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  1. #481
    Quote Originally Posted by ippollite View Post
    On the 'solo-player' in an mmo. I want to kind of justify this play style (since its mine and im kind of biased). Firstly, the draw of an mmo isnt just the competitive elements, but also features like 'shared persistent world', 'avatar permanence' and 'longstanding and continual updates'. Or to put it more cynically, 'sunk cost' and 'addiction'. I like my characters. They have a kind of crypto story existing in the world for such a long period of time, and its one that actually invests me into keeping them updated. I love my shammy spacegoat from TBC. I HATE playing it in the world, mind you. I just spent the past week leveling her through the 50-60 story as resto without running a dungeon and it was ugly. But she's resto. Thats the character i fell in love with back in TBC (particularly in pvp). Switching to enhance or elemental purely for the expedience isnt even a thought in my head. She is a resto shammy, she will not change (though she now hates grouping and helping other people for some reason or other). Thats the nature of avatar permanence.

    Secondly, ive seen it mentioned either here or in another thread: Bartle's taxonomy. I'd say im more of the explorer/immersion playstyle. So if the discussion on 'solo players' is too loaded (and often descends into an argument that "its an MMO!!! go play a single player rpg!"), then perhaps we could discuss it in those terms. By which i mean, have explorers lost a little of what drew them into the game all the way back? The competitive players and killers have the game of their dreams. Well... maybe less so the killers with the introduction of war mode which really deprived them of a lot of their fun (pvp servers once upon a time had a function). But the competitive players have been fed constantly. Meanwhile the social players are stuck in a crypto instanced-lobby game, whilst explorers/immersion players are stuck in this fun house mirror of the actual (competitive) game.
    Perhaps this explains why the game currently feels pretty unsatisfying even to its hardcore playerbase (by which i mean players who've been playing the game for many many years - not the competitive hardcore).
    I feel you.

    I am also really burned out on having to farm up things on multiple characters again and again to be able to get to some cosmetic stuff I cannot get on my main character (because of gear restrictions or faction / race restrictions or the inability to do all professions on one character). I have stories in my mind for my characters, but currently they are all in a limbo because Shadowlands killed my motivation to do anything. The grind was just too much. I somehow managed the 15+ Keymaster achievement in the 1st season on my main, but did not even try on any of my alts I got to max level and somehow decent gear in that time. I also get sick and tired when I even think of leveling characters again, did not had that feeling ever before. Sure, leveling has been quite boring most of the time, but it just went by, especially when the Pathfinder limitations finally went away. In SL, it was too little and too late and I cannot even find motivation to unlock flying in ZM on my main. When I think about Legion, where I have been playing alts galore, BfA has already been a depressing condition, but I have at least managed to level up most of my Horde alts and one Alliance (about 29 max level characters in total) and even get 2 allied races to max level or at least their heritage set. Now I only have 5 characters at max level and that's it.

    While I find some ideas of Dragonflight interesting and I even know which one of my alts to delete to get me an Evoker character for my collection, I really don't know if I will play the next expansion or not. And I have been playing WoW since the end of 2005 almost without any breaks (except for one burnout phase in MoP).

  2. #482
    Quote Originally Posted by Motorman View Post
    Ideally:
    1. More mage tower challenges that scale up to mythic level of gear drop with drops not static loot
    2. 1-2-3 man max scenarios that scale up to mythic
    3. M+ with bot healer and tank
    4. RBG solo queue
    5. Automatic grouping systems with no interaction
    6. Full removal of chat as a UI option

    That’s to name a few. I am not asking for easier life I am in favor of the choice to not interact with the community to be respected.

    Plain and simple what do players want?
    1. Good time
    2. Some gear for their effort

    So why should both these things go through the whims of other players when it is a known fact the other players will abuse this kind of power?
    You are playing the wrong game. Lost Ark has 95% solo content, WoW is a team game, you can already play M+0 and ignore the chat.

  3. #483
    Quote Originally Posted by scubi666stacy View Post
    I feel you.

