Have blizzard given up on any parity of soloability?

[Kaver]

Like I said, they want to play with others, but on their terms. Also pretending that wow has ever been the epitome of group play is laughable. Raids in classic were tacked on clearly not very well thought through. Most of the development time clearly went into leveling which is overwhelmingly single player content. As far as MMOs go, wow is probably the least group oriented one of it back at the time. It was probably one of the very few where you could reasonable reach max level without grinding in parties, so frankly I never got why people are so adamant about the MMO part in WoW of all games.

But when OP is adressing soloability it sounds like he/she wants to mainly play alone?

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Yo, Drusin here, a guy who mainly plays solo in a MMO I play at least 10 hours a day, EVERY. DAY. so do you have a group of friends for me with the same schedule?

Hi Drusin

Personally I would choose other games if I was going to mainly play alone. I find WoW to be really boring as a single player game, so I just don’t understand how other people can enjoy it so much. What do you do in those 10 hours?

[Soon-TM]

The problem isn't about Disc getting some well deserved nerfs, but rather about Shadow royally sucking at everything that isn't a raid boss fight.

[Drusin]

Hi Drusin

Personally I would choose other games if I was going to mainly play alone. I find WoW to be really boring as a single player game, so I just don’t understand how other people can enjoy it so much. What do you do in those 10 hours?

I beat them though I've always wished for a game that "can't" be beaten and wow is it. As for what I do, I'm an All The Things collector



Every toy, every achievement, every mount, every pet, every recipe for every profession, every appearance for every class, all the things

[Understarmor]

In observing the reactions to the disc priest nerfs, and in looking forward to 8.3, shadowlands, and the arrival of the one-to-five player content, I keep coming back to the same line of thinking:

Have blizzard just abandoned the idea of any kind of parity in respect of the players who are invested in “overworld unfriendly” classes?

I started BFA with my “horde main” being what I called at the time an “invincipline priest.” As a soloing player, discipline had one weakness: they couldn’t really AOE to save their lives, but the “vampiric” nature of atonement allowed them to evevtually whittle down an overworld overpull one target at a time.

That... got “fixed,” and “Invincipline” is no more. I then changed horde mains and the horde story was experienced by a tank character from then on.

And that’s basically been the trend since legion: the overworld game belongs to tanks and pet classes, so that’s where my time has gone and is going with all this solo-friendly content on the horizon. Like it or not (and to say I like it would be a massive understatement, it’s saved the game for me), the future of WoW is that of a main thoroughfare that’s soloable or self-enabled via LFX Queues. Sadly the downside of that refreshing ownership of one’s time is that the mages, priests and most shaman of the world are just... screwed?

My question boils down to this: do the classes not... as intended for soloing deserve some degree of support in the face of horrific visions and torghast, or is the “to” in “one to five” meant to be the answer there? Is it enough that everyone *can* bring friends when hunters, warlocks and most tanks won’t have to? Is the answer “don’t play this class if you want to play alone” acceptable? I mean, that’s basically how I’ve adapted, but I look at my alt-bench of priests and mages and I can’t help but think they deserve better.


PS: Please realize that all the “it’s a an MMO, you should need me to gate your access to content” doesn’t really belong here. I certainly acknowledge that there are viable and supported avenues of multiplayer progression that do and should always exist, but you cannot deny that the core of the game in this modern MMO is and should be aimed at the individual on their own time paying their own subscription. Multiplayer avenues are valid and important, but I’m not talking about that experience here except to ask if the group-scalable content’s answer for some classes might be “bring a friend,” and if that’s fair in the context of how other classes can viably enjoy the same content.

Thank you for reading.

ok PSA - when you refer to blizzard it's not blizzard HAVE or HAVE blizzard xxx.....

its HAS as in HAS Blizzard xxx or Blizzard HAS xxx

if you talk with HAVE in front or after you might as well be saying I can HAS cheeseburger?

Or I HAS I been thinking about xxx.....

why is this so hard? This is like a rampant plague on these forums lately.....unless it's just one stupid person.

[Kaver]

I beat them though I've always wished for a game that "can't" be beaten and wow is it. As for what I do, I'm an All The Things collector



Every toy, every achievement, every mount, every pet, every recipe for every profession, every appearance for every class, all the things

Guess you got WoW beaten once you have collected everything?

[CrawlFromThePit]

In observing the reactions to the disc priest nerfs, and in looking forward to 8.3, shadowlands, and the arrival of the one-to-five player content, I keep coming back to the same line of thinking:

Have blizzard just abandoned the idea of any kind of parity in respect of the players who are invested in “overworld unfriendly” classes?

I started BFA with my “horde main” being what I called at the time an “invincipline priest.” As a soloing player, discipline had one weakness: they couldn’t really AOE to save their lives, but the “vampiric” nature of atonement allowed them to evevtually whittle down an overworld overpull one target at a time.

That... got “fixed,” and “Invincipline” is no more. I then changed horde mains and the horde story was experienced by a tank character from then on.

And that’s basically been the trend since legion: the overworld game belongs to tanks and pet classes, so that’s where my time has gone and is going with all this solo-friendly content on the horizon. Like it or not (and to say I like it would be a massive understatement, it’s saved the game for me), the future of WoW is that of a main thoroughfare that’s soloable or self-enabled via LFX Queues. Sadly the downside of that refreshing ownership of one’s time is that the mages, priests and most shaman of the world are just... screwed?

