Does WoW have skillful single-player gameplay nowadays?

[epigramx]

I was playing Hearthstone recently and that game is refreshing on that front; you can feel putting your brain hard at work without relying on others "being online" or whatnot; I was wondering if WoW has something similar lately.

I remember we had the Mage Tower in Legion and the return to it last expansion; is there something similar today; can you play WoW and feel like you do something very hard without relying on others in the same team?

[Enclave]

PvE? no, Blizzard is too stubborn to make dungeons scale 1 to 5 player in difficulty
PvP you can soloQ arena but you still depend on 2 other players on your team

[doledippers]

There's pretty much just the mage tower at this point. However in 11.0 they are adding Delves which are basically meant to be the outdoor / world content endgame pillar. They can be done solo or with up to 4 other people, and it scales like scenarios do. Whether these will actually be challenging remains to be seen, but they seem fun from the initial preview imo

[epigramx]

PvE? no, Blizzard is too stubborn to make dungeons scale 1 to 5 player in difficulty
PvP you can soloQ arena but you still depend on 2 other players on your team

Hm PvP on 1on1 (duel) would make the most parallel sense, but we have the obvious technical issues, e.g. healers owning everyone or delaying everything; they even break 2 o 2 to not say 3 o 3 to or anything really if it's not at least 5 and up per team.

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There's pretty much just the mage tower at this point. However in 11.0 they are adding Delves which are basically meant to be the outdoor / world content endgame pillar. They can be done solo or with up to 4 other people, and it scales like scenarios do. Whether these will actually be challenging remains to be seen, but they seem fun from the initial preview imo

That sounds like scenarios or "islands". Not being instanced doesn't seem crucial for the gameplay feeling. Do they have something fundamentally different about how they will feel actually playing in them?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I remember we had the Mage Tower in Legion and the return to it last expansion; is there something similar today; can you play WoW and feel like you do something very hard without relying on others in the same team?

Maybe the Brawler's guild fights, and that's it.

[epigramx]

Maybe the Brawler's guild fights, and that's it.

Those were cool. Hard to design to be original but it's great. Then again Ulduar was also hard to design to be original but it remains the best raid in the history of gaming.

[doledippers]

Do they have something fundamentally different about how they will feel actually playing in them?

they have seasonal rewards and theres an NPC companion that has a progression system with talents and gear

[khazmodan]

I was playing Hearthstone recently and that game is refreshing on that front; you can feel putting your brain hard at work without relying on others "being online" or whatnot; I was wondering if WoW has something similar lately.

I remember we had the Mage Tower in Legion and the return to it last expansion; is there something similar today; can you play WoW and feel like you do something very hard without relying on others in the same team?

Hearthstone is skillful single player???...I guess if you buy enough decks you can win "skillfully".

[Mysterymask]

Hearthstone is skillful single player???...I guess if you buy enough decks you can win "skillfully".

Hearthstone is Single Player?

Does he think that the people he plays are random NPCs?

[Accendor]

Hearthstone is skillful single player???...I guess if you buy enough decks you can win "skillfully".

Each Hearthstone expansion usually has a single player mode and challenges that have their own set of cards where no access to your PVP collection is possible. I am assuming OP refers to those parts of the game, as they can actually be challenging. Ofc what you personally experience as challenging varies from person to person but I think it's very fair to say that objectively those modes are more difficult than any WoW SP content except mage tower.

[FelPlague]

Each Hearthstone expansion usually has a single player mode and challenges that have their own set of cards where no access to your PVP collection is possible. I am assuming OP refers to those parts of the game, as they can actually be challenging. Ofc what you personally experience as challenging varies from person to person but I think it's very fair to say that objectively those modes are more difficult than any WoW SP content except mage tower.

They have not had single player campaigns since like... Rise of galakrond, and they haven't had a good one since rastakhan rumble (one that has actual mechanics and not just "do these fights")

[Mysterymask]

Each Hearthstone expansion usually has a single player mode and challenges that have their own set of cards where no access to your PVP collection is possible. I am assuming OP refers to those parts of the game, as they can actually be challenging. Ofc what you personally experience as challenging varies from person to person but I think it's very fair to say that objectively those modes are more difficult than any WoW SP content except mage tower.

Honestly they really haven't in a while the last one we had was Mercenary mode which was 3 years ago and they basically put it in Maintenance mode last year

also fuck Mercenary Mode was 3 years ago....god damn where does time go

[Paula Deen]

I was playing Hearthstone recently and that game is refreshing on that front; you can feel putting your brain hard at work without relying on others "being online" or whatnot; I was wondering if WoW has something similar lately.

I remember we had the Mage Tower in Legion and the return to it last expansion; is there something similar today; can you play WoW and feel like you do something very hard without relying on others in the same team?

Mage Tower is good. Lots of Achievements but they mostly do not require a lot of brain activity just time.

PvP has Solo Queue for Arena and they are testing unrated Solo Queue Battlegrounds now to be turned into Solo Rated Battlegrounds in War Within.

PvE is getting Follower Dungeons in a week but they are not meant to be a challenge and will not be. Delves are probably going to be the same story when they drop.

The most difficult solo content in the game is....Pet Battles. Lots of investment and skill required to be good...or guide reading.

[Daedius]

Shadowlands' Ascended Trials where you control an NPC? Was difficult back then for Wisdom and Humility difficulties... trivial now in DF, where they kill the boss quick though.

So do them as a level 60 ifyou want to retain a challenge.

[Flaks]

I wish they could bring Horrific Visions and maintain Mage Tower along side Delves as single player progression pathways.

Torghast too I guess though I really wasn't a fan of that at all.

[Al Gorefiend]

There's pretty much just the mage tower at this point. However in 11.0 they are adding Delves which are basically meant to be the outdoor / world content endgame pillar. They can be done solo or with up to 4 other people, and it scales like scenarios do. Whether these will actually be challenging remains to be seen, but they seem fun from the initial preview imo

Delves sounds like something we've had before

[czarek]

Actually not. We got to wait for the delves.

[fazaim]

Mage Tower, but it's basically a wasted feature at this point but they should've continued that and added challenges over time.

[Ghostile]

The problem with skillful single player content is.. well.. just look at how rare the mage tower sets are.

[Flaks]

The problem with skillful single player content is.. well.. just look at how rare the mage tower sets are.

Adding gear progression to solo content like that is the way to go. Just look at how heavily horrific visions were played. You can have the most bland boring thing still be playable if the rewards feel like they're worth getting.

And having a pathway to slowly but steadily get heroic raid level geared through these paths is super compelling. Horrific Visions and Heroic Warfront gearing in BfA allowed me to get legit AotC for the first time ever back in BfA. I look forward to having that type of gear progression again. Would love if Horrific Visions came back for next expansion too since it's very clearly another old god expansion.