I'm a bit concerned about the lack of information about solo-endgame content.

[Diaphin]

Fun fact is the main focus is still on group gameplay. Premade group gameplay. And contrary to TBC or WotLK, there is no raid level gear for solo players available anymore and surely no kind of gearing progression at all outside of some welfare epics.

The fun parts of WoW gameplay, including gearing progression, including gameplay that matters, are all hid behind schedules and "groups of friends", how blizzards PR calls their wet dream of a relentless meritocracy.

Does anyone really want to tell me world quests are fun? Or LFR? Or heroic dungeons? Especially as last do not offer gear you need and are outgeared by world quest reswards you also do not need for anything?

The focus is clearly on raids and mythic+. That is all that counts for the devs. Hazzikostas gives a shit about solo players and wants them to buy tokens for boosting services. The devs will change that in Dragonflight so solo players should buy crafting services from raiders for token gold.

I mean, you decide to bee too lazy to do any challenging form of content despite the fact that Blizzard looking for group tool has made it pretty convenient to join pugs for raids or m+ with barely any more effort than getting into premade groups, its basically you having to chose a group and have some additional mouse clicks. And as a pure solo player, you still have usually an entire zone dedicated to daily content and farming gear. You just hate the fact that this content doesn't give at least heroic item levels, do you?

- - - Updated - - -

I miss the raids that were no nuclear physics with 21 phases and 3 boss abilities each phase timed narrowly and thousands of different ground effects. You know, raids we had in vanilla up to wotlk where it was not about performance that narrwoly but simply about the social aspect. And i miss raids as like the ones in Wintergrasp where you simply could form a random group and would not wipe for hours.

Complexity of encounter design in World of Warcraft has risen beyond my abilities nowadays. The highest difficulty of raids i could actually work on was in catacylsm, and since then the difficulty and complexity skyrocketed into oblivion. Sure, many players also became better, but based on the raid participation numbers i assume that many players cannot handle the high level of raid difficulty and complexity nowadays.

Many old players like me have been simply left behind in raid difficulty, simply based on the fact the devs cater their raid design to the top players rather than the normal players. And top players have become better and better, and the gap became larger and larger.

I mean, thats what normal difficulty is for, which gets regularily pugged.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, in WotLK you could get tier sets from simply running dungeons and doing daily quests. In TBC, you could craft T4 like set items by simply farming. You could get high raid quality gear from running magisters terrace and from doing isle of quel'denas. Nowadays its all time gated, and in Shadowlands it mainly rewards borrowed power. I want blizzard to reward every activity with gear, and it also should be useful. The last part is completely gone from world content, because gearing simply does not matter.

So you're saying you just don't like the fact that you can't get your gear through getting carried through a heroic dungeon each day anymore and instead have to do the open world zone specifically designed für solo progression, which is different from no solo-endgame content existing. Also the only proper daily zone during the entire expansion, the argent tournament, mostly was just useful for cosmetic rewards, otherwise you only got your gear very time-gated through emblems.

[Kiria]

Not gonna lie, part of me wishes they would do the extreme opposite just to piss the "Massive means you have to be with people!" people off. Levelling? Need more than one person. Grinding? More than one. Auction house? Need a second person for that. Mounting? Need a second person to steer. I am sure they would lose that attitude super quick if they got what they wanted.

While the whole idea sounds like it would be sweet irony, we know it will never happen as Blizz would lose far too many casuals.

[Aydinx2]

Data to back it up? Maybe the past 16+ years or so? SP content has never been the focus of wow.

Yet the vast majority of content IS single player. You can even get Tier and higher ilvl gear now without ever stepping into a raid or dungeon.
WoW has never been more Single Player friendly and it keeps getting more and more features for lone wolves but every expansion people complain.

[Diaphin]

Question, how does a Solo player getting gear similar to you affect you?

Answer, it doesn't because they'll most likely still play solo but at least they'd still feel some form of progression for their character.

The issue is that most solo content offers no challenge, which the general consensus being that gear should drop appropriate to the challenge of the content. Even massive open world bosses and rares are usually defeated not through personal player skill, having to coordinate a large group of people or having to overcome some form of challenge together but through zerging it down. And the issue is, the demographic you are trying to advocate for wouldn't be able to beat challenging solo player content for the most part, so the content you want would end up being mostly played by raiders/m+ players. We know this because of the Magic Tower, which were challenging single player boss encounters for every spec in the game, that offered a cosmetic reward. Not surprisingly, most of the players who were able to beat them during release were not the solo players but instead the raiders. So it would only end up being an additional chore for people who already do group content for additional gear rewards while not affecting the typical solo player population in any way more than maybe frustrating them.

[Nymrohd]

Yet the vast majority of content IS single player. You can even get Tier and higher ilvl gear now without ever stepping into a raid or dungeon.
WoW has never been more Single Player friendly and it keeps getting more and more features for lone wolves but every expansion people complain.

But that is just not true. WoW was more single player friendly in MoP, Legion and BfA both as far as power progression available and as far as content to do are concerned. WoD was the exception and where we saw the greatest collapse in subs ever.

[Resheph]

Why some idiots choose to play an mmo when they're extremely introverted or socially incompetent is something I'll never understand, other games put ALL their ressources in to be a great SP experience and you choose an mmorpg? Excuse me but wtf?.

Imagine coming into a forum with 15+ years veterans of the game with your shiny 3 year member badge, telling us how to play and enjoy OUR game.

Are you for real?

[Heathe]

This discussion actually hurts my brain. Everything in WoW is solo content outside of rated arena, BGs, m+, current raids. Everything else you can do by yourself. What do you want? A solo raid, a solo dungeon, rated duels, daily quest hub, Tillers-like farm?

