MMO: Why do people not play together?

Even though many people may think that I am solely playing offline games, in fact I am playing many MMO games, too.
But what I see is that many if not most players are playing alone nowadays. They run around alone, do their quests alone and seem to ignore other players. Of course there are groups, too but most of them are "closed" groups - players who know each other or are playing together in a guild. Groups that are not interested in playing with others. And sure there are players looking to group with others or want to help others but it is at least my experience that those are rather few people.

This is the same with SotA. When I play in OPO and if I see other players - which is rather seldom the case - they run past me, ignoring me. Also, reading on this forum I get the impression that people prefer to play in SPO or FPO.

I read about the new company Empyrean who tries to kickstart the MMO genre anew. They say that MMOs have become very anti-social. People don't want to talk to other people anymore. They say that too many players can be deterring for players which I think is an interesting thought. With their new game they want to reduce the amount of players in an online game.

But is this really the case? I don't know. I see it for myself, I don't want to group with people all of the time. I don't want to be involved in a guild as it is too time consuming. I want to have an adventure at my own pace. And this means playing alone most of the time. SotA now does have the "problem" that SPO and FPO can be "exploited" because we don't have to share ressources or enemies with others in those modes which makes those modes more attractive. But this is the basic feature of the game. SotA was announced as a Selective Multiplayer RPG. Switching modes is THE main feature! So basically one can't blame people for playing the game the way it was intended to be played.
But isn't this also showing that more and more people simply don't want to play together with others in a MMO anymore?
Bioware said that the MMO genre evolved from classic MMORPGs to MMO games like The Division and Destiny - games in which we don't have to play with others all of the time and in which we don't have to see other players all of the time.

Is the MMO genre evolving to games that are played in smaller groups or even alone - if we want to? If so then playing alone should definitely be a satisfying experience in an onlinegame.

 

"MMO: Why do people not play together?"

At the moment you have only disadvantages to play Multiplayer online: more lag, less mobs and ressources.
Portalarium should fix this to make the multiplayer part more appealing or this game will definately die (*insert dramatic soundfile here).
IMHO they could delete this "friends online" -mode
MMO-mode and singleplayer-offline is enough.

 

I seldomly play with people that aren't rl friends or part of my Guild.
The interwebz teaches us that it's better that way.

 

If people are concerned that group players have rewards that are unavailable for them, what game rewards and experiences can be provided specially to a solo player?

 

Non.
It's the incentive for grouping.
The incentive for playing alone is the fact that the loot is all yours.

 

That's pretty much why I do it, although you can also add in XP and Resources to gather being all yours as well. I haven't had time to figure out how xp sharing works in this game yet, history of most mmo's is to penalize xp gain in groups. My friends and I always verify the xp spread is advantageous in a game system before we group up to level together specifically because of that history. Keep in mind that if you don't carefully balance which level scene you level up in, you will hemorrhage out your xp pool like your character's throat was slit. So if your friends aren't close enough in skill level to you so that you can share the scenes, you hurt your xp pool. That's complicated any attempt at researching the xp sharing system through groups quite a bit. So many more variables that could affect it, like how many skills each person in the group is training at that time, how many times they attack or use special attacks or level a skill to drain xp, etc.

 

Indeed. And for me leveling alone is already a since in itself in this game. But going to cope with grouping. Ain't nobody got time for the math!

 

There are a couple of small tweaks that would encourage multiplayer experience.

Resource Nodes:
If this was simply tweaked so that each player had his 'own' version of this node I'd get back on multiplayer mode.
If you're after resources currently, you're better off soloing.

Chests:
Some of the control point chests are set up so each player gets his/her own loot, but most other chests are not. If you do tower of the shuttered eye or any other dungeon/instance with a friend, only one of you gets loot. Chillbains has this problem as well. If you're after loot, you're better off soloing.

Monster Spawns:
Most of these are only set up to accommodate a couple of people fighting, if you're running around on multiplayer you will easily have nothing to fight.
This isn't really avoidable without jacking up the spawn rate making small group/solo difficult.

In addition, fighting in a group gives no benefit to xp, it appears to be a straight up division of monster xp amongst players. This doesn't incentivize grouping, most people can make more xp over time on their own. If there was an inherent xp bonus to fighting in a group it would go a long way toward encouraging grouping up & working together. At the moment bringing someone else along is slowing my progress unless they are at exactly the same or higher skill level (and if they're higher, then its the reverse). A xp gain bonus based on party size would ameliorate this somewhat, ie if you're grouped, you each get 60% rather than 50%.