    I am also really burned out on having to farm up things on multiple characters again and again to be able to get to some cosmetic stuff I cannot get on my main character (because of gear restrictions or faction / race restrictions or the inability to do all professions on one character). I have stories in my mind for my characters, but currently they are all in a limbo because Shadowlands killed my motivation to do anything. The grind was just too much. I somehow managed the 15+ Keymaster achievement in the 1st season on my main, but did not even try on any of my alts I got to max level and somehow decent gear in that time. I also get sick and tired when I even think of leveling characters again, did not had that feeling ever before. Sure, leveling has been quite boring most of the time, but it just went by, especially when the Pathfinder limitations finally went away. In SL, it was too little and too late and I cannot even find motivation to unlock flying in ZM on my main. When I think about Legion, where I have been playing alts galore, BfA has already been a depressing condition, but I have at least managed to level up most of my Horde alts and one Alliance (about 29 max level characters in total) and even get 2 allied races to max level or at least their heritage set. Now I only have 5 characters at max level and that's it.

    While I find some ideas of Dragonflight interesting and I even know which one of my alts to delete to get me an Evoker character for my collection, I really don't know if I will play the next expansion or not. And I have been playing WoW since the end of 2005 almost without any breaks (except for one burnout phase in MoP).
    Replayability in the game via alts is critical for me. Even between specs. In SL one had to farm legendary for main spec+offspecs. THEN farm it for your alts. Over the years I have always stayed around playing wow if there was easy enough to play alts at max level. When theres been grindy stuff one had to do, I didnt do them on any alt. Sometimes I did the grind on one ally char and one horde char.

    Since the last couple of xpacs have been shit for alts, I just quit.

  4. #484
    Titan Frozenbeef's Avatar
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    I just hope there's more solo endgame content, visions in BFA were great as i could progress over the weeks and raise the difficulty as needed with better rewards.

    Then shadowlands had nothing to replace that (or at least it didn't the last time i played in 2020, not sure if this has changed since release) Bg's were great but then when you hit a point you were forced into Arena's.

    Pretty much if things stay how they are I'll just buy the expansion, play for a month and then go to other games as there's nothing keeping me invested.
    Last edited by Frozenbeef; 2022-04-23 at 12:39 PM.

  5. #485
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    Quote Originally Posted by ClassicPeon View Post
    You arent making a very good case here mate.

    Back then you had:
    Dungeons, pvp, raids and the extremely limited amount of items you could get from world farming.

    Today you have:
    Dungeons, pvp, Raids, world quests, Zereth Mortis questline, Zereth Mortus Treasures, World bosses and Zereth Mortis Rares. You also have crafting of epic gear and of legendaries. I'm even going to ignore the Vault beacuse its a shit system btw.

    You can get more gear from m+ then you could from the ICC dungeons, you can get WAY more gear from zereth mortis then you could from world content back then. You can make 2 legendaries completely outside the raid. I mean...
    ...You are missing the point here.

    It's about freedom to choose how, to not be overly behind and be able to know what you'll get no natter what you do(and mythic+ is not everyones cup of tea)

    Many seem to forget even the most casual of content once gave decent enough gear and still better then what you get today(as in equivelant to todays heroic gear)

    Legendaries weren't a thing back then so not even sure why you focus so much on them unless ilv is your only real concern and not how it's acquired.

    Some people want to be able to log in bum out some gametime on mains/alts with some simple dailies/wqs and progress a bit more every day.

    The old point system worked for that. And it worked better then an rng vault who depends purely on doing very specific content.

    No sane person is saying full mythic level gear but many are saying the current system doesn't work/isn't as fun for them.

  6. #486
    Mechagnome terminaltrip421's Avatar
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    I'm the kinds of player who can always find something like find 'mog for all of my planned 50 characters (and work on leveling and gearing them) so forcing tempo and timegates just make me want to quit as they generally stand in the way of what I want to do.

  7. #487
    Arguing an MMORPG should focus more on solo content is kind of like arguing that an FPS game should focus more on jumping. Did people forget what genre they were playing? WoW at its core is meant to be a social gaming experience with groups of people. It already does more to cater to solo play than many MMOs out there, and if solo gaming experiences are your preferred style, MMOs in general probably aren't for you in the first place.

  8. #488
    Quote Originally Posted by Sorrior View Post
    ...You are missing the point here.
    It's about freedom to choose how, to not be overly behind and be able to know what you'll get no natter what you do(and mythic+ is not everyones cup of tea)
    You have the exact same freedom today - you have even more ways of gearing up. As an example i've recently geared an alt to 240 ilvl without touching anything endgame related. I didnt even have that ilvl when we started our first raid in normal Sepulcher.

