Then what is the rational difference in level of the gear ,is it 10 to 20 level difference? I would say imho that the level could be equal but with out the added benefits.
Iād argue that they were intentionally undertuned on PTR, so blizzard could get better data on weather or not stuff was working. This is a common thing with raid testing, where if they want to mostly test P2 of a boss, they will tune the boss in a way that P1 is far easier than itās supposed to be, and P2 takes longer than it realistically should.
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I agree with this totally and completely. But everyoneās implication here, is that this can only be done in groups. I think Mage tower (original) proved that to be false. There just needs to be more content like that, if solo-ers want to feel some kind of end game progression.
This still all boils down to āmy way or the highwayā mentality of many here. What would it harm you if there were a solo path to progression that was still above the skill of most casuals?
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I would be forced to do it.
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heh, well yes, that could certainly feel like an issue. I know I have sleepless nights over completionismās (not necessarily game related) just because of my nature 
I just made this statement not too long ago in another thread.
It does feel like less-dedicated players want things handed to them. If all they want is to play alone, fine, but that content is going to be savage as heck. Itās no different in the multiplayer content.
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Raids get easier and easier as you and your team gear as well. I donāt raid anymore but when I did, after we got to a certain level of gear, the bosses become a joke and many mechanics can be ignored. A 10 minute fight is reduced to a 4 minute fight and the challenge is no longer there. Then they take a break from WoW because itās āboringā and thereās nothing to do.
How is this different from farming rares and world content? Solo players spend just as many hours in their preferred content and things do get a bit easier as you gain gear. But it never becomes a ājokeā as it does for raiders. The enormous health pools and immunities and those stupid ccās when mobs are close to death in shadowlands makes farming them extremely time consuming, annoying and not fun. Itās also seriously frustrating when a raid geared player comes roaring in clears all the rares out of a zone before you can even down 2. Shouldnāt I be able to one shot my world content the way end gamers can one shot their raid content by the time a new patch comes out? I donāt understand why thatās called whining and lazy by a solo player, but the natural progression of an MMO by raiders.
There are some whiners out there who want āfree stuffā but most solo players just want to feel a difference in power after months of work, just like a raider does.
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It has nothing to do with completionism. I am on a raid roster of 30 people fighting for 20 slots.
If something like solo gear was equal to a 15 key I would be required to do it
I agree.
Yep.
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And as wow keeps hemorrhaging ācasualā players, keep your statements in mind as they canāt get enough resources to keep the content schedule going without extending current content until youāre sick of it and canāt make meaningful changes.
Like it or not, they need more players and exclusivity puts off the majority while keeping the minority addicted.
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How is solo play āless dedicatedā, exactly? Honestly, that feels insulting, lol. I have played WoW since the end of BC WITHOUT taking a break. So because I no longer want to raid and commit to at least 9 other players, you feel like Iām less dedicated to the game, my character or account?
Thatās an unfair statement. Period.
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Where is this argument for solo content even coming from? The game is an MMO for crying out loud. Itās already heavily solo driven as is.
If youāve already put 800 hours into it over 10 months they got their moneyās worth out of you. Just go play something else if you want to avoid guilds, Mythics, raids, PvP, and all of the multiplayer content.
I donāt care either way if they add it to the game. But donāt act like the lack of solo content is bleeding subscribers. Thatās absurd.
That wasnāt directed at solo players in general. It was directed at less dedicated players. And honestly, people who donāt want to group up in an MMO are āless dedicated.ā Itās a price to pay for the top of the top.
If you want to do Hell on Hell difficulty in WoW by yourself, by all means. I doubt Blizzard will cater to it any time soon. Or if they do it wonāt be enough.
still entirely on you. If thatās how you enjoy the game, then itās your requirement. Not anybody elseās. Why should that have any bearing on game design that also benefits solo players?
Itās a game. You donāt āhaveā to do anything. If you feel your spot is threatened by someone else because thereās another path to end gear, then again, thatās on you.
end of the day? itās just a game.
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Something tells me that youād be unhappy if world quests only rewarded greens and blues.
I think, after reading through all of thisā¦
ā¦that I am a ābadā player of World of Warcraft. The thing is, I was a ābadā player since it launched in 2004. Iāve gotten better and worse, better and worse (and so on) over time at playing whatever class I wanted to play at, but ostensibly, I am, according to a lot of people on these forums, just ābadā at the game.