Fixing resource nodes would put me on multiplayer mode at all times unless I was specifically looking for a bit of solo quiet grinding

 

I admit, I haven't started more than a single spreadsheet on this game, which is a first for me

 

Well for me its because generally people are not playing the game like they used to. I'm not saying they are doing it bad I am saying they are doing it different. People use all kinds of third party apps for communication now days. Who NEEDS go be grouped up when you are all plugged into a discord/teamspeak/mumble/ventrillo server. One of the incentives for grouping was the social factor in game, and you needed to be able to see each other and type text was all you had. Now days you have to incentivize grouping for the min/max offering leveling bonus and such to help people interact in game. For people that do not want to use a third party client (us stubborn old bastards) and loved role play through text and actions, its better to be alone. If you like RP other people pretty much such anymore because many do not respect you, they ridicule you, or just not understand you and ignore you. You can talk to people till your blue in the face (in game) and they just stand there, do what they are doing and go about business while you are trying to communicate. Everyone is so busy in RL also, kids running round, watching a movie at the same time playing the game but mining and going through the motions. So hence this is one reason people play alone.

 

The reason for me is pretty easy...as sorry as I am...here we go:

1.) SotA is my retreat from other games, I play it to partially have an off time from my own TS and Clan.

2.) If I happen to play with a friend (happens) I notice I get 1/2 the xp in whatever I do. I have to pull them, since they dont play much, their characters are way below mine...what results in me tanking the mobs and them staying back with arrows or Magic for hours at a time. And I do it...I dont complain...but when I see them online, I notice I dont say "hey" since they could ask "wanna go kill stuff" and that means 1/2 xp for 2x the job...

...that makes me a pretty bad person...I am sorry...but I'm honest, please dont tell that my friends !

 

I don't think anyone should feel bad because they want to be alone. Often times, those people who try to pressure others into this belief that being a solitary person means you're some kind of evil anti social psychopath usually have some other motivation for trying to force others to play with them. I don't think either group of people, party players or solo players are wrong. They are simply different from each other. That's not so bad, is it? Personally, if I had a complaint it would be that there is no reward for exploration in this game. You can search every nook and cranny in a scene, climb every hill, and not find a single thing to say "hey you, you took time to really explore this place, here's a treasure for ya".

 

1) MMORPG is about competition... a lot.
2) Competition = each player want to get more resources than others.
3) Currently solo gaming gives player more resources than in online mode - you could meet more mobs, nodes, chests & etc.

Conclusion:
People would play mainly in solo-mode if there wouldn't be any bonuses for playing MMO-mode - like extra experience or bonus loot

 

I would have LOVED others to be on my party in Ultima 6 & 7.

I tried adventuring with someone in Shroud but it felt awkward. Was he the awkward one or was it me? Lol I had no clue, but I was ditched by the 5th skeleton battle. Where'd you go bugger????? Grrrrrrrr

 

This game has a lot of people from different part of the world, so there could be some cultural difference factor here. As Americans in sub urban or rural areas, they would not be shy to greet people passing by while walking. In urban areas, they are more busy people and less likely to stop and greet. In some other countries, folks don't talk to strangers at all unless they are properly introduced at their social gathering.

Some of us could be introverts as well. So it takes a bit if effort to open up and that may not be what they want to do at that particular time.

 

I'll be honest. I love grouping and don't think I'd play this game solo all the time. That said, grouping isn't all that easy in SOTA.

There is no mechanism for fairly distributing the loot so I end up not taking anything other than the auto split of the gold which results in needing to solo after each group to make enough to buy reagents for the next group outing.

The lack of zone chatter or general chat makes it harder to get to know people in the game. We can't really chat with strangers while fighting until they become friends. I have to accost people in town and block them from leaving until they add me to their friends list. Thank the gods for belly dancing.

There isn't a valid looking for group option in the game or on these forums that I have found.

I'll take the this opportunity to say: Please party with me. I haz rez and belly dancing!

 

It's been moving that way for a long time. But I've noticed it surprising more people in the SotA community than in others because, I get the feeling, there are a lot of non-MMO players in this community and they haven't noticed it before.

Why do people do it? I think people don't like being tied down to playing at certain times, or for certain lengths of time, and being dependent on others, or having others dependent on them. I think it's born of a time poor culture.

Of course, there's also a kind of gamer who simply doesn't like other people, but can't resist being in a game where other people are present, so they can at least show off their latest and greatest and hope they're impressing others.

 

I think we all need to get belly dancing

 

I would say a few things are going on right now that will cause this perception...

1. Probably the biggest reason is due to the land rush. People don't want to show others which lots they are scouting and/or trying to claim. Therefore many will be "hiding" until lot selection is over.
2. Many veterans are grinding away for xp or gathering to keep up with server elite. Keeping up is easier to do after a wipe because early levels are gained quickly and it's the best opportunity to be ahead of the pack. So, people are in SPO or FPO so they don't have to share resources or mobs to kill to keep pace. Once the level gains become sparse due to difficulty and the initial round of decent gear has been produced... everyone will start to catch up and not feel the need to be alone.
3. Performance gets pretty bad when in multiplayer in popular areas.... so it's a matter of even being able to play or not for some. As performance improves, this necessity will fade.

 

Will only speak from own perspective. I nearly always play with other people and so do they most of the time. Some games don't promote playing together. Eve Online makes you want to play together, because solo sucks.