The Death of group play? (Open tapping/contribution discussion)

[BagLady]

The OP is exactly correct.

1) I'm a burg and grouped with a champ. He gets 5x the loot and XP that I get. He finishes kill X mobs quests faster and has to wait for me.
2) I'm an off tank and I don't fight the boss or named mob. I don't get credit for the named kill, so everyone has to wait and do it over, or else move on and I can't complete the quest
3) I am a LM or captain focused on buffing people. Like the burg, I get fewer kills and less loot than my fellows.

I get it that there are people who defend the open tapping, mostly using a 'quit crying it's not that bad' argument. However, nobody was complaining about how groups shared experience and loot before, and nobody has made a reasonable argument as to why this change to groups loot/xp/kill counts is better than it was before.

Sure, like most people I play solo *most* of the time, but I used to have have fun grouping (especially my kids) for a variety of reasons - tough fights that required coordination, speeding up deeds, doing quests to help the younger less skilled people in my household level up. Now all of these are negatively affected. The kids have stopped playing, and I would cancel my subscription, except it is a lifetime subscription.


Please Turbine, put the rules back the way they were for groups. This was a terrible idea.

[Ames]

Just re: this part of your post, it's funny because others have claimed that Lore-masters are one of the primary "victims" of open tapping, yet here you are providing an example showing the exact opposite. So whether it was intentional or not, +rep to you.


A few well-made points. +rep.

I don't see how LM could be victims with widescale AoE and range. I on my RK have had a harder time especially mounted. Not that its difficult but generally I'm the one not getting credit. I dread what my burgler is going to be like. Looks like I'll be using stoop for a stone often...

[Khafar]

Lore Masters, Guardians, Captains, Burglars are all classes which are not primarily DPS classes and who have been specifically designed to aid and support groups using skills that are not recognised as 'tapping' skills. There are only 9 classes in this game and for 4 of those classes to have to change the way they play and abandon their primary role in group play is hardly "niche-of-a-niche".

I think the "niche" comments are probably coming from the idea that relatively few people seem to get into larger groups just to run landscape content. I see tons of duos out there, a handful of 3-mans, and only rarely do I see a larger group. I honestly don't remember the last time I saw a full fellowship out steamrolling landscape MOBs. Makes sense: flattening landscape content isn't really all that fun for long. I do expect to see an uptick in that sort of group at some point, but mostly from gold farmers. (No, I'm not calling regular groups of players doing this "gold-farmers" - just stating the obvious point that gold farmers are going to be attracted to any new way to optimize gold collection).

When I group, I mostly duo with a friend or with one of my kids. At least in small groups, I don't think I've ever seen a "support" class do pure support. They do damage too - just not 100% of the time. That doesn't seem to be the biggest problem for such groups, at least to me. What is? Simply that you have to tap all the targets before you get any credit for them. That will force people to do focus fire tactics in small groups so they can all get all the credit. Broadening the skills that count as contribution will obviously help. My worry is that it will make it too easy for true gold-farmers to set up shop, and do so in a way where the gold collection is both lucrative and perfectly within the rules of the game.

I'm sure someone will pipe up and say "well, I run around doing landscape content in a full fellowship all the time!". OK, I believe that's possible. But I don't believe that's even remotely common, and if it's highly uncommon, that would qualify as a "niche". Of course, Turbine doesn't need to rely on anecdotal evidence for this: they can go find out exactly how people play, and in what proportions.

Khafar

[podgie_bear]

This thread has now reached the point where there are two distinct sides.

1) Those who are asking, "Please let fellowship classes play the way they always have and get equal credit. It won't affect either open tapping or those who prefer to play solo"

2) Those who are saying, "Don't let fellowship players have equal credit. I can't provide any reasonable evidence why not and it won't affect me in the slightest, but I don't want them to!"

No-one has produced ANY valid reason why fellowship groups should be discriminated against that cannot also be attributed to solo players.