My question boils down to this: do the classes not... as intended for soloing deserve some degree of support in the face of horrific visions and torghast, or is the “to” in “one to five” meant to be the answer there? Is it enough that everyone *can* bring friends when hunters, warlocks and most tanks won’t have to? Is the answer “don’t play this class if you want to play alone” acceptable? I mean, that’s basically how I’ve adapted, but I look at my alt-bench of priests and mages and I can’t help but think they deserve better.


PS: Please realize that all the “it’s a an MMO, you should need me to gate your access to content” doesn’t really belong here. I certainly acknowledge that there are viable and supported avenues of multiplayer progression that do and should always exist, but you cannot deny that the core of the game in this modern MMO is and should be aimed at the individual on their own time paying their own subscription. Multiplayer avenues are valid and important, but I’m not talking about that experience here except to ask if the group-scalable content’s answer for some classes might be “bring a friend,” and if that’s fair in the context of how other classes can viably enjoy the same content.

Thank you for reading.

Not sure what you mean by "screwed"? Solo content can be solo'd by any class right now, what is your actual issue?

[Drusin]

Guess you got WoW beaten once you have collected everything?

lol if wow was never updated I may be able to get close but the amount of time it would take to collect everything is greater than the time between xpacs so it's very unlikely

[alessi]

I still waiting for warcraft 4

[Tarba]

What does mage tower have to do with this? Horrific Visions and Thorghast have nothing to do with mage towers.

You are right about self healing tanks being gods in these kind of modes though.

Because mage tower was adpated to classes. The amount of self healing your class had was taken into considération. And their was other difficulties than just the damage sustain making it way less relevant.
They can just had timed enrage on mobs and the tank will end up as squishy.

[Gaidax]

Waah Waah my "invincipline" priest got nerfed, how could such injustice happen, wtf Blizz?

[barrsftw]

Yo, Drusin here, a guy who mainly plays solo in a MMO I play at least 10 hours a day, EVERY. DAY. so do you have a group of friends for me with the same schedule?

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Morning bob, was waiting for you to comment.
*Shakes bobs hand*
*hands bob a coffee*

I get the point you're trying to make, and I agree with you.. but to be fair, there's probably tens of thousands of players who have a similar schedule.

[Video Games]

My fire mage can solo everything except nazjatar world bosses so no idea what youre going on about

[clevin]

Like I said, they want to play with others, but on their terms.

And they can, for open world content; you can solo open world content in any spec. Some will make that easier or faster but we have dual spec so if someone mains Holy as a priest they can always off spec Shadow for soloing for example.

Expecting to solo much instanced content is ridiculous and no one should expect to be able to do it in current instanced content (older content, yes) UNLESS that current content is explicitly designed to be able to be soloed (Mage Tower is the obvious example here).

But what some people want is not the ability to solo open world stuff... they want everything to be equally capable AND they want it to be easy in green gear. That's a hard No from me - a good DPS class should be faster at killing than a healer spec. A tank spec should be slower than that DPS but more survivable. A healer should be able to kill things but not as fast as the same class in their DPS spec... but they should have more survivability. And so on.

I don't see why this is controversial in the least, except among that group of people who want their fave spec to always be OP no matter what it is.

[Jujudrood]

Yeah, I'm with most here.

If you're worried about the tower or instanced content, don't.
Sure, it says "1 to 5 players", but that doesn't mean every single spec should be able to solo it at the same level of efficiency.
DPS will have the best damage, but also have the worst survivability.
Tanks will have high survivability, but do lower damage.
Healers will also have high survivability, but also do lower damage.

The simple fact that people are mad they aren't nearly untouchable as disc is the exact reason why so many people are just out of touch with reality.
"But why can't the spec *I* want to play be the best at everything???"
Get out of here with that.
Much needed, and welcomed, nerf.

I believe that all tanks and healers should have shit DPS to counter their survivability in solo content.
You want to play a tank or healer spec? Play the damned game the way it's designed; with other people.
Else, deal with painfully slow kill times while solo.

[Azerate]

Not all of the content is made with the intention of being soloable, and especially not by every class with equal ease, not sure what made you think that. They can't have given up on something that was never the intention.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

Play single player games if you want to solo everything...

To be fair they are talking about overworld 'soloability'. Unless you're of the opinion all questing should be group content.

[Trend]

Why play a tank when doing outdoor content? That's awfully slow. I only switch to tank for elites I can't otherwise kill.

Depends on class/spec but there aren't a ton of dps that will do more damage to big trash packs sans long cooldowns than a geared tank. But if you're killing 1-3 mobs at a time, then yeah, tank would be slower.

[Edlarel]

text

I can solo fine on each of these classes, while leveling or at cap, in bfa. It is slower, yes, but disc priest is still as good as it has been (started content in lfr Antorus gear and higher due to it being an alt). Idk, just seems players of those classes will want to double down on learning the tricks they need to survive solo. Slower isn’t terrible, you just have to be ready for it

[Jetstream]

Hell, I’ve been leveling Holy on my priest since 2005. :P

[Sansnom]

I don’t understand people who want to mainly play solo (90+ % of the time) in a MMO. I’m all for some solo content like the Mage Towers, however, the main part of the game is designed to be experienced in group play. It is a MMO.

And I do not understand why people insist on things must be group play. I recall playing WoTLK with my main and much later on my alt. The difference were very noticeable. On my main, meeting people and helping each other were possible. Meaning group quests to kill elites did not take long to complete. On my alt much later, such group content were skipped simply because meeting players were very rare.

It is a MMO meaning lots of people playing in the same game. It does not imply people must play as a group.

And what is the main part of the game that you mentioned?