Over the span of roughly a decade starting back in 2004 I became a primary MMO genre gamer I liked the idea of persistent game worlds and soon fell in love with City of Heroes. For about nine months I played in hard core while dabbling with others. First month online became a mantra because missing out on the initial rush always left one feeling they missed something momentous.

So I played many new MMO. Wow and guild wars tabula rasa eq2 Asian ones like mabinogi and tales of pirates. So very very many.

Yet in all others except DDO outside of guilds or running raid like content people never tried to take control of others and dictating to another player how to build or play was while not unknown was always treated as being anal control freaks.

In 2006 I happened to be dabbling on and off with DDO when I suffered a personal loss in tragic fashion and DDO ended up being very much the bottle I drowned out reality with for a good six months. It was during this time I really took notice of the strange attitude developing in DDO where people were trying to treat having the star for the party like some kind of temp leader rather then just another member of the team.

You see in all those other MMO I'd played the party leader was really just the guy to pick what next quest to run and that was it. No expectation from them to lead the party to victory no blame played upon them for a wipe. Keep mind I'm talking about leveling quests in pugs which in all other MMO also seemed the fast fun and friendly environment any MMO needed to have a healthy community. Very few put guild first always sticking with current groups even if a guild called. Raid nights being an obvious exception.

Yet not in DDO. Everyone it often seemed wanted to when holding the star be treated like a CO. And most tended to remind me of Lt. Korman in Aliens. Trying to lead when no one has any reason to respect nor listen to them. Often these where the old era full retard DPS barbie doll mana sponges and to this day had a real long term impact where losing vast nbers of players who prefer being mighty spell caster types where concerned.

To this day DDO is held up as a xenophobic clique community toxic for new comers unadapted to the unique environment yet to this day people think the reason everyone solos now is because of play style differences and less because people just don't like being told what to do by strangers or having a walking spoiler tour guide when trying out the new he or content in game.I often felt the very meta gamey nature of DDO helped breed this into us.

This is what motivated me even during g the level ten cap era of DDO to develop well rounded characters who went at content that suited their skill sets. Make a cleric do undead stuff make a rogue warrior and do combat quests with traps etc. You couldn't beg my Trappists to go anywhere near undead quests until of scored a pair of old sunblades and then only zombie heavy ones skelliea meant go fuck off I'm fine alone do I g what I wanted to see.
Y clerics would always end up going anon to avoid pleas to be a groups healer. No fun in that so sorry. Only friend groups with allies who wanted to work as a team not expect people to sacrifice fun time I.combat as that along with character building was virtually DDOs only real draw over any other MMO.

DDO never became my main MMO by 2007 I was back to primarily playing in paragon city and storm reach just a place for me to get a d20 fix when PNP groups where Lean after the last local hobby shop closed.

But here is the odd thing on DDO I didn't even want to group much.pugging could be fun but usually only when it was a pug of the rejected rangers battle minded clerics rogues who wanted to adventure with rather then just be a monkey fighter wizards etc. Those where the fun groups in DDO. Guild dictators etc killed fun time faster then a warlord slaughters local tribes.

Meanwhile over on city of heroes not a day I played there went by I didn't join groups or take the lead at some point as people came and went. It wasn't a stress to have it in anyway.

Even if I was leading a task force where one had to actually do a bit of cheer leading to help keep the party going it rarely devolved into having to tell someone to quit piking which was usually the only issue and that only of you didn't ask or caused the group to have to waste a lot of time.

I've never really been able to put my finger on the pulse of why one game was so easy to enjoy playing with countless random people from the world over and one makes it a closed off experience with many barriers for new comers to try and break through its like DDO had a condom filled with super glue put on at launch.

That's a wall of text.  Which seems to touch on several issues.  Overall, I'd say that authoritarian group leadership, eltist guild leadership, and unsolicited build/play advice and/or build shaming are all things that were much more prevalent back in 2006-2012 and  have greatly faded over the last 4 years.  Also, even in that time period, it was a very small (but annoyingly vocal) minority of players that were ITG/anal douchebags who would be a group dictator or engage in heavy build shaming and just make life miserable for people rather than contributing to the enjoyment of the game.

