~ The Solo Player ~ dying out in SL

Community General Discussion
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I have been playing for the inception of the game, in the beginning you couldn’t solo really, unless all you liked was Dungeons, Farming mats and Fishing / Exploring.

Since those days, the game has evolved, LFR for Raids and Dungeons are in game, Battle Grounds PvP, even leveling from 1 - 120 could be done solo in quick time…

Every Expansion had gear disparities but never in PvP, sure Arena / RBG folks got better gear but it was slightly better it wasn’t a monster difference, the gear they got was mostly cooler looking and made for great Xmogs.

Now today in Shadowlands, I am playing the same way I have for a decade, as an older player, I do not fit in the young guild with the hilarity that ensues, I am not a big Discord guy that likes listening to Farts, Laugh Snorting, and Slurping of Mountain Dews… Most my friends either died, or quit the game because well we are all old now.

I Solo play, sure I try and join guilds, I was invited to this guild, well see how it goes. But for the most part I just get up at 5am drive to Boston work 10 hours and drive home, grab a couple brews, and que for Bgs to have fun!

I am stuck now behind a Gear Wall!

Let me Preface I do NOT want free gear or un earned gear…

However, I always liked that as I said above PVE gear was not useful in PvP, so those awesome Guilds with the crazy gear bonuses couldn’t just wipe out entire teams in seconds.

Then like I said, Arena Players would enter Bgs but they were only slightly higher in HP, Stats, Bonuses…

Today this is no longer the case! Us Solo players can not maintain ourselves, not all of us enjoy pillar humping Arena Death Matches, not everyone has buddies, and pvp friends to play with. We are the Outsiders so to speak…

We just play the game, we pay the same $14.99 everyone else does, but we have no ability to compete against Mythic Geared / Arena Geared players in 220+ gear! At first the gear disparity was close, 184 playing against 197 was decent, doable so to speak.

But 197 vs 220 is not 20+ ilvls is a monster advantage, It would be great if Random BGs capped ilvl to what that content offers! Let the Mythic gear and Arena gear be great in the content they got it in. Or and this is unpopular give us a way to upgrade our 197 gear to 210 so we are 10-15 ilvls behind the new norm?

Just my unpopular opinion, there will be many that just want to destroy lower geared players, and I feel that is not good for the game.

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I am 50 IRL and this is EXACTLY how I feel… good post. I just refuse to hop on discord. I hate it.

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Solo player is fine in the general sense, it’s more so that there isn’t as easy of a gear progression for those that;
A. are unlucky.
b. don’t grind their face off.

I think the disparity between the top end and the more casual end is too big for it to really sustain itself. Even early in WoW’s life there was a progression of some kind but that was ignored in SL.

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I too am 50! :frowning:

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If you don’t do high end content you don’t get high end gear. High end content requires grouping.

I don’t think the gear gap needs to be an impossible wall you can never hope to overcome, but the advantage should be distinct and realistically you should lose to them outside of a class advantage.

And realistically they should be making PvP gear excel in PvP over PvE gear and the other way around.

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man I feel your post, a lot players follow trendy fro YT and other places like that and forget that the majority of players are not getting money to play the game, they want to log in have some fun.

the hardship players are felling about gear is because they follow them when they said “BFA is showering us with gear, there is too much gear” and now this is the result.

I hope your new guild is a place that can help you find fun in the game again

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You are 199 ilvl. That is more than adequate for random BG’s. You will be out matched against 220 ilvl people but you will also out match fresh 60’s who queue into the game. If you want better gear, try joining or forming yolo RBG’s in group finder. It’s basically the same content you already enjoy with a clear path toward upgrades. I am also an older player so that is a shallow excuse.

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35 here, so not too old but…

The game has passed me by. The dedication and time investment to keep up and keep advancing seems staggering to me. Investing 3 to 4 hours daily to push my character towards a few possible upgrades seems daunting. This is to say nothing of how meta comps have become the king of anything pugged.

I like that M+ exists in theory, and I’m glad people enjoy it. I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with the crap that comes with it as a player who no longer has that rock solid guild to lean on. Too much variance in player skill, too much toxicity to even get to the point where I’d break through the surface and be on the other side of it all.

I can still play at an elite level, I can react quickly, prioritize quickly and understand shifting situations given mechanical circumstance, but the slog to get to where that capacity is useful is too much. “Find a guild,” they say, but the means by which you find a guild anymore are practically useless. There are no centralized yet useful forums. The guild finder is funny, and I’ve joined some silly guilds, but not terribly useful.

So I log in, do some dailies, kill the world boss, maybe clear content from 7 years ago and log off. I’d work on an alt here and there, but it all felt like it was just going through the motions.

So I quit. It’s ok this game is what it is anymore, but it’s clearly not a game made with a player like me in mind. It makes me sad, since I do love WoW, but if I can’t enjoy it why play it? It’s all passed me by. My friends are gone or scattered. The server is a mishmash of random names. My preferred classes aren’t optimal.

All I was left with was quitting, and that kinda stinks.

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It’s really not, not on my server anyway, Daily Premades from Sargeras, full groups of players @ 38-41k hp! Its ponderous!

I try, I still play doing my damndest to peel for our healer, fc, or kill that Warrior! But I am literally killed in seconds!

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Idk who told you discord was full of people like that but I can assure you my raid team doesn’t do that

What you’re referring to is discord servers that literally are nothing but share memes and poop talk in voice comms because it’s funny… Because there 13-15 year olds

Lower your judgmental skills

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probably another reason I refused to play WoW early on. I read some reviews back then and figured Id hate it.
I only started playing mid 2017 after my brother in law assured me that WoW is nothing like it was then.

I enjoyed PvP and BGs in Legion up to the point where obnoxious players made me start hating it…my team mates, usually, lol.

Warmode was a deal maker for me. I can play on the realm I want to play on and not have to deal with petulance any more.

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I feel that! The game used to have avenues for all types of players, not it caters to the Elite only!

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My comments are from my Experience, sorry that offends you!

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Nothing offended me, I’m telling you for yourself that you should lower your own judgmental skills because you’re passing up opportunities of friendship with people you play

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Ill be 50 in August. I have been solo playing WoW for over a decade. For me, WoW is broken right now. I haven’t had fun in a long time. I loved soloing old content. I loved leveling alts so I could solo even more content. I loved transmog farming for complete sets of armor and awesome looking weapons.
For me, the current state of WoW sucks the big wazoo.

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I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for over 15 years and I have never heard anyone slurp mountain dew or fart into their mic.

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I might have used some writers hyperbole, but still you get what I meant!

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You revert to attacking me? I have joined tons of discords my man!

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I like hanging out in my guild’s and my friend’s Discords. I’m not into being in other peoples’ I don’t know. Especially if it’s for (for me) brain dead heroic CN bosses I’m just trying to get the kill on for the vault.

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The guy wants to progress while playing solo. in BfA you could do that. now you cant. his hyperbole is wrong but its a valid complaint.
The reward system for systemland blows.

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