Not a bro… pillars are a corporate term that comes from the early 90’s. This term has not been used in WoW until very recently. I’m sure that Ion did some kind of interview and used the term, and so the hip streamers picked up on his corporate speak thinking it would be cool to use as well.
3 Likes
[General]
—Queued casual content like Heroic dungeons and unrated battlegrounds needs to be made viable endgame content again, even if it’s through something simple like a daily loot box or currency reward.
—The open world needs to provide a gearing path up to Normal raid item level or higher through quests, rares, treasures, or some other kind of accessible content. This needs to be possible in every single season or content patch.
—DF doesn’t seem to have anything like this, but expansion features like Torghast or Island Expeditions that rely on player power need to scale to solo players and provide a modest level of gear, or else it is broken content.
[SL S4]
—Torghast needs to drop competitive (278/285 iLvl) gear during S4 so that it actually becomes possible for solo players to comfortably attempt the higher layers.
—All open world and crafted gear rewards need to be bumped up 26 item levels in S4, or such upgrades need to be made possible to current gear through Cosmix Flux or some other currency or system.
—You first daily random Heroic dungeon of the day in S4 could provide Valor or a M+0 quality loot box. Your first random unrated battleground win of the day could provide an Honor gear quality lootbox or Conquest bonus.
The underlying issue is the current design philosophy that the devs have, ill advised by armchair MMO experts that would never think of leaving the game to begin with and have no actual understanding of why the game has lost close to 10 million players.
”Gotta make everything hard for casuals, gotta create friction, can’t let solos earn any gear, gotta go back to the good ole days, gotta make raiding gear the best, gotta get those Twitter likes from our raider bros…”
Nope, the only thing that accomplishes is keeping the largest gamer demographic (solo casual gamer) out of WoW, right when you need them the most.
6 Likes
Ion in an interview said that in DF they are sticking to the three pillars and that they are using 9.2 as a model.
Also, some dev also said that the highest levels of crafted gear will require soulbound currency from the three pillars.
None of this sounds encouraging. But there is still time if devs decide they want to include solo casual gamers in endgame and make the game big again.
I think 30 minutes a day is fine for casual players and alts, but in ZM you just keep getting the same quests. People who want to spend longer in a zone could farm rares or treasures for extra currency or rep.
9.0 and 9.1 each had a much larger variety of daily world content, if you include all the world quests, anima conductor activities, Ve’nari quests, Maw assault quests, and daily quests in Korthia.
I think if you want gear from solo content, the challenge needs to be equal to the challenge of the group content giving the same quality of loot. Rares and open world content are not as challenging as normal raids. LFR quality makes sense, which to some degree is how Zereth Mortis works now with the epic weapon drops from some rares and the sandworn relic gear vendor.
Omg noooo. Visions > torghast.
I would kill for another visions type content. 5 mask runs were so much fun. Can’t say I have any fun in torghast with the absurd anima powers.
/endrant sry
3 Likes
You can’t in good faith hold the difficulty of group content as a standard by which to assign the rewards of open world content, because they are two completely different activities and the players that do either of them might have completely different preferences about what level of challenge they enjoy, or how comfortable they are when dealing with the dynamics of playing in a group.
Player 1 might enjoy using voice comms in a group with strangers, attempting to kill a raid boss again and again until the group finally gets all the mechanics and their rotations right and defeats the boss.
Player 1 gets gear upgrades as a reward because the original MMORPG designers needed to put some kind of motivation in to keep max-level players occupied for endless hours with minimal design assets, and WoW has stuck to this model (even as its sub numbers plummet).
Player 2 logs in whenever they have free time, and enjoys going out into the world killing mobs for quests and hunting rares and treasures.
Player 2, too, needs and deserves to have gear progression. It would feel pointless to kill 15 Devourers for a world quest every day and never get stronger in an RPG. Maybe at first they would pull each Devourer one by one relying on CDs, and eating to recover health between pulls, but eventually they would want to pull more and more Devourers and actually utilize their AoE abilities.
Of course, killing Devourers is easier than downing Normal Anduin. But Player 2 may never raid. It would be illogical to deny them of satisfying RPG-style progression just because Player 1 exists and prefers a different style of content. (Especially when there are more potential players like Player 2, and MMOs need as many players as possible.)
A compromise would be to allow Player 2 to reach Normal raid iLvl, but more slowly than Player 1. Keep in mind, Normal is 26 item levels below Mythic, which amounts to the gap between two full seasons or major content patches, and Player 1 may eventually move on to Heroic or Mythic, so Normal item level rewards from lengthy world content grinds is by no means “mailing BiS gear to casuals for doing nothing”.
LFR in a given season is last season’s Heroic item levels, and 39 item levels below current season’s Mythic. That’s way too low to be a benchmark for casual endgame, even by traditional WoW standards.
Current WoW’s elitist devs and players want to keep solo, casual, and open world players as weak and unrewarded as possible—justifying this gap by pointing to the fact that group content requires more organization and the content itself is more challenging.
