End the war on solo gameplay in WoW

[Høneypøt-moon-guard]

Man. Some ppl are so gross with their responses.

I never found it fun to beat someone in a global or two, js.

[Mesphala-wyrmrest-accord]

TBH, casual BGs should have templates and ranked PVP should be gear based

[Wulm-aerie-peak (Wulm)]

@Eleusia-myzrael

The gear rewards for solo and queued gameplay on 9.2 PTR are expected to be the worst that this game has ever seen in its long history.

I need to go check the ilvl disparities, but I seem to recall feeling like lfg and lfr was pretty pointless except for completing the legendary ring back during wod.

[Mesphala-wyrmrest-accord]

I’d be happy if LFG and LFR would be useful again. With Korthia there was zero reason to run them even on alts.

[Sentenzà-illidan]

Pointless for who? Pointless for top-end players? Or pointless for bad players?

[Shazzbot-zuljin]

They had a chance with Torghast.

I’m not advocating for them to spend an inordinate amount of time on solo progression as I do Mythic + & Raids, but it would be cool to have different avenues for alts. Torghast could have been one of them.

[Warzug-mankrik]

Now that I’ve gotten around to reading the OP I would say he has good points, especially the part about the devs trying to artificially “herd” the playerbase into M+, rated PvP, and Mythic raiding.

Spoiler alert: the playerbase has been unsubbing/shrinking over the years, not growing

To compensate/account for the shrinking playerbase, perhaps they could extend the “solo-queue” idea into other areas of the game? For example:

1. Some form of optional, automated “solo-queue M+” (with matchmaking based on Blizzard’s ingame io) up to a certain keystone level, say… +10 so casuals can get to practice the 4th affix in a lowbie environment, while leaving higher keys/weekly 15s as premade-only. This also works out great for lowbie alts in a content drought, since 2-10 is generally a pretty dead keystone range anyways (most of the good players hang out at 15+)
2. Some form of optional, automated “solo-queue RBGs” (with matchmaking based on ingame personal rating) up to a certain rating (1400? 1600?), with higher brackets being premade-only. The reason I include this one here is that RBGs in low brackets are basically the same as a random BG in terms of the players you face, so might as well make some of it solo-queue to both increase participation and give solo-players access to some OKish PvP gear This would also benefit the “non-meta” specs that struggle to get invites via traditional premade/LFG groups.
3. For raids, I would say leave LFR in the game for the RP’ers/story types and ultra casuals, but make Normal raid solo-queue’able with a “minimum item level” requirement (…perhaps with the “Determination” mechanic also copy-pasted in). This also gives casuals access to slightly better gear/upgrades from LFR. Heroic and Mythic would remain premade-only, so people joining guilds is still encouraged.

Basically, the more parts of the game you can simply log in, “push 1 button”, and immediately access/participate in (…like Heroic dungeons and random BGs), the more solo-friendly the game will be.

Look at the huge success of the Mage Tower recently. You would log in, and immediately just walk into engaging/challenging solo content without needing a premade group or any other pre-requirement BS - the game needs more content like that as the playerbase demographics continue to shrink/evolve.

[Cromagnon-atiesh]

Absolutely! I definately need to be max ilvl when I dont run any content besides world quests. Herbing and Mining is very difficult without mythic gear and I should get those too!

This guy is hilarious. You can faceroll LFR, world bosses, and weekly heroic ilvl quests to have more than enough casual gear. You can run old raids in questing greens…

[Deathfang-stormscale]

@Warzug-mankrik

trying to artificially “herd” the playerbase into M+

This is something that does annoy me. I don’t like feeling pressured to do M+ to faster gear my character. I don’t like M+.

These days I just ignore it and raid, but for a long time my guild pretty much required it. I have since quit that guild.

[Sentenzà-illidan]

@Warzug-mankrik

Spoiler alert: the playerbase has been unsubbing/shrinking over the years, not growing

And yet BFA and Shadowlands have seen progressively larger expansion launches, so let’s not doom and gloom too much here.

[Brewa-hyjal]

Dude, I’ve been saying for 10 years now that LFR should be replaced with a solo play experience like Wrath’s “Battle for the Undercity” where you’re in there with the big-name lore NPC’s who do most of the heavy lifting and explain to you what to do.

That way, everybody could see the story and without the trolling and GO-GO-GO-GO garbage that happens so often in LFR.

And EVERY time I suggest it, people dog-pile on me for being a meanie who wants casual players to quit the game.

[Deathfang-stormscale]

Ironically, the main thing I want for solo play is to build another city like we did in WoD. People freak out on me for that too. I really dont think garrisons are to blame for how distant the player base has become from each other. I feel like it was an insanely awesome idea that took the fall for a problem that was already growing out of control.

[Sarama-firetree]

@Warzug-mankrik

Some form of optional, automated “solo-queue M+”

This would be the source of research on internet toxicity dissertations for years to come.

@Warzug-mankrik

make Normal raid solo-queue’able with a “minimum item level” requirement (…perhaps with the “Determination” mechanic also copy-pasted in)

Doesn’t seem right to have determination normal give the same rewards as premade normal when it’s a lot easier.

[Warzug-mankrik]

Here’s an honorable mention from a different thread along similar lines:

@Humanbeak-drenden

Instanced content shouldn’t be the only “endgame” that can benefit from the Great Vault.

Why can’t open-world content be added as well?

For example: Kill 1 World Boss for 1st unlock, Complete 20 world quests for the 2nd unlock, kill 30 rares for the third unlock.

Seems like an appropriate suggestion for this thread, since the types of players described in this thread spend a lot of time doing open world/killing outdoor rares/casual WQ’s/etc

[Deathfang-stormscale]

@Warzug-mankrik

ince the types of players described in this thread spend a lot of time doing open world/killing outdoor rares/WQ’s/etc

It feels incomplete though, I would want a solo dungeon to be hooked up to that fourth row. Some really interesting end game content for solo players and not just world bosses and world quests.

[Trustlvlfour-zuljin]

The great irony of the WoD garrison blame game is that the garrisons had their flaws, but they were not the real reason behind wods failure. The war on flying and the huge amounts of cut content were the real reasons.

[Deathfang-stormscale]

The garrisons were so cool. Slowly building a city and being the leader of it felt so amazing. I felt like I was playing first person warcraft 3. It lit my imagination up.

[Dirge-kilrogg (Dirge)]

Best post I’ve seen on this forum OP.

[Rita-velen]

I agree, I think the only people who don’t are boosters or people who wouldn’t be brought to things without their gear tbh. Don’t start that about having to do quests for raid gear because y’all would be doing m+ dungeons anyway. So let quests go up to what the dungeons would give on spam, they already do (almost) and it’s great so don’t change it. Pvp shouldn’t have gear.

[Warzug-mankrik]

Ya, this one definitely stands out amongst all the other fluff threads currently littering the front page (cough Love Rocket threads cough). Some interesting discussion in here for sure.