They don’t play the game because the game isn’t designed for them.
If it were, maybe they would.
A game designed in group endgame isn’t going to change for a minority that refuse to do group content.
For the record, I never said this game shouldn’t be designed around group content. Solo and group content can coexist without trampling over each other, and anyone who refuses to see that is too stubborn to have a legitimate discussion with.
I don’t really care that this is how the game has always been (it hasn’t). Even if we were to assume that it has always been like this, it’s important for games to consistently evolve. Something that worked 20 years ago clearly doesn’t work today.
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Until Shadowlands, WoW was fine for solo and queued content players. Solo players simply enjoyed their own lane in the game (world content, unrated PvP gearing, leveling up alts, etc.), and didn’t expect raids or group content to be changed to suit them. The game devs and content creators always projected the image that everyone raids in WoW, but solo and queued content players were an ever-present reality.
Now, gear rewards from solo content have been obliterated to push everyone into group content, and the game is paying for it with lost subs.
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Until very recently all my best keys were done with a very off meta comp. BDK, Ele, Bm hunter, Fury.these were like 23s so fairly high since at the time that out me like 50 points outside the title range
The meta classes and optimal builds are not needed for almost everyone.
But in 9.1 solo players could get above normal level raiding gear and in 9.2 they can get equal to normal raiding gear without ever joining a group of doing fail able content. I don’t see how this is “obliterating” solo players.
Can you explain that to me?
I think “obliterate” is the wrong word to use here, but it does indicate a downward trend in letting solo players get better gear.
If I can get less powerful gear in 9.2 than I could in 9.1, then they are clearly attempting to push people to do other content they don’t want to do.
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Like they have since vanilla?
That’s the thing I don’t get. How people think this is some new thing to push our solo players or whatever. The game has literally never been designed for solo play since day dot. They have over time made it more solo friendly but it is not, has not and I doubt will ever be designed for solo players since that is not their target market.
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The issue with using Vanilla as justification for your argument is that it assumes Vanilla was the same game as retail. We both know that that is hardly the truth.
In Vanilla, we didn’t have item levels or multiple raid difficulties. Raid gear was the best in the game for obvious reasons, but the power gap between pre-raid gear and raid gear wasn’t substantial, and there were still BiS items in the open world that you could obtain. For many people, the concept of getting better gear wasn’t as out of reach as it is with today’s game. It was a simpler game, but the simplicity made it so that not everyone felt left behind.
The game has remained the same, except now we have multiple raid difficulties where the power gap between mythic raiders and solo players is significant. BiS items, outside of your legendary, are generally tied to raids and/or high M+ keys due to power being associated with item level, and higher item levels being associated with group content.
And the reality is that Blizzard has done very little in the way of compensating for that kind of design. I suppose getting normal raid level gear in the open world is a step up, but the design in general is establishing a narrative that Blizzard doesn’t care as much about solo players than they do raiders (inb4 solo players are the minority. We don’t have any statistics that prove this claim, nor will we ever).
Endgame wasn’t the only thing that mattered in Vanilla. In Vanilla, there was a massive world for players to explore. Leveling took a long time, but it was never about getting to the endgame as fast as possible like it is today. Sure, endgame kept us engaged after max level, but that shouldn’t inherently discredit the idea that solo content and group content were both equally focused on.
To me, when you bring up Vanilla, all you’re doing is showcasing what Blizzard did right with the game then, and how much wrong they’re doing with it now.
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Still delusional I see
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Outside of random BGs, how does it really matter that solo players top out around normal raid power levels?
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The core appeal of an RPG is to obtain power. That is reason enough.
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We get it Snozh, you have your opinion on what this game is and should be, but it’s just that, opinion, and that is fine, but honestly some people have a different opinion and that also goes for how people define casual. You seem to have the opinion that solo and casual are two different groups which may or may not be true. Everyone has a different opinion on what a casual player is and it may be different from yours, just accept it.
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He’s just upset people actually agree with OP instead of him, so he has to call everyone else delusional.
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Well every level has a max, if they’ve chosen to only do limited content and they obtain all the power it offers, that’s ok too.
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Because they are. I know people that play casually and still push 20 keys and over 2k arena.
Your feelings don’t change facts.
Please show me where you get these facts, I would lay odds you can’t link any facts that say 100% solo and casual players are two different groups, I’ll wait.
I’m not upset at all. I’m entertained that people feel so entitled that they deserve gear for logging in
Just look at the definition of the words. Casual players do all levels of content from raiding pve and pvp as casual is a metric of time played.
Solo players are limited to people who only play solo.
This is the real world where your feelings don’t magically change word definitions
That is your interpretation, what about the solo player who joins raids via group finder. What about the solo player who joins dungeon groups. Are they a solo player or a casual player. They are choosing to play solo but also partake in group content when they want, but they could then one day decide they don’t want to group with anyone and just do a bunch of solo stuff.
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