March 29, 2018 11:07 AM PDT
Hands down it's quests designed for variable group sizes. Too often these days it's "quests are x players, raids are y players" and that's a real shame. It stifles developer creativity as much as player creativity.
Let the devs make a quest based on an enjoyable experience, NOT on some artificial level of "how difficult does it need to be for (insert pre determined group size here). This means if at the end of developing a quest, it looks like 3 guys can do it.... Who cares?? Reflect that in the rewards. Maybe some players are under geared, or just suck. Let them take 6 guys and maybe only half of them get the item, or they have to do it twice. Heck, a high level player then could maybe solo it and gear up a lower level buddy or an alt of his own. So what? Sure, there is a time and a place for locked group size, but not every single time. ESPECIALLY since we won't be having instanced dungeons.
At the very top end even, I used to LOVE leading quests in Asherons Call that I could do with 9-10 folks, with 20-30. Sure, we had to fight the final boss a few times (or redo the mechanics to force a respawn) but the fun those groups had was amazing. There was so much good banter and people from different guilds coming together.
The best part was that there was no feeling of "ugh, we have to worry about if we can carry so and so through this". The elitism I've seen in so many newer MMOs was much less prevalent. Sure it was still around for certain timed/group size locked content, but by letting the community pick their own group sizes so often, I got to help less experienced players and they got to see how it was done at the top end.
I've never understood locking so much game content behind a large barrier, even if that is a skill one. Some players can finesse their way through with less players, and guarantee they get what they need for everyone. Others may have to use brute force and that is ok too, if they are willing to put in the time and get enough people to go.
Yes at the absurd extreme end, no amount of level 1s should be able to complete a top end quest no matter how many they throw at it. That said, a group of appropriately leveled players, with decent gear, should have some means of completing content besides simply "get good" as so many guilds and games express these days.
Long story short: make quests based on fun experience (both developing and playing) not some artificial difficulty mandate.
