This is primarily a feedback thread for Blizzard’s use, but anyone can weigh in. Before they do, I want to make a couple of clarifications.
-
I know full well what “MMO-RPG” stands for, but I disagree that the only way to interpret that is “you have to do everything with other players to have a sense of progression”. It’s just as valid to read it as “an RPG which is massively multiplayer, where many people share a world”. That has described WoW a lot more often than “a game which is intended to be multiplayeronly”.
-
Our definitions of MMO-RPG don’t really matter in the end, because an interview from two months ago to the day (https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/world-of-warcraft-director-says-embers-of-neltharion-will-give-solo-players-more-to-do-3436421) included Ion saying that WoW hasn’t traditionally done solo content well, that 10.1 would give solo players more to do, that Dragonflight is partly an attempt to give solo players more to do, and that they want solo players to have a progression system that rewards them for solo play.
In other words, even if we assume the game was strictly for multiplayer activities in the past, Dragonflight is an attempt to make it more solo friendly. So this thread is made with that in mind
Actual feedback:
I think Blizzard really missed the mark with 10.1 with regards to solo, outdoor content. I’d actually say despite the interview claiming it was an attempt to ‘double down’ on Dragonflight’s attention to outdoot content it’s probably the least solo-friendly patch in several expansions.
A major reason for this is the rare spawns. The majority of rares since Legion have been soloable, or at least doable with two people, or players were directed to kill specific ones each day. In 10.0.7 and 10.1, rares have been given essentially mythic dungeon boss health pools. Most outdoor content only players don’t have the gear to solo them, let alone within a reasonable timeframe. Yes, mythic keystoners and raiders might have an easier time with it, but this thread is about the solo/outdoor player experience. With the gear you can get outside, you either can’t solo rares or it takes 10 minutes for a tiny chance at actually getting a decent reward.
A second reason is all the group activities. Some of the zone events in ZC are theoretically, or even easily, doable by yourself, but can take 10-15 minutes to do where they’d only take a few minutes with a group. There’s not too much that can be done about this other than scaling, but it definitely feels crap when your prime time to play is at odd hours on a quieter realm and you’re the only person in the zone. People just aren’t using the group finder for the zone events, and in fact at some times of the day they’re barely using it for the rare spawns.
Researchers Under Fire and Fyrakk Assaults are another issue. At the moment, while they’re current content, it’s easy enough to get at least one full group each time Researchers is about to start, and it’s moderately likely you can get a group for the Disciples with the Assaults earlier in the week. But when the next patch comes out they will, like the Siege of Dragonbane and Grand Hunts and key farming in Obsidian Citadel and primal storms and the Primalist Future and getting high-quality Tuskarr feast rewards, become almost impossible to do because players have other, more rewarding things to do. And even if they were all dropping desirable rewards to keep players interested, there are just so many simultaneous events going on that it splits the players up.
What this has all led to is an outdoor endgame that somehow has more to do than in previous expansions, but less you can do. “Use the group finder” is only a solution that works when there are enough players using it, or indeed when there are enough players interested in the same thing as you at the same time. It’s not future proof, because interest will always fall off after the next patch, which means players have less choice in what they do during a given patch - you can either farm Researchers now, while it’s current and people are interested, or you’ll have to wait a few expansions to when you can solo it (even though, would you be able to solo it with the 60 rock delivery requirement? I doubt it.)
So, in my eyes, and in the eyes of a lot of other solo/outdoor players, there’s actually less to do in Zaralek than there was in other patch zones in past expansions. Aside from the story campaign and a few world quests, maybe a few of the zone events, you can’t really do much in ZC because all the rares are tuned for groups which may not exist when you’re playing. Even in Shadowlands you could at least do most of a zone’s content on your own, aside from a few buff rares and some events that required multiple people - but were ultimately easy enough to do.
I know some people are worried that lower health rares would “die too fast” but I don’t think the solution to that is “make them too strong to solo for most players”. ZC rares already call out and appear on the map a minute before they spawn - that’s a good system. It already helps people get there in time to tag. The huge health pools aren’t necessary on top of that. And if they absolutely are… make the health drop after the rare has been alive for 10 minutes or something. Nothing sucks more than logging on and seeing every possible rare alive on my shard and knowing the only way to kill any single one of them I want is to make a group called “ZC Rares All Up” and try to herd cats toward the one I need. Even in ZM it was easier to get groups for specific rares.
Oddly, even though it still had the health pool issue, Forbidden Reach wasn’t as bad for rares as ZC is. People are STILL doing FR rares, which also takes away from the people doing ZC rares. Maybe having a shared loot pool and focusing on trading a dropped currency for rewards as opposed to rare-specific loot would be a better idea? At least that would incentivise killing all rares more than the current system where you might want a specific manuscript but everyone’s already killed Underlight Queen or something.
TL;DR: Zaralek IMO failed in its attempt to give solo players more to do, and I urge the developers to reconsider their approach both in terms of making rares so difficult to kill and in terms of having so many group-only events dotted throughout the zone without some kind of daily rewarding quest that takes players to kill certain rares or do certain events in order to keep the groups going up.