    Many seem to forget even the most casual of content once gave decent enough gear and still better then what you get today(as in equivelant to todays heroic gear)
    Todays hc is the same difficulty as that times hc was. Todays mythic didnt exist back then. You couldnt get hc ilvl gear back then if you didnt pvp or raid.
    The most casual content can easily get you to 250 ilvl. Thats really, really fucking good.

    Legendaries weren't a thing back then so not even sure why you focus so much on them unless ilv is your only real concern and not how it's acquired.
    Legendaries have been a thing since vanilla wow. You must not play much huh :/

    Some people want to be able to log in bum out some gametime on mains/alts with some simple dailies/wqs and progress a bit more every day.
    There is more stuff to do for casuals today then there ever has been before.

    The old point system worked for that. And it worked better then an rng vault who depends purely on doing very specific content.
    The vault sucks. I agree. It should be removed.

    No sane person is saying full mythic level gear but many are saying the current system doesn't work/isn't as fun for them.[
    You can get hc ilvl loot within a few months of playing with virtually no hard content investment. There are the weekly quests from besides the vault, you can do lfr, you can do low lvl m+ and valor upgrade it, there is the weekly world boss, you can do professions, you can do rares in zereth mortis, you can do chests in zereth mortis, you can buy gear from the vendor in zereth mortis with stuff you grind from zereth mortis.
    Last edited by ClassicPeon; 2022-04-24 at 06:54 AM.

  9. #489
    Quote Originally Posted by Hibiki View Post
    I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
    Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.
    What do you mean not a single word about casual/solo players? I somehow don't think that dragonriding is going to matter in a mythic plus or a raid?!?! They're talking about giant zones, why would those matter to Raiders or mythic plusers?!?! They talked about reputations and learning about a older race of centaurs and tuskars... once again, why would any of that matter to raiders? They talk about all the exploration out there to do, finding treasures and secrets and crafting hubs where you actually see other players use their professions.... what does any of that have to do or matter to raiders??? Literally everything they've talked about has more to do with "casual" or "solo players" than raiders. The only thing they talked about that matters to raiders is that there's going to be 8 dungeons at launch and the mythic plus rotation and some concept art/generic info about the first raid. EVERYTHING else they talked about and showed has more to do with "casuals" then the "5 percenters"....

  10. #490
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cordrann View Post
    Arguing an MMORPG should focus more on solo content is kind of like arguing that an FPS game should focus more on jumping. Did people forget what genre they were playing? WoW at its core is meant to be a social gaming experience with groups of people. It already does more to cater to solo play than many MMOs out there, and if solo gaming experiences are your preferred style, MMOs in general probably aren't for you in the first place.
    WoW is a big enough game that talking about a "core" is meaningless and flies in the face of stuff like Torghast, Mage Tower, professions, collectibles, hundreds of dailies over the years, Suromar, patch zones and much more. The game encompasses all sorts of play styles so to talk about it being one thing exclusively is ignoring reality. I don't really care how many times people repeat it. With respect to WoW it's always wrong.

    It's not an unreal case to make in a business sense that if half of your players (conservatively) play solo or only with friends they ought to get enough content and progression to stay around for a bit longer. It will likely fall on deaf ears in Irvine HQ but there's no reason not to keep making the case because it makes sense. Doing this right will increase engagement and profits.
    "...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

  11. #491
    Quote Originally Posted by Kagthul View Post
    What you mean and what the words involved actually mean have no bearing on each other; just because youre too fundamentally stupid to understand that something can be extremely culturally relevant without having to be “big” or “bigger” than its first incarnation is a you problem. It can have less players and still be more culturally relevant; it can be popular (and maybe even more popular than the first incarnation) without having higher sub numbers. Plenty of things are hugely culutrally relevant and popular without having huge user bases.

    But hey, in your blinkered intellectually stunted world, i guess the only metrics that exist are “big” and “biggerer”. Dolt.
    A lot of anger but no actual argument. Can you start writing like a real adult or is nerdrage the only thing you can supply?

    Again, if you've forgotten: what could I have meant, with some modicum of logic, by 'bigger' than "more popular", "more culturally relevant", or a combination of the two?

