I’ve been grouping up with a bunch of new 70s lately. Some of them do amazingly well in groups while for others it’s obvious that they soloed their way up to 70. It seems to me that it isn’t the solo players’ fault that they don’t know how to play in a group – grouping before endgame is fairly strongly discouraged by World of Warcraft’s incentive system.
Ideally WoW would change so that grouping would be either neutral or provide a small bonus relative to solo play. At this stage I rather doubt that will happen. What if instead there were quests for each class/spec just below max level that tested some of the basics of grouping?
I picture these as some kind of tiny single-player instance with only a few encounters. The encounter would be set up to test a skill and would reward an achievement that others can see. It could be set up to have different levels of difficulty as well.
Here are a few suggestions for quests by class.
Protection Warrior – escort 3 DPS and 1 healer NPC through to a destination. Level 1 – NPCs watch their threat and the healer is skilled. Level 5 – NPCs are trying to top the DPS charts on 6 mobs at once and the healer keeps falling asleep.
Hunter – keep a mob off the group. Level 1 – the mob is trappable and the group doesn’t touch it. Level 5 – Every member with a DOT applies it to the mob and the healer likes to stand next to it and cast big heals.
Holy Priest – heal the group through 2-3 encounters. Level 1 – the tank is well geared and the DPS focus fire. Level 5 – the warrior is tanking as dual-wielding fury and the DPS likes to stand next to you when they pull then use their aggro dump.
Sure you could PUG and replicate all these experiences and more, but this idea has a couple of advantages. First, it would be an easy way to check that a player knows their class and role. Someone who has completed the level 5 quest will still have stuff to learn, but they have a solid grasp of what’s needed. Second, since this would be part of the solo game, players could complete it at their convenience. No need to spam "LF Tank, Healer, and 2 DPS for any instance" when you want to brush up your trapping skills. No need to worry about letting the group down when your 4 year old suddenly decides this is a good time to flush the cat down the toilet. The quests would be fairly short and could be repeated at will. Third, this could be used to award entry-level gear for a specific role. Want to switch that paladin from tank to healing? Run through these quests and you’ll have a decent healing set to get you started.
Prot warrior quest will be doable once threat meters are included ingame in WOTLK.
samownall – World of Warcraft Blog
I think that this is a good idea but it seems hard to strike a balance with the solo and group styles of play. Some guildies have been leveling with friends from 1-70 and have no idea how far they can push their class or to play by themselves, this leads in them always asking for help with simple quests. I think that Blizzard should bring in more solo and group orientated quests so that players can learn how far they can push their class.
@ WoWBlogger – it was reading about the threat meters in WotLK that sparked this idea for me. One of my ideas for a quest that I’d forgotten to include was “Stay second on the threat meter for the whole encounter.”
@ 70TW Yeah, what I want is a set of quests that will really push each class/role. I want people to be confident and skilled both in a group and in solo play. I can’t say that I’ve met too many people who have not soloed enough to be confident on their own. I’ve seen a lot of lack of confidence when working in a group.
I know that when Joel and I are leveling together one of the things we like to do is push the limits of our pairing. We haven’t always done that (level 65 before we tried AOE grinding on Flint and Tinder but meh). Something like this would allow the mostly soloing player to step outside of their comfort zone without having to interact with people who may judge them.
I think that more dungeon instance quests should be implemented. At the lower levels, you see a lot of incentive to do dungeon quests (i.e., deadmines), and that’s the best time to start learning the basis of group dynamics. But after perhaps level 30, there really isn’t any reason questwise to do them. Scarlet Monastery is perhaps one of the most cleverly designed instances by implementing the wing system, but there are hardly any quests for them. The loot is fantastic there, but newbies won’t realize that unless they pick up a quest that sends them there in the first place.
I agree that Scarlet Monastery is the best implementation of the winged dungeon design to date. I like how they build on that idea in Burning Crusade, but so far nothing’s quite as good as SM. From my play experience, there are a couple of quests that point players to Scarlet Monastery – the ones to retrieve books and the one to kill specific bosses spring to mind.
I would love to have a lot more dungeon quests though. I think that’s the one thing that was done right with Auchidon – there are a number quest givers right there so you can pick up quests whenver you happen to run the instances. I’d like to see additional quests unlocked by higher rep levels or other quest chains as well.