I hope I'm not repeating these concepts. If I am, accept my apologies.

On Solo Play:
I prefer this way, personally; I scamper in and out quite a bit, and this way know I wouldn't affect someone else's gameplay. Way back (hah) when MU*s were the online M of the MOment, I'd play those solo- exploring the new areas and zones, collecting equipment and gold and other sorts of things to improve my character with little concern of the more social/teamplay aspect of the game (i.e. 'grouping', with your standard tank/caster/healer arrangement). What made me more interested in being involved with a 'team' or 'clan' or whatever term you choose was when there was an offer of reward or prize goal available.

I'll purposely overlook the idea of online roleplaying; that's difficult (and tedious) to hard code.

Having potential rewards, prizes, reduction of costs, or special swag available to those who collect items in a group-- specifically, if you and your best guild mates take a run down (as an example) from Haven to the 'Manor, there would be a greater collection of materials, minerals, a potential for guild decor or awards (if you were to look up information about said guild, you would see what missions they'd completed from a predetermined list of achievements-- "X levels attained" "Y number of guild members have reached the core", etc.), might be a start toward an incentive to want to adventure with a group

... And equally bring some depth to the idea of guilds. This idea- that your group could win renown- was what appealed to me about YPP. I'd not been in a gaming environment that offered high-level teamwork goals. Though I don't have the time to achieve those anymore, I think it works as a concept. If one were to introduce a more in-depth concept of PVP into SK, there's far more that could be done group-wise; I know not if that's an end-goal or idea for the game-- I'm thinking not, however.

Guilds would offer meaningful grouping in this fashion by lending to the payout system due to the circumstance that all players involved were tightly associated, working for a common cause, for King and Country, what have you.

Other random thoughts (looking back on ten years of MUD administration):

Limit guild sizes to a reasonable number. See the above post, wherein "playing with friends" is detailed
Joining or leaving a guild ought to mean something, along the lines of gains or losses
Create guild challenges (tournaments?) wherein the group would participate, and its result would be rated or held against others for the top prizes
Allow for the creation of items that would be specifically guild-based

How about group abilities? Being able to create coordinated attacks- or alchemical creations- because you have three group/guild members who all three know one part necessary, which they may have either gained on a run, or gained insight into on a previous mission.

Anyhow, that's something to chew on.

Regards,
T

It would be nice if rewards scaled down by party size. In particular the number of health canisters should scale down when you're with a small group or solo. It's very easy to quickly have full health when soloing which enables you to defeat levels that should probably be too difficult alone. Currently, there's far more motivation to solo in terms of rewards than to go with a party. I'm all for bonuses for party play, but that wont address the issue of solo knights encountering a disproportionately large amount of goodies.

PVP or Guild vs Guild would be nice....

"It would be nice if rewards scaled down by party size. "

Absolutely. If rewards are the same, then for some extremely rare item, my chances of getting it in a solo run are very low. By joining a party, my chances of getting that same item drop by a further factor of 4, as any of my teammates could get the item instead. Parties should not guarantee a major reduction in the odds of getting the most important award that comes from adventures.

(As noted above, healing shenanigans are also a detriment to party size- we're still in the stage where people haven't learned to check their nigh-full health and offer the heart container to their almost-dead teammates instead)

Also, a related suggestion: please don't issue rewards to someone who is still loading. I've seen hard-earned rare items go to people who just appeared, but don't start moving/responding for another 15 seconds. Durgh.

4 player = 4x more mobs, drops and exp, more dificult bosses?

@ - How about the Energy costs to go down the elevator get split between players? One player will pay 10 energy to go down, while a party of two players will pay 5 energy each, and so on.

I was thinking abou this yesterday (before i ever read the topic).
Also, making so that more monsters and more itens drop for larger parties would ensure teamplay, and, for a further teamplay wise game, when a party leader selects the infamous kick button, a small window would apear at the interface, showing the name of the person, and a button to select if you want him kicked or not, so, one would be kicked only if the most part agrees, and a tye would mean a kick too (of course the one being kicked would not see the interface till the moment of the kick). Also, making so that the kick is not instan would bether up the things: When sucefully kicked, the person would not know about it till the end of the floor,a nd the whole party would need to finish the floor as it is now. Them, when the floor is complete, the player would be at a team floor, alone, where he could choose to continue playing (paying the full amount of energy), or go back to the town.

To finish things up, a pre made party system would be better: The party leaer asks for people to join before they even enter the elevator, and them, when everyone get's down the elevator, they would be at the group floor. Of course you would also be able to enter a lobby and choose to select someone there, or to enter it and wait to be called.

That's a piece of my head, for now. The brains will come later.

How about a partial split discount?

Say 1=10
2=8
3=6
4=5

I still say that you should not receive a penalty to your energy cost when playing solo. A discount to parties is the same as a penalty to solo players. Even at that partial discount, you can play double the number of levels in a full group that you can solo. Waiting for a full group before doing anything (even mid-run) would become a standard.

The objective is to get players to want to play in a group, without feeling like they're forced to.

In a very real sense, incentive to party must equal a dis-incentive to solo.

I don't like the idea to put some hard monster that only a party can kill it, but i do like the idea to put some mob that his power and health increases when 4 players are in the dungeon.

