Comments on: Fixed Levelling Groups: Myths and Mythconceptions

By: A holiday, a holiday, the first one of the year! Best of 2009. « Welcome to Spinksville!

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:06:28 +0000

[...] Fixed Levelling Groups: Myths and Mythconceptions [...]

By: Bo

Bo — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:51:13 +0000

Have to agree, when we left our Alliance characters early last year a few weeks later we decided to try a levelling group. We all knew the game and made classes to compliment each other and provide groups, it lasted about a month and a half before the majority just stopped doing it, the guild was even named “Friday Nite Project”, I still have the characters on Draenor from it. I think a problem with it is if you already have stuff at end-game level the grind up can seem like a bit of a pointless time-waste. Some people just don’t get on with alts.

By: Holy Ghost

Holy Ghost — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:34:06 +0000

Posts like this make me miss my EQ grinding groups.

By: Tarsus

Tarsus — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:15:25 +0000

One of the things that is often missing from MMOs in terms of leveling groups is the concept of experience/gear/etc as a kind of shared resource for the group. In classic pen&paper RPGs, if a player cannot make it on a given night (or has to leave early), if the party kills monsters and gets loot, chances are they’re still going to get something useful for them, and maybe even get some experience (most hosts I’ve run with like to keep their players on approximately the same experience curve). While one might argue that it would be easy to abuse a system where you effectively leveled as a group/guild, I honestly think it would be better to to let the players manage that risk and allow for easier sharing of rewards with friends.

By: Ysharros

Ysharros — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:24:52 +0000

Great post! I’ve never been in a static group (not since those pre-quest directed days you mention, where it was just a matter of hooking up with whoever else happened to be around for everyone’s mutual benefit), but I still had a few preconceptions about them. I hadn’t considered the downsides nor the work involved in keeping one going.

Of course, as Arb points out, it’s rather like having a regular bowling night in terms of organisation, varying commitments, casual/less so, etc. That kind of thing always takes more work than we realise when we set them up. Thinking about it, if I could magically figure out one thing from the start it would be people’s relative levels of interest — slipping attendance is probably a big issue in static groups.

And yes, in the last few weeks back in CoX I’ve come to realise that however limited it may be in some ways, it goes much, much further than most games in terms of allowing friends to play together.

By: Ardua

Ardua — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:26:10 +0000

Throw on top of the CoH thing such things as the level pact and oroboros missions. The tools are there to keep the group level no matter what and to always access all the content.

By: spinks

spinks — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:52:51 +0000

I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right! I know I’ve learned a lot about tanking from playing my non-tanky alts and watching how other people do it.

By: vlad

*vlad* — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:50:40 +0000

Another problem playing in a closed group is, that you don’t learn alternative ways of doing things, both party-wise and character-wise.
Learning from other players, even in a pug, can lead to improvements in your own game play.

By: arbitrary

arbitrary — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:37:29 +0000

Well, you know I’ve had some success with it, but I think we’d all agree that as the games have progressed it’s meant some work (a bit like any social relationship). We have good times and bad times but we’re always in touch. And in both WAR and LotRO we learned the game at different paces and levelled a little apart, but made time to play together too.