  12. #492
    Quote Originally Posted by Rageonit View Post
    Get rid of the notion that every MMO has to have the same focus just because a different game you enjoy has it. For me, everything that's great in WoW is multiplayer. Sure, the aesthetics, the music, the presentation is great and works also in a single player environment, but as a lasting game, it's best as a multiplayer game - and there is not reason to change it. Single player content in WoW is an ok disctraction at most; something to do while watching a movie (like farming herbs or whatever).
    No, i don't enjoy FF14; while solo-gameplay is good, the mechanics are so clunky that i stopped playing it. WoW Combat is by FAR superior to FF14, no question here. And it does not change this fact that solo-gameplay is the most important thing, especially since you can always adapt solo gameplay into multiplayer-experiences too. That WoW Subscriber-Numbers are so low is because blizzard only catered for the 5% of playerbase instead of the 95%, it's as simple as that.

    SL solo gameplay was utterly crap; the Maw was the worst zone blizzard ever created, and that includes crystalsong forest that had 0 content in it. MoreMaw was also not much better, only 9.2 seems to be okay to good, but right now most players given up on the expansion. If blizzard does the same crap, instead of delivering good solo content at the beginning of the xpack like suramar and does the same as BfA and SL in the midst of an xpack, then the player numbers will dwindle even more. And yes, high subscriber-numbers are important even for multiplayer-player; heck even from pure single players benefit the raiding community.

  13. #493
    Quote Originally Posted by Velerios View Post
    No, i don't enjoy FF14; while solo-gameplay is good, the mechanics are so clunky that i stopped playing it. WoW Combat is by FAR superior to FF14, no question here. And it does not change this fact that solo-gameplay is the most important thing, especially since you can always adapt solo gameplay into multiplayer-experiences too. That WoW Subscriber-Numbers are so low is because blizzard only catered for the 5% of playerbase instead of the 95%, it's as simple as that.

    SL solo gameplay was utterly crap; the Maw was the worst zone blizzard ever created, and that includes crystalsong forest that had 0 content in it. MoreMaw was also not much better, only 9.2 seems to be okay to good, but right now most players given up on the expansion. If blizzard does the same crap, instead of delivering good solo content at the beginning of the xpack like suramar and does the same as BfA and SL in the midst of an xpack, then the player numbers will dwindle even more. And yes, high subscriber-numbers are important even for multiplayer-player; heck even from pure single players benefit the raiding community.
    Oh course you can easily argue that delivering solo content next to multiplayer content will result in more subs, no question about it. But it doesn't necessarily mean it will make for a better game - only for a game tailored for broader audience. Why is it so important how many subs WoW has...? You could also argue a game tailored for ONE type of players will be probably better than a game that caters to everybody at once, because you can easily focus your development on what is really important. Like you said yourself, not many were thrilled with content like Thorgas - but it did consume resources and manpower that could have been spent elsewhere. Consider this: what if Blizzard is just bad in delivering solo content for WoW? Why struggle with it yet another time instead of focusing on what they do really well?

  14. #494
    Quote Originally Posted by cordrann View Post
    Arguing an MMORPG should focus more on solo content is kind of like arguing that an FPS game should focus more on jumping. Did people forget what genre they were playing? WoW at its core is meant to be a social gaming experience with groups of people. It already does more to cater to solo play than many MMOs out there, and if solo gaming experiences are your preferred style, MMOs in general probably aren't for you in the first place.
    WRONG!

    WoWs huge success was NOT because it was an MMO, but because it was THE MOST SINGLE PLAYER FRIENDLY ONE. Back in the days there were only hardcore mmos where you could do nothing solo, wow was by far the most casual one. Right now wow is the least single player friendly one, and probably the one that is the least successful in drawing in new players.

    What expansion are the most successful ones: the ones with the best solo content: TBC, WOTLK, MoP, Legion had the best single player content blizzard ever created AT THE START OF AN XPACK. And they were the most successful ones. TBC is a bit of an exception, because it added a ton of content in 2.1, but since many players weren't even 70 when 2.1 launched, i count it as one.

    But all in all: Just look at WoD: one of the crappiest expansion blizzard ever created: and one with the BEST raiding experiences blizzard ever created. All Raids in WoD were extremely good, and it was an failure of an expansion. So in the end your argument is invalid.

