WoW is an MMO. It’s better with other people. Fair enough. Maybe it is.
Go play Skyrim or insert finite content game here
No.
Shadowlands has shown that far too many people play this game as a solid single player/random queue system for this play style to not be taken seriously any longer. Introducing a solid gearing up path for solo players to go down, is far past its time. And yes mythic raiders and mythic players, that means encroaching on your item level oh the horror
I truly believe I have figured out that one of the primary reasons this expansion is hemorrhaging subscribers, despite being objectively good in many ways, is due to the lack of a sold solo progression for max level. The past several expansions have offered the ability for players to log on, spam world quests, and gear up quite substantially. Shadowlands took that away. People are frustrated with gearing, and valor for M+ and a 33% loot drop increase in raids, is not going to address the real root of the problem.
If you want to retain players, random heroics need to offer justice per boss with valor at the end. We need an exchange of honor for justice and conquest for valor and a justice/valor vendor. Or we need titanforging. Or we need SOME kind of solution.
Just because a section of people refuse to participate in nearly every aspect of end game content, doesn’t mean they need to be handed close to the best rewards in the game.
That destroys the entire concept of a gear progression game, with higher difficulties.
Completely upending the entire loot structure that has dominated WoW since inception isn’t the way to do this.
That’s not the issue. The issue is that you hit the “solo cap” on the solo player progression path in a matter of days and then there’s no more progression for you until the next patch unless you stop being a solo player.
There comes a time of “what’s the point?” when you’re playing and playing and your character doesn’t go forward.
So is the issue that the “casual/solo” progression path in game, allows the “casual/solo” player to hit their max too quickly? And needs to be slowed down?
The “casual/solo” progression path can’t continue indefinitely. At some point there has to be a cap on it, relative to the gear ilvl rewards of harder difficulties.
No. That doesn’t cut it anymore. Legion and BFA offered great rewards for the single player experience and took nothing away from raiders except their pride, which is frankly, sacrificable in this case. There is too much to be lost for blizz to not do this.
The thing is, there is no way this could be balanced as challenging. They’d have to make sure that the healer specs with the least amount of dps could also complete it.
Meaning a class with a tank built in as a pet, for example, would have it incredibly easy.
There is a solo progression path but it ends where the MMO/Group progression starts.
Technically LFR for PvE since you can solo queue and gear ends at 197 for the last wing if I recall. Same with Covenant gear.
Unfortunately if you make solo progression reward the same as group/guild progression, you will hurt the other side of the coin.
I used to want the same ilevel gear in comparison to those that are pushing Mythic keys, Heroic Raids, high end PVP but thinking about it some more, why do I want it? After chasing 1400 on the DK for what seems to be forever, I just chalked it up to me not being good enough. If I have to keep LFGing and getting dumped after a loss, I’m just not good for that kind of content. Do I even want to keep going and play something that I don’t even enjoy at that point? What good is additional ilevel gear if I’m not pushing anything meaningful in comparison to those with higher ceiling cap. My group wiped on +8 so many times, is it fun then? If I’m pushing, am I then not a casual? Lots of questions and most can be answered by me as I’m the one paying for my sub and spending my time.
The way I see it, 197/200 is the end of solo progression/casual until future patches. You can get this gear pretty easily and still be able to see all the content that is currently available. You can finish all the covenant story campaign and finish LFR without grouping and be current with the story. You can even PvP and get the same gear look that’s unranked, I actually like this part since I really like the look of the Sinful gear.
The moment you start pushing past that, then that’s when you split from the initial goal. You just have to be good and for me, I got so many other stuff to worry about that getting good in WoW beats the purpose of enjoying the game (At least for me).
The point is…I have accepted that I just suck at WoW and it’s okay, lmao.
I mean, at some point people have to realize they are playing an MMO, a multiplayer game. The best gear has always come from group content.
If they were ever to tack on a robust solo progression path, would you be ok with the highest end gear requiring the player to overcome more difficult challenges?
I am against rewarding high end gear from farming points from world quests or spammable heroic dungeons.
Progression requires overcoming challenges, not farming points over a long period of time.
Hardcore players can get better gear a lot quicker as their progression path is far more optimized and that’s ok.
We don’t want to do a solo or a random dungeon and be at the same ilvl than those who regularly run mythic raids and +15 dungeons, we are completely fine with the solo content taking significantly more time to reward the same gear because at least it gives us solo players a goal to aim towards instead of forcing us into content we don’t feel comfortable doing.
Not to mention that forcing the casual/solo crowd into hardcore content is bad for everyone, us having to do it and the hardcore ones having to deal with the pain of doing it with us, nobody wins.
I wouldn’t mind a system that I can grind and farm stuff for like a whole month to get 1 piece of good gear in the end while the hardcore people have their loot on a daily/weekly basis. They get stronger faster, they enjoy their content first and I get to play on my own pace, without bothering anyone, as I did during all of Legion and BFA.
We’re not asking for much here, nor we are asking for anything to be taken from anyone.