Sorry for the bad english

Well, actually, a higher equip drop and rare material drop would be nice, if you're in a greater group.
About the party play, well, party hunting always need to be more profitable them solo hunting, as you're going in a group, can take stronger monsters more easilly, don't need to spend energy in revives (unless the other players are jerks, what i didn't saw till now (and i still didn't died in a group till now, so, it's quite obvious), and can fight more...what will ever let a solo player in disvantage. What i mean is: let's not say that the solo player have a disvantage, but he is the average. A group is a bonus given, making so the solo play average, and not reduced. A solo would only be in a disvantage if this game was purelly made to be played as a group (what it surelly is), and, if it was made for being played as a group, of course the solo player need to get disvantages, so, there's not quite much to do. If you consider right now, if you don't give advantages to party play, people will not want to do it, and, if you give advanteges to it, but gives also advantages to solo that balances the disvantage, it will change nothing. If you have 0, removes 10, and them ads 10, you will still have 0...people will contiune to solo, because the disvantage of soloing would be balanced with the advantage gave to the group.

There's no real way to incentivize anything without punishing somebody else.

Making the game much more difficult is the only real way to scale up the need for other party members. And even then that would just punish the players who aren't that good at the game, alienating a lot of people and forcing a select few to carry other players through more difficult stages.
Kind of like Monster Hunter.

Really, the fix comes in the form of combining the Threat-O-Meter with a hidden rotation of levels not seen on the gate map.

Take things like Treasure Vaults and Arenas off the visible rotation, so that there's a chance that any stage could be one.
Bump up the rewards.

Then add stages that only appear when you're in larger groups or have an amber/red threat level, that have harder challenges.

Non-visible rotations would be universal, so every gate would have a chance at those things.
Which, while I think could allow for a slim chance of repetition of the same stage, wouldn't really be any different to the gate system currently in place that already repeats stages.
It could also be quite frustrating to someone after a specific stage, so all the rewards from these non-visible stages would have to be worth it.

But I think it could provide something interesting if the non-visible stages provided one-of-a-kind stuff, or just intense challenges.

Some invisible rotations could be alternate bosses and things. There's a lot of opportunity there.

> Did you know that if your friend stands in front of you with his shield up, you can shoot through it, thereby murdering gun puppies with style and ease at no risk to either of you (assuming his shield holds)?

No. That's great.

Heck, it's good for any creature. Two people with shields up as your front line, and fire through from the rear. If shields get weak, switch the shielders and retreat the front line.

> Did you know that you can drop health capsules while dead to facilitate your team members reviving you?

I didn't know you can drop health capsules. Period. How?

Did you also know that one of the best ways to kill the Trojan Horseman involves two players? Get one player to walk around him in circles, while another stands off to the side, waiting for the enemy to expose his tender buttocks, at which point the second player shoots him or sticks him with a sword.

In fact, lots of things die easier when one player does the distracting and the other does the murdering.

And yes! You can drop anything from your belt by dragging it from the slots. It'll just drop at your feet! Then your friends can snag it and you can open up slots without wasting things others might want.

Well, i know that some bosses are possible to kill while in group, while in solo they are hard as hell, but, really, grouping let the things easier, and so, remove some part of the fun. Also, in a group, you will do more profit, because of the easiness found on the levels, if you have a good group (not in equips, but in coordenation and cooperation), but you would use up your energy faster too, what means that you stop to play sooner. Actually, if a groupo could really get more treasures, but in fact worthing it (comparing, if you get 10k for a 100 energy run, you could get 15k for a 4 group 100 energy run, but making so that a coordinate team have the same chalenge as a solo, thus, improving the gameplay, well, at least for me).

-PS: finished my first solo arena!!!...using 20 energy in revives...but didi it!!!

-PPS: well, i only didn't knew that you could drop your vials WHILE dead...but did knew that you could drop your vials, shield while other attacks, and i do know that trojans are more fun to kill while soloing, because, this way, i necessarelly need to think in doing 2 thing at the same time (call his attention, and prepare an attack when his attack misses). Doing it as a group would, as you described, would be more or less like WoW: a tanker getting the attention of the monster, so, doing only one thing, while the other damages the monster, doing 1 thing also...it turns to be quite boring after some time. If this game can use more references from our beloved console games, rather then other mmos, it would rock the house!

-PPPS: Anyone here played zelda four swords, for gba? it have a nice gameplay (it's zelda, after all), with many puzzles that required the eforts of all players, each one in one section of the puzzle. This could be implemented in this game, requiring all the players to do these puzzles (all the players from the group. Dead players should get revived before attempting the puzzle). If some player is kicked or leaves the party while doing the puzzle, or before the puzzle room, a shadow would substitute the player, and do that part of the puzzle for the team, or the switchs intended to be active by them would be already active, or would get active if the player get out during the puzzle. There could be afeature too that show 3 small screens at the interface, each one showing the respective party member, or the shadow, and what they are doing, to better coordinate the puzzles. Some puzzles could have timed doors, activated by the other party member, and doors that open and close depending on the switch pressed/hit by other party member, making sot coordination the main word in the vocabullarry of a group (more of one door would clos/open, so, you would need to know how far the other member got in their paths, to ensure that they would be able to activate the next switch after you activate yours.

Also, good to know that people still have a good taste for games nowsdays.