Is this thread going to actually produce anything other than bad feelings? This is turning into another of those threads like Forced Emotes. I think Turbine love them as it lets the players shout at each other instead of at Turbine and so lets them get away with doing nothing to resolve the issue!

[maxjenius]

I get it that there are people who defend the open tapping, mostly using a 'quit crying it's not that bad' argument.

I think what people are saying is "Quit crying about it for the moment." For the moment, as Whart pointed out, people will have to just live with it as is. For the sake of argument, let's assume it really does hose up CC/(de)buff classes as much as some say it does. No one is posting "Hey, hosing up Lore-masters, Burglars and Captains is a great idea. Serves those players right for playing one of those classes."

Overall, open tapping is a good thing and if, if, the only choices were "Keep it as is" or "Remove it entirely," my vote (and I suspect the vote of most) would be "Keep it as is."

[Whart]

I think the "niche" comments are probably coming from the idea that relatively few people seem to get into larger groups just to run landscape content. I see tons of duos out there, a handful of 3-mans, and only rarely do I see a larger group. I honestly don't remember the last time I saw a full fellowship out steamrolling landscape MOBs. Makes sense: flattening landscape content isn't really all that fun for long. I do expect to see an uptick in that sort of group at some point, but mostly from gold farmers. (No, I'm not calling regular groups of players doing this "gold-farmers" - just stating the obvious point that gold farmers are going to be attracted to any new way to optimize gold collection).

When I group, I mostly duo with a friend or with one of my kids. At least in small groups, I don't think I've ever seen a "support" class do pure support. They do damage too - just not 100% of the time. That doesn't seem to be the biggest problem for such groups, at least to me. What is? Simply that you have to tap all the targets before you get any credit for them. That will force people to do focus fire tactics in small groups so they can all get all the credit. Broadening the skills that count as contribution will obviously help. My worry is that it will make it too easy for true gold-farmers to set up shop, and do so in a way where the gold collection is both lucrative and perfectly within the rules of the game.

I'm sure someone will pipe up and say "well, I run around doing landscape content in a full fellowship all the time!". OK, I believe that's possible. But I don't believe that's even remotely common, and if it's highly uncommon, that would qualify as a "niche". Of course, Turbine doesn't need to rely on anecdotal evidence for this: they can go find out exactly how people play, and in what proportions.

Khafar

A question for clarification, not because I think you're wrong, but because I'm not fully understanding: how would allowing aggro/cc/etc. skills to count as a tap make things easier for gold farmers? What would be the difference between using one type of skill vs another in terms of ease of farming, since a skill would still have to be used?

[maxjenius]

I don't see how LM could be victims with widescale AoE and range. I on my RK have had a harder time especially mounted. Not that its difficult but generally I'm the one not getting credit.

Regarding just your Rune-keeper, this illustrates that it's probably just a matter of different play styles rather than what classes are involved. I'm soloing through RoR with a Champion and duoing a Rune-keeper (paired with a Hunter). With the Rune-keeper, I don't have any problems getting "taps" in. But perhaps I play differently from you.

[Isharra]

I don't see how LM could be victims with widescale AoE and range.

In scenarios where LMs are coming out as victims, it is by their own choice. They have the tools (as you say, widescale AoE and range) but choose not to use them, opting instead for skills they prefer (no matter the impracticality for the situation).

As for the mounted RK situation... I've been playing my RK and mounted, I can just pepper the mobs with my 'invoke the elements' skill, or use my heavy horse and trample everything in sight (as long as they aren't mounted hehe).

The class I have most sympathy for is the burg, with a near complete lack of range and aoe. I think that when I start leveling mine through Rohan, I will be using throwing weapons a little more, as well as using my damaging tricks on all the mobs we're fighting (which is the same thing I did before Rohan, so this isn't particularly game-altering). And again, there's always trample (talk about a GREAT skill).

[Trusilver]

This thread has now reached the point where there are two distinct sides.

