WoW should go more solo player (new try)

[Charge me Doctor]

We keep an eye out for people. There's been a half dozen people we've invited along from communities that we are in. Five of them are now unsubscribed. It sounds so simple. It's not always so simple.

It's one of the problems that you and others so blithely ignore: A lot of players are transient. So a different, more stable alternative is needed.

Then you invite more and more players, until you have a healthy roster. We currently lost our 5th player in our M+ group who played just couple of weeks, it's a nature of wow, people come and people go.

If anything, it's a reason to expand flexible content, but not a reason to implement bots, because some communities can't find 10 players (which is in my opinion quite reasonable amount of people for raiding)

[Kaver]

tbh after thinking about it why dont we give this kid what he wants

it will kill the game faster so im all for it

Why do you want the game to die?

[Pua]

Please explain how WoW is not mostly a solo player game now...

It's funny, this was literally what I'd have asked.

You can complete the game as a solo-player these days, pretty much. Sure, there's some 'group content' - but do you have to build yourself into communities the way you used to? Absolutely not.

[Charge me Doctor]

Maybe, after 14 years of fighing the roster boss, you don't really feel like it anymore?

We even used to reimburse people with gold (so they could buy gametime tokens) if they paid for their transfers to our realm when they joined the guild. It was still increasingly hard to find good players who would also work well in the guild atmosphere and the general ethos.

Players are transient. Recruitment is attrition.
In the end attrition gets you.

More stable alternative would be excellent.

I already accepted that it's time to step down and let others enjoy things that i don't like anymore. You being tired of roster boss doesn't mean that everyone else shouldn't be able to experience that.

[Qnubi]

It's funny, this was literally what I'd have asked.

You can complete the game as a solo-player these days, pretty much. Sure, there's some 'group content' - but do you have to build yourself into communities the way you used to? Absolutely not.

Depends what you consider "complete", LFR is so cheap and bad it feels like you activate cheat mode in a single player game and ruin the entire experience. The fact is, that solo players have no appropriate content to challenge themselves, although it would be very very easy to implement.

[kappalol]

Players should not be able to do everything solo in MMO game. I would prefer even simply world quest be hard enough to be done in a party, especially those kill 1 mob. These mobs should have IK mechanics etc and also some bullshit fun stuff. AOE grips following IK aoe around the mob etc. It's fun if you see someone screw up and ending dead while it doesn't matter. Make the game challenging and fun a little outside of M+ and mythic raids. It's not fun to one-shot 8 mobs and pick 5 things on the ground.

Also, make less word quest while you make them harder.

[Pua]

Depends what you consider "complete", LFR is so cheap and bad it feels like you activate cheat mode in a single player game and ruin the entire experience.

And that's enough.

You experience 'everything' doing exactly this. Raids, dungeons, battle grounds, islands, scenarios... Being part of a community, or even group, is completely and utterly unnecessary.

The fact is, that solo players have no appropriate content to challenge themselves, although it would be very very easy to implement.

They had it in Legion with the weapon challenges. There's absolutely no reason why that structure wasn't developed, then introduced as a new concept for players in this expansion. And, even worse, it's not the first time it's been done and widely enjoyed by players. I need it confirmed as my memory isn't very good now, but I'm pretty sure it was spec-related questing that was part of obtaining legendary items using both current and older content to do it.

So, what the OP is asking has already been done. The problem is the current design team has concluded that the current game is perfectly good for single players, irrespective of how laughably easy it is.

[G3 Ghost]

I for one hope they go the other way. Force group content on regular quests again.

I hope they make it so that people like the OP just no longer want to play and have to go elsewhere.

WoW was designed to be a multiplayer experience from the ground up. If you do harder content, you see more and you get more reward.

People that want a solo experience should be forced into another game. WoW shouldn't cater to them in the least.

[voidillusion]

WoW could be way more successfull probably if it would focus on the solo player part more than it does now.

What do you think?

Wait, you want even more solo play!? Well they went this far didn't they so fuck it, more solo play!

[Soon-TM]

It's great how OP's first thread on this subject was shot on the spot, while the second one is allowed to flourish for 20+ pages. It's great that our resident mod shares OP's thoughts on the matter, isn't it?

Anyway, on topic, no. Blizzard has already taken a big dump on the RPG part of WoW, now.they only need to do the same with the MMO part. But with the ongoing Diablo-ification of the game, it's only logical (in a twisted fashion) that they make the entirety of the game soloable, in order to cater to the likes of the OP. They've been doing this for quite some time, after all.

[quite an expert in wow]

no __

[justandulas]

At first, i came in here to eyeroll and tell you no because (insert reason here) but that is wrong and i feel like you are right, there is a LOT more room for improvement on solo game.

EXAMPLE: Instead of lfr being the focal point; why not take the concept of pet dungeons, mage tower, and role challenges (bronze/silver/gold in MoP) and convert them into some sort of solo dungeons. The time, amount of deaths, your role and how well you performed could determine the ranking rather than time being the end all be all like it is in M+. You could even have 5-10 different dungeons for each role (tank, healer, dps) and let players work their way up for pride and achievement. Instead of looking at someones ilvl or gearscore; you could see that the tank has beat the 8th (out of 10, again just examples) rank of the solo dungeons so you know he's a badass and can be invited.

there's room for improvement on all fronts solo, group, world, and guild content currently. Much room for improvement, we just need to toss around ideas and suggestions to inspire them into existence.

[Qnubi]

And that's enough.

You experience 'everything' doing exactly this. Raids, dungeons, battle grounds, islands, scenarios... Being part of a community, or even group, is completely and utterly unnecessary.