A game can have any rewards system it chooses, without following elitist ideals, standards, and rules. I’m not saying that Normal raids should give higher iLvl than Heroic raids or anything illogical like that, but if the idea of being able to earn Normal raid gear through open world or soloable content is so controversial to WoW devs, then they need to be prepared to watch DF lose subs like SL did when millions of players realize that there is no endgame progression for them and say “nope”.
4 Likes
The big problem, Shred, is that what you find meaningful and interesting is subjective and that there are an unknown number of soloists like you (I don’t think there are many as opposed to grouping, you believe otherwise) who want completely different meaningful and interesting things to do in game.
The bigger problem is that this is not a solo player game and the mechanic changes will inevitably affect the other players who are not solo players and do care about relative player power and have been playing group content for almost 18 years.
No, not if the gear they get can even be comparable to the rewards for challenging group content because challenging group content has been the core of the game for 17 years. If comparable rewards are given then the attraction of challenging group content will diminish and so will the player pool, all to placate the casual player base whose hunger for more rewards has been voracious and insatiable.
If they do this (and I think they never will) it will destroy the game. The persistent argument “what does it matter if I get the gear from turtle puzzles that you got after dozens of wipes on a heroic boss?” is nakedly self-serving.
You overestimate your importance, no one is trying to keep you weak. I don’t mind if you have more cosmetics stuff that can only be gotten from open world content. I just want your trivial solo play to not compromise the group activities that I enjoy.
The game has never been easier to get into at challenging levels. I went from 0 rating to Keystone Season 3 Master yesterday Pugging all the way - check my logs. Pug Raids run round the clock and with communities, it’s never been easier to find likeminded players.
If you turn away from all these avenues, then no, this 18 year old Massively Multiplayer game should not be for you at the most rewarding gear levels.
I’m not an elitist, you’re just entitled and want what you can’t have and don’t deserve.
Is WoW the only MMORPG on the market that DOESNT support a single player solo endgame?
The ones I played all do (except wildstar and WoW)
1 Like
EVE doesn’t. Rift doesn’t.
Didnt read past the second sentence…
No.
You’re playing the wrong game my friend. MMOs might not be for you as they are inherently MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE games. Maybe try Dark Souls?
No one is trying to take away from your precious time in the game.
Almost every solo player I’ve spoken with doesn’t want gear handed to them for picking up seven turtle eggs.
Some ppl like being around others or doing world quests with others in the World of Warcraft but will never want to do much or any group content.
There is no harm if solo players have a path to progress in. Wouldn’t even affect you.
Snoreghast could be have been perfect for solo players. Scale it like keys in difficulty - not a timer plz - or have a timed one with better loots or something and a non timed one with less better loots to appease the cry babies. Would have loved it if it dropped gear, better mounts and mogs.
People, games - everything evolves hopefully.
2 Likes
Yes, you are. When you get the rewards I got for challenging, unique or time-limited content, it devalues the exclusivity, rarity and value of the rewards for me. I don’t want you to have them and I’m perfectly OK with me not getting rewards I didn’t do the prerequisites for at the time.
Yes, it would harm the need to group for challenging content and be a massive detriment to the group nature of this game, which has been the core for 17 years. And yes, it would affect me by diminishing the value of my time-locked and exclusive things in game. I don’t want you to have it because the more people have it, the less distinctive and the less value it has.
I actually enjoy Torghast for what it is. and it does drop mounts, pets and mogs. If it dropped gear, people would have screamed about how they were “forced” to do torghast to get gear and called it anti-casual.
Post on your main, let’s see what embarrassing things you’re hiding.
Everything becomes more degenerate. Concessions to casuals are a cancer on the game. The appetite for more, more more is voracious and insatiable. No gear even comparable to the gear rewards from challenging group content should be awarded for trivial in-game tasks as those rewards strike at the very core of the game.
Given how easy it is to find likeminded people and group up, casual content has never been given and should never be given the same priority as core group content.
Also, post on your main, let’s see what embarrassing things you’re hiding.
Your mentality is such a turn off to me.
A video game! Not your life or what defines you but a video game!! Go take a walk in the park and breathe in some fresh air my dude and come back to reality.
I have zero desire to show you my mains. I don’t care what you think, random internet stranger.
When I see other ppl with my items it doesn’t diminish it for me.
7 Likes
lmao.
And so, at last, we come to the heart of the matter, and the inevitable conclusion.
Nobody cares what you want. You not wanting us to have something is reason enough for us to demand it. Coming in here with your little gatekeeping corpse avatar. 
Go away.
3 Likes
When there is open world content where it is possible to fail and be forced to start again, It can be considered a pillar of end game.
1 Like
I think they should keep all three versions of Torghast (going forward) because I loved the hall out of Twisting Corridors. But TC and Gauntlet needed their own version of Box of Many Things.
In a perfect world, Box of Many Things would be how buffs and advancement increased player power, not gear. I think there should be a Box of Many things for raiding, PVP, and dungeons.
2 Likes
Blizz sold this game originally as a solo or multiplayer experience. It’s still on the original box. Most MMOs do have solo play options. MMO itself does not mean playing with others online. It just means you are online with a world of people and have that option to play together.
4 Likes