1) Those who are asking, "Please let fellowship classes play the way they always have and get equal credit. It won't affect either open tapping or those who prefer to play solo"

2) Those who are saying, "Don't let fellowship players have equal credit. I can't provide any reasonable evidence why not and it won't affect me in the slightest, but I don't want them to!"

No-one has produced ANY valid reason why fellowship groups should be discriminated against that cannot also be attributed to solo players.

Is this thread going to actually produce anything other than bad feelings? This is turning into another of those threads like Forced Emotes. I think Turbine love them as it lets the players shout at each other instead of at Turbine and so lets them get away with doing nothing to resolve the issue!

Considering that you and others, myself included, have asked this exact question at least a dozen times in the last fourteen pages... the answer is no. Because they don't HAVE any legitimate reason to not want fellowship players to get credit. All they have is strawman arguments and the concept that the big, bad gold farmers might figure out how to use this to their advantage, maybe.

[maxjenius]

Considering that you and others, myself included, have asked this exact question at least a dozen times in the last fourteen pages... the answer is no. Because they don't HAVE any legitimate reason to not want fellowship players to get credit. All they have is strawman arguments.

Talk about a straw man: "Those who are saying, 'Don't let fellowship players have equal credit. I can't provide any reasonable evidence why not and it won't affect me in the slightest, but I don't want them to!'"

No one is saying anything even remotely close to that. That's not even a straw man, it's a vapor man.

[Maryam]

Group play on the landscape was left behind with release of Moria, if you've been fellowing the landscape since you left Angmar/MistyMts./Eregion then you've almost been cheating since it is so easy solo. If people want to group then there are instances and PvP in the Moors. Bringing in open tapping and punishing of fellowing on the landscape seems the logical conclusion to the path this game has been on long time.

[Stormwall]

This thread has now reached the point where there are two distinct sides.

1) Those who are asking, "Please let fellowship classes play the way they always have and get equal credit. It won't affect either open tapping or those who prefer to play solo"

2) Those who are saying, "Don't let fellowship players have equal credit. I can't provide any reasonable evidence why not and it won't affect me in the slightest, but I don't want them to!"

No-one has produced ANY valid reason why fellowship groups should be discriminated against that cannot also be attributed to solo players.

The answer would be to provide ad-hoc and fellowships with equal rewards, but different distribution, as I proposed here:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...52#post6479652

With the proposal:
- All members of the fellowship get equal rewards within the fellowship.
- A fellowship gets equal rewards to an ad-hoc group.

[Khafar]

how would allowing aggro/cc/etc. skills to count as a tap make things easier for gold farmers?

The easiest situation for gold farmers is if simply being in the fellowship allows you to get full credit (and loot). But only slightly more difficult is requiring trivial skill use, particularly for skills which don't draw any aggro. Setting up a multi-boxed character to fire off a non-aggro skill every 20 seconds (or whatever) is trivial, and you can absolutely count on the fact that it will be done, and it wouldn't violate any of the current rules.

The bottom line is that designing a system into the game which multiplies loot with close to zero risk is just a Bad Idea. I think it's a Bad Idea here, and I think it's a Bad Idea in GW2. It wouldn't be such a bad idea if gold farmers and other players who like to exploit anything they can didn't exist, but they do, and game companies absolutely need to pay attention.

Yes, it totally sucks that perfectly fine gameplay is prevented by these twits. But ignoring them will ruin things in a different way (although it'll take awhile), and Turbine knows this after their experiences with the bots in Asheron's Call.

Khafar

[Pyroburn]

The easiest situation for gold farmers is if simply being in the fellowship allows you to get full credit (and loot). But only slightly more difficult is requiring trivial skill use, particularly for skills which don't draw any aggro. Setting up a multi-boxed character to fire off a non-aggro skill every 20 seconds (or whatever) is trivial, and you can absolutely count on the fact that it will be done, and it wouldn't violate any of the current rules.

