where their groupmates go (for the purpose of assisting and hitting the same mob).

So, I would suggest to implement more chat options to connect groups to the same chat easily, a list of mobs with aggro on your group and a way to select them, display options to only show bodies that you can loot (or something similar), and tags over your groupmates to help you see them moving and fighting.

[Khaylara]

Yep, it doesn't seem to be a difficulty issue. Why not create alliances? For example if you intend to make a 3 players group allow them to "ally" with another group of 3 in higher difficulty zones (for example level 2 of GK or bottom Lab). Example-group A and Group B take separate paths in GK level 1 and meet at the portal, ally for the boss there then continue as an alliance.

Tbh I dislike my own idea cause it's messy but if it's only the social aspect and maybe some bosses/elites being too difficult it could maybe work. I'm personally happy with 5-6 ppl but from what I've seen ingame the change to groups from 10 to 6 was a big deal to many players. I can't really see the reason, most of these players are perfectly able to function in a small group, maybe it's like Niph said, they would rather run with guildmates and don't like saying "group's full". Imo we have to get used to that for when we have more players but it does kill the social aspect a bit (even though gameplay-wise I prefer the reduced group size)

PS-we do have a discord server for the social part

[Arundel]

First, I want to clarify that I'm talking about the three "group dungeons". (Dark chapel, minotaur dungeon, and Gazluk Keep.) There's also lots of work to be done with the other content in the game -- especially low level content. But that's somewhat tangential here. Someone mentioned the Serbule Crypt -- that's probably the weirdest of the game's dungeons because it's literally 5 years old. It's the only dungeon from "pre-alpha 0" to still exist. It's been the testing bed for all sorts of things, so it has small group encounters, large group encounters, solo areas, quest NPCs, and a ridiculously large level spread of 25 levels (level 5 monsters in the front door and level 30 bosses at the very bottom). It's been the place we figured out how the game works. And as we understand how the game works better, I plan to redo all of the dungeon's content during beta. It'll have a much more specific level range -- maybe levels 15-20, something like that.

So if you're concerned about low-level content -- that's completely understandable. And we would love feedback on the existing content! (Not in this thread, though, please.) We're working on a bunch of new low-level content that will be added to South Serbule soon, including several large dungeons. So even if we don't immediately change the existing content, we're taking lessons from that content as we move forward.

---

So about these group dungeons -- I don't mean to say that reducing group size is a magical fix for grouping. It's definitely something I'm considering, but it's just one of a LONG list of steps I'm considering. (Beta will be chock full of changes in this area.) My point is mainly that INCREASING the group size would be steering us in the wrong direction.

What sort of changes will we see here eventually? I'm not sure of all the steps yet. But we'll definitely see a lot of ability and treasure rebalancing. The sheer number of offensive mods a player can have right now makes the "large group of glass cannons" approach always viable, and that makes it hard to support other combat roles -- without REQUIRING those roles. (The last support skill, Priest, is waiting in the wings, because right now there's not enough "room" in groups for pure healers -- and Priests lack the offensive versatility of the other support skills like Druid.) I'd like for players to have less DPS overall, and for group monsters to hit harder and have more weird powers -- and give players more ways to counter those powers. But obviously that will require a lot of balancing.

For related reasons, I'm considering rewriting how buffs work. Originally I expected all group content to be 3-man groups, and although that's changed, buffs are still balanced around 3-man groups! In a six-person group, most buffs are literally twice as good as I expect them to be.

So I'm thinking about other ways to implement buffs. Instead of "everybody in the group gets 25% melee evasion", maybe it's "the first X people that are attacked get melee evasion" or something like that. I need a system that scales better, from solo up to the largest group size. I don't know what the answer is yet though.

A lot of the steps we need to take aren't fully obvious yet because there's not enough players doing group dungeons. The group dungeons require higher-level players, and there just aren't a lot of those in the same level range at the same time. I do get some very valuable anecdotal info, but that only lets me make changes a few times. Without a constant stream of people running a dungeon -- dozens of groups every day -- it'll be impossible to keep them in sync with the rest of the game's changes. (This is also true for much of the game's economy: "needs more people".)

That's why we're working as hard as possible to get the game ready for Steam ASAP. (Of course, the presentation needs to be the best we can manage before we put it up on Steam -- but we're working very hard to get there.) When the game is on Steam, with the new GUI in place, we'll consider the game in "beta", and that's when all the fun balancing work can REALLY begin in earnest.

