Should Blizzard design challenging solo-content?

[Pua]

I'm relating to my post here, and the thread that it was posted in.

It's widely understood that solo players can already participate in everything. They can simply queue for dungeons, raids, islands, scenarios and PvP battlegrounds without any blockage, and they can technically complete the entirety of the endgame content by doing so. It requires no effort to build or be part of a community, and the current World Quest system with RNG-related loot that continues to rise means that achievements are equally solo.

Whether or not you support this is up to yourself.

My question is whether or not you believe that challenging solo content should be developed as a proper content deliverer.

It's obviously debatable, but the first recollection I have of this was in Mists of Pandaria. In order to queue yourself within random five-man dungeons, players needed to complete the computer-group scenario to the standard of Silver. While this wasn't challenging to experienced players who complained a great deal about the necessity they believed a waste of time, it was challenging to new players and the expansion to Gold, at the best, delivered character titles that are extremely rare in my experience.

Also in Mists, there was the legendary quest that was conducted by specs. Those quests were also very challenging, perhaps frustratingly depending on your class, but it was (please correct me if my memory is wrong) hooked into raiding where the linked quests weren't completed by LFR. To an extent, however, that's not important, because it's the concept of challenging solo-content that we're looking at.

What those quests mean, more than anything, is that the popular Mage Tower that happened in Legion had actually already been done before. The quests where aimed at specs rather than classes, with the key difference being that players could participate in the Mage Tower purely as solo players; there was no need to do raiding in order to participate.

Perhaps this contributes to the lack of general commentary about the Mists legendary quest in comparison to the Mage Tower?

In any event, the point is to simply ask us to chuck votes at it given that Ion Hazzikostas has spoken about it and players have been very consistent in the request. All I'm really asking here is whether or not you support the idea, and what time you'd like to see taken up by the concept of challenging solo-content.

- Would you like it to be a committed system that lasts for the expansion?
- Would you prefer bits here and bits there, for the odd reward/achievement?

As always, it's up to you.

[bulutooth23]

well i guess a little bit of solo content would not hurt. but too much would just not feel warcraft.

[Kaver]

Mage Towers were great. That is all I’m going to say on this topic

[Pua]

well i guess a little bit of solo content would not hurt. but too much would just not feel warcraft.

It's a bit of a 50/50, really.

Developed content for solo players could enhance the general subscription level, but that could badly hurt community requirements.

[Pua]

So maybe some of that could be delivered in several difficulties.

Technically, that's what the five-man necessity did during Mists. What was needed was the Silver achievement, which wasn't terribly difficult, and the increased challenge that delivered a title was completely voluntary.

[RobertMugabe]

Technically, that's what the five-man necessity did during Mists. What was needed was the Silver achievement, which wasn't terribly difficult, and the increased challenge that delivered a title was completely voluntary.

This was in WoD, not in MoP

[FuxieDK]

Brawl'gar arena is pretty challenging, when you get up in ranks.

[Kokolums]

What if they did this:

1. WoW Classic is a fork of WoW with completely new expansions in its own right instead of make a BC server. These expacs cater to those who want a social experience.
2. Retail WoW (like BfA and its future expacs) continues on with raids but also lots of solo player content.
3. Diablo 4 becomes a cross between an ARPG and MMO, with a lot of hardcore RPG elements removed, its more of a fast paced lobby game and lots of solo content.

To investors this might be the "safe" way to expand the brand. Try new approaches with 3 MMOs. See what works, what doesn't.

[MoanaLisa]

Yeah, they should. The Mage Tower was great. From what I can tell it was pretty popular too.

Suramar was good too. Not as challenging perhaps but a cut above leveling I thought. This stuff plays well with customers too.

[LoLcano]

Yeah loved mage tower and its reward .

[Narzok]

depends on how they deliver "challenging" content.
most solo stuff was made in a way to be outgeared by the time the next raid tier is out.
this can be a good way to progressively nerf the difficulty for inclusion and stuff, but it ruins it if you want to do the stuff at the end of the expac and still have a challenge.

take Brawl'gar arena: there are already a lot of people who cleared it within the same "gear-Tier" it was released in.
so the arena is doable in current gear. (a good thing)
BUT with the constant increase in ilvl, the arena will be less and less challenging (unless you farm bad gear on purpose just to be weaker).
if i want to try the arena on a different char in 8.2 or 8.3, it will not be the same challenge.

same happened with mage tower. released with shore, far easier with Antorus gear.

would be nice to have an option to be scaled down (or given a preset gear template to complete it).

on that note imagine: you are given a fixed amount of secondary stats and can allocate them how you like, and then have to do a challenge like mage tower or brawl'gar.
let the number nerds sim the best secondary distribution for ilvl 400, put it on, and go to town.
or try a fire mage with max crit vs max haste. hardcast pyro for days or unending hot streaks?

just stuff to goof around with, nothing that affects the traditional progress or impacts other people.

[Pua]

This was in WoD, not in MoP

It happened in Warlords also.

We know it happened in Mists first, given that is used both Mists buildings and Mists characters.

Well, it was a pre-requisite to queue for GROUP content. So if I like challenging solo content I won't necessarily do that.

That's true, but I'm really only talking about the concept that was used then and not the intent; the difficulty for group content (Silver) wasn't high, but the difficulty purely for players (Gold) was.