The bottom line is that designing a system into the game which multiplies loot with close to zero risk is just a Bad Idea. I think it's a Bad Idea here, and I think it's a Bad Idea in GW2. It wouldn't be such a bad idea if gold farmers and other players who like to exploit anything they can didn't exist, but they do, and game companies absolutely need to pay attention.

Yes, it totally sucks that perfectly fine gameplay is prevented by these twits. But ignoring them will ruin things in a different way (although it'll take awhile), and Turbine knows this after their experiences with the bots in Asheron's Call.

Khafar

Actually, there are far more easier ways for multiboxers to do it... Most people that I know that MB have gaming keyboards to make it easier. Since it's within the TOS, the open tapping system is actually a blessing for them, cause they mostly make hunters anyways. They don't even need to fire off a skill, just set auto attack.

[BagLady]

if you've been fellowing the landscape since you left Angmar/MistyMts./Eregion then you've almost been cheating since it is so easy solo.

This is the sort of incorrect thinking that many people here display. I play with my kids. We group. For them, the content is not easy, and losing the fun of leveling together on the landscape is a real problem. Because for us, this is no where near as fun.

[Pasoth]

The class I have most sympathy for is the burg, with a near complete lack of range and aoe. I think that when I start leveling mine through Rohan, I will be using throwing weapons a little more, as well as using my damaging tricks on all the mobs we're fighting (which is the same thing I did before Rohan, so this isn't particularly game-altering). And again, there's always trample (talk about a GREAT skill).

Having levelled 2 burgs solo in beta and 1 in live in a Duo with a champ. I can honestly say avoid levelling in a group. It will slow you down immensely, you will waste morale pots and wear out your tab key. Take the knives if you want to ninja a tap while waiting for the 5 seconds left on your stealth cooldown, I personally don't use a consumable when I can run at someones target, kill it, then stealth and kill my next two targets and hit stealth again. You won't find it very sociable, other players will barely see you on foot.

Mounted you will be one shotting mobs and wondering where your fellows are if you are grouped. You are better off avoiding grouping so you are not constantly tapping a mob and waiting for your fellow to hit it so you can kill it. At 79 I could solo Kramp(the 85 fellow Warband in Live, Beta I was soloing Bugud, The raid warband), so there is no need for burgs to be in a fellow in Rohan.

In other words the only reason for a burg to group in Rohan is for the chat channel, which you can overcome with an outside voice software.

Burgs are great fun in a group when the class can be played properly, Fellowship open tapping in current form removes that ability and reduces the burg to a tab targetting button masher. There is no rotation of skills or finesse, It is pure and simple hack n slash. Tab Mash Tab Mash Tab Mash.. You will barely use stealth or aim or tricks.

Worst of all I actually feel sorry for my champ friend who I have been levelling with in Rohan. Champs are so much more fun solo when you can just go all out all the time, and not have to hold back waiting for someone to tab all the targets.

Group play on the landscape was left behind with release of Moria, if you've been fellowing the landscape since you left Angmar/MistyMts./Eregion then you've almost been cheating since it is so easy solo. If people want to group then there are instances and PvP in the Moors. Bringing in open tapping and punishing of fellowing on the landscape seems the logical conclusion to the path this game has been on long time.

I soloed all of those regions on one toon or another, as did most of us no doubt. If a fellowship quest was too hard or mechanically difficult to solo, You grabbed a group or skipped it and came back to it another time. If you were a burg you just did it anyway. Mini's too were exceptional solo if abit slow in SoA. There was a level 50 LM in my kin who used to farm Skybreaker for Crafting mats, I was always in awe of that.

Grouping for solo content is less about cheating and more about being social and learning the basics to playing your toons in a group. Yes there was the odd gold farmer or mutliboxer you saw on the very odd occasion. Yes fellowship quests need to be reworked as content is left in the dust.

Soloing Rohan is cheating really by your terms, the content is not very hard at all and the gear grinds have been completely removed along the way. Getting to 85 and having never been in a group is quite possible and very sad state of affairs for the game. It also seems to be the direction(read: future and hence specualtion) and downward spiral this system brings in which is a real worry.