For now, these are just pain points we'll have to deal with. But it will get better. Content difficulty won't ever be as tight as it is in some games, because we're so free-form that it's impossible to predict a group's exact capabilities. But it will be BETTER than it is now. Both for soloing and for grouping!

(Also: often when I post more than once in a thread, it kills discussion. That sucks. I don't mean to dissuade people from posting here! I wanted to weigh in, but I'd love to hear more feedback.)

Thanks for the feedback. As others mentioned the concern we have is more than group size is limited when its rather effortless with 6 (or even 5) properly modded. I'm arguing that most dungeons should be fairly social experiences where if you can only bring 4-5 it could be a challenge but if you want to bring 8 you can. Then I think content could be added specifically to be challenging. Just my personal preference though and certainly not based on any difficulties I have had (all of the dungeons have been a pushover for my groups but we had some carrying from high level players). I just hate when guild members are left out because group size is limiting, but I suppose at any size this could become an issue.

On the topic of Serbule Crypt, I'd be sad to see it changed. I had so much fun there when I started that I virtually lived there, farming the mobs, learning about skills, and exploring for a few days to a week. Be careful about how much you change it because its currently very fun, and particularly scary even for a strong solo player who outlevels it (those bosses are rough!).

I'm glad to hear that you believe mods need rebalancing as they are obviously out of control. I think damage for certain skills needs to be brought in line (Archery for one), but I'd also hate to see this game go the way of so many MMO's with homogenization of classes and roles due to overbalancing. One of the main attractions for me is the games chaos and immersion, and everything being a "bit" haywire as far as skills and builds go takes me back to pen and paper days with Dungeons and Dragons, trying to learn how to properly build a character and being overwhelmed (in a good way) but all the rules! So I guess the challenge is bringing numbers in line, tweaking mechanics, while still keeping this games very precious sense of "not being like any other MMO". Thanks again for your feedback, it really made my day to see the devs thoughts on this subject and about balance in general.

[LaRaj]

For me, many of the dungeon runs I do are to get my guild involved or to get a group of friends together to just explore. Many of these dungeon mobs are so strong that individuals and lower level characters are afraid to explore the new content. There is unfortunately a big emphasis on having exactly the correctly powered group going, this creates a need to have a perfect build in order to contribute. I think that sometimes lower level player can become intimidated if they cannot perform to the higher level players standard. There have been many instances I have seen that lower level player and lessor experience player have been verbally attacked for performing under par in a group dungeon.

To me, the loot is not so majorly important for groups. Loot is goof but I think that a lot of people just like the adventure. Maybe less gear loot and more items of value (high value non-magical gear and jewelry?) might help reduce the need only to improve gear. Another thing to consider are the elite mobs. If an elite mob gives loot to every single group player, regardless if there are 3 people in the group or 20 people in a group, than maybe that in itself is a problem. Maybe instead, the first three people to loot this elite mob could get loot, this could be done on a rotating player basis like has already been implemented, this might make the shared looting useful again also.

As Niph stated some of the major problems with doing multiple groups comes down to communication. When you have to smaller group (to try to equally divide power) it becomes impossible to monitor how other players are doing. It is harder to know who is dieing or dead. It is harder to give directions from one group to another. Its fun getting a group together and running a dungeon. I am not so particular on the people I have in my group, I'll take low level player and high level players, for me its the group run thats fun. By reducing the party sizes wouldnt it further increase the need of have ONLY high lvl player or ONLY certain types of skills vs a free for all kind of experience. It seems to me that reducing the size might make grouping more cut throat and particular. One challenge to having multple groups is just being able to separate chat texts. Many of the text chat fonts are the same color and/or very difficult to distinguish from each other. in a dungeon like Winter Nexus talking in nearby is challenging due to the mobs that spam the nearby chat making communication to multiple groups challenging.

Maybe an option to allow larger groups that did not share xp, and/or did a complete round table loot system might be good too. That way a guild or a large groups of friends could still adventure together without breaking the system. Just my thoughts.
-LaRaj

[Khaylara]

Just an afterthought, if you want to guide some lower level guildies through a dungeon w/o spoiling the experience for them you could make a group of 6 and you (the high level player/players) stay a tad behind them and coach them via voice chat. Like a tutoring system. This way you don't interfere with the game mechanic and still get to help out your mates.

