06-01-2004, 01:32 AM
Thank you FenrisWulf for a quick summary of why I posted it.
Pete, why do you feel that having a larger party going into the instance is "wanking"? Because the user interface that Blizzard designed would only comfortably handle showing four other party members on the screen without crwding at its lowest resolution? I have seen what some of the interface mods do when trying to squeeze those parts of the graphics down to make a more viewable area. On my system they look like crap; not something that I would have wanted to play with or put up with if I was paying for the game.
I would hazard to say that most likely that is the reason that party size was set at five instead of some other higher value. Not necessarily a case of "the game is only designed to have no more than five character doing some parts of it". I know that you started fairly late in the first push, did you get to the point of doing the Defias Traitor quest in Westfall? The best cases that I have seen of getting that open area quest done is when there are a few others outside of the party getting the quest that are also assisting in clearing the way. This is particularly true if the ones doing the quest are of level that is indicated for doing the quest.
I also am hearing a similar thing from others concerning the quests in the instances. How many of the Lurkers have completed the various parts Wailing Caverns when they are still able to get the experience for the mobs in it. Or are they having to finally complete it at a level that most of the mobs no longer give them any experience? Would it have worked better for them to have been in a position of doing the Wailing Caverns at say level 17 or 18 if they could have been working in a party of 8 to 10? Better able to sustain a speed through parts of it or able more easily ressurect many fallen characters in a pinch? As it is, if you are ending up having to try to do something like this at a somewhat higher level, then that is like the level 45+ character coming back to help do Diablo in normal difficulty in D2.
If you have a group of more than five that want to try to paly together as a team like your orc team in the other thread, they you start running into how to get a couple of odd members through some of the quests that are restricted to giving credit for only one group. It sound like the method of linking groups that they are planning on would allow both groups to be able to get credit for something like Van Cleef at the same time if needed. For now the "exploit" would give a feel of how parts of this would end up working in an instance even though only one group can get credit for parts of the quest at one time (taking out the unique bosses). This would be a way to see just how balanced these quests are for when the more advanced form of grouping is introduced. That may be more of why some quests are labeled as 'elite' than just that it would require a party to do the quest; but rather that the quest is one that many should group together on to avoid having to wait for situations like a delayed respawning (defias traitor in the early beta with his ~30 min respawn or the prospector run in Darkshore with his still current 30 min respawn).
Personally the group size of 5 has to me always appeared to have been for interface design considerations, not a point of the game is 'intended' to balnced for that at a maximum. Consider this example from the other end of the specturum. One of my latest characters has been working through the alliance areas (some interesting changes so far), but when I got the quest to find the missing soldiers in east Elwynn Forest. For those familar with it, this is generally reguarded as a quest that needs a group to complete due to the number of murlocs surrounding one of the quest points (that normally requires 2 quest dialogs to do the scroll down dispaly before you can get out of there). There was no one else around when I got to that point so I soloed it at level 8 (or was I level 7? it was a few weeks ago).
With a game like this, you make part of the challange yourself. Do not count on it being forced on you by the designers. If it is forced, then most likely a hard setting will only result in product that fails in the marketplace due to driving away the bulk of the potential audience. I have played game like this (non-computer) because they could afford to target a small audience, but they were not generally well know outside of the minority that participated in them.
Quote:Just why did you take the time to put that link on this board?For primarily what Fenris listed. While a couple like Bolty may not feel any problem about exploiting the method of climbing mountains to see areas that Blizzard did not want them to see, many would still draw the line if they thought it was giving an "unfair" advantage against some of the actual playing situations. But if you had looked over the material describing how they were planning on having the instances work from their site prior to the launch of the beta, you might have seen were they had mentioned having linked parties to go into them.
Pete, why do you feel that having a larger party going into the instance is "wanking"? Because the user interface that Blizzard designed would only comfortably handle showing four other party members on the screen without crwding at its lowest resolution? I have seen what some of the interface mods do when trying to squeeze those parts of the graphics down to make a more viewable area. On my system they look like crap; not something that I would have wanted to play with or put up with if I was paying for the game.
I would hazard to say that most likely that is the reason that party size was set at five instead of some other higher value. Not necessarily a case of "the game is only designed to have no more than five character doing some parts of it". I know that you started fairly late in the first push, did you get to the point of doing the Defias Traitor quest in Westfall? The best cases that I have seen of getting that open area quest done is when there are a few others outside of the party getting the quest that are also assisting in clearing the way. This is particularly true if the ones doing the quest are of level that is indicated for doing the quest.
I also am hearing a similar thing from others concerning the quests in the instances. How many of the Lurkers have completed the various parts Wailing Caverns when they are still able to get the experience for the mobs in it. Or are they having to finally complete it at a level that most of the mobs no longer give them any experience? Would it have worked better for them to have been in a position of doing the Wailing Caverns at say level 17 or 18 if they could have been working in a party of 8 to 10? Better able to sustain a speed through parts of it or able more easily ressurect many fallen characters in a pinch? As it is, if you are ending up having to try to do something like this at a somewhat higher level, then that is like the level 45+ character coming back to help do Diablo in normal difficulty in D2.
If you have a group of more than five that want to try to paly together as a team like your orc team in the other thread, they you start running into how to get a couple of odd members through some of the quests that are restricted to giving credit for only one group. It sound like the method of linking groups that they are planning on would allow both groups to be able to get credit for something like Van Cleef at the same time if needed. For now the "exploit" would give a feel of how parts of this would end up working in an instance even though only one group can get credit for parts of the quest at one time (taking out the unique bosses). This would be a way to see just how balanced these quests are for when the more advanced form of grouping is introduced. That may be more of why some quests are labeled as 'elite' than just that it would require a party to do the quest; but rather that the quest is one that many should group together on to avoid having to wait for situations like a delayed respawning (defias traitor in the early beta with his ~30 min respawn or the prospector run in Darkshore with his still current 30 min respawn).
Personally the group size of 5 has to me always appeared to have been for interface design considerations, not a point of the game is 'intended' to balnced for that at a maximum. Consider this example from the other end of the specturum. One of my latest characters has been working through the alliance areas (some interesting changes so far), but when I got the quest to find the missing soldiers in east Elwynn Forest. For those familar with it, this is generally reguarded as a quest that needs a group to complete due to the number of murlocs surrounding one of the quest points (that normally requires 2 quest dialogs to do the scroll down dispaly before you can get out of there). There was no one else around when I got to that point so I soloed it at level 8 (or was I level 7? it was a few weeks ago).
With a game like this, you make part of the challange yourself. Do not count on it being forced on you by the designers. If it is forced, then most likely a hard setting will only result in product that fails in the marketplace due to driving away the bulk of the potential audience. I have played game like this (non-computer) because they could afford to target a small audience, but they were not generally well know outside of the minority that participated in them.