Should roguelike gameplay become a fourth "solo pillar" of the endgame?

[Arcreid]

Do you understand why people in the real world may not want to socialize with others or get involved in group activities or generally spend time around people they don't know, and yet they still appreciate having people to operate the grocery stores and restaurants, fly the planes, go to wars they'll never be a part of, and all the things that society does?

It's really no different. Most everyone desires to be part of a functioning society that mutually benefits each other while some of these people do not particularly want to engage with strangers or even acquaintances.

Just play an actual roguelike.

WOW classes isn't balanced around solo content, and even if they did, a slight imbalance would cause these nerds to cry a river.
Just play an actual roguelike.

[Echocho]

No it shouldn't

[Unlimited Power]

Shadowlands was very much sold on the premise that Torghast would make up that replayable roguelike element we'd all be doing for fun outside of other activities.

In many ways, it's almost amazing how the significantly less repeatable Horrific Visions from 8.3 turned out to be more fun than Torghast.

It's incredible what the lack of worthwhile rewards can do to the enjoyability of a system.

They even hinted we'd be able to obtain the Legendary appearances as transmog from Torghast eventually, but that turned out to be an outright lie when they were suddenly in dire need of appearances for SoD/PvP season 2 and either unwilling or unable to spend the art resources to create new appearances.

[LordVargK]

Should it? Hell yes. Could it? Probably not. Most players in WoW don't do anything without rewards and solo progression cannot offer meaningful rewards that would affect group content.

Before such a 4. pillar could be implemented, the power progression system in WoW needs a revamp. And I don't see that happening.

[Ezyah]

Roguelike is usually complicated, "QQ it s too complicated, let me get my loot and log off"

[Alvito]

Roguelike is usually complicated, "QQ it s too complicated, let me get my loot and log off"

It is also a completely different type of game and format. So many do it only for the reward, if they wanted to play those types of games they would have been. Just like we don't need some sort of FPS game mode crammed down our throats we don't need anymore visions or Torghast.

- - - Updated - - -

Currently the endgame evolves around the three "pillars", rated pvp, m+ and raids, all group content. One distinct feature of this system is that you mostly progress your character for a pillar by playing that pillar (it's not always successful in that regard, but players always dislike that). Blizzard has been experimenting with implementing roguelike play with Torghast, and it hasn't been that succesful. But I think that's mostly due to two reasons, a) it's not a separate pillar, but instead a roadblock you need to pass to access the three real pillars ("choreghast") and b) class balance is rather nonexistent.

Could the next Torghast be a viable fourth solo pillar if it fully gained its own internal reward structure? Ie you don't have to run alts through if you don't want to, and it provided at least half-decent loot (possibly through the vault)?

God no, those mode frequently punish healer or tank players. Visions and Torghast are also two of the worst things added to the game in a long time and for me a major part of why I tossed in the towel on WoW after heavily raiding and pvping since BC.

- - - Updated - - -

I do. But it would be nice to have some scalable endgame content to run solo or with one or two friends. It's not that difficult to understand.

When a core feature of the game is trickled through that activity that also makes people play the game in a much different format than they would, it is easy to see why so many very strongly dislike or hate it.

[Ezyah]

I think the ideal end game for the average player is actually the maximum of reward for the minimum amount of effort/skill and making them feel they are the best on top of it. This is not achievable via rogue like.

[Ryzeth]

Why though? Rogues are a really unpopular class, what makes you think that making everyone have to do ‘Rogue stuff’ would go down well?

Not sure if subtle troll, or genuinely ignorant.

[Paperfox]

Shadowlands was very much sold on the premise that Torghast would make up that replayable roguelike element we'd all be doing for fun outside of other activities.

In many ways, it's almost amazing how the significantly less repeatable Horrific Visions from 8.3 turned out to be more fun than Torghast.

It's incredible what the lack of worthwhile rewards can do to the enjoyability of a system.

They even hinted we'd be able to obtain the Legendary appearances as transmog from Torghast eventually, but that turned out to be an outright lie when they were suddenly in dire need of appearances for SoD/PvP season 2 and either unwilling or unable to spend the art resources to create new appearances.

I ended up enjoying the Horrific Visions and I tried Torghast a couple of times when it was in Beta - it was fun and I was looking forward to it. After launch it was different.

It was another lost opportunity. But then it seems like Blizz never fails an opportunity to fail an opportunity.

