Matchmaking Mode = Party, Towns and Overworld = Open. Good?

There's no orb required (at least currently on QA). It's just a "universal" chat option. You can have it active or inactive on any of your tabs (I.e., it is 100% optional).

 

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but is not all of the Chats,( local, Zone, etc) all optional.

You can choose not to have any chat windows open, or select what you want in your tabs? And again it has been a while since I looked at the options, but you I do believe you can turn off Chat Bubbles (the ones over Avatar's heads) so you can basically eliminate all forms of unwanted communication from other players.

So effectively interaction is limited to seeing other avatars running or standing around, which makes the world feel more alive.

*edited for typos*

 

Correct, as I noted above, the universal chat is optional. The being forced into multiplayer is not optional.

 

The ability to turn off or hide chat is good if you are concerned with communication with other players.

The inability to be in private mode to hide where you are going on the overworld map (when you wish to) is a bad thing IMO.

Also, turning off the chat options does very little to improve that lag issues of forced multiplayer (especially in towns).

 

Great change, love it.

 

Its all or nothing tho. So you can turn off local chat, disable zone chat, etc. But then you can't hear anyone in that chat, not just those outside of your group/guild. Not to mention, you need to actually configure each chat window, which means I need to monitor what happens on another computer to allow my kid to play. That sucks, and honestly shouldn't be necessary.

I really don't understand how filling the world with avatars that are not going to respond or interact with you is going to make this feel better for everyone else. Does the world feel more full when you get ignored? Do you feel better seeing other people that pretend you don't exist?

How about this; you guys can see ME if you are in multiplayer, but I can't see you. I can't hear you. Its just like I'm in FPO (which I am), but you might see me in the world. I'll be oblivious to your attempts to interact, because I shouldn't be seeing or hearing you anyway. Then you get your world full of people, and I'm still not bothered by any of you? Deal?

 

Hmm, problem is Jayson, you aren't the problem they're trying to solve, you're the problem they're creating solving the problem... I believe Players and Port alike want as many players who are currently in the game to be visible and interacting be this for trade, social, groups, PVP, immersion/sense of living world, to attract and retain players etc.

If you see a player and can't interact with them, really only one of half a dozen objectives is accomplished but another set of issues is generated As a new player familiar with MMO format I would be baffled if I saw players running around and I wanted to say hi and they were in virtual glass cabinets, untouchable. BUT its a better idea than none at all.

 

The problem is they are half-assing the solution. They want players to be able to easily select their mode for adventuring, but switch back to multiplayer when they leave an adventuring area. Which is fine. But to do that, they are taking away the option for everyone. That is not acceptable.

Expand the Multiplayer settings window so you have both a adventure mode and a social mode. If you want to be solo and multiplayer, great. If I want to be friends only for both, great. Default to both multiplayer and problem solved.

 

The solution is very simple. Call what they've created "mixed mode", and simply make a checkbox that you can toggle. Have it checked by default for R59. People who don't want to use it such as @Browncoat Jayson and myself can uncheck it. I'm guessing a large majority of people would be happy with being in mixed mode, and those few of us who don't wish to be, don't have to be. Problem solved. @DarkStarr @Chris

 

this exactly. i like the idea of the new mode and will probably spend most of my time in it, but there are times when i won't want to and people who will never want to, and forcing that helps no one.

 

That's a good point. Personally, I would have preferred combining Party with Private (since they are functionally equivalent anyhow), then adding some sort of "semi-party" mode that would be Open in towns/overworld. The simplest thing would be to just re-purpose Party mode like that, and leave Private alone.

- One of the big problems was people going into Party mode and forgetting, sometimes for multiple days. By making Party mode work like Open in towns/overworld, this reduces the negative result of forgetting.

- Some people really want a Private mode where they don't encounter anybody else at all, for various reasons. PvP areas are the only thing that should override this.

- Private mode can be left alone to still match with the party in adventuring scenes like it does today. Since they selected Private mode, they wanted to be private anyhow, so they'll only see the rest of the party inside of adventuring areas.

- Sometimes a town scene will go wonky and you need a fresh instance so that you can do something. A few weeks ago I logged in one of my alts in the Oracle temple in Central Brittany to do the daily oraclebux, but the Oracle never appeared. I tried exit to menu/resume, but that didn't work because there was someone else in the instance, keeping the broken instance open. I had to switch to Private mode to get an Oracle to talk to.

TL;DR: if Private mode remains as-is, and only the behavior of Party mode is changed to be open in "public" areas, then I'm happy.

 

I could not care less either way... Only reason why I go in SOLO mode, is to not compete for the nodes, since they are few and far between, and slow to respawn.... other then that, I mainly play in multi play online.

 

Pretty sure my suggested solution addresses all of your points. One could simply uncheck the mixedmode box if they needed to force a scene respawn in the case of the oracle loading issue you hit.

 

Are the Private and Party modes still exactly the same? If so then why not repurpose one of them so that we have Open, Private/Party and Mixed modes?

 

Yep, basically what I was saying, except I went a tad further to realize that you could leave the mode names as-is and just change Party mode behavior. Often the least patch is the best patch.

 

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. Are they the same as what? If you're question is, are they the same as they were in R58, the answer is no. In R59, you're forced to always be in mixed mode, regardless of your setting (multi/party/private). When it was multi/friends/private, the 3 modes made sense to me. Currently I can see no difference between party & private. Regardless, my suggested solution really addresses all of these things. You can be multiplayer, or party, or private, and optionally have mixed mode if you're in party or private. *If* "party" mode really means "friends online" still, then my solution is optimal. However, if it's simply party or private, then that differentiation makes no sense, and your suggestion is a great solution (multi/mixed/party), since party and solo are identical as far as I can tell. If you're not in a party, you're private, and if you're in a party, then you see them.

 

I don't want it messed with. Perfectly happy players in solo mode now will have a hassle. Reminds me of the PVP zones where you are forced multi and pvp. Perhaps if knowing there are lots of people around is so important, then if you like solo mode all the time, they could represent others with little balls of light like they do now when you are dead.

 

I'd really like to hear from @DarkStarr or another dev as to what they are trying to accomplish. What happened to community discussion, especially prior to huge changes that affect a large number of the players.

 

The Private mode and Party mode were exactly the same. You could party with other people in either mode. I was asking if they're still the same.

Right, and it's always been that way. When they were named Multiplayer, Friends and Solo the Friends and Solo modes were still the same.

 

Cool, thanks. I never used Friends mode because I never saw a reason for it (I am either solo, or in a party with my wife which I can still do in solo mode, or I'm in multiplayer for a dance party sometimes). I thought maybe Friends mode (back when it existed) meant that you could see all of your friends on the map, etc. Since that wasn't the case, I can't see a reason for anything other than multiplayer/mixed/solo modes.