80% or more of the players have always been laid back and very easy to get along with.  Now days, I'd put that number at 95% or so.  The number of assholes in game right now is pretty low.  Luckily, the crybabies who throw temper tantrums when they don't get their way were some of the first to leave.

But it sounds like you were more involved in the end game scene, which is where all those types were definitely clustered. 


My experience  has been that these dipshits are in every game, to varying degrees.  It never seemed to me that DDO had more or less than GW2, or Neverwinter, or any other MMO I've seen.  But I could be wrong.  I've not tried as many as you have.

I've seen a few authoritarian dickhead leaders in DDO.

But I've seen even more anti-authoritarian giant-dickhead non-leaders ignoring, nay, deliberately doing the opposite of what the leader asks.

The 1st problem is mostly just social, and usually solves itself:  people decide they don't want to join the dickhead's groups.

The 2nd problem can, and often has, led to in-game issues like wipes, people locked out of areas/loot, setting off traps or mobs before others ready, etc..

A little bit of planning, listening, and respect can go a long way.  If you don't want to follow the leader, the solution is easy:  don't join their group, or drop NOW.

If you join and stay anyway, you're the problem, not the leader.

Asheras wrote on Jul 28^th, 2016 at 2:21pm:


Well, yes, that's true.

I always went with the player that didn't die.  Usually, that was me.

Which probably explains why I went to soloing.

I honestly feel after retrospect that my rambling about DDO reflects the nature of the development of DDO in that its nearly impossible to focus on a single aspect in a given discussion and when one tried to isolate an issue the issue mutates into an outbreak.

That's probably that whole spaghetti code defense the devs use is about.

I can give at least one solid reason as to why city of heroes grouping was more welcoming I think. They had a system known as side kicking and exemplaring.

I'll try to explain it

Say you a new player invited to come check out the game with a friend. You don't have a lowbie and don't have a free slot or don't feel any inspiration to make a new concept. You can even be a completed level fifty fully incarnated living god.

So your on a god and your friend is a blank newbie. Maybe first you want to give him a teaser of things to come so he sidekicks up to you. Now he counts as a 49 this being one of those games where your level in relation to mobs effects various factors. Same lvl equals white threat one lvl over you yellow two over orange three over red 4+ really dangerous to non optimised pretty standard fair in MMO really.

So now you go run something fun and flashy at lvl fifty your friend counts as 49 and while lacking powers he at least could hold his own against minions get bloody against lieutenants and offer some modest assistance against a bad boss. He still earns xp and gets drops that will be useless to him for a while but valued enough once sold can equal plenty to start getting themselves well geared to start their own career.

Now your friend has been bit and has the itch to do his things but you two don't want to stop playing together. So now you the mighty one exemplar down. You now are his lvl but not as you were then. You have access to powers of up to what you had as a lvl ten and certain bonuses and sets that while not the bis  at end game have the advantage of working g when exempt. So you now get to reexperience the content as a bit more powerful then when you had first time around. And your friend now well equipped is a bit above average so he can adjust his difficulty. Say set it for a fouran group to give more foes or up the lvl of them a bit all fully tweakable for a given players comfort zone.

karavek wrote on Jul 29^th, 2016 at 9:49am:


To be fair, if he couldn't be bothered to read when everyone was telling him how manyshot worked I wouldn't expect him to start now.

Epoch wrote on Jul 29^th, 2016 at 7:18pm:


As someone who likes to get the most xp out of a quest (within reasonable limits), I actually like running with people who are there just to run to the end. The quest gets finished faster, while I pile on all the extras that I can. Everyone's happy.

karavek wrote on Jul 30^th, 2016 at 10:46am:


It sounds like you're saying we'd need to carry a bunch of extra gear/consumables to deal with different mobs/spells. That's gay and retarded. I can't remember the last time, in heroics or epics, I had to bring something specific along to get through a quest. I don't think players' inventories would bloat by much, if at all.

Like the idea of random dungeons though. I'm sure most do.

WeHaveLived wrote on Jul 30^th, 2016 at 3:14pm:


I would especially appreciate this for traps.  My first toon was a rogue and one of the biggest disappointments I had when I started joining pugs was having vets tell me where every trap box was.  Now, I'm the vet, and what once could have been a party wiping surprise has become a routine monotony that nets you a nice 30% exp bonus.