End the war on solo gameplay in WoW

Community General Discussion
1989

I would like to reiterate solo and casual are not the same thing. People think because someone wants to solo stuff and do their own thing then they are casual because they dont look for groups and or ignore group content because don’t have the time etc.

I love to solo stuff. old content and questing and just playing the game. I play a lot, every day and never have done much M+ or raiding. I dont pvp either. Does this make me casual?

When did the amount of time you spend solo or just playing the game, regardless of what you are doing with your game time you pay for, make you casual if you aren’t doing the harder content?

Does doing the harder content make you a better player? That is to hard a question to answer honestly. There are tons of “pro” players who simply get bored/tired of M+ or raiding and just play the game.

If a elitist player goes and solos old content for mog all day for days, are they now considered casual? Its a weird comparison people make. Weird connection between solo and casuals.

Just because I’m solo doesn’t make me casual, and if I am casual because I am a solo player…then at what point do I graduate to so called “hardcore”? Is playing 10 hours a day not hardcore? Because its not time spent on M+ or raiding?

With all that said, I do think the gear gap is increasing in SL and pushing so many away from doing even “casual” content. The feeling of progressing my character is less and less every expansion/patch.

Example, without M+ or raiding or rated PVP, pretty much only option is to grind korthia for days/weeks on end to finally get upgraded gear. There’s problems with that solution. 1 being burn out from having to grind every day, for many many weeks. Just to get 233 gear that is just “ok” and still not anywhere near of average raider who spends a few hours a week on progression raid.

it always feels like by not participating in m+, raiding etc that we are being punished and its hard forced on us that if we want better than the lowest crap tier gear then do said content. I mean yeah that is the point…but it feels bad also.

Not saying give us mythic or heroic level gear, but at least throw us a freakin bone here, when it comes to making progression outside of those 3 activities.

World bosses? worthless, since the drop rate on ANY drops is lower than low…i run them on 3 toons a week, not seen a single piece of gear on any toon in weeks. nothing. might as well not even have gear drops, never see them.

Crafted gear? 200 ilvl starter gear atm. goes up next patch, but the time between patches has been so long that its been worthless for awhile. initial gear for alts basically.

Torghast? nothing. World quest gear? barely passable even with highest renown level.

So then main is 222, with more grinding to do to get more 233 lvl gear…only to be replaced next week with patch anyways…making whole thing worthless to even finish. that’s always been the issue also…we have to grind and jump through all these hoops for junk gear only to be replaced next patch…while those who do the “intended content” M+ and raids have the gear, and have had it for months.

Alts started even halfway through a patch are just doomed to low level gear, unless grind for hours and days, just to have it replaced anyways

All of this made me give up on gearing these days. I know blizz will never give us better, and will always hold us back, more timegating more crap have to go through to get “average” gear. So i just gave up.

6 Likes
1990

There are many varying definitions of what it means to be a casual player online, but none of them counteract the concept of a solo player.

Not every casual player is a solo player, but there are solo players who are casual players.

1 Like
1991

Solo or Casual? it’s just a label.

Unfortunately, with the label of Solo and Casual, things tend to get very convoluted. Someone that gets labeled a “solo player” or a “casual player” is not a person who is making a choice to buck the system and do their own thing. Nor are they someone that logs on for a certain duration of time and not paying their dues. That is not at all representative of these people. The only difference between “solo” and “casual” are the criteria that each individual will assign to the label. These criteria can greatly vary from person and are by no means accurate.

The people I believe Eleusia is referring to are just playing the game intuitively and doing what they enjoy. Nothing more and nothing less.

Asking to be treated equally to other players is not unreasonable or asking for too much. For example, If you’re going to offer tier sets as rewards, you should treat all people equal. Equality is what I feel was the point of Eleusia post. The devs just need to quantify the difficulty for obtaining the rewards and then make a pathway for all players to achieve them.

Trying to sparse out who is solo and casual totally misses the point.

4 Likes
1992

Quick morning coffee bump :coffee:

Gogo push this to 2k replies you GD’ers, it’s almost there just a few more replies

2 Likes
1993

For the record, I am in agreement with you. However, I’ve been merely following the logic that the people in this thread have established.