The funny thing is, I have always felt fine being ābadā at the game and playing it as I can and am able to do so. Iām legally blind, and at one point in time, I did the hardest raids in the game. I stopped raiding in Legion after most of the friends I raided with left the game; (they didnāt like that they couldnāt just raid in the game and instead had to do quests and dungeons and other things with their time apart from raiding. It wasnāt fun for them). I was, and have been, grateful that LFR existed after that because building a raid team, learning the fights, and learning how to work together as a team takes time and energy that I just didnāt have the time, patience, or energy to do any more. I still canāt seem to motivate myself to do those things, and I think thatās fine.
The other thing I know is that most of the time there were ways for people to get high-end gear from killing world bosses or a treasure chest, or something else that didnāt take a lot of time or skill to do to get it. It was luck based, and certainly not an ideal way to hunt for gear, but it was what I had the time, energy, and willingness to do.
I pushed myself to get the legendaries because ā¦hey, I wanted a legendary. I thought that was neat, and it also involved a lot of story that was included with itāat least before Legion. When the legendaries were just dropping from mobs, they kind of lost that special appeal to me; that said, I did get excited when one would drop. It was a neat feeling getting that ācoolā new orange thing. The same can be said for any purple upgrades I get from killing World Bossesālike I did in BFA, or at the beginning of Shadowlands. Going to each of the new areas and having a potential drop that could be as good or better than raiding or M+ gear, to me, was neat. I enjoyed having that chance, and I enjoyed it when my gear got upgraded that way. It made me feel like I could do the things I wanted to do in the game and still have funāwhile also getting to get gear that meant my time spent grinding out whatever I was grinding that day took a LOT less time and effort.
You see, ābadā players at the game do need those extra bits of added power. And most of the time us ābadā players are actually learning a lot out in the open world about dodging attacks and learning our rotations, etc. Many of us have alts that we donāt know like the back of our hands, and weāre doing our best not to āruinā the game for others by playing them solo so that we can get better while learning how to play them. Or weāre just having fun with a new concept, new RP character (which weāre trying to gear to look cool), collecting mogs with, or otherwise just want to mindlessly hack and slash at things for a while, and this is how we choose to spend our entertainment budgets for the month.
So I get what the original poster of this thread had to say. I appreciate that they said what they did. For the most part, I agree with a lot of it, but thatās because Iāve seen, over the years, that getting gearāgood gearāhas become harder, takes longer, and is less ābad playerā friendly than it was in the past. I donāt want to argue the semantics of ācasualā or āsoloā gamer. I just want to state my opinion as someone who is defined as ābadā by most of what Iāve read here on the forums. āBadā players actually need gear more than those of you who can play the game with others and have fun doing it and are relaxed with it. That said, I get the enjoyment of achieving thingsāand part of that achievement comes with higher gear scores and being able to do things quicker, faster, and better so that you donāt have to keep doing it once youāre ādoneā with it. Unfortunately for ābadā players, it means we spend so much longer on that treadmill than most of the rest of you. Often we donāt complain, though, because we have goals in mind just like you. Weād just like it if our goals could be done more quickly like the rest of you, and right now, we donāt really get to do that. Weāre stuck at the bottom of that Sisyphean hill, and we never seem to get very far up it these days. In the past we had options for gearing that would help with that. These days itās just a grindfest that really isnāt all that fun when youāre competing with other players with better gear who can kill faster, complete quests faster, and then leave you behind for the next big thing thatās already come out by the time youāre finally able to get anything remotely comparable.
WoW was fun in the past because it did give those āwelfareā epics to people that spent more time just dorking about out in the open world or doing content that could be done with a group out in the open world (and people would do those things because of those chances). Nowadays it just feels like a choreāsomething I need to do in order to get to a point where I might be able toā¦ But no. The next thing has arrived, and Iām behind again.
I guess what Iām saying is, it would be nice to feel like thereās an option out there for me, however chance-ridden it might be, that I get some gear that means thereās that much less of a grind I have to doāor that makes that grind significantly easier on me when I do have time to do it.
