I’d like to see gear sets EXCLUSIVELY for solo content with caveats:
Something similar to what we had in BFA (just without the Azerite system). Let people pick and choose what “talent” set they want for the gear.
The ilvl should be no higher than what qualifies you to get into LFR to encourage people to still go into the higher content and also make it less appealing to normal mode raiders.
It still won’t stop the complaining about being “forced” to do something, but someone, somewhere in this game always feels like they are “forced” to do one thing or another.
If you chose “solo content” type of talents, you can still get into dungeons and LFR with it, however those “talents” won’t work in group content.
There would be a new set every raid tier (with new designs). It shouldn’t take a solo player months to catch up with their friends or the new tier of content.
The way I see it is this: I’ve played every facet in this game at one point or another- never to a high end capacity though.
I’ve never understood why there isn’t some sort of solo progression- considering raiders and pvper’s can go out into solo content and blow everything up, very quickly. This includes world content.
Let me clarify. FF14 has zero solo content that gives the same gear as nightmare raids, as the people in this thread are asking for, with Mythic Raid equivalent gear. I can solo most normal 5 mans in my gear in FF14.
And FPS, other then looter shooters, don’t give gear, now do they? And to get said gear in the ones that do, you have to cheat/savehack the items in, or be able to do the content.
No it isn’t. It’s to have a large world with a lot of other people in it interacting with each other at the same time.
If you want a solo-player experience that is optimized for the solo-player… play a solo-player game. What separates an MMORPG from a single player RPG is the social aspect of the game.
Am I entirely against solo player progression? No. But let’s not act like that’s what an MMORPG is about. If the rest of the world, and the players included, can be treated as NPCs… your MMORPG has failed.
You’re in the wrong thread then. They want gear for solo content. If you want quests, tons of hidden ones in Shadowlands, and tons of hidden ones you’ve yet to unlock since lack the achievements for every expansion beforehand.
i would be doing loremaster if blizzard didnt throw all non current content in the trash leaving anyone trying to play them mindlessly oneshotting through a clunky amalgam of buggy broken quests.
Have you not read a single post I’ve made? I’ve explicitly stated I WANT to put in the same level of effort. I want to have the same level of challenge. Just on my own and at my own pace.
This isn’t about ‘less effort’, it’s about ‘Sometimes I want to play on my own, sometimes my friends aren’t around or are busy, and some people just don’t enjoy the grouping, and for those cases it’d be nice if there was an option to put in the effort as a solo player’.
Social aspect doesn’t necessarily mean grouping. Many players literally never group but are still playing an MMO. And when WoW came out, many many many people grouped with one friend, maybe two, and leveled the entire way up without ever doing dungeons.
What about people for whom the auction house is their entire game? Are they not playing an MMO because they don’t group?
Or people whose preferred playstyle is primarily crafting? Are they not playing an MMO because they only really interact with people to sell stuff. (Admittedly this expansion kind of killed things for them…)
Or people who just love pet battles. They probably play against other people, but they never really directly interact with them. They just queue up then move on. Are they not playing an MMO?
If grouping is the only social aspect that makes an mmo, I guess overwatch is an awesome mmo. The fact that wow is a virtual world has nothing to do with it.
I sometimes wonder if people have played any other mmo.
This is why this argument is so hard for me to understand, honestly. What makes WoW special is not grouping. It’s not even large number grouping. Many games offer that. There are shooters with 20v20 play. I remember one that was 40v40. Diablo 2 offered 8 player rooms. You can do 12 person games in some RTS.
Grouping isn’t distinct to an MMO.
What is distinct to an MMO is that as you’re wandering around the world… you’ll just randomly meet people. When you go to town, people are there. It’s the fact that people are always around engaging in their own activities but always present. That’s what makes MMOs distinct, to me.
And you can still be a solo player in a world full of other people going about their own business.
Yeah, man. Most of us still want to play a video game, it’s just getting harder to group with people we like who fit the 1/1/3 group role dynamic, and sometimes we just like challenging ourselves without having to rely on others.
I love raiding, but I feel like I have absolutely nothing valuable to do with my time outside of a raid. The stuff we have now is either too easy and unrewarding, or challenging and even less rewarding than the easy stuff somehow.