How is it enough if the content that you can do solo is inappropriate for all the different kind of solo players? Do you believe there are no solo players that would sub/keep subbing if the game had more engaging and challenging solo content other than braindead WQ? I don't really consider LFR to be a solo activity anyway, in the end you are relying on others, especially if you are DPS and depend on heal and tanks. I believe developing more actual solo content that fits casuals and also delivers to more hardcore solo players would make WoW better. The MMO side of WoW is fine and doesn't need further development. For example islands are completely wasted as a Multiplayer feature, islands was a way better opportunity than the legion weapon challenge ever was. They could have put NPC island companions that you can level up and equip and even implement quite challenging modes for solo islands. But they didn't. Honestly, I think Blizzard is not following the trends very well anymore. FF14 is starting to overshadow WoW when it comes to catering to what players want and what the current MMO players crave. (Hint: it's not raids anymore) Obviously older generations of MMO players (which I am part of, 33 years old here) will not agree with my philosophy but in the end I want WoW to be successful and not die away because of washed up philosophies made in 2000. My conclusion is: WoW needs to become focused on actual solo activities, games as a service, an online game with optional multiplayer content, think of it like Monster Hunter: World. And yeah, I am aware that to some degree this is already true, but it caters to the absolute lowest possible difficulty, it should and does not need to. More content like Weapon challenges and the brawler's guild.

Other than that, I agree with your post regarding the solo content that was already in the game but removed.

[grandgato]

I personally think this is going happen, sooner of later and regardless of our forum-opinions. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the next expac announcement contained "AI Followers".

We had the Bodyguard system for the last two expansions that was abruptly removed at the start of BFA; however, surprise...it's coming back with 8.2.

EXAMPLE: Instead of lfr being the focal point.

Unpopular opinion - Don't have raids be the primary source of the expansion's narrative! Let the story play out through open world content, 5-man dungeons, scenarios and perhaps culminate with a single LFR style story boss. Have the organized raid content be a side story, like MC, Ony, or BWL.

[Fred Skinner]

Unpopular opinion - Don't have raids be the primary source of the expansion's narrative! Let the story play out through open world content, 5-man dungeons, scenarios and perhaps culminate with a single LFR style story boss. Have the organized raid content be a side story, like MC, Ony, or BWL.

If the group players cant stand to lose a little bit of exclusivity, lets remove all stories told from dungeons and raids, and move them to quests instead. And lock up those players into their niche content.

I think noone loses anything if a solo player NPC dungeon and raid implementation was added. Instead, players would win a lot of gameplay with followers being full fledged companions you could take to whatever adventure you deem fun.

[Fred Skinner]

Right - looks like Blizzard might be going down the AI NPC Helper path sooner than I thought.

It is very likely limied to the new quest zones only.

[Fred Skinner]

Most likely. What I meant to say is that they're testing the waters with small incremental improvements.

I really wish the final destination is what we talk about in this thread.

I have no idea what blizzards big plan is. Ion Hazzikostas recently wrote that he cannot imagine to make bot battlegrounds a permanent feature. Seems our arguments and ideas and wishes stop at the brickwall of a design bias.

[hippostar]

Literally like 90% of the stuff in the game you can already do without being in a guild or talking to people through random LFG and random battlegrounds.

If by solo you mean literally do a LFR or random BG with everyone except you being an AI Bot, I don't think that could ever happen mostly due to the massive amount of computational resources that would require.

[Fred Skinner]

Seems i got him wrong, actually Ion Hazzikostas said this about AI battlegrounds:

Hazzikostas: We're looking at where we might take the AI battleground idea next. There are certainly other battlegrounds we could apply that brawl technology to. I could see a Warsong brawl in the future for example. But it's been really fun to see how it played out over the last week. It got enough quite a number of people who wouldn't ordinarily do organized PvP, who wouldn't do Arathi Basin, into Arathi Basin.

It's a lot of the same thing that we see looking at MOBAs like League [of Legends] or Heroes [of the Storm]. Plenty of people just like playing against AI. It's a bit less stressful, just knowing there's not another player on the other end, even if you're mechanically doing the same things. Those are all interesting avenues for us to explore. I look forward to seeing what we come up with as team.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hnewman...-pvp-and-gear/

I remember i read something about that they wanted to make them time limited brawls only but i cannot find the source.

[Pua]

I think the popularity of the Mage Tower has probably made them think about this. They've mentioned this couple of times in the Q&As. Their competitors are moving towards single player/small group challenges together with AI helpers.

I personally think this is going happen, sooner of later and regardless of our forum-opinions. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the next expac announcement contained "AI Followers".

To be clear, I don't support it - I just accept the reality where we are.

I mentioned the mage tower earlier, and what I believe was the legendary quests that got you into challenging stuff, but I think (and am happy to be corrected) that the very first iteration of "challenging" individual content was actually the Mists of Pandaria scenario where you went into the temple zone in order to prove your ability at a spec. It wasn't very challenging, as it was only to prove that you were good enough to join a dungeon queue, but there was still a Gold achievement that was set up to be a lot more difficult than the basic Silver that was required.

That's ultimately saying that the content orientated around individual challenges is over half a decade old.

It's meaningful to bear this in mind, because it was something that was wildly unpopular due to being considered necessary for skilled players who complained that they didn't need to waste their time on it. The legendary quest and mage tower, on the other hand, was wholly optional - and, thus, saw precious little bitterness. What's important to note is that complainants, on forums like this, are nowhere near a majority in anything.

It's wholly possible that the Bronze/Silver/Gold achievements were popular and enjoyed by newer or lesser skilled players.

Also, poster @Qnubi, I hope this clears up where I stand (I read your post #450).