I don’t really know how solo content equates to casual play. You can still have solo content that takes a lot of skill and work. I don’t necessarily think that’s the best direction but simply implying that solo content means casual is dishonest.
I’m just not interested in playing according to someone else’s schedule and forced to play a way I don’t want to play because I’m outvoted. It’s a bad system.
I’ll give you an example of something. I just did an achievement in the firelands where I had to touch one orb and not get hit by damage within 4 seconds and touch another one across the room. Then had to do it in a specific way. It took about 30 tries before getting it right. Things like this can be done and incorporated, creatively, to solo play.
I can’t really comment on this, as I never had any interest in arenas. I think PvP is losing people like me, who used to do a whole lot of bgs, but don’t do PvP anymore.
WoW used to feel like it was for everyone, with the exception of people who are not interested in games at all.
If your target audience is already so small (a couple million hardcore group content players only), then you can expect your actual playerbase to be even smaller.
Welcome back.
WoD, Shadowlands, and seemingly Dragonflight prove otherwise. The removal of (or reduction in) solo-oriented content and/or its rewards is pretty glaring and not a coincidence.
Sadly, DF seems to have less solo-friendly content than the past several expansions, unless dragonriding and professions are enough to keep you entertained for two years.
The degeneration of the community came with the emptying of the playerbase in Cata, WoD, and SL—expansions that effectively shooed away solo and casual players because WoW wanted to cater to the elitist hardcore.
It used to be that having friends who played WoW, or finding a nice guild, was reason enough to play the game. But now, what you would call “social connections” are really relationships born out of necessity because you need stable teams to enjoy any sort of endgame.
Who the heck takes leadership over a sub-based MMO, then drives away millions of solo players by refusing to cater to their needs which had been met for years?
Yes. It means that many players are playing the game online at the same time.
Open world content with dozens of players in them at once is more of an MMO than a raid or dungeon group.
Except for the elite quests, most quests were pretty much soloable. And back then, experience from enemy kills was divided based on the number of party members, and most quests didn’t award party-wide credit automatically.
Cata did gut the game but by catering to the elitists who wanted to end welfare epics and accessible progression. The game’s player population was already plummeting by the time LFR came out. You are mixing up the cause and the effect.
No, the game grew during Vanilla, BC, and Wrath.
Players left en masse in Cata, WoD, and SL when they didn’t get their epics.
The war on solo gameplay is still going on. DF is looking like SL 2.0.
I don’t see how they are proof… what exactly is being taken away or reduced, like what actual content?
I feel like most of the people who push for more solo content are pushing for it in a MULTIPLAYER game. I understand not wanting to always be social or play with others… but searching and pushing for more solo content in a game that is known for it’s multiplayer aspect is kinda like going to a a butcher shop and asking for vegan options, it just doesn’t make much sense.
With the pre-launch patch of the next expansion, I think I have finally hit my limit with WoW. I’m a solo player who occasionally teams up with my husband or, very rarely, with random people to run a dungeon or complete a battleground daily. I am also an altaholic. I have 30+ active alts over 2 realms and used a handful of add-ons that Blizz now seems to want to kill off, except the new features aren’t as comprehensive or as good as the add-ons. I have spent close to five hours trying to get one alt back to a comfortable layout and talent spec and I’m still not satisfied. Oh well, I guess it has been 17 glorious years of distraction - time to grow up and become a boring adult. And before I get the haters, I’ve already cancelled my subscription that auto-renewed two months before the patch. I’ll be gone come January.
I disagree. My butcher sells vegan meat: looks like meat, tastes like meat but made only from fungi and plant. I’ve tried it but I’m not paying a premium for it and I don’t hang with vegans that are obnoxious about their veganism. I prefer solo play, always have, because there are so many unpleasant people who think they know everything and are better than everyone and expect me to play the game their way. I play the game my way. I’m nice to all, even the opposition - I always try to thank the Hord I kill - but I don’t go out of my way to be social. My job for 15 years was being nice to people, all day, every day. It’s exhausting! Tell me a game that I might enjoy as a solo play and I’ll gladly try it but before I played WoW, I played Diablo II, Diablo, Lost Vikings… I enjoy the franchise, why can’t I play my way in this universe too? I’m happy that others get their wants, I just want a little love for the loyalty and money I’ve invested in the game over the last 17 years. I’m not asking to take anything away from anyone else.
I mean that’s possibly part of it… I have no idea who they are, probably got them in their feelings in the past and they threw me on ignore. Good for them, I actually find it funny.
Did I tell you that you can’t play whatever way you want? I’m glad you enjoy the games… but coming to a multiplayer game and wanting them to cater to a single player experience is no better than going to the beach in the summer and expecting there to be snow. They have plenty already that can do all by yourself… plus you got games like Diablo 2,3, POE and plenty of other game are out there and you never have to player with anyone.
False. There is not snow in the summer. There is a single-player experience in World of WarCraft. The two situations are nothing alike. Furthermore, the more the population of this game shrinks, the more the single-player experience becomes critical to the health and longevity of the game. When forming a group becomes impractical, adjustments will have to be made. Every single-player element that is cultivated now is work that won’t have to be done once the demand for solo content outstrips the demand for group activities.
We have some years before things are that dire, but it is always wise to lay the groundwork for a predictable progression well-in-advance. Blizzard would do well to plan for the inevitable point in time when they are still popular enough to be profitable, but not popular enough to justify the continued development of content meant to be experienced by large raid groups.
Just because I don’t think they should cater to them doesn’t mean it isn’t there… there is plenty there for people to do. If they don’t like it, there are plenty of other games that’ll give them that “single player experience.”
Do we have proof of this continual shrinkage? Player numbers? No… so why do people keep bringing it up.
The day group content is outnumbered by solo content, the game will be dead or on it’s last leg.
That’s a roll back to population count, we don’t have those numbers… no one but blizzard does. Every game is destined to die man… almost 20 years is a long life-span for a game to be active. I’m not against more solo content, but this is a multiplayer game… I don’t want people to think they gotta be social 24/7 on here, but you can’t expect them to cater to a group of players who don’t wanna do the content they put the effort into.
in hand