[Aydinx2]

Question, how does a Solo player getting gear similar to you affect you?

Answer, it doesn't because they'll most likely still play solo but at least they'd still feel some form of progression for their character.

People who don't understand how rewards work in game design keep saying this, but it isn't true. It does affect them.

The value of a reward is in the effort it takes to get it. Giving a reward that you can normally only get from Normal raids to people who don't enter any content that requires organization, forming a group and/or tactics makes the reward less valuable.

And rewards are why people do content. You start giving out rewards like that, people stop doing the content.

Another problem: having to do easier content for upgrades always feels bad, see Tier gear and the Anduin rings/Jailer weapon. Rewards from easier content should not be an upgrade over rewards from harder content (in simpler terms, an ILVL upgrade should almost always be an upgrade), because right now people are forced to queue for LFR when they're literally wearing Mythic raid gear (source: me on my Priest).

- - - Updated - - -

This discussion actually hurts my brain. Everything in WoW is solo content outside of rated arena, BGs, m+, current raids. Everything else you can do by yourself. What do you want? A solo raid, a solo dungeon, rated duels, daily quest hub, Tillers-like farm?

Solo raid/dungeon already exists in the mage tower. I'd be fine with them adding more like that TBH but not at the cost of the content that the majority actually plays.

- - - Updated - - -

But that is just not true. WoW was more single player friendly in MoP, Legion and BfA both as far as power progression available and as far as content to do are concerned. WoD was the exception and where we saw the greatest collapse in subs ever.

As I already said, you can get 252 ilvl gear without ever entering group content. You can get tier gear without ever entering group content.
Same for legendaries.

There is objectively more content for solo players than for groups. And that's not counting leveling/quests. You just think that content must mean it is instanced, but a single zone in the open world already has more to do than there is group content.

And that's not to mention that old raids automatically become solo content, or that most solo content is still relevant for solo players after a new expansion launches (see pet battles for example). If a raider wants to de relevant content they can pretty much only do a single raid per patch.

[sam86]

Good, the more solo content the better.

yeah let's try to sell our game as multiplayer, to 'surprise' them that we actually focus on single player, tada

[Aydinx2]

Good, the more solo content the better.

Why though? There is already more solo content than multiplayer content in this MULTIPLAYER game.
Just go play a different game?

[Asrialol]

mage tower is amazing, WoW can do solo content very well.

It was something you did once per spec. It was up for what, a year? Two? So 10 min of content per spec means a few hours over a year. Not exactly amazing. Was unavailable after you completed it too, unless you made a new char.

Quests is solo content. You want more quests?

[Caprias]

Imagine coming into a forum with 15+ years veterans of the game with your shiny 3 year member badge, telling us how to play and enjoy OUR game.

Are you for real?

I said I don't understand it and probably never will lmao, if you see me as some kind of authority that's on you.

There is nothing remotely interesting to me if I only had the time and/or social ineptitude to solo game, probably because I'm not a decade long+ veteran that has full on sunk cost fallacy.

WoWs strength that you can't find (quite yet) in the competition is the gear treadmill and 3 endgame pillars, raiding/m+/arena, the story is mediocre, there are more immersing (and mod-able) rpgs for solo play, open world gameplay quite frankly bores you to sleep if you're not an old fart and collector gameplay usually stems from said sunk cost fallacy since most stuff just doesn't look impressive for modern standards.

It's just alienating to me why you'd waste your time when there is so much more stuff suited for that kind of gameplay style/behaviour, and asking the devs to favour that niche.... yuck.

[Kiria]

Why though? There is already more solo content than multiplayer content in this MULTIPLAYER game.
Just go play a different game?

No, because I like the idea of my character persisting and progressing, while solo player games are fun once they're done thats it they're done, an mmo is a persistent world thats very suitable for solo players, so how about No I will not go play a different game, why don't you?!

[NineSpine]

Ah, another thread where people make the hilariously ironic declaration "This is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game so you need to get your ass in an instance with four other people if you want to have fun!"

[Kiria]

Ah, another thread where people make the hilariously ironic declaration "This is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game so you need to get your ass in an instance with four other people if you want to have fun!"

Doing group content I get extremely nervous, so I prefer to solo or do things with my BF (anxieties are a bitch even in games).

We've been playing WoW now on and off since 2004 and we still have alot to do in game, not including multiplayer stuff.

[NineSpine]

Doing group content I get extremely nervous, so I prefer to solo or do things with my BF (anxieties are a bitch even in games).

We've been playing WoW now on and off since 2004 and we still have alot to do in game, not including multiplayer stuff.

Everything in WoW is multiplayer, except Mage Tower I guess.

[Kiria]

Everything in WoW is multiplayer, except Mage Tower I guess.

This is an obvious lie.

[NineSpine]

This is an obvious lie.

How so?????

[bullseyed]

mage tower is only amazing for those who slightly struggle at it. Everyone else its either 1 and done (for each spec) or they will never complete it.

Agree, but also there is a large segment of players who could do it, but it's so tedious and terrible that they don't bother.

The one for my class/spec for example requires using other skills as interrupts that are not interrupts. Which, sure, happens in M+ all the time when you absolutely have to, but is obnoxious as a planned mechanic.

[Kiria]

How so?????

Not everything in WoW requires a group hence why there is plenty of content, the only real group stuff is Dungeons/Raids and PvP(to a degree as you can queue up solo).

Quests, Daily quests, hub stuff, the maw, torghast, rare elites, pet collectings, transmog farming and mount farming can all be done solo.