There’s a difference between making a group, and making a social connection. I find it sort of funny that you refute my point by literally describing people being social by… playing with their friends.
Um… yes they are? They’re a cog in the world. The game is in fact bigger than them. That’s not what your OP requested. Your OP requested that you be able to progress alongside M+ and Raiders… Those aren’t the same thing at all. An AH player will never progress their character to the same point as a Mythic raider by JUST playing the AH. Neither will a crafter… Neither will a pet battler.
Those are entirely different requests. You’re asking for the fruits of the game to be contracted so that you can achieve them alone. I’m saying… that’s literally the antithesis of an MMORPG. The point is to make the game BIGGER than one person.
Ilvl is temporary and honestly, not something many people care about in solo play, unless it makes a difference with solo play.
Torghast has a dependency on gear, but it’s sold as solo content. It should have a rewarding progression system. Hell, they could make a Torghast-only gear set that has like bonus stats and anima powers or something inside Torghast (and maybe the maw?), and be just standard 196 or whatever the WQ gear cap is outside of it, and I know I’d be happy.
I think most people would be happy with their corner of the game being exclusively rewarding. PVP players have been asking for PVP-only stuff. PVE group players have been asking for reasons not to PVP for their gear.
They have the systems in place to make all gear exclusive to the systems they come from, they just don’t.
But they didn’t need a five man group. And that’s my ideal. Content that allows people to play however. Which includes solo. Or with one friend. Or with two friends. Or with four. Or with 20. No matter how you want to play, the game should allow it.
No it’s not. Because you’d still be a part of the world. You’d still be engaging with the world. You’d just have the option to do it without needing to go to a group finder and find randos.
And, ideally, you’d still need flasks and enchants and gems and crafted items, which means you’d need to buy from the AH. And you’d probably still have professions of your own - maybe this solo content would even award crafting mats itself that you could then use to engage with the AH. And hell, maybe it’d even have a few BoEs you could trade with others.
And you’d chat with people to discuss strategy. Maybe you’d join a guild to have more support in your endeavors. And then maybe as you got to know the people you’d transition to group content occasionally. But still have solo be your prime focus.
There’s no reason it’s not possible. But for some reason people refuse to acknowledge that people who are interested in the world, the game, and the community but don’t want large groups don’t deserve to be a part of the world themselves.
(Also if you read my posts I’ve specifically stated it doesn’t need to be the exact same as m+ or mythic raiding, just high enough that HAVING m+ or raid gear doesn’t completely trivialize it.)
In wow, those “fruit” are literally the only content the game has. Most mmos are not that shallow, which is why people are asking for something to do in the game that actually feels meaningful when their friends aren’t online. It’s an rpg, so meaningful progression usually = gear. Asking for more challenging solo content, or small group content, that you can progress your character with is not that big of a deal and would not affect mythic raiders or any other feature of the game. If anything, it would just give more players a reason to play the game outside of just occasionally logging in to get their vault. The game is just feature barren outside of mythic+ and this elitism is why the game will probably never offer more interesting gameplay features because everyone is so obsessed with gatekeeping fun.
I feel like the key word in this is “I.” Your request doesn’t jive with what most people asking for this solo progression in GD are saying. If that was the overwhelming ask, I think people would be more on your side, except for the fact that it’s just be another effectively mandatory grind for everyone.
Maybe the Solo set bonus could only be in effect while alone.
Well, for one, the idea is that the content isn’t trivial and that it’s made to actually be fun. That’s the whole point. Right now it sucks, players want that to be fixed.
To your question, I don’t know what you consider endgame gear, But just looking at what I think are the most popular mmos that offer solo or casual progression: RuneScape, FFXIV, black desert, eso, gw2 + any sandbox mmo in the last 20 years
There are about three different groups in this thread all asking for content. I’m kind of part of all three.
One group just wants STUFF TO DO. Shadowlands is pretty barren.
One group wants that stuff to do to feel meaningful.
And one group wants an actual gear progression path.
I’m happy if all three of them find a home in this thread. I will support them all. I think all three groups need something to make them feel welcome in the game.
No game should ever offer end game gear for trivial content.
Fortunately that’s not what anyone has asked for. They’ve asked for content that justifies higher quality gear.