So if I want to faceroll it solo or with a friend what's the difference? Apart from the fact the system is now actually forcing my hand and discriminating against an entire class. I just want to be able to play my class properly if I do Duo it! Yes I could kill 1 mob while the champ kills 8, but I may as well solo if that's case, its of no benefit to a burg.

Avoiding the landrush in the new content either hasn't been difficult, but if anything in a group its worse than with the previous tapping rules. Now I am waiting for my fellow because someone else killed the mob before my fellow did got a tap. While I wouldn't suggest opening tapping in general should be removed, I am not seeing the benefit it provides and it definitely isn't in anyway balanced.

[Ames]

Regarding just your Rune-keeper, this illustrates that it's probably just a matter of different play styles rather than what classes are involved. I'm soloing through RoR with a Champion and duoing a Rune-keeper (paired with a Hunter). With the Rune-keeper, I don't have any problems getting "taps" in. But perhaps I play differently from you.

Its not a problem with the tapping more than its a issue of the other person one shotting the target from their mount before I can tag it or get a heal tick on the person so not necessarily class problem versus system problem for not giving credit fellowship wide.

[Redit]

I think I am gonna jump on the bandwagon that people in a fellowship should be given credit for monsters that were killed by the fellowship regardless of whether or not they damaged or healed, mainly for one target classes like burglar or loremaster.

that being said, I played a warden first through this, I am a soloer (and can't wait for hytbold, best thing I ever heard) I just rode my war steed through a large camp of orcs all the way to the end dismounted and fought all like 15 on-level orcs. it took me about 5 minutes to kill them all. I have zero problem with someone coming in and shortening that time as long as I get credit/loot and I don't die and they don't die. I have already showed myself that wardens can survive just about anything and it is thrilling to take on that many dudes, but if I wanted a challenge I would open up a goblin-town throne room instance and solo all of it at the same time. as far as it goes in the field I welcome someone doing some damage so they can get credit also.

if it took ten dudes to kill one guy then that means 10 pieces of loot were put into the game to be sold or used meaning the auction house could fill up more quickly, so I love the open tapping, the ad-hoc helping thing especially if the player is about to die then I actually help them instead of just dealing damge to get xp/loot/quest credit.

but in a fellowship it should be automatic that if one person damages a creature it should be tapped for the whole fellowship or even if one person each from ten different fellowships attack it. grouping up should be more benefical than not.

[Rippentuck]

This thread has now reached the point where there are two distinct sides.

1) Those who are asking, "Please let fellowship classes play the way they always have and get equal credit. It won't affect either open tapping or those who prefer to play solo"

2) Those who are saying, "Don't let fellowship players have equal credit. I can't provide any reasonable evidence why not and it won't affect me in the slightest, but I don't want them to!"

To be more accurate, I think the two sides are:

1. Those who understand that there are many other ways to "contribute" than just DPS (like, you know, the other skills that entire classes were designed around?), and are seeing the absurdities this change caused being played out as we speak.

2. Those who aren't aware of what non-DPS classes do, or why their skills are just as valid a contribution as DPS, and who don't give a flying flip about the good of the game as a whole, as expressed in terms of the satisfaction of the greatest portion of the player base.

In short, it's:

1. Those who understand the entire situation and its consequences.

2. Those who don't understand the entire situation and its consequences.



It's all about the definition of "contribution." And I, for one, don't want some clown who doesn't undertand non-DPS classes presuming to define it, much less having that clown's definition implemented into the game, such as has already been done.


Rip

[Sir_Thorblod]

This thread has now reached the point where there are two distinct sides.

1) Those who are asking, "Please let fellowship classes play the way they always have and get equal credit. It won't affect either open tapping or those who prefer to play solo"

2) Those who are saying, "Don't let fellowship players have equal credit. I can't provide any reasonable evidence why not and it won't affect me in the slightest, but I don't want them to!"