[Civciv]

Why though? Rogues are a really unpopular class, what makes you think that making everyone have to do ‘Rogue stuff’ would go down well?

y-you gotta be kidding mee

[aceperson]

they can't even make content for their 3 pillars right now. shouldn't even think about adding a 4th pillar right now. they need to solve their ego and design issues first.

[Hctaz]

If we were to dismiss all the content the most vocal and cynical members of the playerbase dismiss with trite mockery names we wouldn't have much content left.

Sadly way too many people see content as either "mandatory" or "meaningless" depending on whether they provide player power for the type of content they prefer.

Mandatory I can understand, but meaningless? I don't get that. Optional content just means stuff you can do if you want to, and I don't really see how that's a bad thing. The more stuff they pile on that needs to be completed before you feel like you're ready to do your main fun thing is just chores. I'd have preferred if Legion had World Quests and Mythic+ tied to their own separate progression instead of needing to farm all this shit for AP and Legendary items constantly for the first half of the expansion.

[MoanaLisa]

But Blizzard has shown itself utterly incapable of creating content for any purpose other than gaining power.

Read enough forum posts where players dismiss any content that doesn't properly reward power as "garbage content" and they learn things.

[czarek]

No. Its mmo genere. Its based on team play. Content cant be balanced for all those classes and specs for soloing content. Whats the clue of soloing endgame in mmo ?

[Hctaz]

I'm down with this, though I would take it a step further and separate all different types of activities from each other, progression-wise. Casual/Solo, PvP, Organized Raiding, Keyrunning, Pet Battles. I feel like each should be its own thing with its own progression that does not carry over to any of the others at all. i.e. Mythic raid progression/gear should not be useful in LFR or PvP, PvP progression/gear should not be useful in raids or M+, LFR/WQ progression/gear should not be useful in organized raids or PvP etc ...

I'm aware of no MMOs that do this, however.

The only solution to this issue I've seen in some MMOs is to make ALL progression/gear available to ALL players by participating in ALL content, just at various speeds of acquisition depending on difficulty/organization required. Those are the kinds of MMOs I'm playing atm, but I'd love to see the kind you mention.

I agree. I would say that some bleedthrough is okay, but my idea I presented was how the Shadowlands PvP items work BUT during Legion. I'm glad that they went ahead and updated the PvP gear in Shadowlands based on my idea, but I'm sad that other sources of gear didn't get the same love.
But my suggestion was that either the ilvl of the items would increase in the respective content or there would be some kind of additional set bonuses or something that only apply in the content.
Something to show that you dedicated your time and efforts into being the best at a specific piece of content rather than being like... Maybe you're on a Mythic plus team with only 5 people but the BiS Mythic + items come from raids. How is that fair? You have to find a way to run Mythic raids in order to get the best gear for the content that you're good at? Makes no sense. I've never liked that idea.

[cparle87]

Mandatory I can understand, but meaningless? I don't get that. Optional content just means stuff you can do if you want to, and I don't really see how that's a bad thing. The more stuff they pile on that needs to be completed before you feel like you're ready to do your main fun thing is just chores. I'd have preferred if Legion had World Quests and Mythic+ tied to their own separate progression instead of needing to farm all this shit for AP and Legendary items constantly for the first half of the expansion.

That's the problem, though. So many people are so obsessed with the meta and power chasing that anything that doesn't contribute to this power is disregarded as "not content." Have you seen the threads since they announced the Zereth Mortis open world power talent tree? The moment it was revealed that it wouldn't help in dungeons and raids the general response was "filler content" "not gonna waste my time" "not content, give us real content" etc.

[Hctaz]

That's the problem, though. So many people are so obsessed with the meta and power chasing that anything that doesn't contribute to this power is disregarded as "not content." Have you seen the threads since they announced the Zereth Mortis open world power talent tree? The moment it was revealed that it wouldn't help in dungeons and raids the general response was "filler content" "not gonna waste my time" "not content, give us real content" etc.

It just blows my mind that that's a real thing though. Like I see it, but I don't know what crowd of people are so hardcore about WoW that they want to play 24/7 but aren't actual hardcore players when it comes to a specific mode. I don't know too many mythic raiders who actually want to do things other than just raid. PvP players that grind to Gladiator just want to PvP.

I guess there must be a ton of jack-of-all-trades players who don't want to get good at any one particular form of content and just want to do literally everything.