I suggested it a while ago actually but people took it the wrong way, like I expect reward for my help which was not the case. It would provide people with an incentive to help-a mentoring system. Let's say a high level player mentors a group of 5 lower level guildies (random choice of numbers), teaches them how to build, helps them through dungeons, assist for bosses etc. The lower level people could recommend their mentor and the mentor could receive a cool long term badge or something (not something gamebreaking but a badge or title or even a cosmetic item like a cape or hat).

Thoughts?

PS I know my suggestion is seemingly off topic but it's actually not, I think it would support the social aspect. Also as alternative to voice chat the mentor and the apprentices could create a temporary chat room to use till the apprenticeship is over.

[Roekai]

Serbule Crypt -- that's probably the weirdest of the game's dungeons because it's literally 5 years old. It's the only dungeon from "pre-alpha 0" to still exist. It's been the testing bed for all sorts of things, so it has small group encounters, large group encounters, solo areas, quest NPCs, and a ridiculously large level spread of 25 levels (level 5 monsters in the front door and level 30 bosses at the very bottom). It's been the place we figured out how the game works. And as we understand how the game works better, I plan to redo all of the dungeon's content during beta. It'll have a much more specific level range -- maybe levels 15-20, something like that.


---

Originally I expected all group content to be 3-man groups, and although that's changed, buffs are still balanced around 3-man groups! In a six-person group, most buffs are literally twice as good as I expect them to be.

I'd love to hear more feedback.)

Okay so I must say I am vehemently opposed to you changing Serbule Crypts.

A) It is the only Dungeon from "pre-alpha 0." That is cool. You can always add more dungeons. It's like tearing down an old cool historic building that is weird looking but structurally sound.

B) All of the different types of encounters leads to player mingling - every time I go to buy Holistic Ink or farm some Fire Dust, I end up helping/meeting/talking to/giving gear to newbs. Sometimes building lasting relationships. I think the melting pot is good, and more zones should be like this. I like the fact that @ level 70 I still have to go to the Myconian Caves (for Diamonds, of course). I think rather than eliminating this factor, it should be implemented into more zones.

C)I think the zone is functionally perfect, as is; I leveled from 10-30 there and still go back to this day. Its got puzzles and traps, long hallways and multiple floors - interesting bosses, creature diversity, and a bunch of lore. If anything, expand the graveyard or something to be bigger and add smaller tombs (i.e. the Eltibule Crypts).

I will be heartbroken if Serbule Crypt is redone.


----------------


Whats wrong with 3 man groups? Why can't we try three man groups? Then you could have up to 3 groups link together to form a raid, with only the party that does the most damage getting exp, while the others can loot (or have loot be turn based between the two groups). And this feature could be locked in certain dungeons, or have limitations (i.e. only 2 group raids in Labs).


---------------


Bring evasion back. Seriously I will never stop wanting evasion back. It is the single most important mechanic in forcing people to play sustain instead of mash glass cannon and having all the DPS mods rule.

[LaRaj]

Just an afterthought, if you want to guide some lower level guildies through a dungeon w/o spoiling the experience for them you could make a group of 6 and you (the high level player/players) stay a tad behind them and coach them via voice chat. Like a tutoring system. This way you don't interfere with the game mechanic and still get to help out your mates.

Not everyone uses the voice chat. This would only work for those who do have it. Otherwise it still creates the communication barrier, as well as the benefits of knowing how your party is doing in battle. Being part of a group purely for communication and orginazation is on major aspect. As mentioned before maybe different types of group migh be an option. One that maybe limits the elite loot and allows a large group just to group together and have some fun.

[Crissa]

Three-person group makes it harder to balance.

You lose someone in a three-part team and you've lost 33% of the team. Lose one in a 6 and you've lost 16%.

That person may or may not have been carrying a most-have ability. In a three-team, that's a 1-in-3 chance. In a six-team, that's at most a 1-in-6: Or less, since a bigger team is more likely to have overlap.

There's more chance in a smaller team that a needed ability or mix of abilities won't be able to be dug out of alternate abilities of three players than six. This is especially important if a boss is resistant to a damage type which a skill focuses on (like fire, crushing, physical, indirect, etc.)

And of course, the opposite is true for damage output/life: A bigger team can spread-fire and alpha-strike more. A smaller team will have more trouble doing that.