I’ve been told casual is nothing more than a metric of time. If that’s the case, why can’t solo players be casual players? If casual is just playing the game intuitively and doing what you enjoy, does that not make solo players casual as well?

I think labels are very fluid in this game, which is why I said from the start that there was likely some overlap between solo and casual players. I think you can be many things, and I certainly don’t think casual negates solo, or vice versa.

2 Likes
1994

You were told that by a biased or stubborn person. Casual can refer to a lack of serious interest or effort, whether that manifests in lack of time spent or lack of intensity (no matter how much time is spent).

There is of course going to be some overlap, and I think that the portion of players that are both solo and casual is larger than devs and elitists would like the public to believe.

Hardcore group content lovers were annoyed by covenants, conduits, shards and other systems but stayed subbed and will be back for 9.2 because they are addicted to the WoW treadmill. But millions of casual, solo, or casual solo players have already left the game and can’t even post in these forums without having any sub time.

2 Likes
1995

I think that people forget that when they call people baddies, whiners, lazy, undeserving, the game would be better off if you left, that they are not just talking to a little square picture. There are real living people behind those pictures. :expressionless:

7 Likes
1996

Definitely. In my original post, although I might not have done a good job of explaining it, I tried to focus mainly on the solo aspect of it because no one can agree on a single meaning of casual, and because it is gear rewards from solo activities that SL devs chose to target in their war. (You could argue that LFR is casual but not solo, and LFR still gets rewards like shards and tier sets, just at a uselessly low item level.)

1 Like
1997

Wait…wait… I see a vision… It’s coming to me… Something something pandarens who insult others constantly…

One could also argue that that nerf hit casuals a lot harder than the raiders whose drop rate was increased at that time and had the option of doing high keys. After that honor gear that was worthless if unrated PvPers wanted to move into PvE.

2 Likes
1998

Wants power progression - doesnt want to progress in difficulty

lmao /yawn

2 Likes
1999

Some do, some don’t the issue with solo content increasing in difficulty (and this from one that got the 5 mask solo run Horriffic vision achievement) is that whenever such is put in, a vocal minority of those that think they should be able to clear everything first day complain about it being “too hard” if they can’t.

2 Likes
2000

It hit solo players harder. I also don’t agree with the pvp ilvl nerf.

However casual players still raid and do high level content so it didn’t affect them as much as you think it did.

1 Like
2001

What is wrong with 246 to 252 gear for world content? You really wouldn’t even need tier gear.

1 Like
2002

Exactly. You get the gear you deserve for doing the content. You don’t need Mythic Raid gear to go kill some rares.

1 Like
2003

Well, if there is nothing to do, then there is no reason to play, especially since playing costs money.

We all know the end game isn’t designed for solo players. In fact, it’s far worse, because the soloable content, what little there is of it, wasn’t even designed for soloers, and that IS the problem.

7 Likes
2004

It’s never enough. They always want more

2005

I don’t have any sympathy for solo players.

2006

The real issue right now is not the Ilvl cutoff, but the entire gearing system, one which caps world quests and what little solo content there is at 213, a cap that is now months old.

It’s no fun to play the game with no chance of ilvl increase, except for long term grinding of counters, which is not fun at all.

However the dev team manage to talk themselves into designing an RPG where are no incremental power upgrade potential besides grinding out the same boring limited content every day is beyond me.

4 Likes
2007

Supposedly it will be like Korthia, where it took ages/months into the patch just to reach the ability to upgrade casual Korthia gear to 233.

So basically by the time solo-casuals upgraded a few gear pieces to 233 the larger public/general population was already decked out in full 240+ and 230-233 was already considered “low” by said general public players.

I imagine it will play out the same in 9.2: by the time solo-casuals gain the ability to upgrade to/get 252 gear the larger public will probably already be 260+ iLvL…

1 Like
2008

Yeah, besides legendaries, crafted gear, vault gear, pvp, LFR, Dungeons and catch up gear… there’s no way to gear up, darn it!