The key point is that the design has already existed, using something that was mandatory when the Mage Tower wasn't (the legendary quests weren't for solo players either, but they were challenging for them so we should consider their design).

The key thing to note is that they are all aimed at specs, and not classes. That appears to be one key aspect of the design we've seen so far.

None of it was aimed at classes.

[MoanaLisa]

same happened with mage tower. released with shore, far easier with Antorus gear.

Is that bad though?

For solo content I would argue that those who want the challenge can take it on early and often and those who find it too difficult can do it successfully after gearing up some. Maybe they won't do it for a month or two or maybe they'll come back again and every so often to see how much further they can get. That's the whole point of something challenging.

Then too, strategies will emerge over time that can be sought out. Perhaps some people would just give up on it but I tend to think that people failing a piece of content in private may have a different attitude than failing it in a group. Maybe my own bias is showing there.

@Motorman
Yeah, you said it better than I.

[Lochton]

While I agree, it should be added here and there, but I think that is all it should be. Brawler's Guild, Mage Tower and the Dueler's Guild are fine by me. They shouldn't put more into it. Mage Tower was a lot of content for one thing, and the reward seemed fair enough to me.

[Ishayu]

Of course! Why not? A bit of challenging solo content would be fantastic. I loved the mage towers.

[JessicaJones]

They should make more content like the Mage Tower.

Warfronts are essentially solo content, as are islands. The only difference is, a monkey could complete an island or a warfront. If I had to do something like the Mage Tower each week to cap my Azerite I would probably cap my Azerite.

[Kokolums]

Not a bad idea...if only as an experiment.

But what was in TBC that killed the social aspect for you? I thought that came with WotLK, catchup, LFG and diferent difficulties. They could still modify TBC to be more hardcore Classic. Take out the dailies, the batch gear (basically the rewards and system of IoQD, just leave the raid and 5 man) - and remove flying. Netherwing quests could totally be restructured to have a transport / teleport there and change the ones that needed you to fly.

BC introduced Arenas, which destroyed the PvP community. The vanilla system was best as the focus was fighting regular people and regular teams in BGs. You became familiar with your allies and your enemies. This added a social framework. Arenas queue people up from a vast pool of enemies and so it becomes totally anonymous and you might as well be fighting NPCs. I went from a rabid PvPer to abandoning PvP in BC because arenas are terrible from a social standpoint. Arenas are efficient, smooth, and totally and absolutely soulless. Its also way too small, with just 2v2 or 3v3. This is an MMO. It should be 15v15 or 40v40. Cmon.

Arenas should be ripped from the game in their current form, altho I could totally revamp them to make them social. It needs a massive overhaul and new vision.

BC saw the destruction of global chat as they removed global LFG and replaced with the LFD tool, intending that people simply STOP TALKING to people and join queues. Disgusting. People rebelled and this was when everyone join the trade channel and turned it into a new LFG chat. Trade chat has been destroyed ever since. Then Blizz fucks up AGAIN and re-adds global LFG but ties it to the stupid damn tool. Global LFG (or hell just a global chat channel) should be turned on by DEFAULT (like it is on pirate servers) and you can't set it to default off. Its a total total fuck up and they STILL haven't fixed it here in BfA!

And of course you have the LFD tool which entered in BC. Between smashing global chat and adding the LFD tool, server communities began to collapse. This broke the back of the ridiculous growth of the game, as the game grew much more antisocial. Wrath was very slightly more popular than BC, but really Wrath subs were flat as the last vestiges of the server communities rotted away. By early Cata, the server communities were dead, and subs began their decline.

Blizzard's #1 job was to protect server communities that they fucked it up by prioritizing queues and tools instead of people actually talking and forming in-game bonds. You see it start in BC. I get the appeal of BC but it would be better to NEVER make those mistakes again and make a fork of wow off vanilla.


Dailies, flying don't have anything to do with the social aspect. I don't understand what you mean there. World Quests would actually be AMAZING content in the old vanilla system. I can just imagine running into regulars (allies and enemies) while trying to do world quests. That would make for some epic and memorable battles out in the world. Its a pity they added WQs in Legion, when in-game communities were dead.

[RobertMugabe]

It happened in Warlords also.

We know it happened in Mists first, given that is used both Mists buildings and Mists characters.

No it didn't happen in MoP, do your research ffs. They've added Proving Grounds in 5.4 (last patch of MoP) and they were only there to "test" your spec. They only made them a requirement to do in WoD so that you can queue for LFD and LFR. I still remember this very well when everyone was "hyped" about this (since everyone hoped that people would be a little better)

Also: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Proving_Gr...rds_of_Draenor

[WilmaWelsh]

I am a solo player but I still wanna play as a team member

[Pua]

No it didn't happen in MoP, do your research ffs. They've added Proving Grounds in 5.4 (last patch of MoP)...

So, not only do you correct your own statement, you also spurt a piece of "research" advice when you know you're wrong?

And you share a little "ffs"! What a joy!

I'll try one more time:

The point to grasp here is the CONSTRUCT of a piece of content that was scaled in its difficulty; it made one piece of it relatively simple but mandatory, while the other piece of it was relatively challenging but optional.

The design of THAT type of content was created in Mists of Pandaria, as I've said. One of my original responses to @det should make this point very, very simple to grasp.

In fact, it could scarcely be put any simpler.