Are we approaching a Solo Raid WoW Experience?

[xazrael]

Based on many systems being introduced in The War Within, it seems to me we are heading in a direction which gives solo players more content and deviates a bit from the standard MMO. This can be seen over the last few expansions actually, with more and more systems encourages solo play. Then we are getting Timerunning, and for those of who played the PTR, the power dynamic of it was great. I always thought to myself, we are this great hero of Azeroth, but we always need 10-25 of us to defeat a villian? What is the downsides of Blizzard making players feel like they can rival the power of Arthas/Illidan/Deathwing/etc?

Will this solo gameplay ever extend to current raid tiers? What if instead of an LFR mode, we instead had a solo mode. Here, you instead get to follow the story of being a hero that can take down a god yourself. What if a similar power structure used in Timerunning becomes a staple for SOLO player power. but when in group content or PVP, becomes disabled? (like the MOP Remix cloak buff turns off when in current raid, war mode, or PVP group play)

We can all agree for the people that play WoW solo, do everything they can to avoid group play.

Pros of Embracing Solo Play
- Players can pace themselves based on their own life. Blizzard won't lose as many subs because of burnout
- Enhanced Story opportunities where you can really build up a villain directly against the hero
- Casual makes up the majority of WoW players, so this was appease most of the current players
- Blizzard can focus on balance of power during group PVE and PVP completely seperate to World PVE.

Cons
- No longer forcing players to play in a group, will cause less person to person interaction
- Players who do play group content may not like feeling weaker when in a group.
- Players might get strong enough to 1 shot everything. boring?


Thoughts?

[Ghostile]

But why do we want to turn an MMO into a not-an-mmo?

Should we cater to the shooter players next make hunter play like a shooter?

I always thought to myself, we are this great hero of Azeroth, but we always need 10-25 of us to defeat a villian?

We've never super human, just very good.
We need 20 very good soldiers to fight a god + the power of whatever is helping us.


Lich King fight being pretty much how you want to look at it.
We just fucking lose without aid.

[Zardas]

But why do we want to turn an MMO into a not-an-mmo?

It's not about making wow into a solo game instead of a multiplayer game. It's about making so that you can play solo or with other, as you wish. Being able to raid solo AND multi is better than being able to run them only multi (or only solo).

[Ghostile]

It's not about making wow into a solo game instead of a multiplayer game. It's about making so that you can play solo or with other, as you wish. Being able to raid solo AND multi is better than being able to run them only multi (or only solo).

And which part of solo players do we cater to? Those who want to see the scenery or those who just hate other people and want to challenge themselves?

[Zardas]

And which part of solo players do we cater to? Those who want to see the scenery or those who just hate other people and want to challenge themselves?

Why not both ?

[kranur]

But why do we want to turn an MMO into a not-an-mmo?

Should we cater to the shooter players next make hunter play like a shooter?



We've never super human, just very good.
We need 20 very good soldiers to fight a god + the power of whatever is helping us.


Lich King fight being pretty much how you want to look at it.
We just fucking lose without aid.

Since when is an mmo defined by having encounters for which some encounters have mandatory multiple people requirements? By that logic wow is barley an mmo since outside of raids and dungeons it is a single player experience.

Also no, wow will probably never feature solo raids as there is too much tuning required to balance it for all classes.

[Ereb]

Why not both ?

Because dev time is finite and I'd prefer them to use that time to prioritize group content since we are, in fact, playing a MMO

[xazrael]

But why do we want to turn an MMO into a not-an-mmo?

Should we cater to the shooter players next make hunter play like a shooter?



We've never super human, just very good.
We need 20 very good soldiers to fight a god + the power of whatever is helping us.


Lich King fight being pretty much how you want to look at it.
We just fucking lose without aid.

Point is being, what is the harm in allowing both solo or group play?
Yes, MMOs were initially designed with group play in mind, but very little of MMO content now requires it. World changes, people change, games can change.

Solo play doesn't require balancing, because the idea is you can get strong enough on any class/spec to be able to defeat any content you want. Think Action RPG. So Blizzard can just implement it and leave it alone.

I much prefer the idea of my hero who has existed for 20 years, to be able to take down a raid boss himself by now. Lorewise it makes more sense, than a random creature that has been stuck under the earth for years, suddenly requires 20 Deathwing killing heroes to defeat it.

[Zardas]

Because dev time is finite and I'd prefer them to use that time to prioritize group content since we are, in fact, playing a MMO

And I'd rather have them hiring more devs.

[xazrael]

Because dev time is finite and I'd prefer them to use that time to prioritize group content since we are, in fact, playing a MMO

Solo play doesn't need to be balanced. In fact I am filling to bet the entire MOP Remix gem/cloak system took 1 dev a day to implement.

[Ealyssa]

Why not both ?

Because it’s dumb and a waste of time ?

If you want to play soccer, buy a soccer game. Don’t ask NBA2K to add a soccer mode. Even if you think "wHy nOT bOtH" to be smart, it’s not.

[Ghostile]

Point is being, what is the harm in allowing both solo or group play?
Yes, MMOs were initially designed with group play in mind, but very little of MMO content now requires it. World changes, people change, games can change.

Solo play doesn't require balancing, because the idea is you can get strong enough on any class/spec to be able to defeat any content you want. Think Action RPG. So Blizzard can just implement it and leave it alone.

I much prefer the idea of my hero who has existed for 20 years, to be able to take down a raid boss himself by now. Lorewise it makes more sense, than a random creature that has been stuck under the earth for years, suddenly requires 20 Deathwing killing heroes to defeat it.

There's never just "20 deathwing killing heroes" etc.

For deathwing there was 20 guys part of the assault on deathwing that made it to the end, making death blow by the dragon soul possible.