[cparle87]

It just blows my mind that that's a real thing though. Like I see it, but I don't know what crowd of people are so hardcore about WoW that they want to play 24/7 but aren't actual hardcore players when it comes to a specific mode. I don't know too many mythic raiders who actually want to do things other than just raid. PvP players that grind to Gladiator just want to PvP.

I guess there must be a ton of jack-of-all-trades players who don't want to get good at any one particular form of content and just want to do literally everything.

I'm one of them. I do keys and raid sometimes but most of my time is spent clearing the map of world quests, doing pet battles, doing archaeology in previous expansions (I'd actually found all the pristines and got all the achieves in WoD before flying came out), hunting rares and recipes and pets and mounts, ad naeseum. I've never wanted for stuff to do. Like I'll be in the Maw doing the Hunt and I'll ask if anyone wants to join in and I'll have people ask me why I'm doing it when it doesn't give some player power reward, and my answer is pretty much "cause it's there to be done and I want to do it." Even when it's the Hunt that gives the mount I'll have people give me that answer. Gold, rep, currency, and possible mount isn't a good enough reason to do something. Has to give power.

Sadly the hardcores and wannabe hardcores seem to be the ones who frequent the forums most, so their voices are more heard than folks like me.

[Hctaz]

I'm one of them. I do keys and raid sometimes but most of my time is spent clearing the map of world quests, doing pet battles, doing archaeology in previous expansions (I'd actually found all the pristines and got all the achieves in WoD before flying came out), hunting rares and recipes and pets and mounts, ad naeseum. I've never wanted for stuff to do. Like I'll be in the Maw doing the Hunt and I'll ask if anyone wants to join in and I'll have people ask me why I'm doing it when it doesn't give some player power reward, and my answer is pretty much "cause it's there to be done and I want to do it." Even when it's the Hunt that gives the mount I'll have people give me that answer. Gold, rep, currency, and possible mount isn't a good enough reason to do something. Has to give power.

Sadly the hardcores and wannabe hardcores seem to be the ones who frequent the forums most, so their voices are more heard than folks like me.

Right sorry, I should have been more specific.

The crowd of people who play the way you play but feel entitled that their world quests and pet battles should somehow make them stronger at everything else that they do in the game.
Cuz I have ZERO problem with people like you. I was a hardcore Mythic raider, and I never understood the people who felt like every thing that they do in the game should apply to every thing else in the game. I always thought it was cool that there could be separate types of end game pieces of content that you had to work towards, and then the grindy part of the game was solo stuff that made you look cooler but didn't necessarily make you stronger.
Farming old mounts, old transmog, pet battles and pets, gold for gold sinks like the AH mount.

I feel like Blizzard failed to supply new interesting things to do outside of grouped content in WoD, and then decided that the Mythic raiders needed "incentive" to play with everybody else in the world or something. I remember one of the arguments that they made was something like "If you have a Mythic raider friend now you can convince them to come run Heroic with you and they might even get a chance at an upgrade with the Titanforge system!"

No... because every Mythic raider was running Heroic with their guild every week in under an hour for RNG titanforge gear.

[cparle87]

Right sorry, I should have been more specific.

The crowd of people who play the way you play but feel entitled that their world quests and pet battles should somehow make them stronger at everything else that they do in the game.
Cuz I have ZERO problem with people like you. I was a hardcore Mythic raider, and I never understood the people who felt like every thing that they do in the game should apply to every thing else in the game. I always thought it was cool that there could be separate types of end game pieces of content that you had to work towards, and then the grindy part of the game was solo stuff that made you look cooler but didn't necessarily make you stronger.
Farming old mounts, old transmog, pet battles and pets, gold for gold sinks like the AH mount.

I feel like Blizzard failed to supply new interesting things to do outside of grouped content in WoD, and then decided that the Mythic raiders needed "incentive" to play with everybody else in the world or something. I remember one of the arguments that they made was something like "If you have a Mythic raider friend now you can convince them to come run Heroic with you and they might even get a chance at an upgrade with the Titanforge system!"

No... because every Mythic raider was running Heroic with their guild every week in under an hour for RNG titanforge gear.

Yup, sadly yup. I distinctly remember my mythic raider friends griping during Nighthold about 'having' to go back to Emerald Nightmare to try to get a titanforged trinket off Ursoc.

I think it was less "incentive" and more "being terrified of being told there's "nothing to do" but raidlog" for a second xpac in a row. Hence why we get so many systems.