  15. #495
    Quote Originally Posted by Hibiki View Post
    I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
    Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.
    Almost everything they've talked about is related to the open world and casual play. I don't think they've mention mythic+ or raids a single time in the announcement.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by cordrann View Post
    Arguing an MMORPG should focus more on solo content is kind of like arguing that an FPS game should focus more on jumping. Did people forget what genre they were playing? WoW at its core is meant to be a social gaming experience with groups of people. It already does more to cater to solo play than many MMOs out there, and if solo gaming experiences are your preferred style, MMOs in general probably aren't for you in the first place.
    If I am not mistaken, the vast majority (like at least 2/3) of WoW's playerbase does neither do m+, rated pvp or raid on normal or higher.

    Also you are totally wrong on what MMORPG's are. MMO's give you a space where you can communicate with other people, but you don't necessarily have to play with them. Most of the MMO's before WoW were mostly solo experiences that added chatting with other people.

    And so was WoW. If you take a look at vanilla, WoW's entire focus was on the leveling and questing experience which was mostly solo play and you were at a disadvantage a lot of the time if you grouped as quest drops weren't shared intentionally and mob tagging was also a huge thing. It was only sometime during the development of AQ were they put a lot of emphasis on raiding.

  16. #496
    Quote Originally Posted by Rageonit View Post
    Oh course you can easily argue that delivering solo content next to multiplayer content will result in more subs, no question about it. But it doesn't necessarily mean it will make for a better game - only for a game tailored for broader audience. Why is it so important how many subs WoW has...? You could also argue a game tailored for ONE type of players will be probably better than a game that caters to everybody at once, because you can easily focus your development on what is really important. Like you said yourself, not many were thrilled with content like Thorgas - but it did consume resources and manpower that could have been spent elsewhere. Consider this: what if Blizzard is just bad in delivering solo content for WoW? Why struggle with it yet another time instead of focusing on what they do really well?
    Because it is: high sub numbers helps drawing in more players, more players mean that there will be more raids, bringing in more players for the multiplayer-experience too. High sub numbers are important even for shareholders; why support a dead game?

  17. #497
    Quote Originally Posted by RobertMugabe View Post
    This is just like your opinion man.
    A lot of good MMO's, like FFXIV, are primarily designed for solo play despite being an MMO.
    Even the early MMO's worked like that.

    It's great how you're a part of an active and liveable world where you can see and communicate with other people, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the main goal for every player is group play. Even WoW was when you really look at it originally designed as a mostly solo experience before they changed their focus onto raids and dungeons.
    Considering how many outdoor elite areas there were there was a lot more needing to group up than you might think.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  18. #498
    Quote Originally Posted by Velerios View Post
    Because it is: high sub numbers helps drawing in more players, more players mean that there will be more raids, bringing in more players for the multiplayer-experience too. High sub numbers are important even for shareholders; why support a dead game?
    I wouldn't be so sure it works like that: draw players who enjoy single player experience to somehow convert them into players enjoing group content. Some you probably will, but I'd argue only a small portion of them. Instead, you should do great multiplayer game to draw players who love group content, and that's it. In a game that caters to both types you'll always have a lot of friction - just check all of those threads where people complaint single player content doesn't give them raid level rewards. If you do a game only for multiplayers, that friction is gone, because everone works for the same goal.

  19. #499
    Quote Originally Posted by Mojo03 View Post
    I want a fleshed out world that feels alive, not a lobby raid/m+/pvp simulator.

    I want meaningful vertical progression options, rather than or supported more than, an arbitrary gear treadmill that resets every 6 months.

    I want a variety of content rather than contrived funneling into just doing what the current patches quest hub and raid is.

    I want actual pvp content and pvp to be skill > gear always.

    I want a different business model than an overpriced subscription or there to be substantially more value from it.

    I want devs that communicate well, are transparent, and work with their player base.

    I want a coherent and evolving story, rather than something that feels like it was written with a crayon and made for a Saturday morning cartoon.
    This is very good post, well written.

  20. #500
    Quote Originally Posted by Mojo03 View Post
    I want a fleshed out world that feels alive, not a lobby raid/m+/pvp simulator.

    I want meaningful vertical progression options, rather than or supported more than, an arbitrary gear treadmill that resets every 6 months.

    I want a variety of content rather than contrived funneling into just doing what the current patches quest hub and raid is.

    I want actual pvp content and pvp to be skill > gear always.

    I want a different business model than an overpriced subscription or there to be substantially more value from it.

    I want devs that communicate well, are transparent, and work with their player base.

    I want a coherent and evolving story, rather than something that feels like it was written with a crayon and made for a Saturday morning cartoon.
    Great post. When you finally quit WoW and find a game that does that, let us know.

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