No-one has produced ANY valid reason why fellowship groups should be discriminated against that cannot also be attributed to solo players.

Is this thread going to actually produce anything other than bad feelings? This is turning into another of those threads like Forced Emotes. I think Turbine love them as it lets the players shout at each other instead of at Turbine and so lets them get away with doing nothing to resolve the issue!

QFT.

Again, I just don't get the people arguing against giving fellowship players full credit... it just seems like they want to argue against it without having ANY reason or arguments, just to spoil our fun or something...

[Khafar]

I just don't get the people arguing against giving fellowship players full credit...

To be clear, I actually think that this sort of mechanic is just a Bad Idea in general... it makes it far too easy for people (esp. gold farmers) to set up "loot vacuums", and that will have a negative impact on the game over the medium to long term.

That said, if they're going to keep it around, I'm for fixing some of the problems with fellowships - I just don't want Turbine to do so in a way that makes the gold farmer issues even worse. Still trying to figure out how Turbine can differentiate between real players just playing the game as intended, and automated bots snarfing up loot off the landscape en masse so it can be sold to players for real $$.

Obviously, Turbine needs to enforce the sale and purchase of gold for $$, but there's no sense in giving gold farmers shiny new tools to use to help ply their trade. Perhaps how likely you are to get a loot or cash should drop off on an open tap drops off the longer you've played on a given day? That would obviously apply to everyone, not just to fellowships.

I know this probably seems paranoid to some, but I've seen bots ruin games before, and I absolutely don't want to see it happen here.

Khafar

[NotImportantPerson]

This thread reminds me how bad lotro forum community is.

Anyways I don't really get why some people can't understand the point of this thread.

I kinda agree with the author that group system has been nerfed. The whole point of grouping with other players is to make virtual life a bit easier, to ease the grind a bit. Remember moment in the books when Sam carried Frodo to the mount doom on his back? Thats kinda what fellowships should be about. So I definitely agree with the author.
As for tapping, it is definitely a great feature, reducing grind. I think devs should go few steps further and make it available on every single map. It's like that in Guild Wars 2 and it works just fine.

[podgie_bear]

This thread reminds me how bad lotro forum community is.

Anyways I don't really get why some people can't understand the point of this thread.

I kinda agree with the author that group system has been nerfed. The whole point of grouping with other players is to make virtual life a bit easier, to ease the grind a bit. Remember moment in the books when Sam carried Frodo to the mount doom on his back? Thats kinda what fellowships should be about. So I definitely agree with the author. Tapping is a great feature, reducing grind. I think devs should go few steps further and make it available on every single map. It's like that in Guild Wars 2 and it works just fine.

HELL NO! Not while it is totally screwed. Get it fixed first before you screw the game up even worse!

Introduce it to the rest of the world now and you screw things up for half the classes, if you want to use it outside Rohan you need to either fix the discrimination against groups, or redesign all the support classes or they are crippled and half their skills are useless. It may work for fast DPS classes, but it is absolutely usless for support classes. What are they supposed to do, play with a couple of skills only and be unable to use the rest? That would be a real crock of .........!

[Khafar]

I think devs should go few steps further and make it available on every single map. It's like that in Guild Wars 2 and it works just fine.

Please, no. It's bad enough to have it in one region, but at least it's in a high level area where it will take a week or longer per character for a gold farmer to be able to get to. Doing it everywhere would be an open invitation. This problem is only really just getting going in GW2 (because it's a new game), but it's going to get vastly worse in the coming months. Just watch.

Khafar

[NotImportantPerson]

Please, no. It's bad enough to have it in one region, but at least it's in a high level area where it will take a week or longer per character for a gold farmer to be able to get to. Doing it everywhere would be an open invitation. This problem is only really just getting going in GW2 (because it's a new game), but it's going to get vastly worse in the coming months. Just watch.

Khafar

Then simply you could only get xp and deed but no loot. Simple solution to the problem.