This is the same for pretty much every big boss since TBC.

[xazrael]

Because it’s dumb and a waste of time ?

If you want to play soccer, buy a soccer game. Don’t ask NBA2K to add a soccer mode. Even if you think "wHy nOT bOtH" to be smart, it’s not.

If your example was applied to WoW instead, Blizzard already added a soccer mode. And the soccer mode is more popular than the basketball mode. That is my point.
I bet more players play solo than in a group.

[Zardas]

Because it’s dumb and a waste of time ?

If you want to play soccer, buy a soccer game. Don’t ask NBA2K to add a soccer mode. Even if you think "wHy nOT bOtH" to be smart, it’s not.

Yeah, but the point of adding football in NBA2K would be to play football with the basketball players.

[RobertMugabe]

Based on many systems being introduced in The War Within, it seems to me we are heading in a direction which gives solo players more content and deviates a bit from the standard MMO. This can be seen over the last few expansions actually, with more and more systems encourages solo play. Then we are getting Timerunning, and for those of who played the PTR, the power dynamic of it was great. I always thought to myself, we are this great hero of Azeroth, but we always need 10-25 of us to defeat a villian? What is the downsides of Blizzard making players feel like they can rival the power of Arthas/Illidan/Deathwing/etc?

Will this solo gameplay ever extend to current raid tiers? What if instead of an LFR mode, we instead had a solo mode. Here, you instead get to follow the story of being a hero that can take down a god yourself. What if a similar power structure used in Timerunning becomes a staple for SOLO player power. but when in group content or PVP, becomes disabled? (like the MOP Remix cloak buff turns off when in current raid, war mode, or PVP group play)

We can all agree for the people that play WoW solo, do everything they can to avoid group play.

Pros of Embracing Solo Play
- Players can pace themselves based on their own life. Blizzard won't lose as many subs because of burnout
- Enhanced Story opportunities where you can really build up a villain directly against the hero
- Casual makes up the majority of WoW players, so this was appease most of the current players
- Blizzard can focus on balance of power during group PVE and PVP completely seperate to World PVE.

Cons
- No longer forcing players to play in a group, will cause less person to person interaction
- Players who do play group content may not like feeling weaker when in a group.
- Players might get strong enough to 1 shot everything. boring?


Thoughts?

I bet that sooner or later they will add follower raids, which will basically be LFR with you and bots. I mean we already have follower dungeons and FFXIV had that stuff for years.

But also just like FFXIV this won't kill raiding or deterioate it. It will just serve as a way to see the story and get some meaningless loot at best which can be easily replaced by world quests and that sorts.

Personally, I don't think that this is bad or anything. Just like in FFXIV I never made use of this system and I have never checked out the follower dungeons in WoW. It will just exist for those people who wouldn't do this stuff anyways and I don't see raiders quitting raiding because of that. I mean that type of stuff just isn't gonna be fun for the average raider and it won't "feel" like raiding at all. And neither will the rewards be worth it.

[xazrael]

There's never just "20 deathwing killing heroes" etc.

For deathwing there was 20 guys part of the assault on deathwing that made it to the end, making death blow by the dragon soul possible.

This is the same for pretty much every big boss since TBC.

I suppose I agree on that front, but still, I see no downside to a single player taking down the big bad with additional power and aid from NPCs.

[RobertMugabe]

Because dev time is finite and I'd prefer them to use that time to prioritize group content since we are, in fact, playing a MMO

I get where you're coming from and I agree in principle; however I am confident that in this case, this would be just a minor development effort on their side for the individual raids. Implementing that system itself will probably cost us half a raid tier initially, but after that that stuff just won't take away development time for other stuff.

And I mean how true has this statement ever been besides maybe WoD that we actually got less group content, because they added solo stuff? I feel that WoW has been overall pretty consistent since MoP on how much group content they add and if anything I feel like we've been getting more of it; sometimes it even feels a little too much to keep up with everything.

[Ghostile]

I suppose I agree on that front, but still, I see no downside to a single player taking down the big bad with additional power and aid from NPCs.

There's the massive amount of work to remake everything to fit a solo experience in a way it isn't more worth it to leave it for them to solo in the next expansion.

[xazrael]

I bet that sooner or later they will add follower raids, which will basically be LFR with you and bots. I mean we already have follower dungeons and FFXIV had that stuff for years.

But also just like FFXIV this won't kill raiding or deterioate it. It will just serve as a way to see the story and get some meaningless loot at best which can be easily replaced by world quests and that sorts.

Personally, I don't think that this is bad or anything. Just like in FFXIV I never made use of this system and I have never checked out the follower dungeons in WoW. It will just exist for those people who wouldn't do this stuff anyways and I don't see raiders quitting raiding because of that. I mean that type of stuff just isn't gonna be fun for the average raider and it won't "feel" like raiding at all. And neither will the rewards be worth it.

Exactly. Solo play should not be required, rather an option for the players that don't want to group, or don't have the time to spend gathering a group.
However, on that front, technically all gear (normal, heroic, mythic) is meaningless in the end. The only thing I look for out of loot these days is transmog.

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Not really massive.
Most fights would just need maybe a mechanic taken out and maybe a couple extra NPCs. With follower dungeons a thing now, I imagine adding that would be simple.

[Twdft]

There's the massive amount of work to remake everything to fit a solo experience in a way it isn't more worth it to leave it for them to solo in the next expansion.

Well, judging from how much work they put into follower dungeons (almost none, all they did was putting checkpoints down for the route)... just get rid of boss abilities in lfr to the point they really are only meat bags. And it takes more than one expansion to solo raids.

I don't see a downside either. Take a look at follower dungeons, and imagine the kind of player that's compelling gameplay for. What's the harm in letting them have solo raids to see the entire story?