That said, I think what Iād mostly like is more storyāsomething that made the things Iām doing feel like they mattered. Iād like those repeatable quests to add up to something more than just āand hereās the next thing we do with the new patch.ā For instance, what if doing those quests week after week opened up new things on a bar for that area or regionāthings that made us more powerful and didnāt reset from week to week? By the time we max out that bar for the area or region, weāre able to do the toughest things in that area or region without thinking too much about it. It becomes trivial. This helps out not only ābadsā like me, but also people who have to grind stuff out there for whatever content theyāre doingāor for people who have alts who later go there to gear up. It also adds a story-element to the game that proves that weāre getting better at a thing; we understand more now, or we were able to create that ādeath rayā that sometimes just randomly hits big, rare, monsters in the zone when weāre trying to kill them.
sighs I donāt know. It just seems like that would be a lot more fun for everyone, and it would help out people like me who are disabled, or donāt have a lot of time, or who just kind of want to putz around in a computer game from time to time. I know Brewa mentioned weāre getting some unlockables for the new area; so, Iām excited to see how that works out. But mostly it sounds like itās going to be another grindfest if we have to do that for all our alts, too (for those of us who enjoy that sort of thing).
Mostly though, I just want to be able to roam around and sometimes find an upgrade from a chest, or get a cool upgrade from killing a rareāsomething that reminds me that, even if Iām not raiding, or M+ing, or PvPing my eyes out, I have some ability to get better and faster at the game, tooārather than just grinding day in and day out for a pittance of āinsert new currency here.ā It also feels like the story dribbles out in bits and pieces this way, too; so, when Iām mostly interested in that story portion, by the time I get to the next part of it, I just feel like my soul has been stomped on repeatedly so much that Iāve kind of forgotten the whole purpose of what it was I was doing in the first place.
Anyway, thatās part of why I support what the OP has to say, along with my own clarifications based off of what Iāve read. Also, I donāt want to have to pay someone else in order to āenjoyā the game. Iām already paying Blizzard; carrying services honestly just seem antithetical to the whole concept of āgamingā to me. If you want to offer slots for carries for a pet, or mount, or a chance at a special weapon or something, thatās fine, but expecting the community to fund your raiding or PvPing or whatever else you do for āfunā in the game makes it seem like less of a game and hobby and more like a business opportunity. Iāve got enough people in my RL competing for my time, interest, and money. I donāt want that in my gaming life, as well. To each their own on that, though. I certainly canāt stop you from offering your services for a price. I just wonāt be buying them, especially if I can find other groups that are willing and able to offer those things for freeāin the spirit of offering enjoyment and community building for the game.
Also, if youāre only comment to this is, āGit gudā or āgo play something elseāāIāve heard you, and Iām still here. I believe I should get to have a say in what I pay to play, too. And I feel as though my opinion is just as important as yours. If the developers donāt want to listen, thatās up to them, and thatās fine. If you donāt like it, ā¦go create your own game, I guessāthe game where I donāt get to be, or want to be, a part of the player base?
I mean, I suppose you could try to drive me away from this one? And you might one day succeed? But for now, Iām still here, and Iām still willing to offer my thoughts and ideas on how to make this game more fun for me and people like me.
tl;dr: Iām a ābadā, and this is my explanation for why I agree with the OP. I also express ideas on how the game could be improved in ways that would help not only people like me, but others while contributing to the overall story of the game, too.
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Being good or bad, if there even is such a thing, shouldnāt really matter in this. I think people need to be a bit more realistic about the things that they want to achieve. If you want tier gear and high ilvls, thatās going to take some work. The solo gear awarded for solo play is more than enough to do solo content.
Thereās always going to be someone better geared than you. It does no good to focus on that. Do what you like to do and make your peace with the gear youāre going to get given the time and energy that you spend.
I play solo because I lack the time to put into those Vault rewards. If I had more time, perhaps and then Iād be in a guild doing runs and such.
I have tons of valor currency, but no desire to upgrade to 600 RIO. I grinded the heck out of Korthia to finally be at 231. Iāve reached my end game. The biggest luxury in the world is uninterrupted play. I used to no life games when I was 20. Not anymore. Do I want better? Sure. Do I deserve better? No.
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MMO Massive Multiplayer Online:
Definition of multiplayer
: involving or intended for more than one player
a multiplayer trade/deal in baseball
a card game with solitaire and multiplayer rules
often involving or allowing simultaneous play by more than one player through a shared interface
Since the multiplayer game World of Warcraft debuted in 2004, gamers have spent more than 50 billion hours guiding their role-playing avatars through its mythical virtual worlds.
Simultaneous means āat the same timeā, it doesnāt mean ātogetherā.
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Beautiful post, too bad it falls on deaf ears. Iāve gotten exhausted by trying to play this crap. They obviously donāt care if they lose solo/casual player subscriptions. Delete it now.
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to be clear, if anyone actually reads my posts, I donāt want anyone to think I am advocating high end gear just being handed out to anyone.
I would love to see a meaningful solo path to progression, not a skill-less one.
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